Yet Another Newbie Question: Regarding getting bitcoins

[Arxan]

...
Holy crap 50 Bitcoins is like $800 bucks right?  So how do they get solved, is it like trial and error?  So theoretically I could get one after a few minutes mining?  (if I'm lucky)

Yeah, brute-forcing a hash calculation by adding a nonce value and hoping the hash meets the appropriate conditions, if I understand correctly.  If you are that lucky, you should buy some lottery tickets!

[mizike29]

NO you can not get one quickly.  It will take a very good graphics card, top of the line ati 6990 mining in a pool like I do almost 2 days not to get 1 bitcoin, to get 50 bitcoins your looking at about 2 months at this difficulty.

[mushy99999]

Makes sense. I'm not sure what's considered a high hashrate, but good to know. Any place to find more info on the fees thing and how that works?

I wouldn't even bother looking at solo mining unless you have >10Ghash at your disposal and even then it could take you more than a week to find a block if you are unlucky.

I think even 10GHash is slow these days judging by how fast deepbit ans slush's pool total hash rate is expanding. I reckon there are rig setups out there with 30  or more machines.