You can turn a profit with the current Nvidia GTX 1080ti graphics cards.
Now I don't know about you, but I find it very upsetting that gpu's are kicking fpga's butts in this regard.
Also in other news, China is clamping down on bitcoin mining. Therefore a chunk of the computational power is currently down. This dip needs to be replenished. Furthermore, scarcity creates high prices when there is demand.
Unlike lots of rubbish alt coins (which can't be mined - or don't provide anonymity), bitcoin/monero/litecoin etc are solid.
Regardless what peoples opinions on bitcoins are, the human spirit mean mining will continue until the 22M coins are found.
Now like you, I too am interested in knowing how to interface the hashing algorithm to a pool network. It's important, because the hash algorithm needs some brains to tell it what to do, instead of trying to mine in isolation.
Regards,