Ah, I got distracted while writing my initial reply and failed to re-read TFS to get the answers I wanted. Yes, the programmers are doing IT/support tasks rather than addressing business needs and things are going pear shaped because of lack of focus. Though my solution remains the same.

The way I see it - the "IT Department" is really just you because the programmers are more akin to an "Engineering" or Tooling department IMO. Are the programmers providing IT support? If so, this is a double edged sword for obvious reasons.

I have worked in offices only slightly smaller than that company and we needed at least two people most days - and we had the benefit of having outside help for a lot of things (having a high staff turn-over didn't help).

I think it's worth making a business case focused argument rather than a "we need help" based one. Perhaps you should get the help of a manager who is not in the "IT Department" to help build, mentor and deliver the case. This isn't necessarily because your existing IT Manager is incompetent, but mostly because he is too close to the issue at hand and is unlikely to be taken seriously because of it. He also sounds like a typical tech guy - and thus probably isn't quite as tuned into non-IT culture.

Oh yeah, Zed Shaw saw that guy today. https://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/408018099284090880

Asian guy with dreds walks in with a car battery and a charger, sits down, plugs the charger in, and hangs out while the battery charges.

Satoshi helped found a completely un-innovative Litecoin derivative? I think that just about invalidates the analysis.

FTFY.

I agree... However the old farts don't.

Because Canonical are scrubs.

From the creator of Zerocoin: https://twitter.com/imichaelmiers/status/407529344626864128

Richard Stallman's calls for anonymous Bitcoin. Good thing we've fixed the main efficiency limitations of Zerocoin

and

Spends are now about 300 bytes and take about 10ms to verify. Took a completely different set of crypto primitives to get there.

Depreciation isn't really the right word. You can keep value indefinitely - as long as you move the money periodically. You don't have to actually spend it. Perhaps you could mark some addresses as being "storage" addresses so that people can keep cold wallets without worrying... But that runs the danger of being confusing or people just marking every address and cold storage (perhaps increased transaction fees could discourage this).

The size Bitcoin blockchain is quite problematic. The size is huge. What is really needed is a system where coins outside of circulation lose value so that the length of the blockchain can be easily kept to a manageable size because lost coins will disappear and the amount of history you have to keep (and verify) will be much smaller.

I think the emunie project had an interesting approach to making verification quick and efficient but I can't remember the specifics.

The price of eggs?

Zerocoin is an *extension* to Bitcoin - if it is accepted as part of Bitcoin then it will be part of Bitcoin. Because it has been developed as a library (and documented) altcoins can use it too. TLDR: it doesn't matter which coin comes out on top because they can all use it.

Zerocoin is an extension to Bitcoin. It has been implemented in some altcoin(s) already IIRC.
http://zerocoin.org/

I don't think there exists a single pro gamer that uses Intel graphics hardware. The Nvidia driver on Linux is more than adequate - and considering AMD/ATi's drivers are crap on Windows it's hard to produce any meaningful comment on that area. Also, if Direct X is so essential and magical then why don't consoles use it?

I'd like a crate system! You could probably even return them at the door as you walk in. The problem with re-usable cloth bags is that you have the carry the bastards around while you shop, and I find that annoying.