Huh.. FinCen just processed the registration for BitInstant. Sounds like a nod from the US Treasury department to me.

If no other currencies are allowed in the US, MS is going to be getting into a lot of trouble with all those XBox points or XBox live points that they let you buy stuff with... Not to mention all those frequent flier miles scams, and credit card points scams others have going.. You know where you can buy a stupid pocket knife for your points..

Very true.. It's not really theoretical either. This scenario has played out a number of times already.. I own some of the other failed or soon to fail currencies. Maybe someday they'll get enough use to be worth something, but it's been quite a while now, and it still hasn't happened.

A lot of people seem to think that there is room for more than one Bitcoin like currency, and they may be right, but there clearly isn't room yet.

I've used the site.. I like it.. I hope you get more content soon, so you'll have to expand with a lot of search and categorization.. maybe Amazon like suggestions too.. That's down the road a bit.. In the short term, you should probably just pretty it up a little too :).. Get some artistic person in there to help you out a bit..

I was impressed by how well it worked too. My payment was received in about two seconds.. maybe less.

What exactly is being solved by the lights being on at Wells Fargo?

The difficulty ensures, in a round about way, that money can't be spent twice.

If you can tell me where the value comes from for the US Dollar I'd be impressed.

The value of Bitcoin comes from the ability to conduct transactions openly and inexpensively on the internet.

Think of the value as coming from missing banking fees. If you pay fees to a bank for something, you obviously saw some value in whatever they were providing. How is this any different?

Forbes has actually done a number of articles on Bitcoin covering this and many other aspects of it.

Very true.. They talk a lot about having a US warehouse now, but I don't think it's really sped things up very much.

Sometimes I've forgotten I'd ordered something by the time I get it.. It makes for a nice surprise though (I wish I were kidding).

I repeat:
Finally, set up an rsync script or other mirror software to get those files off site
in case they actually try to steal your server.

If you have triggers set up right, you'll have the video of the person walking right
up to your server to steal it.

You can also go even cheaper and use a simple USB webcam when you're only looking
at fairly short distances.

Oh yeah. If you don't have a linux server, there are similar packages for windows. All the same hardware will work just fine (and a lot of other hardware too).

We had our cars getting broken into and did basically the same thing (minus gun).

We have a linux file server at home, so what I ended up doing was getting a V4L
compatible video capture card off ebay (I got a 16 input card for $80). 4 port
capture cards are common and cheap. Just make sure it's compatible with linux.

Then go to dealextreme.com, or I think they're also at dx.com now. There you can
get cameras, and the video balun's to make it simple to use cat 5 to run your
cameras. A camera is about $20 for a decent night vision one, and the balun set
(8 baluns to run 4 cameras) were about $25.

Once you've got your hardware all set up, you can use either "motion" or "zoneminder"
for the actual surveilence. Both will do what you want. I use motion, but
zoneminder is a little more polished in the UI department.

Finally, set up an rsync script or other mirror software to get those files off site
in case they actually try to steal your server.

I don't know who approves all the stories (you could look at who posted them all since it's displayed on every one of them).

I can't really tell if you're being sarcastic, since *EVERYTHING* you listed is available for purchase using bitcoins. Bitcoin sites do tend to call the "new pc" a "mining rig" instead, but some places can even be seen selling them as pc's.

We had five, yes five duplicate tape backups sets for a final copy of our obsolete accounting system. All tapes were verified good when they went onto the shelf (in a climate controlled room). A year later, it took us more than 10 tries to get one of them to restore successfully.. I think it was tape set 3 on the 4th try or something before it restored.

Tapes suck.

I didn't think they allowed pragmatism here on /. You're going to lose your account man!

I have a linux server for a file server at our house, and I'm building a pretty decent system on the very cheap (not just because it's cheap, but because it's fun too) using a few different technologies..

My plan is to combine a few things into one system.. Security cameras, security sensors, and home automation including zoning. I'll list some of my resources below.. 90% of the battle is knowing what to look for..

zoning: search for 'diyzoning' and follow links from there to the real stuff.. diyzoning is actually being replaced..

automation:
1wire automation and sensors (cheap gadgets of all sorts): www.hobby-boards.com
you can find all sorts of other sites with 1wire and ibutton devices (ibuttons are a particular type of 1wire device, great contact based digital keys)
zigbee: easy to find when searching, it's more expensive, but makes a wireless mesh network which is easier than wires.. I like wires though, so I don't know much about these..

Security camera:
I currently use anything that works with linux and use "motion" for watching the cameras.. it takes videos only of events.. if you've got it tweaked right, it can also make an excellent intrusion sensor, you just have to be careful you don't get false positives.. it's very tweakable though)
Another security camera option that I've considered switching to is zoneminder.. It's got a web gui to make monitoring and configuration easier, but other than that it's very similar.

Another thing to do with the security cameras is to use something like rsync to get copies of events off site in case your server is stolen.. with any luck you'll still have the video of the person stealing your server..
I bought a card at a great price on ebay that takes 16 video inputs, and then I got balun's and cameras from www.dealextreme.com to hook to it.. easy as pie, and the $20 cameras from dealextreme have ir led arrays for pretty decent night vision..

Well, that's about all I can think of right off the top of my head.. Don't let people tell you a system like this is useless unless you pay a ton of $$ for it.. Even if you don't get broken in to, or you do and they still get the stuff and get away with it (happens with monitored systems too, I've seen it often at my work) you'll still have a lot of fun with the tech. I love blasting through the time lapse videos that motion puts together for me..

When trying to learn HTML, don't use IE... Use firefox with the firebug plugin loaded.. it'll actually let you see what is going on/wrong and will let you experiment on the fly.