The perfect answer.

Don't try to ask for a loan without collateral TexMex, otherwise your account will likely end up with negative trust - I don't know if that is your intention, but newbies getting neg bombed for that reason is a daily occurrence here.

Somehow, that doesn't seem very reassuring - at least if you're the one selling the BTC, and taking the Paypal payment. I mean, what is there to stop the buyer from charging back after the 48, or however many, hours all parties agreed to, if he is intent on scamming? His lack of patience? Paypal is still reversible in the end, and Bitcoin is not. And even if your assumption is correct and a large percentage of chargebacks/disputes occur within a relatively short time period after the transaction occurs, does that somehow improve the seller's chances in the process, as far as Paypal is concerned?

It's not like an escrow can do much in this situation though (well, for the seller anyway) - transactions can be reversed within 180 days with Paypal, and it's not like the escrow is going to hold on to the BTC that long, in case there is a chargeback.

Also, I don't think there is such a thing as "protecting yourself from chargebacks" when Paypal is involved, The Bad Guy; but if there really is, feel free to share it with the community, to help prevent scams.

Oh, look! Another thread predicting doom and gloom (okay, 270 isn't that bad, really).

Anyway, is there actually some reasoning behind that prediction, OP? I mean, besides a vague "someone's pumping it", and it will somehow crash by the middle of next week.

Do you have some form of collateral worth 0.13 BTC (you can see valid types of collateral in the following thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=577765.0)? Without it, and given your low trust rating, no one will give you that loan - rather, you're just risking receiving even more negative trust feedback.

The following thread, maintained by marcotheminer, has a list of escrows currently active: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=855778.0 - well, the thread hasn't been updated in about a month, but it should still be fairly accurate. If you can get someone in the top 4 places, all the better.

Oh, I see. You're right, I don't think any of the campaigns currently running pay upfront (or any ever did for the long time frame you're asking for, if I remember correctly).

At any rate, good luck with the auction then.

Out of curiosity, what is the source for the free power - were you able to reach some accommodation with the datacenter to run the miners? Do they perhaps run on renewable energy and are unable to sell it back to the grid? Or some other situation?

Anyway, I'd also like to see those pics; be sure to update the thread with them later.

Hmm, considering the low payment rate you are asking for (900 posts for a minimum of 0.5 BTC is lower than 0.0006 BTC per post), and the number of signature campaigns available that pay a higher rate, wouldn't it be more profitable for you to join one of those?

For example, as far as pay per post campaigns go, you have Bit-X (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=877765.0) which, last I checked, didn't have a maximum post limit and paid 0.0011 BTC per post to Senior Members (about double what you're asking for). Another option would be a fixed signature campaign like BitDice (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=814895.0) which would pay you a guaranteed 0.42 BTC in those 3 months, for a total of 120 posts.

For a more complete list of the campaigns currently available, check the following thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=615953.0 (well, it hasn't been updated since the beginning of this month, but still).

That seems like a long-winded (and white-washing kind of) way of saying China is a dictatorship - okay, maybe dictatorship is not the best term, but certainly an authoritarian state; because, you know, the voluntary collaboration towards achieving the goals you mentioned... well, isn't.

I think he meant to ask how the price of the devices (the miners) varies - that is, if, and to what extent, it depends on speed / hash rate, power consumption, efficiency, and so on.

Thanks hedgy73.

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Hmm, not really. If I were to go ahead with this (and I'm not even sure I would be able to get free power at this point in time), they wouldn't be set up anywhere those would be a problem - well, noise wouldn't at least; not sure about the heat, particularly during summer, but I guess that's what the AC is for.

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Well, as far as budget goes, at the moment, I wouldn't be willing to spend more than about 2 BTC; but, as I said above, I'm still not even sure I would be able to get free power (possibly through some sort of arrangement with a couple of friends; if that doesn't work out, then I guess this would never be profitable with my budget and usual power costs around here) - so, I'm basically just looking at the options for now (in that regard, thanks for the other suggestions you posted, though I'm not sure your post was directed at me or at mrbigA ).

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but out of curiosity: considering free power, and a couple of S3's, how long would you realistically have to wait before you could expect ROI? Also, are there any reliable sites that show such calculations, and do they take into account rising difficulty? Thanks.

(I'm sure this has been answered often enough before, but I have very little knowledge of mining, unfortunately )

As I pointed out in the last thread, other users can't edit the voting options by themselves - only you can do it, as the thread creator. Also, perhaps you confused the option "Allow user to change vote" (which allows a user to change his vote after casting it once), with the possibility of allowing a user to change the voting options?

I don't think most users here will want to take your Payza account as collateral - if I'm not mistaken, it wouldn't be particularly hard for you to recover it later, if you so desired.

Unfortunately, there is a huge difference between machine learning (much of what you described), and the actual reasoning abilities a strong artificial intelligence will need. That isn't to say it won't happen eventually (and given the resources they have, perhaps through the military first), but that's probably still some ways further down the road - and again, I see no reason to believe such an AI would necessarily be hostile.

I'd say, somewhere between 1 and 3 BTC for me. However, this was over several years, and I never gambled with more than maybe 0.2 BTC at a time (usually much less).

Well, those machines may have the weapons, but are still lacking the most important part: the strong (hostile) artificial intelligence behind their actions.

At any rate, I see no reason to believe an AI would necessarily move to exterminate humanity, or even if it did, that it would really need weapons such as those, and not just, say, the internet and human gullibility.

Hmm, I had no problem claiming the coins from the faucet (0.000001 BTC) - I immediately lost it all in the next bet, of course - but one strange thing about the faucet is that the verification image is always the same.

Hmm, you have to be careful when it comes to skill games though, as they tend to be vulnerable to players using bots to cheat - especially if there is a monetary reward for their trouble.

As an example, and since you mentioned chess, a PvP chess site has recently opened, and we've been having precisely that discussion in one of their threads (chess sites being extremely vulnerable to players using chess engines to cheat): https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1114433.