So the fact that I own bitcoingeek.com and have just had a blank wordpress install sitting on it is either very dumb or very smart, depending on whether I understood its worth?

~100x the number of satoshis that will ever be mined?

PM sent good sir.

*bump*

Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?

OK so if I leave the default currencies there (USD, Pounds, Euro etc.) it works beautifully and converts to BTC at a decent exchange rate during checkout, but I'd really like to have the option to display prices in BTC while browsing. Is there some easy way to add a currency that will match MyBitcoin's exchange rate? I can see the currency entries in the database, it looks like I'd just need to set the BTC entry's exchange rate to 1/usd_value but I'd rather not hand-code all that if there's already something integrated or someone's already written the code.

Has anyone already tackled this?

Edit: I have no problem doing the work myself if there's no solution, I just want to know if there is one I'm overlooking or if I should do the work. I'm pretty sure I've got both a Mt Gox ticker API script and a simple database update script just laying around that I could bash together, but I'd rather use something official, developed by pros who speak PHP fluently (unlike this .NET pro who speaks PHP quite poorly  )

For general concept I've got to give it to BitPay. It's new and rough around the edges but it works. I'm also not one of those purists who demands that the wallet/blockchain MUST be on the phone itself. I've got no problems trusting a third party (BitPay is just a front-end for instawallet) but I do have a problem forcing average users to run bitcoind on a computer somewhere, forward ports to it and set up API access via their phones - that's the kind of thing that keeps bitcoin solidly in the realm of us geeks and out of the hands of normal folks.

Still, I'd like a better feature set and perhaps a choice to use MyBitcoin or some other service than instawallet.

Srsly, the anticipation is killing me 

It's also technically possible for me to call your bank, guess your account number, guess your social security or other credentials, guess the right answer(s) to the security question(s) they ask, etc.

Guessing your keypair/address is no different. It can be done, it's just so astronomically unlikely that you'll guess correctly that even at GPU speeds you'll be guessing for longer than the coins are likely to stay in that wallet (read: longer than I, and several generations of my descendants am/are likely to live).

I dunno, Satoshi Nakamura & The Merkle Roots isn't just a pool, it's also an awesome band name

Edit: Even if yours is palindromic (don't know how I missed that but it's kind of awesome)

Speak for yourself, I'm working on a new BTC variant, personally: SuperStringCoin - every coin has eleven dimensions of freedom. Also they simultaneously exist and do not exist in any given wallet, so your balance is expressed as the % chance you would detect a coin in your wallet, if measured.

Beta currently available, but not in this dimension. Your nether-self can download it in Earth Minus One or you could just have it sideshipped (http://bit.ly/8GZhnc)

http://bitcoinity.org/markets?exchange=all
Combines TH and Mt Gox at the very least

You, sir, should be held up as an example in front of science classes. This is what it's all about folks: find a hypothesis that seems to match your data, test it vigorously until it seems proven to you, put it out there for the community to attack and defend it as best you can. The moment your hypothesis no longer matches your data, it must be abandoned or modified to fit the new data.

I applaud you for your openness and bravery sir. You are a fine example for scientifically-minded individuals the world over. Now please teach my friends, family and coworkers how to do this.

Oh look, 50 GH/s.

Glad to have helped

Another 3 GH/s coming your way.

Approximately two thousand years ago the Babylonians attempted to execute him along with two of his compatriots by burning them alive in a furnace. This failed miserably and helped lead to the rise of Christianity. You may now level blame / praise as your beliefs dictate.

Wow, hostile.

I *do* understand your point y'know... At the temperature differential between the surface of my GPU and room temperature in my apartment maximum Carnot efficiency is quite low, around 23.3%. I'm also aware that you're extremely lucky to capture even half of that with a stirling or any kind of thermal engine, thus converting 11.65% of waste heat back into energy. Still, with a 5970 converting almost 300 watts into heat at very high efficiency, recovering a mere 11.65% of that would result in recovering almost 35 watts. Combine this with the fact that this 35 watts recovered also equals 35 watts (~119.4 BTU/H) of heat that I don't have to air-condition away and my actual savings is nearly 50 watts. Granted at my local electric rates this is only about $4.06 savings per month per card but it also means a fair amount of heat that I no longer have to deal with at *all* and beyond a certain scale operation, it'd certainly be worth it.

Thanks for calling me an idiot, I usually take it as a sign that I'm at least doing something interesting enough to piss someone off.

All I'm saying is that if someone can so much as find a way to make waste heat run even a single case fan they should do it and see if they can make it profitable. What would we all be doing right now if Satoshi thought he had a great idea but decided it probably wouldn't work and never published?

So reclaiming 20% of otherwise wasted energy is a worthless waste of time? Shit guys we better tell... Well shit, everyone. Because EVERY COMPANY IN THE WORLD would jump on a chance to recoup 20% of otherwise unavoidable wastes, assuming the buy-in isn't absurdly high.

I don't know if a sterling engine WOULD work well or not but it's worth a crack and if someone would like to experiment with it, I'm not going to call them an idiot because my gedanken experiment couldn't achieve better than 20% efficiency.

http://www.amazon.com/Instapark%C2%AE-100W-Mono-crystalline-Solar-Panel/dp/B004OZJ4FY

That is a 100W monocrystalline solar panel. it is 45 x 26 inches and costs $339 without any accompanying batteries, power conditioners or other necessary devices.

A single 4x5830 mining rig costs consumes about 1,000 watts which means you'd need ten of these to power a single rig.

Aside from requiring an absurd amount of space, that means you'd be paying $3,390 for the solar panels alone if you only mine during the day. If you mine at night, you'll need twice as many panels ($6,780) and enough batteries to store about 2,000 amp-hours of electricity. A decent car battery holds about 40 AH and will run you a bit over $100, which means you'd need 50 such batteries at $100 apiece = $5,000 worth of batteries. Ignoring the cost of the necessary electronics, mounting equipment and labor to make all these things work together, you're up to $11,780 so far.

Here in Las Vegas, electricity costs $0.1128 per kW/H. That quad 5830 rig would cost me ~$2.70 per day to run. In order to recoup your investment here in electricity costs you'd have to run that rig for ~4,363 days or a bit under 12 years. You'd also need about an eleven by fifteen foot (3.3 x 4.5 meter) patch of roof/land/etc. to lay out all 20 panels on as well as a large ventilated space for your 50 car batteries - they vent flammable hydrogen gas as they charge so they need lots of air movement for that many.

So yes, for about $12,000 plus the cost of the hardware, 150 square feet of space, probably several days of setup time, perhaps hiring an electrical contractor and having to deal with flammable/explosive gases you too can be the proud owner of a completely self-sustaining 880 MH/s rig. Yippee. Oh wait, I forgot to include the cost of cooling

I operate a mining business: I produce a commodity for which I am paid in U.S. Dollars. This is no different from being a farmer or mining actual gold. If I hold some of my BTC it's roughly the same as keeping some of my crops/gold for personal use or as savings. All of the above scenarios have specific tax statutes which apply to them and which should apply to bitcoin until such time as it becomes regulated otherwise. Since tax law currently views me in the same light as a farmer or (gold) miner, my taxes will be prepared and paid in precisely the same manner.

For investors, it's much the same as trading stocks, bonds, commodities or FOREX. Gains are not considered "realized" until BTC are converted back into USD and captial gains taxes are to be paid on any realized gains as normal.

I don't understand why everyone thinks of bitcoin any differently right now. It's essentially the same as a commodity market: people produce it, people use it as an investment vehicle and people use it for barter - there are specific tax laws for each and every one of these scenarios (at least in the U.S.) with regard to other commodities and at present they're quite likely to apply directly to bitcoin.