Oh dear, is that really how "Satoshi" is pronounced? All this time I've been pronouncing it (in my head) with a short 'o' (like the 'o' in "splosh").

Why a jpg? Who is going to type out a BC address from an image? What's the problem with putting the BC address in plain text?

These profits have been generated directly to the recipient's bitcoin address. The coins have never been owned by anyone else before, so there is no "simple transaction".

For a phone without internet access, just use touch-tone from the numeric keypad, together with a bitcoin account at the server. No need to do any fancy GSM-audio hacks.

If you want to paint on a canvas, you can use BitPixel:
http://bitpixel.bitcoin.nl/

You can't paint over other people's pixels, but hardly any pixels have been taken so it's mostly a blank canvas.

Well I have had knowledge of being in a dream, but as far as I know it needs more than that to count as lucid dreaming.

Lucid dreamers claim to be aware that they are dreaming, AND be able to push the dream in the direction of their choosing.

You need to patch the bitcoin client yourself and recompile. If you do this, I think there are quite a few people who would be interested in using your patch.

Suppose your are auctioning something at the Bidding Pond. Suddenly you get a bid for a million bitcoins. You may want the bidder to flash the cash, to persuade you to take their bid seriously.

Maybe you're right. But be careful of spreading misinformation.

I considered that too. But I looked into Wei Dai's online persona, and he has so many current interests that I don't think he would have time for Bitcoin.

...unless you can make money from transaction fees, or bitcoin-based DNS, or whatever else the future may hold. For sure though, buying hardware is a speculative gamble. GPU mining would have been very profitable for ArtForz because he started early when the difficulty was low. For the same reason, mining with custom hardware will work for him if he's first-off-the-block. But for most of us, the economics of generating is marginal.

Of course there are other reasons to generate apart from monetary reward. It's quite satisfying just to be part of the movement helping to get Bitcoin established.

PS: Anyone who is buying hardware for generation, why not click through the affiliate links at bitcointo.com and claim your bitcoin reward. I got 35 bitcoins back on my purchase of a 5870 card. Thanks to noagendamarket, the operator of that service.

No! Every week there are new services starting up. Every week more people are generating. There's an ongoing momentum.

The Bitcoin economy is so much more vibrant than it was a few months ago. In another few months it will be at the next level again.

Because Bitcoin has tremendous value, it's OK to underpromise and overdeliver. It always turns out better that way, in the long run.

If you lie, you only need one prominent journalist to say "I tried it, and it's crap, it doesn't do what they say it does", and the public loses interest.

I think that should say "unless people think that the price of bitcoins is going to rise..."

It sure sounds like an overheating problem. Try vacuuming the dust off the fan blades, and moving the computer to a cooler part of the room. It might help.

Hair looks great! The purple side of the cloak looks great (especially the folds), except for the way that the bottom of the cloak ends in a straight line exactly lining up with the bottom of the chair. The thumb on her upper hand looks just a little too thin at the tip. Compare it to the thumb on the lower hand, which looks very good.

I don't download every version, just once every three or four versions, but it's fascinating to see this evolving.

You would need to know the IP address(es) being used for bitcoin by the bank. It might not be easy to discover that.

I don't think you're likely to make back your money, if you are paying for electricity, and if you need to buy a suitable GPU card.

Here are my figures:

ATI 5870, cost £279.70
305,000 khash/s = average time to generate a block of 48 hours
48 hours at 338 watts (GPU + CPU) equals 16.224 kilowatt hours per block
16.224 kilowatt hours at £0.14 per kW-h equals £2.27 electricity cost per block
Value of a block (MtGox latest bid, less 1% conversion fee): $11.46 or £7.38
After deducting electricity cost: £7.38 minus £2.27 equals £5.11 "profit" per block

At that rate, the card will need to generate 55 blocks before it pays for itself. At the current difficulty rate, that would take 110 days. Even if the difficulty rises by only 15% at every adjustment, the electricity cost will be about £9.18 per generated block in 110 days, so the card would never be paid for. My hunch is that the difficulty will rise much more than 15% per adjustment on average.

Of course, if the price of bitcoins rises enough, the economics of generation changes completely.

Before investing in gold, everyone should become familiar with its inflation-adjusted historical pricing, as shown in this chart:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gold_price_in_USD.png

As you can see, if you bought between 1980 and 1982 you would still be showing a loss three decades later.

So timing is everything. The best time to buy gold was 2001. It may still be a good time to buy gold, but only if you sell it before the economy improves.

Gold is a great hedge against inflation. Historically, gold goes up when inflation is high, and gold goes down when inflation is low. But there's one potential catch in using gold this way. If the economy really goes haywire, the government could prohibit private ownership of gold as they did for much of last century. Then, your hedge becomes untradeable.

No way. Not in the UK anyway. The typical cost is £25 ($40) to send even €1 from the UK to a Eurozone country.