I see that a capability for allowing guest posts with a variety of usernames is to be included in the new forum.
I think this is a bad idea. Not only will it use up a large number of good usernames, but it could cause confusion with the use of look-alike user names. It will also be a mods nightmare, and a spammers festival. I hope there will be a feature that allows us to block all guest posts.

I'm a supporter of Bitcoin core, and I've been ignoring all the forking nonsense. I'm waiting for things to stabilise before I start trying to sell domain names for Bitcoins again. I've got a small amount in a core wallet - should I start a Bitcoin cash wallet to replicate this?

I've just got this message when I ran core. Have the miners started to mess with blocks already?

I've just acquired the domain name BitcoinVirus.com. I didn't think there was such a thing, but the term seems to be being used to describe the ransomeware viruses that are demanding Bitcoin payments. Is this the case? or is there such a thing as a real Bitcoin virus?

I've given up listing domain names for sale, as the virtual goods board is so full of other stuff, that you can never find the names. A growing number of domainers are accepting Bitcoin in payment for names, and this forum would seem to be a great place to advertise them.

I can't vote for UKIP because they don't have a candidate in my constituency.

I think May is a manchurian candidate, and is trying to wangle things so that we stay in the Keiser Reich - whatever happened to "Brexit means Brexit".
Labour is a real losing party, and will be a financial, social and economic disaster.
The greens are a joke and do more to damage the environment than they do to save it.
What can I say about the Lib Dems - can people really be that stupid and insecure

So that just leaves the Justice and anti-corruption party. I'd never heard of them, and they only have 3 candidates, but they seem like a good protest vote if I can't vote for UKIP, and a stronger Britain outside the Keiser Reich.

It is now obvious that the whole issue of Assad and the seran gas was false reporting, probably orchestrated by the deep state. Evidence seems to support the fact that Assad attacked a chlorine gas weapons manufacturing unit run by the Islamic State. It seems that Trump had to bow to pressure to take action, and thus the pantomime started. His action in ensuring that there were no Russian casualties probably averted a third world war.

Why isn't he being given credit for an inspired act of diplomacy in the face of the treasonous deep state media fake publicity?

BitcoinLocations.com is for sale - what a great name for listing Bitcoin ATMs

Available for immediate transfer through the NemeSilo market place.

I set up a shortening service on my domain G8S, and I use it sometimes when posting. It is useful for checking stats and a few other things. I noticed that a post had been deleted for cloaking (not one of mine). Does this mean that I should avoid using this when posting on Bitcoin Talk? Here is an example which links to this forum without any tricks.

http://g8s.com/bittalk

I see there are several posts from people who have had namepros accounts compromised. Registering your Bitcoin address here is an obvious sensible precaution. I think it is also worth registering the domain name related to your sobriquet as well. For example, I own JetCash.com. If anyone needs to verify my identity, they can use the domain name as well as the services offered by NamePros.

I'm slightly out of my depth here, so please forgive me if I'm talking rubbish.

My understanding of mining is this. The process starts with a miner grabbing a bunch of transactions and hashing them into a merkel root, a bit more stuff is added and the whole lot is hashed to find a target with a suitable number of leading zeroes. When it is found, it is added to the chain if another miner hasn't got there first. If he has, then the whole process has to be started again. With smaller blocks discovered at more frequent intervals, it would appear that there would be less wasted electricity used to generate blocks that are too late to make it onto the chain.

It's no wonder that some people have doubts about Bitcoin when supposed financial experts produce videos like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQO-p0C80G4

I was two days behind with my blockchain, and I've just brought it up to date. I'm using the McDonalds free WiFi, and this usually runs at about 30Kb/s. I watched the histogram for this latest version, and it has a completely different profile. It seems to vary between over 4000Kb/s and nothing. It isn't really a problem, as the update took less time than the previous version. My concern is that the intensive use of the WiFi may cause it to be shut off by the provider. Is it worth looking for a way to throttle it back, or should I just enjoy the faster update until there is a complaint?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVm4X9iMpRU&spfreload=10

Published on 21 Feb 2017
Guess who President Trump just appointed as Director of the powerful Office of Management and Budget? – Bitcoin advocate Mike Mulvaney.
Mulvaney, age 49, is well equipped to help open the gates to the acceptance of cryptocurrencies in the US in this new age of the Trump administration. He graduated from Georgetown University as an Honors Scholar, the highest level of academic achievement, in International Economics, Commerce and Finance.
That earned him a full scholarship to attend law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where his focus was in anti-trust law.
When he was elected to the US House of Representatives in 2011, he was the first Republican since 1883 to represent South Carolina’s 5th congressional district. He has solicited bitcoin donations for his campaigns.
Last Thursday, in a mostly party-line vote, Mulvaney won Senate approval 51-to-49.
As a House member, Mulvaney helped launch the Congressional Blockchain Caucus, along with Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo) and David Schweikert (R-Ariz).

It seems that Soros and his supporters are paying for so many of them, that they should be added to the emploment figures. I gather they get $1,500 per month retainers. Hopefully they will be paying tax on that as well.

Now that my new Linux machine is working without any apparent problems, I thought I would do a Bitcoin wallet comparison. I'm using the free WiFi at McDonalds, and both machines are running at the moment. I started the Linux machine first thing this morning, and it was 16 hours behind. I started the Windows machine 2 hours later, and it was 19hours behind. The windows machine finished about 10 minutes ago, but the Linux machine is still 2 hours behind.
Transfer stats -
Windows received 139Mb and sent 3Mb
Linux received 170Mb and sent 8Mb (and has just finished )
Machine specs -
Windows - Core i5 notebook with 2Tb hard drive containing all Bitcoin files
Linux Ubuntu - Celeron with internal SSD for core software, and an external USB SSD for the blockchain files

WiFi runs at just under 30Kb for most of the time, but has short bursts up to 1,000Kb or drops to virtually zero. The transfer histograms for the two machines indicate the same 30Kb transfer for most of the time, but variations are unmatched. The WiFi on the core i5 machine seems to have a greater range.

What do you think is likely to be the reason for the difference in sync' times? My first thought was to blame the SSD, but if this was the case, wouldn't it result in lower activity in the WiFi. My next thought was that the Linux machine has an inferior Wifi processor, and this could be the reason for the larger file transfers if it includes many re-tries.

My new wallet went from 24 hours behind to 25 hours behind. I switched to the old wallet on my main computer, and that doesn't seem to be catching up either. I'm on public WiFi which is reported to be giving me a 30Kb connection. This has been fast enough in the past, but it looks as if it may be struggling at the moment.

If Bitcoin traffic is going to increase, then I may have to rethink my approach to running a node.

My local computer shop knocked £100 of the price of a low(ish)spec computer because it has a blue case. At least, I assume that's the reason as the grey one is full price. I bought one to conduct a few experiments for my computing-on-the-move project. This is the computer.
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/hp-stream-x360-11-6-2-in-1-aqua-blue-10151741-pdt.html
One of the projects is to run a second full node with a different wallet on this machine. I appreciate that 32 GB of eMMC storage isn't enough for the blockchain . The idea was to copy the blockchain from my main PC onto an SD card, and to install core using this card, and to run as a pruned node with a new wallet. I could then remove the card when core wasn't running.

Another project was to install Ubuntu ( or another Linux variant ) in a years time. The machine has Windows 10 installed at the moment. I've been looking at the Windows installation, and I don't like it. It includes Cortana, and they seem to have made this harder to remove. It also includes a free subscription to one-drive for a year, followed by paid renewals. Well I don't want one-drive, even if it's free. It also has McAfee pre-installed, and a load of other items. These seem to slow down the computer, and to increase web traffic. These are important considerations when you are running a "celery" computer over public WiFi. I'm a gnat's ovipositor away from junking Windows, and going straight to the Ubuntu project, and include the Bitcoin node in that.

I'd be grateful for comments and advice about this project. I'm happy to post details of the project on this forum for the use of other members. The two major considerations are -

The security implications of running a node under the new Windows 10 operating environment.
The feasibility of starting a pruned node from an SD card created on my other computer, and the additional files needed in addition to the blockchain.

I'll research the possibility of using Ubuntu on this machine, and the support for the drivers required. A brief initial check seems to indicate that it would be a good move.

There is a thread on Name Pros that reports a fraudulent domain name sale by a Bitcoin talk member. Some of the replies illustrate the problems faced  by honest Bitcoiners as a result of its use by scammers and con artists. If we don't want to end up with a reputation like PayPal, we need to do something to counter this, and improve the respectability of Bitcoin.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/scammed-by-unknown-person-3-000-btc-pornography-com-affiliate-org-schoolteacher-com-distrub-com-etc.998177/

There are 100 million Satoshi to one Bitcoin, and one Bitcoin is worth about £650 today. So if I want to sell something for £6.50 then I can quote the pice as XBC 0.01 or as SAT 6,500,000. Both of those are pretty awkward. How about having a unit such as a kBIT which is a thousandth of a Bitcoin, my price would then be kBIT 65 - I believe this is easier for non-Bitcoin potential users to recognise.

ps. I hope I've got the correct maths in those figures.