Why the **** would anyone need to do that?

Almost NOTHING on this planet happens without a conflict of interest, since people need to eat and therefore need someone to pay for what they do.

Researchers working in universities in general DON'T make very good money. And that's where 99 % of climate research is made. If it's a scam it is not going very well, judging from the fact that the ones I know take the bus to work because they can't afford a car.

I have said it before, and I'll say it again. If it wasn't so sad, it would be hilarious when deniers pull out Al Gore and "government scientists" when the concept goes back almost 50 years (though the term global warming wasn't coined until the mid-70s), and the science it's based on is approaching 200 years. That alone says EVERYTHING about the amount of understanding the denier camp has.

A dog 

Oops.


The mining halting is really the function of the optimal hopping strategy. In poker playing the perfect strategy is close to impossible, but if everyone did, the situation would be close - everyone would win and lose the same on average.

In my opinion, the near-perfect analogy to pool-hopping is a game of poker where some people know the odds and the others don't. The ones with the knowledge (who put it to use) have a clear advantage.

Similarly, in both cases, the more people maximize their expected value by playing the odds optimally, the less there is to win. Ultimately, if everyone pool-hopped, the PPS pools would simply halt and the EV would drop to 0.

Isn't the difference between buying currency rather than goods, using Bitcoins, mostly philosophical? Otherwise, I can't see a difference.

FWIW, in Europe a lot of EUR prices fluctuate according to the USD exchange rate, since the importers need to pay in USD. Computer parts are an obvious example, the prices can change a lot over time.

Well done!

Just signed up.

Here's an article from the guy who filmed the videos:

http://www.newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/37/Report2-372-EnergyCatalyzerScientificCommunicationAndEthicsIssues.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

Since you think passwords are so easy to break, here is a SINGLE-ROUND md5 hash of a password I use daily. It even has dictionary based words in it so that it's easier to remember. Let me know when you've cracked it: 3dcd7dd499205f7f36544e71d3e8ed49

Here's another single-round md5 which would be considered very weak by most security professionals: 827a9861340aa529ad351cd80fcd1283
Let me know when you've cracked that one, too!

FWIW, modern data centers have EMP protected walls.

The datacenter where my servers are also has a flywheel UPS for short power outages, and a diesel generator that can supply power up to 4 days for longer ones.

The price now is all there is. Anything else is belief.

Well, now you'll be checking Mt.Gox every 5 minutes to see if Satoshi decided to dump all his coins at once. Good luck. 

More miners decreases the profit per miner. It's actually about the ratio between difficulty and value of BTC, and where it will eventually settle.

I argue that mining profitability will eventually match others similar markets, which means that at the current BTC valuation, difficulty would be somewhere around 5,000,000.

Currently, you are getting back more than twice what you pay in electricity, which should still be very lucrative to many. But you need a lot of hashing power to make meaningful money.


I think that has more to do with the DDoSing of the pools than miners actually dropping out.

The price is currently exactly what the market thinks is the right price. It also was exactly what the market thought was the right price when it hit $30.

I said profit... Meaning something like $2.70 operating costs + $0.30 profit (roughly 10 %) = $3 per gigahash per day. Obviously these numbers are just very rough guesses but shouldn't be too far from the reality.

High difficulty and low security can't coexist AFAIK....

Maybe I'm using the terms wrong, English is not my native language.

The price isn't guaranteed to go up again any time soon, IMO. Limiting supply doesn't help if there is no demand. The market would simply halt, if everyone just held their coins in hopes to get the price up.

In fact, in the medium term, I'm pretty sure there is a large amount of Bitcoins just waiting to be sold, which is likely to keep the price down for quite some time. This is actually good news to Bitcoin but bad news to those who thought it was a way to get rich quick with a bunch of Radeon cards.

The profit is easiest measured in the currency that you pay your electric bill in. But since they are exchangable, it doesn't really matter.


So who is buying above current market prices?

At least for the time being, I think most people/companies who approach mining as business need to exchange the generated coins to another currency in order to pay the bills.

I think only means it will get more difficult to even enter the mining business without the capital to put into the hardware. Which is really no different from any other type of competitive business. Only the businesses which invest in efficiency survive.

The value of a dollar today is very different from the dollar a year ago, though. It's the prices and wages that change.

He was talking about $30. If the demand was there to get it to $30, it would go there. Therefore, the current price is the right price. What exactly is contradictory?

Glad I made you laugh.

5,000,000 difficulty @ $15 per Bitcoin would give you a little over 10 % markup, which is still somewhat above where most highly competitive markets settle. Initial costs are only a barrier to entry (tying up capital), and operating costs are typically tackled with economies of scale. Obviously, at less than $.30 profit per day per gigahash, you'd need a giant operation for mining to make any sense, anyway.

The numbers are very rough estimates, of course. For instance, I'd expect serious mining operations to by power in bulk or do something more creative such as start their own windfarms in order to get some cheap electricity...