It's likely bot-nets, and solo miners (since that's still a reasonable option) making up the "not in a pool" demographic. Although I think there was a rather large chain that was orphaned recently (27 blocks I think). Not really sure, haven't been paying much attention.

Yes, eradicating smallpox had little benefit -- in fact I think the only thing that could do a smaller amount of good for mankind would be eradicating HIV/AIDS and Malaria.

It would be fairly easy to do with quadrotors -- each flies half the distance it can go on a full charge, in the direction of a hub closer to the destination. Still not sure if it would be faster than UPS though -- might be worth testing. Would be difficult for large packages (require large or many quads) but for small parcels...

Can you elaborate? What you stated is completely true...there is no difference how pregnant she would be. Also not sure how that ties into what I was saying.

But amendment XVI (16) gives congress permission to levy an income tax...

I was just trying to point out that without taxes, you would still have to spend the equivalent amount of money to enjoy the same amount of convenience and security -- the money would not simply be extra disposable income. I, personally would rather pick and choose who I paid (much like I do when shipping goods) but outside of satisfying personal preference, I don't think there would be a large difference in most people's wealth.

Well, let's see:

Numerous sources (likely the least biased is from PBS, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/warriors/faqs/). It states that PMC's, like Blackwater (who seem to be the ones everyone thinks of -- there are other Companies, of course). That states average pay per day of $400 - $600. Granted, that's for dangerous conditions (Iraq) and they have little competition. So lets reduce that by 75%, to account for being in a more "lax" environment, and likely competition as more PMCs spring up.

Protection -- $100 per guard, per day (so their yearly salaries would be a hair over 36k). Note that includes me paying for their food and housing on my complex. 10 guards is a good number (depending on the size of the estate) but lets knock that down for a single family home, and say 2 guards (Day shift and night shift). 72k/year

I really can't find all that much information on road systems (cost of building them, anyway). However, I think the price for a yearly subscription would likely be around $1500 (only slightly higher than the average cell phone bill). This would probably be higher, since roads degrade far faster than cell towers, and require much more initial investment.

The average cost of private schooling was, in 2000 (according to the US dept. of Education) $3217/child. Counting out schooling that charged over $5000 for tuition (the "rich kid" schools) that figure drops to around $2500 -- which is, from my experience, the low end. Assuming 2 kids, you're at 5k a year. *Might* be lower with more competition.

So we're looking at right around 80k a year in expenses, NOT COUNTING paying for a conflict-settlement company (court replacement), research of your choice, charities of your choice, etc.

Even if you're in the upper middle class level (2 high paying degrees in the household, let's say Computer Science and Chemical engineering) you're looking at a combined income of probably 180 -- 200k/year. 80k is around 40% of that. Federal income tax bracket on that is 33%. I live in Tennessee, and don't pay a state income tax -- I do pay 10% sales though, so if I spend half of my money (70k, after tax) on stuff, there's another  7k to taxes. So that means I'm paying, in taxes, 66k from the income, 7k from sales, and we'll go ahead and tag another 7k for the extra gas taxes etc.

So we're about even, right? As long as I don't want a court system, and am fine with only 2 people protecting my stuff (There is the possibility, of course, of "going in on" it with your neighbors, or purchasing a house in a gated community).  For that same money, the US gives me the protection of the most powerful military in the world, a fantastic, interconnected road system, pretty good schools, clean water, and some other "bonuses" (research grants and the like).

And something else to remember: guards aren't going to want less just because you make less money. Same with the road subscription, schools...so if you only make 100k, that 80k a year becomes a lot more.

Dunno -- I lowballed where I could, if you have more prescient stats please post them -- I identify as Libertarian, usually, and would love to be proven wrong on this, but the US government does a very good job of providing "bang for you buck."

Taxes may take half of your earnings, but you'd spend that much providing the same services the government does (at least).

The government gives me protection of my things, as long as I obey their ToS. I get to use public roads. I got an education (well, part of it was Private, but still received some government money). If I didn't pay the government for those things, I'd have to get them elsewhere, and I don't think it would be any cheaper. Personally I'd like the choice -- It'd be nice to "shop around" the different mercenary companies to purchase my "Home Protection Policy" or to choose which Transportation company had the best way to get from Point A to Point B, but that's not in my budget right now. The government does provide an affordable all-in-one bundle though, so I'm happy to pay for it (even if I would like some more choice. Like the "Build Your Own" car insurance they have now).

And really, I'd probably go with US Military brand Home Protection anyway -- they have some VERY nice toys.

No, likely not. Probably an Eastern European country, possibly somewhere like Vietnam or Cambodia, maybe Mexico -- places where the government does not do a terribly good job of protecting citizens and enforcing laws (at least when presented with enough force/money). I'd have to hire some security, pay for improvement of roads to my business/etc, but I would probably be paying the same for that as I would in taxes.

Note: This isn't really what I'd do -- but that's not important. What is important is that under the people who would have enough power to significantly change things under the proposed system either:

a) Already do, through lobbying.
b) Have enough capital to do what I suggested above, if they felt it was necessary.

Besides, I think the demographics would surprise you -- most people who have nothing can't be bothered to vote.

Not to be a downer, but hasn't this been done? By UPS, Fedex, DHL...

Yes, they're companies and not "P2P" but I have a hard time believing any service involving a large coordination of people could be as efficient as their way of routing packages. Now autonomous vehicles (UAVs, swarm-bots etc) might have a go at it, but people -- in large numbers -- are slow and inefficient.

Property owners can have more sway -- it's called buying votes, people. Give people free food, and tell them how great a candidate is--politicians are not the only ones who can be purchased with gifts.

The way I look at the government is that it's a company. I have stock in it, purchased with my tax dollars. I get to elect who's in charge, and vote on very important decisions -- otherwise I let the people who are in charge do their job. If it gets to the point where I don't have faith in their business model, I'll switch my assets to a different company (by moving). Right now though, I think that USA Government Co. is doing a pretty good job.

If you're using the same cgminer you do to mine bitcoins, it won't work with Litecoins -- they have different algorithms. You need to use the same miners as you would for Tenebrix or Fairbrix -- https://github.com/Lolcust/Tenebrix-miner

Tarkin,

If you install the new one (with prompt) and specify a different pool in the prompt, would the new pool or old pool (specified in the text file) be used?

My though was always surround the parts with mineral oil (in a relatively thin tank, about the size of a normal tower) and then run pipes with chilled water through the oil...You're not pumping oil, and the parts should be protected from condensation by the oil.

my i5, running 64 bit firefox nightly, 64bit java:
Minerd: 3Khash
Online MIner: 2.2Khash

same but using 32 bit chrome:
1.2Khash

So yes, it looks like 64 bit OS/Java/Browser does matter quite a bit.

I waited about 20 mins. The wallet file when plugged into my other machine works fine with the new client. I may just reinstall W7 -- been meaning to for awhile now, it's got some leftover problems from switching my Nvidia card to an ATI.

Err, by being gone I mean "the entire client doesn't load, outside of a process in explorer called litecoin-qt, using 400MB of RAM, and litecoind -getinfo says that the server is not running." The problem isn't my coins being gone, it's the whole client. I can still use litecoind, but I'm lazy and prefer the gui.

AFAIK this thread is about LTC, not SC. On that note, I'm having some trouble with the newest Litecoin-QT -- I ran it, and it didn't show up (the process was there, using a ton of RAM like normal, but no icon etc). I backed up my wallet.dat, cleared the roaming/Litecoin folder, and started it, DLed blockchain (the client was appearing as normal at this point), but when I copied my wallet back over and restarted, it was back to being gone. I'm on 64bit W7, and the newest client works fine on my other W7 box.

Suggestions?

Doesn't auto-populate on the latest version of Chrome.

i3, running 1 thread, 64 bit W7 and 64 bit Java JRE 7, latest Chrome:
Minerd -- 1.44Khash
Online Miner -- .60Khash

So like I said, little less than half. Still pretty good though. I don't have a 64 bit browser -- I'll DL one of the firefox ones if I can find a stable-ish one.

Now devs who know more than me, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think any of these changes are mandatory. If you want, you could run an old version of litecoin-qt (or whatever), or even run your own wallet client thing. The TX fees are not required by the protocol persay, all that was being done was changing the default to accept them in a block and relay them...if I understand it correctly, you could mine blocks and not enforce ANY transaction fees, and no one could stop you.

The transaction fees are decided by the miners -- the miners could have rejected coblee's changes by not using the new version, and he couldn't have done anything. He produced a fix which most people think will work, so they switched over.