This is the usual State oppression here. We don't have any freedoms, whatever the leader orders, we have to obey, period.

First, you are supposed to get a license to even mine, to begin with. So yeah. If you bring any asic miner to the country, you are also supposed to have a license for that, in addition to the importer's license. BTW: This bureaucracy isn't exactly efficient... (corruption).

Assuming you somehow managed to fulfill those "legal" requisites now you are forced to use their pool (it doesn't exist, yet). Internet in Venezuela is garbage, no IXP, very few international links = Orphan galore.

What software pool are they going to use? Knowing them, they might do some little google search and end up modding ckpool (because certain someone is too busy blaming others to actually release stuff). Also don't expect them to publish back any modification even if the license says so, good luck suing them, the judges are appointed by them.

Of course all they want is collect a large pool fee, who cares if blocks are lost, or the pool goes down with the frequent power outages.

The security forces will be more than happy to extort and blackmail miners (again). Your only way is having the right contact in the circle of power, if you have a large mining operation, you better be real friends with someone in power, or else...

Its not like you have a choice. Some will have to lie (learn use obfuscation and hide their tracks; ie. NOT use clear text json or do clear text dns queries) while others will have to declare it all, and even then may still be extorted, i has happened before. If you have the right contacts, you could probably even avoid using this "obligatory" pool...

Do you get a glimpse on how things are in this country? Think medieval "justice", and you'll get close.

By the way the people in power are also sanctioned by the Trump administration. If you publicly engage with them expect your relations with the US and their allies to be cut and your assets frozen or seized. So think twice before getting allured by the "free electricity". I think Iran or elsewhere is better at this point, at least their nuclear power plants can keep going without the blackouts unless bombed.

Oh and there is no mentioning of altcoins. Maybe its now illegal to mine those...

Oh before i forget, this wasn't really a "law", more like a regulation from an institution that technically shouldn't even exist because the legislative branch has been suspended defacto since 2015. This is a country that decrees things by executive powers, rest is a facade.

There is this saying inside the ruling party: "Whatever Maduro says" (is done, period).

Same reason pumping and dumping doesn't work with large established assets. The moment you try, you cause the price to go up. You cannot perform a single order to buy all available units, so as you keep buying the price increases eventually locking you out.

The clear answer is this: No one can buy or sell all bitcoins.

What ChrisPop says is a bit inaccurate. If demand = same, fiat is still losing value. Remember this is by design backed by the school of Chicago beliefs, fiat has to lose value for they are scared of deflation. Only the Austrian school would embrace something like bitcoin, the Austrians do not fear deflation unlike everyone else. Deflation is good, break out of your mold and study Mises and friends.

De la misma manera que se sortea en Venezuela y Argentina: Comprando y guardando bitcoin.

Una cartera Electrum, conectada via TOR, no podrá ser rastreada ni identificada por gobierno alguno. Al crear una cartera en frio de esta forma, solo hay que hacerle depósitos y ya.

Mientras España no vuelva a tener moneda propia, el riesgo de un "corralito" es disminuido, pero si se desea tener la opción de preservar la riqueza en caso de que el € colapse, no hay que pensarlo mucho.

Bitcoin es una moneda mundial, luego que la tienes no importa donde vas. No se "declara", ahí sigue, no cruza fronteras (no es "movimiento de capitales") está en todas partes. Los gobiernos quieren impuestos, pero su manera de pensar no va acorde con la realidad de Bitcoin. ¿Para que seguirles el juego? No se declara y ya. Y si declaras, tienes otra no declarada. Luego no habrá corralito que valga, no con bitcoin, podrán hacerlo al dinero fiat o al oro, pero bitcoin está libre.

Precisamente el hecho de que gobiernos puedan decretar "corralitos" (o controles cambiarios) es el motivo principal de acabar con el dinero fiat y liberarse usando bitcoin. Los que viven en países con libertades económicas le ven poco sentido, pero quienes conocen la opresión y la tiranía del Estado saben lo vital y liberador que es su existencia.

Esto no pasa de ser un intento fallido de publicidad.

Bitcoin satelital es inútil, en el mundo civilizado. En Venezuela es todavía mas inútil. Es increíblemente inútil...

Puedes teóricamente mantener al día un nodo Bitcoin, pero antes debes bajarte los 300 gigas de la cadena de bloques por algún otro medio... Apuesto a que esa letra pequeña muchos acá ni la conocen.

¿Y como comunicas de vuelta? Pues con un internet... A que pensaban, ¿que tendrían un enlace bidireccional satelital o algo así gratiñan? Sigan creyendo...

Cuando se vaya la luz, dejas de estar al día. Luego ya no te sirve el enlace. Tienes que pegarte a un internet para volverte a poner al día. En Venezuela se va la luz hasta en Caracas.

¿Que tiene que ver esto con la evolución de las antenas satelitales? Absolutamente nada. Esta gente lo que tiene es alquilado espacio en algunos transponder de datos de algunos satélites y ya. Las antenas actuales son evolución de las anteriores, pero no es nada particularmente especial.

Ahora el año que viene podría ser que con Starlink se pueda tener algo realmente novedoso, pero eso no lo es.

seoincorporation lo de los 90 y lo de ahora no ha cambiado excepto en la cantidad de canales y que por la digitalización hay mas canales por satelite y la seguridad es mas robusta. Las antenas "pequeñas" que se usan ahora son banda Ku y las grandes eran banda C, las viejas tenían la ventaja de que solo se apuntaban exactamente hacia arriba y el resto era moverlas de oeste a este, las modernas son mas compactas pero hay que "apuntarlas" exactamente al satélite individual.

Y eso de que había que moverla era solo si ibas a ver un canal que no está en el satélite que estás usando. Eso sigue siendo igual hoy la única diferencia es la cantidad, porque antes con 24 transponder en un satélite tenías 24 canales pero ahora en cada transponder meten 6 o 10 canales, y de paso hay mas transponder por satélite y está de moda estacionar 2 y 3 satélites en el mismo sitio.

En esos tiempos la mayoría fijaban esas antenas a un solo satélite y ya, en algunos casos compraban 2. MTV estaba en otro satélite pero que mas da, la gente buscaba era películas y por ej: HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, Disney, Discovery, etc. estaban todos en el Galaxy 1. La gente en ese tiempo solo tenía 3~4 canales para ver tele solo de día y con una antena de esas subía a 20 canales 24 horas. Generalmente los condominios las compraban para los edificios y entre todos la pagaban. Obviamente, demás está decir, que no eran debidamente suscritos sino pirateados en su gran mayoría porque sencillamente no existía forma legal de hacerlo.

Cuando apareció Directv en 1994 fue pirateado inmediatamente, y duró varios años así, mucha gente veía gratis en Canada y México porque la empresa no tenía representación legal alguna en esos países.

El internet satelital tradicional apesta. Se necesita un equipo mucho mas costoso en la antena y es bastante mas delicado ponerla. La mensualidad es prohibitiva y las latencias apestan. Ahora con Starlink los otros servicios se ven tan primitivos y engorrosos que pronostico su desaparición del mercado. Y al tener Starlink corres un nodo Bitcoin normal y ya...

El otro "proyecto" que menciona LUCKMCFLY es una pseudo estafa, esa gente captó mucho dinero metiendo cuentos y ni siquiera están en el país, son un par de chamines en Europa o que se yo por allá complemente desconectados de la realidad nacional. Ellos lo único que tienen es un proyecto en github de un posible software para usar unos radios de datos que son de muy baja velocidad. Para empezar habría que comprar los radios y ya con eso es inútil, y hay que pegarlos a internet por otro lado... Es algo así como un wimax pero muy lento, inservible. Las frecuencias si bien están disponibles en Europa por acá es otro tema.

Pero ellos lo publicitaron como algo así de "dar conectividad a las transacciones Bitcoin Monero aun cuando se vaya la luz en Venezuela" y con ese cuento captaron mucho dinero. Demás está decir que es inexistente en Venezuela y sería inutil, incluso mas que el enlace satelital. Esa gente además tiene el descaro de mantener un sitio web con el nombre Bitcoin, nadie los eligió ni tienen derecho de hacerse "representantes" de Bitcoin para nuestro país, no son nadie, pero sacan dinero a los incautos.

PD: Los satélites SON señales de radio, la diferencia es donde está la emisión...

The price of bitcoin in USD isn't climbing at a fixed rate. As time passes, the price increase diminishes.

I'm pretty sure bitcoin price in 2032 will NOT be 80k. As a matter of fact it will not double by the next halving. As more halvings come and go, it takes longer and longer to double (if ever) its price.

This pattern exists historically for gold, and it reflects the history of bitcoin's price in all its 11 year lifetime.

The time bitcoin takes to double its price, takes longer every time. There is no reason for bitcoin to suddenly climb to 20k. Say, by the next halving, about 15k would be ok. And for the next one while you want 30k, i think it won't even be 20k, but 18k.

Those guys investing too much in mining gear probably think like you. but time will prove them wrong and when their mining can't pay the bills anymore they'll just close, the result is the same regardless.

Temporary fluctuations in price may occur, but that's all they are, temporary like when bitcoin reached 20k in 2018. How much time it takes to actually reach 20k again? More than twice since last time.

So in 2018 20k, (9 years). 2027 (18 years) 40k? wrong. Not even 30k... Could it reach 80k? yes, but not when you want. In 100 years? maybe.

It took 11 years for 10k, so while 22 years for 20k may sound reasonable, the actual result should be (under) 20k, maybe about 15~18k. Then in 44 years it must not be twice that (ie not 30~38, but LESS, much lesser than the previous one.

This is a logarithmic curve. Price starts vertical, and ends horizontal overtime. Don't worry, its not a parabola, it won't ever go down, simply climb slower and slower eternally, like gold.

Which is why commercial mining will end soon, in this or the next halving unless for some reason your wish comes true. But history says otherwise, and the less bitcoin price fluctuates, the better.

I said so before the halving, when the price was at 7.5k, that after halving its price cannot be 15k (what you wish), but anything under. so 9k~11k fits perfectly fine.

The reason mining is diminishing is because of this. If bitcoin price always doubled with each halving, its effect would cancel itself and the same number of miners would remain mining. But that is not the case.

BTW: assume a magically wealth preserving USD for my comments. If the USD fails on its own, that's not Bitcoin's fault (or merit). Compare it against gold if you want.

I'm actually more interested in what this "prohibited information" was. If a State wants to ban something, it must be good. Lets not forget the Chinese are as bad or worse than Russians in this field, so its not like a Russian exchange can go to China and criticize the gov, it would get the same treatment or worse.

Most of the countries in the world, especially the large and powerful, do not want people freely expressing themselves, they consider it a threat to "national security" (its actually a threat to the State).

The UN might consider freedom of though to be a human right, but reality is much different, and not just in "those" countries...

The people, the masses have only one enemy: Their own State that oppresses them. Rarely its a foreign State, but usually its their own.

Last halving made it unprofitable for many westerners, but the activity is still profitable in China and the few countries with very cheap electricity. But we are still marching there. If bitcoin price "doubles" as you say, it would only delay the inevitable, only a few more years.

So far in 2020 it looks like that. Bitcoin price seems to be holding at 10k, which is very good for Bitcoin, mining is destined to slow down as the halvings intended since the beginning, most coins have already been made, this is the time to stop commercial mining.

Some Chinese whale pre-bought 8000 S19s to Bitmain, i think that particular whale is going to get in financial trouble, Bitmain promised delivery of the first 2000 units Jan 2021. Can that whale ROI after causing its own demise? Just how high will the difficulty rise in 2021? There is no guarantee the price of bitcoin will rise in proportion to satisfy such a large investment.

Yes those whales leaving the game will ironically lower the diff and make it a bit profitable again, i think it will pump and dump bac and forth a few more times, but in the long run it is bad for commercial entities looking for a non variable profit.

After that who is going to make asics? Maybe the hobbyists like Geckoscience, who mostly re-uses existing ones anyway. All of those things are happening at the same time, even if you could theoretically improve on existing asics, the demand will be gone and nobody will bother. Its the end game for commercial Bitcoin mining.

So this may lead me to guess, that we are nearing the end of sha256 asic technology. Whatever chip is being used in the S19 might be the last, or perhaps there could be one more from that company (if their feud doesn't make them bleed more). At the same time the other manufacturers may iterate a couple more asic improvements, when it becomes apparent that this path isn't going to bring revenue anymore, they will cease any R&D and just sell whatever they have left.

The mining end game does involve the asic manufacturers as well. Start another one from zero? Not going to happen, too much money for too little ROI (if ever). Even buying one of the closing Chinese companies would probably not get you too far.

Who needs a filter when you have plenty of distance to make it nearly impossible for sentient races to meet each other in their lifetime?

All we can do is speculate at this point. And hope to find some trace of ancient life somewhere. We are absolutely not in the center of this universe, so there is no reason for us to be "alone".

Have you still not noticed what you see in the night sky is past ancient history?

As for being "found" by others in our lifetime, the same applies to them. The inner planets of this solar system (including Earth) only have a few billion years left before the Sun destroys them. Traveling from point a to point b in the universe might easily take longer than this.

Hey!, I found an interesting planet. Quick send a probe. When probe reaches, the planet is no more, local star engulfed it, or at least destroyed its atmosphere making it barren like Mercury.

So yeah, space is big, bigger than you could possibly imagine. Its so big, than traveling at near the speed ot light you watch to the front of your windows cockpit and those dots remains static as if watching a wallpaper. The "rain inverted" effect of the pop fiction movies doesn't exist in real life. I'm sure i saw a simulation in youtube about how the stars would look like if your were in a ship traveling at near the speed of life. Now if you look at 90° to the sides, you might spot something barely moving. Front and back? wallpaper.

It is THAT big. The only thing that actually move is your local system and that goes when you enter interstellar space. If the Voyager probes could send us what its seeing right now, it would be that: the dot of what the Sol system is next to all the other dots frozen in place.

PS: The chances were greater in the past by the simple fact that the universe has been expanding faster and faster, so, we were closer together. And thus, the opposite is true. This is not related with our own species having the technology, but others who might have done so.

Neanderthals? Maybe some race might have visited when there were only amoeba, or not even life. For most of the existence of this planet, it has been lifeless. Maybe they seeded it for all we know or not, and have long gone extinct.

This can be solved with another type of sensor positioned elsewhere. I think even Tesla has newer models with more sensors precisely because of this.

I have seen an open source smartphone app for self driving (a few supported) cars. It works with the single camera from your phone. But just because it works, doesn't mean it cannot be improved with more sensors.

I think a combination of optical/lidar/radar exists which is used by Google's Waymo to prevent this kind of situation. I also think the later Tesla models improved their sensors to account for these situations. Tesla officially still regard their system as "hands on", the human is always in control and often warns the driver of potential problems. Even if no problem is detected by the system, if you human want to act, you still can.

The programing of the software could be improved to assume danger in case of blindness (ie. slow down/stop). This also does not account the other side of the coin, what if the car is driving in total darkness (assume your front lights are damaged), the ai can do it while you the human cannot. How about fog? Same thing. So even if you say "a human could have just moved the head", you could also find several unsolvable situations for the humans where their lack of sensing and slow reaction cannot solve.

AI is far better for driving than humans already. If you remove the humans from the streets, you could even remove the traffic lights. The problems can only get solved and improved upon, until nobody drives anymore. And that is coming, like it or not. Only a few people like racers would still do it, but the masses won't.

The rest of the vehicles are doing the same. ships and planes as well. I guess you could still have your sail boat or your Cessna, but i see no reason commercial freight and passenger service to need more than a (remote) operator. Also, goodbye to suicide pilots and hijacks.

When you do a suborbital flight from New York to Tokyo in 30 minutes, are you manually driving the rocket? No you don't. SpaceX plans to offer this service. Most rail systems work this way, some don't even bother with a human operator onboard anymore.

There is no point for this. Everything about video streaming is about internet bandwidth, the computer is pretty much irrelevant. In fact, you could just use a tablet.

The only reason someone could possibly want a high performing pc nowdays, is because they have something their work requires is to (ie. rendering videos or 3d), or gaming.

For the vast majority of people, whatever they can get their hands into, is good enough. Internet does not require much resource usage, even with the bloated browsers of today (which you may tame down a bit with some settings and addons).

My computer is 10 years old, and i can still do everything with it. Yes i built it myself, with the aim of being not the top of what you could buy at the time, but second. I just upgraded its GPU twice for a better Linux gaming experience.

Incidentally, with your gpu you can encode your videos as well, so its win/win.

The computers of today are way too fast, you cannot even buy a "slow" computer even if you wanted to. Of course windows can make anything look slow but that has always been the case. Don't use a garbage os.

Tesla is not just about cars. Heck, Elon happily gave away their electric motor patents. Tesla is getting into the power business, they are going to take over the peaker plants worldwide. Why build and start a costly gas plant when a bunch of distributed batteries can do the same faster?

Yes, they getting heavy into batteries not just for the cars, but for the electric grid as well. And they have solar panels too.

There is also a rumor about people individually being able to sell their power back to the grid with some sort of automated distributed system, possibly including blockchain technology.

So if you buy a powerwall for your home, not only you'll have a backup power source, but also a means of earning some coin when you don't need it. I think you could also combine it with the batteries in your car if you happen to also own one.

¿Te parece insuficiente la crisis provocada por la pandemia? Dicen que Bitcoin surgió a raíz de la crisis inmobiliaria de 2008. Mientras el mundo mantenga las prácticas de la escuela de chicago, inevitablemente existirán crisis como esta. La escuela austríaca es la única solución definitiva al tema de los ciclos interminables de burbujas y estallidos.

La escuela austríaca que planteó al oro directamente como medio de intercambio, hace un siglo, por ser un valor cuyo ningún gobierno tiene capacidad de destruir. Pero, como ya lo afirmaron otros, Bitcoin es mejor.

Esos Winklevoss se hicieron famosos no por Bitcoin, pero por esa crisis inmobiliaria. Están representados en la peli "The big short" que lo explica todo. Ahora luego tuvieron la astucia de invertir parte de sus ganancias en Bitcoin, especialmente al principio cuando valía poco y la desconfianza era muy grande. Esos son los que hicieron fortuna, ahora que es harto conocido y confiable, las ganancias serán menores.

Los que se iban a hacer ricos de la noche a la mañana, ya lo hicieron. Bitcoin hoy cumple es la función de "preservar" (mas no crear) la riqueza. Esta es una función muy útil, te permite escapar de los caprichos gubernamentales que empobrecen a todos (imprimir).

Todo se resume en como esconder 12 palabras, o viajar sin siquiera llevarlas encima.

Mil y una maneras hay de hacerlo. Nada de Trezor, esas tonterías mas bien te delatan.

Por ejemplo podrías cifrar el archivo de texto con las 12 palabras con pgp y subirlas a "la nube".

Lo mas importante es que puedes viajar sin declarar nada. Bitcoin no viaja, está en todas partes.

Pero eso choca con las mentes políticas, que tratan de verlo todo con los modelos obsoletos del pasado.

Bitcoin saca al Estado del asunto del dinero, y eso no les gusta. Pero que bueno es librarse de ellos.

Los políticos y sus estupideces de siempre. Pues ni modo, aprendan a cifrar sus conexiones, usar VPN y otras yerbas. Claro que prohibirán las VPN, luego tendrán que usar TOR que en Cantv está "bloqueado"...

Pero será una excusa mas para las "autoridades", acostumbradas al matraqueo (extorsión) y secuestro de mineros, de sacarles real. Todo es tremendo negocio, para ellos claro, o así lo deben de pensar.

Llegaron tarde, llegaron mal, y están "fuera del perol". Esta gente trata de manera hostil a todos, excepto los que estén relacionados a los círculos de poder. No es mas que una ilegalización camuflada.

Quebraron al Estado y la economía, están desesperados en seguir despojando a la empobrecida población de la poca miseria que queda. Es una tiranía encubierta con el eslogan del socialismo. Ellos mismos destruyeron la industria petrolera que es propiedad del Estado, ¿a donde mas van a meter mano? A la migaja que quedó produciendo algo.

¿Que, van a hacer un pool de todas y cada una de las miles de criptomonedas que hay? ¿O está prohibido minar lo que ellos no autoricen?

Esta gente es cruel y despiadada, no se caigan a mentiras.

Acá hay gente que come con lo poco que una a dos máquinas S9 (de $25) les pueda dejar en un mes, y ese pan de la boca es lo que estos desean quitarles.

This happened in my country as the "socialist" economy was put into full motion, with the collapse of the system as everyone got poorer, the exact same things happened. But not too long after, even second hand becomes too expensive to buy. You keep your clothes until you just can't fix them anymore, THEN you go to the second hand shop. The only ones getting "new" (even fashion brands) are the new rich elite linked to those in power, those internationally defended by "socialists".

Of course you also try to repair anything you have rather than replace it. Unfortunately only the older devices can be easily repaired, those are also less efficient or parts are no longer available...

Then you'll see obtaining protein becomes difficult. You will have nice memories of those days where you could eat meat more than once per month...

One interesting effect of Corona, is that many "wealthy" countries have felt a bit of what it is life like in failed socialist/communist regimes. Corona is passing, but those of us trapped under oppression, have nowhere to look.

Try to live with only 1 dollar a month and see how well it goes. Don't worry, the socialist State provides food... to their party friends; so its not like you needed money like those decadent capitalist countries. Too bad the healthcare, education and basic services are all broken or failing so bad not even (somehow) having money will help you.

And people wonder how 20% of the population fled this country. I guess corona is helping the State feed less people.

Why is your State having military operations abroad in the first place? Yes the "free market" warfare was traditionally called mercenaries, today they use the "civil contractors" or a similar euphemism.

In "true" communism there is no State and no military, everyone is armed and willing to defend their home, not invade others to forcibly seize the means of production "liberate" the workers from the "shackles of capitalism".

Socialism is about a bigger State, the State owning the means of production, because that is somehow more fair. The larger the State you make, the less willing to go it is. Also, the individual freedoms get in the way of the almighty State, so those need to go.

In paper it sounds "beautiful", in practice its a never ending, self feeding corruption machine that makes everything much worse than people's pursue of wealth for selfish reasons, for some reason socialists cannot comprehend, and yet it always happens.

Socialists do not understand human nature. To try their theories, they need those pesky humans to be less human and more robots. Some even theorize the perfect ruler to be some AI, but this AI would quickly find the humans unreliable...

The social construct of money and the whole system of the market, capitalism, yadda, with all its "faults" its still better than anything else tried to this day anywhere. And it happens to solve many things peacefully and efficiently.

With socialism you are forced to enforce your new rules, because people don't like being told what to do. Unfortunately this doesn't escalate very well, and you get more bureaucracy to make sure those new rules are enforced and more to watch over those that watch them being enforced...

Conveniently, everything grinds into a halt, unless you somehow can make those officials move in your favor. In the name of Socialism, those with more wealth (the means of bribe) are the only ones that can make things done, certainly not the even more impoverished masses.

Humans don't always want to share, and you are pointing a gun at them so they "share". And then those in power form an elite doing, surprise, surprise, the same decadent egoistical things again: Not sharing.

So as long as you maintain a State, you maintain a caste of parasites "not sharing". Doesn't matter if they proclaim themselves as "socialists" and give charismatic speeches and wave red flags. Its all the same, the filth repeats over and over again.

In the end, socialism attempts to end poverty, by making everyone poorer, give freedom, by seizing it, etc, etc...

The "first sign" was some asteroid that came from Mars with alleged fossil prints. Its only a matter of time for more evidence to come from there from the many missions ongoing and planned. Venus was actually unexpected, but then again what could we possibly know about life in the universe?

Studying Venus is difficult due to the planet's environment, but i suspect more probes will head there to investigate about those interesting readings.

Your "principle" sounds a lot like the Fermi paradox, but i wouldn't limit the scope to this mere solar system.

Also don't forget the Solar System has 8 planets, and a whole bunch of satellites and dwarfs (and the asteroid belt, possible remains of planet. After Neptune the next celestial object is called Eris, yes, you read that right, Pluto comes after Eris. The solar system is incredibly huge, but its but a grain of sand in the vast universe. Earth would by like a sub atomic particle or something.

The moon is "meh" but several countries are visiting because its "close". Even Israel tried but couldn't quite brake properly and left a bunch of debris on its surface. I guess they'll try again later. If you want the best pictures of the moon, look at the Chinese Chang'e probes. Even SpaceX is planning to send tourists to fly by it. NASA is also revisiting, for some reason.

Stop worrying, China will stop being the leader once it becomes unprofitable to mine there, all those large farms will simply close and most of those pools will disappear.

Maybe by the next halving, since the un-profitability will also deter the large asic manufacturers to continue spending tons of money in something the world simply doesn't demand in such large quantities anymore.

The last miners will be hobbyists, those large commercial miners will go. If you are the kind of miner that needs the mining operation to cover the bills, you will stop.

People with free energy, or something else bringing money to pay for the mining, should last longer.

If you have miners pointed to a solo pool, chances are you are already in the group of hobbyists that will keep things decentralized and running smoothly, after all those commercial Chinese pools and farms have shut down.

See this as their last run, let them enjoy it while it lasts... No worries for Bitcoin.

Nobody here is forcing anyone to use Chinese pools, or Chinese asics with Chinese firmware. You do it freely by you own choice.

You cannot update when using the sd card. Update only works when installed to NAND. If you insist in using the sd card, you have to reflash the sd card with the newer sd card image.

When you boot from the sd card there is an option in the System menu to flash to NAND, it I'll ask a couple of confirmations. Flashing to NAND is very quick, just a few seconds.

Well so far i have only seen that the UI lets you set min powerlimit to 1480W, default is 2100 and max 5000 (don't use that).
In the text file you can even try some values the UI won't let... Not sure of the usefulness of that, you'll have to stop/start bosminer and never go to Miner > Configuration again or the ui will nag you to death about an invalid value.

In manual mode (or non plus), the configuration settings let you type 50 mhz frequency (default 500, max 700) and 14.31843v as the lowest (default 19.6, max 21.36). I doubt the boards would even respond if you forcibly use that, but at what point would they "wake up"?

Someone with an S17 willing to do some science?

S17 winter space heater coming soon.