Got this to an email address that was specifically used for MtGox and has never been used anywhere else.

It's from the MtGox hack. Similar emails have been sent to that list before.

Jag har använt bitmarket.eu under en längre tid just för att jag hittills inte stött på SEPA-avgifter där. Trist att er bank väljer att ta ut dem - är det möjligen något ni tittar på?

Sorry, but no. Buffer overflow opportunities don't somehow appear in library code just because the calling program has been compiled. (And Java JIT is a compiler, there's no difference between doing the compiling statically beforehand or dynamically when needed).

(Yes I'm sure I want to reply to a thread that has had no posts for at least 120 days)

So, let's recap on what we've seen in the past few months - relevant to the discussion that took place in this thread half a year ago. Since the early FPGA boards were already available then, but didn't convince the GPU crowd that the path CPU->GPU->FPGA->(s)ASIC was clear and inevitable, the new data would be:

Butterfly Labs - Single and Rig Box (FPGA, of which the former is apparently selling like hotcakes)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=60586.0

LargeCoin (sASIC, although not in customer hands yet)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=67505.0

... and of course the tantalizing (or worrying) prospect of someone throwing a lot of ASIC (?) power online without sharing

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=67634.0

It's impossible in the same way as brute forcing a 128 bit UUID is impossible E.g. in our relevant universe.

(And enough so for the discussion at hand)

All software developers of any experience and educational background will tell you that programs will always have bugs. It's simply impossible to provable test all possible pathways as soon as you venture beyond Hello World type complexity.

Thus it's better to use a programming and execution environment that protects you, as far as possible, when those bugs are found.

So I just had to go and look:

• My portable top of the line AC: 1240W
• My run of the mill steam iron: 1200-1450W
• My no-frills-but-cool-design water kettle: 1800W

I'm in 240V Europe, and these are plugged in at whatever outlet's the nearest.

I'm quite sure I've read that info in this thread already.

"by default" means that if no obvious fault can be found the blame is on the manufacturer during the first 6 months.

If you turn it that laptop the manufacturer will examine it and kindle refuse your warranty claim since you've operated it provable outside the specifications.

I'm assuming the prices quoted are ex VAT, thus there would be no refund. (25% VAT where I live)

However, the warranty needs to be sorted out if this is to be sold in Europe. In my country the manufacturer warranty period is three years, where the first 6 months all faults are considered to be from the manufacturing by default (after that the consumer has to show they're not due to wear or negligence).

Also, as far as I can see, the "DRM" issue is moot. Those still believing it to be a problem need to read ttul's posts in more detail (or if we could just get all that info merged into the top post)

My answer to the thread poll would unfortunately be "no". Not because of the price (it's likely not worse compared to keeping my money in the bank) but because of the warranty. Us europeans just shake our heads at the US "90 day warranty" madness.

I'd assume ztex to have much better warranty than that, being based in Europe. The consumer protection laws are very strong here.

(Minimum 2 year warranty against manufacturing defects EU-wide, not sure about Germany specifically. Do note, that is not the same as "if it breaks within 2 years I'll get compensation" - it has to do with the type of fault)

TEDx events are never listed at the main TED conference page. TED University seems to be: http://conferences.ted.com/TED2012/program/

You do realize that your "vital" facts are completely irrelevant to a large part of the market?

Would Peter Thiel - or any one other stupendously rich libertarian?

As an example: I belong to the group of people whose interest in Bitcoin is not in making money, but changing society. I want thousands of people running "miners" at home, at a cost less than having a lightbulb switched on, to make sure the network is resilient and available for transactions. And they'll pay for the privilege of knowing that's what they do.

sASIC is usually referred to as an ASIC/FPGA hybrid.

http://www.design-reuse.com/articles/7179/hybrid-process-converts-fpgas-to-structured-asics.html

And a Bitcoin sASIC only takes some tens of thousands to kick off.

(I'm eerily reminded of a thread a few months back with someone who fiercely claimed that no one would be mad enough to make a Bitcoin FPGA board since the BoM would be too high)

One entity needing to make large transfers pay lower fees than if many entities (the general populace) needs to make many small transfers.

There will be two talks, both in English, on Bitcoin at the 28th Chaos Computing Congress tomorrow (day three out of four). The talks are streamed live at http://28c3.fem-net.de/.

http://events.ccc.de/congress/2011/Fahrplan/day_2011-12-29.en.html

I just made a comment on "that other thread" about people willing to pay out of pocket for being part of running Bitcoin with no interest in the actual mining profits from it. I was thinking of the Raspberry Pi connected to one FPGA-miner and using Wifi to communicate with a pool. Preferably wall socket mounted even.

There are a lot of people willing to pay out of pocket to effect changes they see as positive for society. These people aren't interested in running hot noisy boxes in their apartments, but a cool low power draw and silent little box is something they're willing to fire up and forget - if it has a chance of upsetting a (bad) status quo.

No ROI, at least monetarily, involved.

Much closer to reality:

Company says "I have something that runs programs at 12 megaops"

You tell them there is a market for something that runs programs fast.

Company says they'll give you that 12 mops system they have, and then finds out that your programs have quite specific requirements which makes the product only run them at 4 megaops (while still able to execute regular programs at 12)

FPGAs aren't CPUs, nor are they GPUs, which invalidates a few of the later posts on how "off" the estimations were. Should BFL have kept quiet about expected power usage for typical scenarios and waited until they knew exactly how Bitcoin mining would task the system?

Sure, Maybe, No. Take your pick.