Quote from: nightminer on April 11, 2013, 03:52:32 PM

The way I understand it.

The network gives the whole pool 1 block to mine. Imagine that like being a piece of land. The pool then divides that land and tell everyone in the pool "You, mine that piece of land", "You, mine that other piece of land"

As we all frantically dig, one of us finds the piece of gold (the answer to the very difficult cryptographic puzzle). The pool then tries to tell everyone as fast as possible "Guys, we found it, stop mining!".

Problem is if pools get a bit slow or there are connection problems you never get the "Stop Mining" message. Your PC happily keeps mining the piece of land that the whole pool by now know does not contain gold. You PC then runs back to the pool, the good little puppy it is, and then says "I dug here and I found nothing. We can skip that land and you can give me a new piece to mine". The pool then says "Dude... we found gold ages ago, the rest of us are already mining on a new piece of land, WhereTF have you been!?".

And that... is a reject.

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+1

There need to be more examples like this around cryptocurrency in general. The concept is esoteric enough as it is, but the way terminology and raw numbers are thrown around casually by those in the know makes it become even more abstract to outsiders. Breaking things down to real-world analogies helps laypeople understand what Bitcoin, et al are in a way that is meaningful to them and makes them more likely to 1) make that first plunge to experiment with the concept and 2) feel confident enough to participate in the long term. This is vital to the sustainability and stability of the economy and ultimately benefits everyone.