I nickle weighs 5 grams.  So you need to transport and store 5 grams for every penny that you make.  Have you actually done the math on this one?

To make $100, you need to buy and transport a little over 100lbs. of nickles.  That is, of course, assuming you can actually find someone to pay you 6 cents for them.  Let me know when you even get that far.

I've looked around on google a little and it seems to be caused from hardware issues. Try unplugging all peripherals like printers and scanners and try it again. 

Might be a problem with the USB stick. If the USB drops off the the computer loses its OS it would reboot. I would try a new USB stick.

Awesome! Good to see my little tutorial is getting around.

What happens if the NSA decides to trash the whole game by ramping up their super computers for a few weeks or months doing solo mining thus increasing the difficulty to impossible levels then dumps their coins on the market as well thus dropping the bottom out of the "value". This is where I see the flaw in the whole Bitcoin thing and that is any one person or Gov't could with enough resources totally trash the Bitcoin economy. Hell Warren Buffet could build a T/h minig operation with what he spends on two suits or dinner.

As of now, the profit margin of GPU margin is far too high for people too stop mining. So once you've made the initial investment to set up the rig, it would take a very steep drop in price to make people stop mining. So it does not directly affect the price.

If it drops, there's a chance for a quick profit.  If not, that's the game.  Maybe time to find another investment.

As soon as I understood the concept that was my very first thought. There's a lot of incentive for entities like American Express, a bank in Asia, eastern Europe, the treasury of a small country, a venture capitalist, to roll their own version of Bitcoin rather than support the existing Bitcoin system, because of the enormous potential profits from keeping a percentage of the founding Bitcoins plus transaction fees for making a market. Such entities could make their P2P currencies much more accessible and have more real-economy links so the currency is much more usable.

But Bitcoin users may stick with Bitcoins if it is perceived as more trustworthy by not being attached to a large corporation or government, and if Bitcoins are perceived as providing more privacy and anonymity.

Right now with the Mt. Gox fiascoes and its offer to open its books to the DEA and its inviting the FBI into investigate its users for the security breach that brought down its market, it is not obvious that Bitcoins would have an advantage relative to the P2P currency sponsored by Amazon.com or other large entity.