I have a raspberry Pi and find them great little mini-computers.
That is all they are really, a tiny computer, but they have a specialised processor (ARM), which does require a slightly different version of <insert name of linux OS>. So generally if you can do it on linux, you can do it on a raspberry pi, it might just be slower in some cases.
Saying that, it is still capable of a lot, like HD movies (which I have done).

I have recently been using mine as a Movie Center with slaxbmc as the software (Slackware OS + XBMC)
http://slaxbmc.blogspot.co.uk/

The instructions are really easy to follow, so you don't have to be a coder to understand it.

Though most people will probably prefer a debian based one, like Raspbian, as it allows a more familiar feel and code base.
Which is what I'll likely do when I get another to help control my BTC miners.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads

I know some on here have constructed more than 1 interesting BTC device with their Raspberry Pi.
They might of provided their software open source if you do a search.

Theoretically a single machine could handle;
1-6 PCI-E cards - Would generally be limited to how many and size of boards per machine.
1-100+ USB based "miners" - No limit on size or number of miners per machine (within reason)

Yeah, it's real tough to see why they stuck with USB as an interface *sarcasm*.
Sure it be "nice" if someone did it, but I doubt it will at this rate.

USB based miners often still need external power, sometimes they come with their own adapter, some require a molex or 6 pin for example.
Your machines still have a use, just have to be re-purposed them, asking for a PCI-E based card isn't going to happen any time soon unless you are making it yourself.

As a server guy, I find a lot of use in old hardware, maybe not always for a production server, but hobby level or development area it's fine on non-enterprise grade equipment. That was an advertisement for buying/selling, trust me, I have enough laying around already for my needs.

That is suppose to be @0.081BTC, as confirmed via PM.

1) The Bitcoin network is growing at an exponential rate, in terms of hash rate, as not only do more people get involve, but as a community the engineers here create and make use of more advance technology.  It started off on CPU's, moved to using GPU's, then FPGA's and now ASIC. In the earlier days, many people dual purposed their machines, so efficiency is moot, as they moved into FPGA's and ASIC they became an order of magnitude more efficient than most out there but dedicated machines.
Most of recent increase is being achieved by the currently most efficient form of technology possible - ASIC. Super computers generally use a combination of CPU's and GPU's an order of magnitude less efficient, which is two steps away from ASIC's with FPGA's in between. Super computers are not efficient, far from it, the Bitcoin network however once the majority of it moves over to using ASIC will be one of the most efficient high power networks in the world, which it can probably already claim that title.
The only people who claim it wastes energy, don't see the usefulness in Bitcoin, thus any energy spent, is a waste of energy.
Using a single pool would not really help energy efficiency, you'd just end up using a similar number of servers, to cope with the immense load of the entire network trying to connect and mine via that point. It also be totally against the principles in security to avoiding any node having more than 50% of the total network.

2) If you mine via a pool, when a block is found, the block reward (25Btc) + transaction fees is paid out, to the pools wallet. It is up to the setup of the pool, if the pool operator gets the transaction fees, or it's shared like the block reward is (which of course there is various methods of being paid when mining).
It varies, some pools do, some don't, just like fees varies on every pool, so does this. Transaction fees at the moment are not worth very much, it's usually under 1% of the block reward at the moment. If you check the Bitcoin wiki, for the pool, I believe there is an area for this that lists which pools pay out the transaction fees as well to their % cut. Generally those that do, take a higher % out of the block reward, so it's not always worth it.
Which Bitcoin client you run, is a personal preference, I do recommend the original client, but it doesn't effect you mining as long as you have a bitcoin address to receive funds to.

3) It does speed up a transaction being included in the next block (part of the confirmation process), as it is a criteria to be consider to fit into a block does sometimes come down to if you included a fee or not. This is not always important on very simple (small sized) transactions, but on large or complex ones, it is a necessity it's not worth risking it.

4) I've always preferred Cgminer (for my GPU's) and MPBM (for my FPGA's). Their is few differences between cgminer and bfgminer, as bfgminer is a fork of cgminer more or less. If I remember rightly, the dev team got split at one point and they work separately now, the core code is very similar between to two still and there is still some collaboration. MPBM has some features useful for my FPGA boards, that allow it to throttle up and down and as one of the first mining software to implement it, I continue to use it 6 months later, even if cgminer later put it in too.

5) Stale means, it is technically was a valid, but someone else found it first. Invalid means, it thought it was valid, but another verify proved it was not, for what ever reason. Invalid shares can sometimes occur more frequently during over-clocking, Stale shares sometimes incur more frequently if you just have a bad internet connection.
It's quiet normal to get stale shares from time to time, not much you can do about it.

6) Yes you are helping the network and we wish there was more people like this out there who operate like a full node, with that many connections.

7) Most recently I have been in favour of using Exchanges like localBitcoin and bitbargin (link in signature), who allow the option of escrow only the Bitcoins, not fiat currency. This is beneficial, as seizing their accounts, does not effect their customers. Most of the problems with exchanges has with how they have handled fiat currencies, not Bitcoins, so by avoiding handling fiats themselves, these exchanges stay off the radar of regulators.
Both are quiet popular in the UK, were there are not many reliable currency exchanges, due to tough financial regulations on those that handle fiat currencies themselves.
Where fiat gets seized (during a suspension), it is often just time consuming to get back, but will occur eventually.
Best tip for exchanging BTC/Fiat currency, only keep btc or fiat with them, what you need for trade at the time, do not use it for storage.

Good to know others are working on similar projects.

I have made a start (for my own personal/business use) at building a large IP block list, from technically free but quality sources, with a lot of technical data to back up why the IP address' why they should be blocked. I have done further filtering, to include only the worst typically and obviously make sure there is no duplicates.

As I was building this list, which quickly got to 2000 IP address', which was far more data than I had gotten in 2 years, in just 1 week, which came from specific IP address' that out there were well known to be "dangerous", compared to attacks which actually happened to my servers.
I realised others might find this useful, if they operate their own servers and can make use of imported IP address' in a specific format, usually compressed text files to help prevent malicious acts against them. I designed them originally to be imported to the IP blocklist add on with pfsense, but I'm sure others will have their own preferences and formats. With the scripts I've written, changing the format shouldn't be a problem.

So I saw the benefits of sharing my block list, I don't plan to profit from it (I won't say no to a donation, but it will always remain free).

---

Our Block lists are lists of IP address' that allows website administrators to take advantage of the data generated by well known and established sites; These include both community and corporate efforts to keep track of the worst suspicious, malicious and dangerous IP, then keep those attacks away from you.

We output it in a way that makes it easily usable in popular firewall and web server software with ease.
However it's never perfect, but we do our best to filter it as much as possible, and limit it to the worst offenders, as to reduce false positives.
Also we'd like to hear from you if you'd like it in a particular format, as every software prefers slightly different formatting and we might miss one or two.

---

To-long-didn't-read

So in short, is their any community interest in a free IP block list, that focus' on the worst offenders out there, from multiple sources?

< Lethos >; < 160 >; < 12.96 >; < 10 >; < 1EFhXfX9uXsbXBF3LC69GiVfS3SHCsyMR1 >

Can you confirm?

What is up with all these BFL sock puppets.

As difficulty rises, which it will quickly over the next 6 months.

http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator
(Simple Calculator to give you profitability)

Put in 30000 - > hit calculate
Do the same after making difficulty 5x larger.
That is were it could be in 6-12 months.

Tell that to the people who have still not got anything after 11 months, I'm sure they'll laugh at you.

At current difficulty, you'd need some thing that is capable of 25-30Gh/s.

I wouldn't trust BFL to delivery any time soon based on their track record, so I'd look into an Avalon or ASICMiner machine.

Avalon are selling just the chips, (as they are not actively doing a batch of Rigs at the moment) so if you are an engineer or want to work with another person who is (some of this site), to build a board for them, it is one of the most cost effective options at the moment.

ASICMiner provide a lot of options, they sell shares, usb sized units, ones designed to fit in racks and proven to be a very fast deliver of product.

So to answer if you could make it yourself, you could kind of, but not with normal computer parts. I'd put my money on Avalon or ASICMiner.
The waiting list for BFL Rigs is nearly a 1 year (a lot of annoyed people on that list).

Just to clear things up.

The Graphics card uses around 250 Watts.
There are other things in the system, that also use power, like the processor (CPU), ram, hard drives, motherboard etc.

So when they say power requirement, it's talking as a total of your system, not what is needed just for the graphics card.
It was technically suitable to get a 1000W PSU, the problem is that since it was an PSU from an unreliable source, it couldn't really cope with doing anywhere close to 1000W (lies on specifications). That is why you always make sure you get a quality PSU.

kevinm - Seasonic is a good PSU, so it should be fine to cope with 4 of those beasts, as long as you are not going over the top on the other components used with it. You bigger problem will be cooling them all, they'll generate a lot of heat.

A friend of mine at the same problem, so I just recommended he switch over to using:

stratum.bitcoin.cz:3333

Stratum still works.

I think this is a good idea & design wise it's great for the exchange platform as bringing a different approach to the table.

I might of misunderstood it, but is it a bit how localbitcoin works, but taking it step further, so your not even having to worry about the escrow aspect yourself (as an exchange), instead allowing your own members to do that.

To confirm, technically this is a platform where you have 3 types of members you hoping to bring in;

1: Buyers (of BTC with local currency)
2: Sellers (of BTC for local currency)
3: Escrows (hold BTC and local currency)

My only concern is some Escrow members will end up acting on such a large scale with Local (and sometimes foreign) Currency going through their accounts, they'll have no choice but to make sure legally they have applied to run as a money service business (MSB), just like most exchanges do. There is relatively few people I'd actually trust to be an escrow and I'm sure others feel the same way, so as pointed out, their will end up being favouritism of certain escrow's.

How do you plan to make sure, every escrow is being run legitimately?
Then also handling if they get in trouble with local law enforcement, while doing business on your site?

*sigh* Butterfly has orders still pending 10-11 months, that have not shipped. Do not consider buying from them.

Avalon or ASICMiner are your best choices. They at least have a decent track record of shipping products in a decent time frame and within the specifications they said it would perform at. The same can not be said for BFL.

That configuration is more like a server than a normal computer.

However to agree with Gabi, it's not really powerful to be worth Bitcoin mining on.
CPU and GPU mining is overall not advisable any more, with FPGA and ASIC being more normal.

CPU mining is slow is considered slow, it's not really worth doing
GPU Mining on Nvidia Cards, can be done, but it is generally a lot faster on ATI cards (Different design approach happens to be better).

I can't speak for popular Alt-coins like Litecoin, maybe that would be better suited for this setup.
I know they are very Memory intensive and are still in an era where GPU use is normal.
A setup like yours, is over kill for a Mining rig, but Litecoin instead of Bitcoin mining would be a better direction.

If you going to do that, at least take sensible precautions, because that laptop will get very hot (trust me I know);

Get a laptop cooler:
http://www.zalman.com/global/product/Product_Read.php?Idx=490

The link above is an example, I got a similar one, excellent.

This analogue is not ideal, but it's the best I can do at the moment.

It's like asking, why does that one kid seem to still manage to find a needle in 10 million haystacks every so often, when we got a 10,000 army.
There is always a chance, that one kid starts in a different place and finds it quicker by chance, as he was nearer from the beginning.

The number of combinations is massive, so even small miners can find a block, it just won't happen very often. As that is all a miner is doing really brute forcing through every combination, kind of randomly.

Even if you (or your pool) have a really high total hash rate, does not guarantee every block for you or that pool.
While it is true, those with a higher hash rate will solve more blocks per day generally speaking, it also has to be split more ways usually.
The "little guys" mine via a pool and get their guaranteed returns that way.
Even small pools get lucky enough to give good returns, just sometimes with more variance in how often they can pay out what is owed.

It is a pretty fair system as long as you are sensible and mine at a pool with fair fees and uptime.
I have always like to support the smaller pools, with low fees, rather than bigger ones, that provide (often more) reliable payouts.

Buying anything that has a flexible value, regardless of it being stock, options, digital currency like Bitcoin or gold, all carry risk.
And as some found out the hard way, keeping it in an bank carry's risk too.

Is it a risk you feel comfortable taking, could you afford to lose it all?
Like with all investments, see it as money you can enjoy to have more of, but afford to lose completely.

Me personally, I plan to always have at least some of my "savings" in the form of Bitcoin.
I buy and sell occasionally depending on the needs at the time. Over time it has proven to be a very profitable medium to store my savings.
Like some I bought mostly when it was valued at £5-10. I sold some when it was between £100-200, so it proved to be very good for me in the space of a year. I mined and was paid in Bitcoins for the rest in between that.

Do I personally see it as Risky? I did when I started, but I don't any more. I doubt I'll ever have a huge stash, as I like to diversify.
In return I've made massive returns as it's value grows, as more people find out how useful Bitcoins are;
I have no doubt trends will continue to go up over all.