In response to http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=12360

Step 3 of rethaw's walkthrough might need to be updated.


svn.json-rpc.org has been down for over a week, and might not be coming back?

Some discussion of alternate sources for it can be found here: http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=29028

I'm going to point out that since I started messing with Bitcoin last week, the estimated time it would take to find a block doubled. That seems less like 30% and more like 100%.

You don't know how long it will take to finish a round, but if you could load balance between multiple mining systems you could set it to devote more cycles the longer a round takes, and fewer cycles to newer rounds. Keeping a finger in every pie, but favoring ones that have taken longer.

I'm not entirely sure how feasible or efficient that idea really is though. It also assumes that there's more than one mining system using the score system.

I'm a bitcoin n00b, but it's apparent that the difficulty ratcheted up yesterday. I would guess that some of what we're seeing is a result of that, combined with a lot of new miners. The round times seem to be consistently longer. My share of the 9 hour round looks to be about normal, but the rounds after that have been a bit better for me, possibly because of the slightly reduced pool.