I have so much respect for the internet archive. To me the internet archive represents an entity that really understands the "Internet" and aligns closely with a lot of the ideals of free speech and information access.
Wayback machine has to be the best thing created online. Its not just about the nostalgia it about the growth and keeping all necessary information always available.
I really like how they quickly and smoothly accepted bitcoins. They truly listen and understand the Internet.
I'm more interested in mining them. Is it too late to start jumping on the BTC train ? Do you need special processors? Last I remember, you could still mine Bitcoins using GPUs.
The thing is, if you have a very bad GPU you might not make any profit. The electrial costs are going to be a pain in that case.
If you have a fairly decent GPU, you can still mine and shine but expect a really low profit. If you aren't worried about the electrial costs ( as GPU is running 100% 24/7 ) then you could mine very well.
If you really want to know how much exactly you could mine
ASICs are yet to penetrate well, thanks to the delays. Till then GPUs would still work. Mine out till you can.
Here is the thing, after BTC's success many such online digital currency came into existence.
As soon as BTC gets enough traction, there would be some regulation to handle the growing digital currencies. There are chances that not every such currecny would grow like BTC did. So putting time in mining should be well calculated. If you think LTC would grow then go for it, but if not then no point putting time and money in mining for it. Better mine, earn, sell off and move on.
ASICs were for sale from Avalon http://launch.avalon-asics.com/ but they only took orders for a <1000 in 3 batches that sold out very quickly and are going for 20k + on eBay. Butterfly labs has been promising a lot for a long time but there is no evidence yet that they will actually deliver anything. They have taken a lot of pre-orders though. There is a third company that lets you buy shares and is running ASICs but doesn't sell them. I can't remember the name at the moment.
They did do FPGA, many of the companies selling FPGA boards to mine have ceased operations because interest has dropped off since ASICS are where it is at now.
Actually, if you were serious about mining, FPGAs might still be a good choice. They are approximately as efficient as current ASICS, just much slower. Plus they will have resale value.
In theory, miners will have a better estimate of BTC future values than the manufacture.
In practice, miners might even be a little generous in their estimates (because they are self-selecting).
And more importantly, the risk is reduced. If BTC tanks, the manufacturer will have already cashed out. If BTC goes up, the manufacture will have lost some potential profits, but will still have made a decent amount.
Yea that's what I'm saying. It wouldn't be worth it unless you have really cheap or free electricity. If you're considering buying ASICs you should be very careful.
MtGox requires a fair bit of verification, but they've also been around pretty much the longest, and have already had to deal with all the security issues that other bitcoin sites are only beginning to discover. I trust them.
(That is to say, I trust them long enough to do the exchange, and then I transfer the bitcoins to my private offline wallet as soon as possible. And you should too.)
If you want some bitcoins to play with and you are in San Francisco, then just come by the Internet Archive and use our bitcoin converter box (honor based ATM). If you are not in SF, then please set these up in hacker spaces. It is fun, and currently it is going up so it is even profitable.
If you're in US try Coinbase.com. If in Europe, you could try Bitstamp.net, but you need to set-up a SEPA account at your local bank. Then use that to buy from Bitstamp.
I wonder how much pressure IA feels to convert its donated bitcoin holdings to cash, given the run-up in exchange rates that has happened recently. Does IA prefer to support Bitcoin as if it were, as its proponents suggest, a real currency with sticking power for the long-term future? Or is there more real and permanent good to be had from converting that money to dollars to support the Archive's excellent programs today?
Clearly the latter must trump the former at some price. I think that price may be well below the $/BTC exchange rate today.
The Internet Archive is holding on to the bitcoins to keep the currency experiment going. I bought $1,000 worth of coins so I could make the bitcoin converter box at the Internet Archive and be able to give my friends 0.10 BTC when they got an address so they would ahve something to play with. the sushi place might cash in their BTC's into our converter box (honor based ATM), but maybe not. For me, the key to make a currency is to have it trade around before getting redeemed. We are in this for real.
IA is using bitcoin to support its programs, by paying its staff (in part) in bitcoin. In other words, the institution is getting the services it needs in return for bitcoin.
The better ones could be added to an extension I was thinking of for the newsreader I still need to write. Basically it would take your karma on HN, and then pick a random (important) event that happened on the year that your karma currently corresponds to. (Years would be common era.)
I was thinking after the current year I could start using stuff like that one XKCD comic that predicts the future based on stupid stuff people google search for.[0]
Plus the wayback machine is super cool!