Ok... odd thing... I'm seeing the same exact error message in several different sites so far, unrelated to each other... sometimes in a frame...

so... I'm thinking to myself... wasn't there supposed to be something happening today that was supposed to affect a bunch of users (and perhaps, sites as well?) which might have some contribution to this?

and... wasn't the FBI supposed to be shutting down a DNS redirector they had set up a while ago, because of a widespread malware infection, changing people's DNS settings to the infector's DNS servers?

I could swear it was supposed to be turned off today...

only thing that comes to mind... unless a piece of software put out a bad update today that some sites are auto-applying...

just a thought...

-- Smoov

Ok, good enuf... rules out a local issue then

Thanks, guys o/

-- Smoov

The last few times I've tried 'mycryptcoin' I get an error message after the captcha.

"Server Error in '/' Application."

Anyone else getting this?

-- Smoov

Because other pools that found blocks, either weren't seeing the Tx's your bitcoind was seeing, or were rejecting them.

They could have been rejecting them based on their priority rating, fee amount, or simply the fact that many of them were Satoshi-Dice Tx's. Some people mining, reject all Tx's too.

If a Tx hasn't been included in a block, it stays available until someone includes it.

This is likely why you kept seeing the amount you were for as long as you were.

-- Smoov

Well, I don't know if p2pool distributes the transactions themselves or not, so this is just a guess... but I believe it depends on your bitcoind, and what it is set up to accept or reject.

I believe that your p2pool instance, is reporting the transactions your bitcoind knows about, and will include in the solved block.

-- Smoov

It went back down because those transactions are no longer pending.

A significant number of those transactions were from satoshi-dice (I looked through the block a bit ago) which many pools have begun to either ignore, or throttle how many they will include.

In any event, one of us found the block, and we got all those fees, which is what bumped up your payout.

Now those transactions are no longer pending, and are no longer included in your next block value estimate.

-- Smoov

rav3n was referring to the blockchain.info link that he was replying to, showing per-day stats.

What you see on the console, reflects the pending transactions your node knows about, that may be included in the next block _you_ find. They might not all make it into the block, but it gives you an idea of what it could potentially be worth.

Over the past few minutes I've seen my # of transactions fluctuate between 50 and 250, and my block value staying within 50 and 51.5 range, so, perhaps you know about a high-fee transaction waiting to go in, or your cache is a little messed up.

edit: Sharky in the channel, just said the last block we found was good, and that it included 13.71570659 BTC in fees. I haven't confirmed it, but you should see your total block value drop back down to the typical range any time now.

-- Smoov

No, all rewards at the current time are 50btc... anything over that, is including transaction fees...

My guess, is there are a LOT of small inputs in those 219 transactions, totalling over 13 btc worth of fees...

I suppose there could be someone out there intentionally adding on a much higher than required fee... nothing stopping people from doing so, but unlikely.

-- Smoov

Oh, that reminds me...

I wonder if they'd be willing, in addition to the coffee warmer, make one with 2 or 4 asics in it, that doubles as a hot-air popcorn popper... .. .

-- Smoov

There is no LP for the alt-coins. You only get 1 LP for the primary coin. The rest of the compatible coinage is merged into the same work your miner is doing for the primary coin.

-- Smoov

You have to find a block. Merged mining doesn't work by the share, it is full solo-mining.

-- Smoov

IMHO, it isn't a big deal, as long as it is clearly disclosed up front, giving miners the opportunity to choose to agree to the terms or not.

I would say yes, set your fee to 0%, since your merge mining will compensate you for your effort.

I would also not include the NMC/I0C/IXC/DVC in with your entry, as it implies people would be mining to get those coin also, so you should just be showing BTC as the currency you're doing public mining on, with a note at the end of your entry saying you're merge mining those coin, in lieu of charging a fee. This should eliminate misunderstandings.

Merged mining via p2pool should have no effect on your DOA/stale rate.

BTC will always take priority, and you'd only be exerting mining effort for that. The coin you are merge mining, do not generate their own polling.

Your mining efforts, just get passed onto the other coin you're merge mining after the BTC mining is dealt with. If you would see more DOA/stales due to merged mining, it would be on the coin you're merge mining, not on BTC. [edit: unless your computer isn't handling having all of the daemons running, gracefully, say, not enough free memory or CPU power, or too much diskio for smooth operation. then your merge mining, may affect your BTC mining.]

-- Smoov

How are you handling the payouts to your guest miners, for the merged mining that you are doing?

-- Smoov

Without the captcha, some people would automate creating more and more sub accounts (something I  had thought about doing myself)

With the captcha, you have to do it manually (which forced me to make a much simpler tree )

-- Smoov

No... I'm saying, that... when faced with being up against one man's opinion, which he backs up with the data, which he put a lot of work into collecting, and processing it into something meaningful, explaining what he is looking for, what to expect, and what it is actually showing, in his interpretation...

...that you're going to have to do better to counter his opinion than with the equivalent of, "No it's not."

You're going to have to counter his effort, with actual effort of your own, which proves his conclusions in error.

We have yes-it-is, no-it-isn't, oh-yes-it-is, oh-no-it's-not debates all day every day in IRC, and in the forums too.

This isn't one of those debates. He stepped up. Your turn.

-- Smoov

being locked in a cellar for 24 hours, with luke-jr, a loudspeaker, and the king james bible audiobook?

-- Smoov

I can't speak of whether or not they reuse addresses, but the 15 minutes applies to the quoted amount of BTC due, since the value of BTC changes frequently.

If they receive your BTC after the 15 minutes, they get alerted to the late payment, and if it still covers the amount, your order will be fine, and if the BTC no longer covers the flat money price, you will get credited for what you sent, and will be notified that it was short, and will need to send more to cover the price.

This is from an email conversation I had about a similar situation, where Tony and one of his other people shared with me how this part works.

Also, your payment is counted as soon as they see the transaction, locking in the 15-minute price. You don't have to wait until they get a confirmation on the transaction to lock it in, so, you won't get spanked by unlucky periods of no blocks for an hour and such.

-- Smoov

There are times where I get no payouts on a block, because I haven't been able to get a share for more than 24 hours, too.

Pointing at my own tiny contribution is useless for statistical comparison. The sample is way too small, and margin for error too great, to make any reasonable analysis based on a random sample (which pointing to one peer, as representative of the whole, isn't random). Additionally, my own stats aren't stable. I do not operate a dedicated mining rig, so my mining is competing with all of the other programs I'm using too. Some have a high diskio, some use the GPU more than others, and I occasionally turn off my BTC mining entirely for periods of time. My stats would not be a good choice for analysis, by themselves. No reliable 'control'.

The original analysis took the entire run of p2pool into account, no sample. Can't get more accurate than a 100% sample, so now, it is about the interpretation and methodology of how the analysis was done.

The dissenting opinion of the analysis already presented, hasn't offered their own analysis to have a debate with. Until that happens, there isn't any point in arguing for or against the original analysis.

Give me facts... leave the spin to the politicians.

-- Smoov

Then actually prove them wrong...

Nothing wrong with disagreeing with his analysis, but you have to counter it with analysis of your own, that you two can pick apart and justify. This is how a scientific method works. He has his theory, and now it is up to his dissenters, to try and tear it apart to prove it in error.

So far, I haven't seen any comparable analysis from your side yet. So... put up or shut up?

-- Smoov

Difficulty, is simply a reflection of how much hash power there was on average during the last cycle, in order to attempt to normalize the block found rate over the long term.

Difficulty is not a function of how much power is needed to do what, merely a reflection of it. (in this particular case)

Raw hash power is all that matters when it comes to a 51% attack. That, and the ability to sustain a 51% proportion of the total hash power over the period of time the attacker needs to succeed in whatever goal he has. What the difficulty actually is at any given time, doesn't play a part in this.

-- Smoov