I am a newbie to the forum. I started out with bitcoins years ago, I had a quad opteron (16cores) with a 4870x2 for running scientific simulations and every now and then I used it to mine bitcoins. I lost most of the coins through neglect and computer hardware failures, like many others I suspect. So now I only have a few left. More recently my interest in bitcoins has been renewed, both in terms of actually using it as a currency but also I am an academic and I have become interested in it as a disruptive (potentially) technology. So I might ask questions to do with my research, I will let you know if I do. I have a bunch of usb ASIC miners bought off ebay running now that generate a small fraction of a bitcoin a day. 

Cheers, and hello everyone.