Hello,
To clear up a few misconceptions:
1. The PWC issue was caused by a crashing Powercoin client and a typo in a script I wrote to restart Powercoin if it went down. Both are fixed and the difficulty should now be right.
2. All profitability is based on automatically updating numbers from the exchanges (updated every 30 seconds). The percentages you see are based on currently open orders at the bter.com, mcxnow, btc-e.com, Vircurex and now cryptsy.com exchanges. These updates are auotmatic and if a coin does not have an open order in the immediate 5 minutes, it is dropped from the chart.
3. I don't use the last trade but the currently open trades.
4. Difficulties are updated automatically and once per minute. I get the numbers from either public blockexplorers, or where the reliability of those blockexplorers is suspect or the data isn't available that I need, a local coin client that feeds into a data directory.
5. The LTC issue was caused by a memory issue on the system that started shutting down processes - this was remedied (and the scripts I wrote to watch the client should also address the issue going forward). I was relying on monit to do the watching for me, but it just was failing.
6. The math is verifiable based on the chart (all variables used in the profitability calc are shown there), but if a variable is wrong, the result is wrong. Here PWC's difficulty was not updating.
Besides kicking myself for the watch dog script, I am also adding code to auto-remove a coin if, for some reason, the difficulty / blocks are not getting updated. I don't want a repeat of what happened to PWC. However, even with the fixes, the PWC profitability was still over 100% - so if someone DID rely on the data to mine (assuming they could even find a working pool), they still made out better than mining BTC alone. Though I am doing all I can to make sure this doesn't happen again. Also, I have no connection to PWC, except NWO did message me once he saw I started adding Cryptsy to my site to inquire if I could add PWC. In full disclosure, I have only gotten a few donations for my work (the last one being for adding CHNCoin), and my site relies mostly on referral fees from Vircurex and BTER (plus Anonymous Ads).
Sal, I appreciate the work you put into the site and use it quite often. I do, as any responsible miner should, research stats on my own before switching my mining rigs over to another alt chain, so the few minor bugs you have experienced have not been a big deal for me... just wanted to say thanks, as it seems there are plenty out there that would rather bash your
FREE service as oppose to showing any kind of gratitude!
To all of the complainers: Maybe you could make a better website and STFU?
It's respectable to point out bugs and provide constructive feedback, but I have yet to understand how anyone thinks that spreading BS rumors about a developer or whining is going to accomplish anything.