blockchain.info shows total fees per day so the average per block is roughly 1/(6*24) the amount shown.  Many pools include tx fees (like bitminter & p2pool).

The choice of solo mining vs pool mining has nothing to do with transaction fees.  It is all about variance.  If you earn ~1BTC per day then solo mining you will find a block roughly once every 25 days however due to variance you "could" find two blocks in a week or not find any (zero) blocks in six months. 

It actually is pretty cheap compared to alternatives.  Remember this is a TRNG.  Other "cheap" ones run $300 to $500.  FIPS certified devices for enterprises tend to run $1K to $20K+.   If they had a .Net SDK for native access I would buy one (and gladly pay 3x as much).

I agree to that to an extent I would just point out Bitcoin builds on a large p2p movement which has been gaining steam for sometime now.  I mean forget the low level tech (like peer discovery, synchronization, etc) and just think about the human side.  p2p file sharing if nothing else gives people a frame of reference.  Can you imagine how much harder it would be to explain Bitcoin to someone if p2p filesharing, voip, etc didn't exist. 

More broadly I would say the p2p revolution began back in ~2000.  p2p currency is just one variant of that theme.  p2p is replacing lots of traditional server client type of systems.

I think Danny was being academic with the "I suppose", your "super worm" would need to infect every single copy of the blockchain simultaneously on every client running on dozens of different OS, protected by hundreds of different AV/malware versions on every single computer (even those offline, and airgapped, including permanently offline copies of the blockchain such as written on DVD or BD).  It would also have to be so perfect that nobody, not a single AV expert in the world would detect it and determine the effect of its payload. If the worm failed to get every single last copy, then the entire network could be rebuilt from the single offline legit copy (from say a DVD-R) and it would be the "true longest chain".

The only way around that would be to write a true longer chain. At which point ... Um yeah you just discovered the 51% attack.  Not an alternate 51% attack ... THE 51% attack.  The one first outlined in Satoshi's paper prior to the genesis block.  How else could you make a longer chain with less computing power than "good miners"?

Precomputed with what computing power?  That is the point of proof of work.  Any hash isn't useless only a hash which is smaller than the target (based on difficulty).  For a given difficulty it requires x hashes on average to find one which produces a block hash smaller than the target.  You can't just precompute the blockchain.  It would require an amount of computing power equal to the amount of computing power which has existed for bitcoin since the beginning of the network.  i.e. the network has existed for ~48 months.  If you wanted to "precompute" an alternate blockchain in say 4 months you would need computing power equal to not 50% of the current network but 1000% of the average computing power which has existed since the network began.  Even then you are limited to rewriting history back to the last checkpoint.

Also as Danny points out the network doesn't "believe" that if 51% of nodes say x is correct it is correct.  Each node validates independently so even if you made a worm which infected 10% of the network you would simply fork those 10% of nodes into an alternate coin which is essentially worthless.  Now when you consider there are multiple clients, eWallets, hybrid wallets (and eventually hardware wallets) running on multiple OS with multiple different AV/malware tools etc the idea that nobody would notice this is essentially 0%.

So maybe you could create a false fork of the network.  One which is quickly corrected, checkpointed, and updated clients released along with methods to protect against the malware.  You might be able to get some nodes on the false fork to accept worthless bitcoins but that would be the extent of that short lived attack.

No it wasn't absent before the halving and yes it is luck.   Look at the longer averages.  Honestly the 8 hour graph should probably be removed.  There is a huge amount of volatility in that number.  The noise swamps any useful amount of signal.

There are very few countries which don't have land (and under sea) links to other countries.  For the US there are well over 300 independent fiber optic links to other countries and continents.  All the sats could fall out of the sky tomorrow (and forever) and for 95%+ (# pulled out of my ass) of users "the internet" will continue just fine.   Sat is being used less even for voice communication.  Since voice can be digitized and carried on packet networks all that massive build out in capacity is killed sat utility.  Really sat has been marginalized to only remote fringes of the world, at sea (ships), low bandwidth, high geography applications (like Exxon linking up 4,000 gas stations), and where artificial barriers to entry prevent free market forces (telecom monopolies in smaller emerging market countries).

I am not a client developer but the simple answer is no.   Private keys are randomly generated and no client has a mechanism of knowing what other addresses have been created.  For example if you wanted to you could generate a private key by rolling a large number of dice and converting the results into a 256 bit number, then manually compute (using pen and a lot of paper) the public key and address.  It is simply impossible for a node to know what other random numbers in the world have been used.

Still I don't believe this is a collision, not without extensive evidence to the contrary. Assuming the private key is randomly generated, the odds of a collision are simple so incredibly low that they can be considered ~0% for all intents and purposes.

However if myspace2 was simply a clone of myspace without any innovative features then it would have died on the vine.

Can something replace Bitcoin because it is superior?  Sure however the network effect makes that a high barrier to entry.
Is LTC that "something"? No.  Not even close.

Network effect.

An ebay clone doesn't have the same potential as ebay.  
A BTC clone doesn't have the same potential as BTC.

It doesn't work that way.

Um he did lie to you.  He lied (by omission) when he took depositor funds and used them in a speculative, unregulated manner without disclosing it.   He also lied when Bitcoinica failed and he was insolvent.  He continued to lie for over a year hiding this material fact from depositors including new ones who deposited funds into an entity they were unaware was massively in debt (good money after bad).

He didn't "come clean" he simply couldn't payout withdraws (much like a ponzi) and had no choice but to admit the issue. 

You call that honest?   Really?  Until that attitude changes Bitcoin related enterprises are simply ripe for failure.

Well lots of flaws there.

1) Your system would only "expire" coins after 100 years so a huge number of coins found which were previously "lost" for 99 years would have the same shock/impact on the system.

2) Your system would result in chaotic amounts of supply.  Coins are "lost" at a regular pace and thus they won't expire at a regular pace.  The supply will jump chaoticly 100 years after periods when a spike of lost coins occured.

3) You system wouldn't have any effect until 100 years.  If deflation is truly an issue it is very likely Bitcoin will fail or be replaced decades prior to the system ever retiring the first coin.  If the system does last a century it likely doesn't need any change.  The economy has adapted to the concept of a slowly and regularly deflating currency.  The worst possible thing would be sudden and rampant inflation (which could be well over 50% on an annualized basis).

4) Your belief that Bitoins being lost =/= Gold being lost is flawed because you think a crypto algorithm will never be compromised.  The history of crypto-analysis has shown that to be incorrect.  In time RIPEMD-160 and/or ECDSA will be compromised and thus coins can be "remined" by treasure hunter.  This is very similar to gold from shipwrecks being recovered due to the improvement of technology over time. 

BTW you still haven't proven that there is a problem with inflaiton or deflation.  The issue with inflation isn't INFLATION ITSELF.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with inflaiton if it is fair.  Hypothetically tomorrow imagine all your USD double.  All the cash in your pocket, all the money in your bank, the value of any bonds or CDs, etc.  Also your wages double and all prices double.  Has anything changed?  Nope.  The issue with Fractional Reserve Banking is that INFLATION OCCURS UNEQUALLY.   There is a lag from the creation of new money to the change in prices.  Those close to the top of the pyramid (central banks, banks, major corporations, the ultra wealthy) can PROFIT from inflation.   Since money isn't wealth, money is an accounting system if someone is profiting then someone is suffering a loss.  Fractional Reserve Banking and the unequal inflation that comes with it is a mechanism for transfering the wealth not from the 99% but more like the 99.99% to the 0.01%.

It isn't that hard to explain and can be done without any low level explanation of cryptographic functions.  Here is an example. If the Q&A is at the end of a presentation which explains transaction processing this explanation can be simplified further.  Then again if you go up there with a single slide which provides no useful details then you are setting yourself up to fail.

"Where does the supply come from?"

So to clarify a few things, a stock cert is issued in our name only and isn't negotiable (transferable).  You can for example sell someone you Apple shares and just sign them over for cash or Bitcoins (you could 50 years ago but not today).  To properly sell, trade, or exchange shares in cert form you must mail the cert to a broker dealer and sign the shares over to the "street" name.  The broker will then credit your brokerage account with the equivelent number of electronic shares (and charge you a hefty fee).  

Generally there is no reason to get a paper cert.  It doesn't work like you might be thinking (a bearer share) so the utility is very limited.  On the other hand the risk is substantial because if the cert is lost, stolen, or destroyed you can either be facing HUGE costs to have it re-issued or if records are incomplete or lost (often this is after years or decades where registry has changed hands multiple times by acquisitions) then you face a complete loss of the shares.  Eventually the unclaimed shares will become the property of the state.

Also any DRS capable stock (like Apple) can no longer have a cert issued.  Instead the shares will be logged in the DRS system by a transfer agent (of your choosing) in your name and the transfer agent will issue a statement of ownership.  Note: this is an SEC rule.  You won't find any exceptions.
http://www.dtcc.com/downloads/legal/rule_filings/2008/dtc/2008-08-sec.pdf

But in bitcoin's case what is gained by that complexity.  Absolutely nothing.  Could Satoshi have implemented it that way?  Sure although integers are far cleaner and less prone to as you point out hardware implementation issues which could cause a break or fork in the protocol.

So unless we are just doing it for the sake of doing it I don't see BID being used.

Well I agree that it is important that it have high availability and access but I wouldn't go as far as to say "how it is implemented internally is pretty much immaterial".  A larger datatype is going to mean larger tx (and memory, bandwidth, and lifetime storage costs).  Decimal is easy to screw up.  Even if computers don't have a problem with it, in my experience humans make all kinds of subtle bugs dealing with decimal and floating datatypes.   Integer is clean and simple.  

Personally I think this is somewhat academic.  Lets step back and say what is the smallest discrete pricing unit which matters today.  One could say $0.01 USD but honestly I doubt $0.01 is material anymore (more like just inertia carrying it onward).   I think worse case scenario a crypto-coin would be fine even if pricing was limited to a precision of $0.05 USD in value.  Note I am not saying optimal but it wouldn't hinder adoption in any significant manner. If a satoshi is worth even 1/100th of a US cent (2012 purchasing power) then BTC has exploded in popularity and usage.   If 1 satoshi is worth $0.05 USD  then 1 BTC = $5M and th emoney supply is worth $105T USD.  That is more than the combined money supplies of all countries on earth. 

Wouldn't a simpler system be to keep it as a 64bit unsigned integer value, increase the number of digits to 12 and put in place a limitation that no tx (or block can involve more than 10.5M BTC (50% of the money supply)?

2^64 = 1.84467E+19

10.5M BTC * 1E12 satoshis of precision per BTC = 1.05E19

You keep everything in bigint math, no need to go to a larger datatype (and thus larger tx size), no implementation issues with floats or decimals.  Simple & easy with the very minor limitation that a valid transaction can't have outputs or inputs valued at more than 10.5M BTC.  The limit is highly unlikely to be anything more than academic because Bitcoin is likely horribly flawed if a single entity has >50% of the money supply.

RAM prices have really fallen in the last 18 months (more than the usually 50% drop every 2 years).

It is strange they wouldn't buy and colocate though.  Especially for that high end.  Paying $5K to $10K for the hardware and then cutting your monthly cost to <$1K per month would for a private cabinet would have paid off a long time ago.  Then again maybe Japan has some insanely expensive datacenter costs no matter which way you go?

The specs don't look overkill except maybe the 32 cores.  Nothing they do is that CPU intensive.     Lots of memory and some fast disks makes sense given the db centric nature.  I am surprised they didn't seperate it out into db server and web/front end server though.  Still I doubt they are getting much utilization of CPU side.  If they are it would be cheaper to go with some high end NICs (TCP/IP offloading) and a HSA then trying to bang it all out with expensive CPU cores.