I don't recommend trying to generate coins at this point unless you have a lot of money to spend on hardware and are fairly technically savvy.  The current difficulty factor has placed generation out of reach of most people.  However, if you post your address here, perhaps some kind soul will send you a few coins.

After following the development of Linux from the beginning, it's rather ironic to now hear about people who couldn't get something working under Windows and have to switch to Linux.

I'd say that's about right.  I use a week as the cutoff, since you will grow really impatient if it takes longer than that to generate a block.  One week at the current difficulty level corresponds roughly to one overclocked 5870.  Definitely try pool mining first so that you can test to see that everything is working correctly.

Unless the power loss damaged your wallet, you will get your 50 BTC after 120 blocks.

It's also a terrible practice to have the Charitable Donations page in the wiki editable.  Someone (sirius?) should do something about that.

So this means the Irish voters won't be expected to carry any extra tax burden on account of this either, right?

I don't know why I keep revisiting this thread.   

If you rearrange the letters of Satoshi's name, you get "Satan hot saki, moo!"  This reminds me of a joke.  The Japanese have invented a way to make saki from cattle remains.  They are calling it "Kawasaki."

I don't find this amusing at all.  Starting threads with misleading subjects is not a way to build credibility in the Bitcoin community.

I placed a HIS H577FK1GD ATI HD 5770 GPU card on BiddingPond.com.  This card more than paid for itself; I am only selling it because I am upgrading.  This card generates 190 Mhash/s at a core clock of 950 MHz, and you can expect it to find a block (50 BTC) approximately every two weeks with a difficulty of 50,000.  

This is a one-week auction, and I am opening the bidding at 50 BTC.

Item link: http://www.biddingpond.com/item.php?id=319

Thanks for looking.

Good job, thanks!

The upside is that transactions are confirmed very quickly and the network is very resistant to attack.  Unless, of course, this is an attack.

I've been following my mining results over the last month, and at any given point in time the actual blocks found has varied from a low of 70% to a high of 132% of expected return.  It's currently at 95%.  This is with 14 GPUs and CPUs and a lucky head start.  If you have fewer devices, you can expect the variance to be higher.

At this rate, the difficulty will be 100,000 in no time.  I guess it's the end of easy mining profits.

Sent you the other 25 BTC.

It's high-risk venture capital.  25% is not a lot.

I think this is a fantastic idea, and I look forward to seeing the experiment unfold!  Do they get to keep the BTC they earn? 

Ok, use that to make the payout, and I'll send you an additional 25.  Should I use the address in your sig?

Spend your money on a properly-designed case and good fans.

Prices are already firming up again on MtGox.  I think a lot of people were holding on to their bitcoins so they could sell at a dollar, and much of that selling could be over.

I was thinking about this the other day.  What if someone offered a service where you could exchange BTC for gold shares?  I'm imagining that you could buy gold with BTC or BTC with gold but only withdraw BTC.  The way that this would work is the web site sells shares in a gold-related ETF like GLD.  The site owner will buy and hold GLD shares in another account somewhere to match what has been purchased with BTC.  The site owner is compensated through transaction fees, and the BTC customer gains a useful store of value should he/she be uncertain about the stability of BTC exchange rate.

You can also exchange your BTC for USD on MtGox and just park it there for awhile.  I'm not sure you've gained any stability by holding USD though.