In an ideal world, maybe that's true.  In the real world, we have some counterexamples:





Perhaps the problem is not that Bitcoin is rising in value, but that the dollar and other government-controlled currencies are falling in value.  A loaf of bread might've been somewhere around $2 for the past few years, but consider this: back in the '60s, you could've gotten a gallon of gasoline for maybe 15¢ or so.  The price at the pump today is closer to $3.50-$4.00...but the value of the silver in two pre-1965 dimes would buy about as much gasoline today as it did 50 years ago.

I had been using Bitparking without any issues to speak of, but it's being shut down. Withdrawal fees at both BTC-E and Vircurex are both a rather excessive BTC0.01. To keep from losing too much to fees, I'd have to let a few weeks' worth of mining income pile up in an exchange account. Is there a more economical option for trading coins? Trading out to fiat currency isn't an issue for me; MtGox works well enough for that when I need it.

At the low end of the performance spectrum, the 9500GT in my work computer's getting about 7.5 kH/s. It leaves my system fairly unresponsive, though.  With something like cgminer, you could back off the intensity to get acceptable desktop performance on a system that's not dedicated to mining.  Is there a similar option here?  I didn't see anything in cudaminer -h or in a quick perusal of the source code.  I have a config file set up, but it currently only has algo, url, and user options defined.

I'm not expecting any miracles performance-wise, but if I could squeeze out a few more coins without impacting this computer's normal functions, that would be nice.

Minor nitpick:


Typical circuit spec for a residential electric stove is 240V @ 50A.  That works out to 12 kW.

(Not that you'd rip out the stove and plug in a mini-rig...what are you going to cook on? A campstove?   )

I initially signed up with BTC-e to exchange mined Litecoin for Bitcoin. Their BTC0.01 withdrawal fee was way out of line, though...and that was before the recent run-up. I've ended up using Bitparking for that purpose.

As for trading between $ and BTC, MtGox has been mostly OK. There was a bit of annoyance on Dwolla's part this week when I wanted to send to MtGox for a purchase (they wanted ID), but that should be a one-time thing.

OTOH, between buying BTC last night and submitting an order for some silver today, there was enough increase in value to cover shipping and still leave me with some change.  Maybe I'll try letting it double next time so I can get a 2-for-1. 

I've created an account at CampBX and have started fooling a bit with IRC to use #bitcoin-otc, but have done nothing much with either of those yet.

It's the Guardian. What did you expect? 

Somebody posted this to comp.sys.apple2, which is where I heard about it.  It might be fun to try getting something like this running on one of my Apple IIs, even if it's only for sh*ts and grins.  At least they can be networked, and there wouldn't be as many hoops to jump through to get your own code running on it.

So many things to do, and not nearly enough time for them all...

Thanks!  I've found a glitch when monitoring my Bitcoin P2Pool instance in which the current-payout field keeps coming back "undefined."  I haven't had a chance to fix it yet, though.  That and the items on your list are things I'll keep in mind.

One more thing I've not brought up yet: the "styling work" in the OP has been done.  "Add to homescreen" works nicely within Safari on iOS devices, too.  That was a matter of including some <meta> elements...anyone know if something similar would work for Android?

There seems to be a shortage of apps (for either Android or iOS) aimed at keeping tabs on your P2Pool server. You could bookmark the page it provides (and probably should), but something that would give a quick view of miner health and some other stats would be nice.

To that end, I have this so far:

http://alfter.us/p2pool.html

It's functional, but obvoiusly needs some styling work. It's completely self-contained (like bitaddress.org), so making an app out of it with PhoneGap would be trivial when the time comes. I already have a suitable toolchain on Linux to build for Android. iOS presents more of a financial hurdle to building and distributing apps, but maybe I can get away with presenting it as a data: URL that can be "installed" with the "save to homescreen" option in Safari.

Beyond that, what features would you find useful? One that comes to mind but is as yet unimplemented is support for multiple P2Pool servers. I might end up running servers. for both Litecoin & Bitcoin once my Jalapeño arrives, so this is something I'd find useful. Perhaps more info about blockchain stats, exchange rates, etc. Ideas, anyone?

That's a rather ignorant statement on your part.  No added value?  Try building something out of iron ore.  As it comes out of the ground, it's rather useless. Refining ore into steel is an energy-intensive process.  Try telling me with a straight face that there's no value in that.

Most of us won't...that Ponzi scheme is unsustainable on its current course.

/reality

If you give Google a paywalled WSJ link, it'll return a link to the full article that you can read.

Put in an order for a Freedom Girl round a couple weeks ago...price was the closest to spot I could find for a 1-oz. round, and it's a nice-looking design.

It arrived today:



Paid for it with bitcoins (was about BTC1.13, shipped), though with the way the exchange rate's been going, I'm thinking it might be better to kick some dollars loose instead and hang onto bitcoins. 



It's a start, at least. :-)

You most likely wouldn't send 1 satoshi by itself. One of the free-bitcoin sources has been sending 1-satoshi payments. I combine them with mining income and other income with my CheapSweep script (google this forum for the thread). It can take a few hours for the transaction to get accepted, but I've not had one not go through yet.

You'll need app-editors/vim-core and media-sound/sox on Gentoo to get xxd and play, respectively:


If your bitcoind box is headless (like mine), you might replace the play invocation with something like this:


Transfer this file to something that can play audio.


Yes.  Fortunately, the testnet blockchain only takes a few minutes to download at this time.

Been a long time since someone's gotten that by me.

/slowclap

 

A Spartan6 LX9?  Didn't someone here lash one of those up for sh*ts and grins and get a hashrate in the neighborhood of 5-20 MH/s from it?

google lx9 site:bitcointalk.org

Not even that much:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=9047.msg472810#msg472810

A bit over 3 MH/s.  Even my 9500GTs do better than that.

I suppose it is what they say it is.  They just don't go on to say that it'll never earn more than it burns up in power usage.  It might well be a fun toy to play with, and even a bit educational, but it won't cut it as a miner.

rPNcJtcTDso9sjCcRFvPSxJvBwKnfwFKWv

Done...username is salfter, same as it is here.

BFL was going to do something similar, according to the photos that have been posted to date.  They ended up switching to FCBGA packaging to get better heat removal, but that ended up putting their shipping schedule even further behind than it already was.

(Whether they would've been first-to-ship if they hadn't made this change is anybody's guess at this point.)