*hic*

everyone have their drinking game set up? Personally, I'm betting that I'm going to be unconscious within 7 minutes of Labcoin's post

Oh, I'm not counting on anything - just saying that there are more asks between here and .004 than I remember ever seeing. That's a lot of inertia to overcome, even if asks are pulled (but, really - if someone is expecting good news, why wouldn't they put their asks at their actual target now instead of waiting?)

There are 1000BTC between here and .004 - the most that's been between "here" and "there" for a long time (relatively speaking)

I just washed my popcorn bowl and left some butter out to thaw... can't wait for the "see, I was right" posts to start - regardless of the actual outcome, there will be plenty of those.

Maybe we should make a drinking game starting with the promised labcoin post... works best in groups, so grab your neighbors.

If you see:

• "hashing" - take a shot
• "photoshopped" - take off a piece of clothing
• "deposit address" - take off a piece of your neighbor's clothing
• "proof" - take a swallow of beer/wine
• "holy shit, look at the stock price" (or some variant) - nod in solemn approval, then chug whatever is in your hand at the time. Sucks to be you if you're the one filling the shot glasses.
• "28nm" - first one to see it yells "PROCESS NODE" and is safe; everyone else take two drinks
• "I told you/See, I told you/I told you so/etc." - bitch slap the person to your left; last person to slap someone drinks whatever the person who slapped them is holding
• "should be fired" - hot sauce + vodka (gin is an acceptable alternative) or eat a hot pepper
• "unforeseen problems" - take a long, deliberate drink. You'll need it.
• "sorry" - take a shot if it's in the context of "you'll be/you're sorry"; take two if it's "I'm sorry"; take three and run screaming around the room twice if Labcon apologizes (or 30 seconds if you're outside)
• "FUD" - don't bother, you'll die of cirrhosis before you can click to the next page of comments

Opposing viewpoints in any discussion are valuable for two reasons: first, if you're wrong, you have a chance to learn from others' perspectives. Second, if you're right, you have an opportunity to convince others of their errors by debunking their flawed arguments.

The problem here is that both sides have already made their points, and the same points get rehashed over and over and over again, so it's devolved to about 90% ad hominem at this point.

You're quite right, most bets are bots, but most bot bets are also very small. Most people who gamble compulsively don't want randomness on top of their randomness - they like to come up with "a system" to try and "beat the house", and predictability of outcome is a key factor in designing their bots' "systems" (as poorly thought out as they might be.) I think you're probably right that it may be fun and attractive to some players. But I also think it will be a small minority of players. If it drives a non-trivial amount of traffic and new players to the site, it might very well be worth doing... but I think doog's main idea for the site is simplicity and cleanliness; so far, I haven't seen any inclination to offer multiple types of games.

It would work as long as the house advantage was worked into the "win factor" number, sure. This would effectively make both the odds and the win multiplier random. It may be worth testing, but I think most people would prefer to know their odds before clicking the button, so I'm not sure how popular it would be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias I can't help you.

Yes, it is. The only practical difference is the speed of delivery and the depreciation of the mining hardware - but that's already factored into the price the market is willing to pay as calculated by the projected return on investment (risk/reward, remember)... but then we're back to your original statement, and you are paying for the hosting (and for dooglus' time and effort for building and maintaining the site) through reduced profits to you. There's nothing magic about buying into a gambling site that makes it "make profit instantly". There are initial costs of acquisition of shares (or whatever you want to call it for JD), and there is a risk/reward matrix that is applied no matter what you put your money into.

Look, if you had said that at this moment in time, you prefer gambling sites as a better return on investment for your risk tolerance, then we wouldn't even be having this conversation, because that's your opinion. But you made an assertion that mining is worse than investing in gambling sites because gambling sites give you instant profits, and that's simply not true.

I mean, I'm not trying to bust your balls or anything, man - it's just when I see stuff like that, I have this compulsion to correct it for the sake of other readers. It's totally OK for you to have that opinion about mining outright vs. JD - I actually share that opinion, in fact - but you can't go around saying stuff the way you did without expecting at least a little blowback on the logic from time to time.

I know nothing about the guy, and have no stake in MOO.COW or anything else bovine-related, but I think adding a requirement to honor contracts outside the purview of the contract filed with the exchange would set a bad precedent. So I'd say as long as he fulfills the MOO.COW contract terms and pays dividends as required, I'm not sure proof of accounting on non-related instruments should be required. I mean, it's not like suspending or delisting will actually grab back money owed (unless you can freeze his account, burnside, but I doubt there's any BTC in there if he's skimming elsewhere.) But yeah, seems reasonable from my disinterested 3rd party perspective to suspend the security for non payment of dividends - and the resumption of trading should be predicated on the payment of dividends, though, and nothing more (if that's the limit of the liability from a contractual standpoint.)

I wasn't. And I wasn't speaking theoretically, I was speaking practically.
You lose a bit of perspective when you oversimplify like that, but I'll play along and try and put it into the terms you're thinking of to make it easier. When you send BTC to just-dice, you start to take risk immediately. This is not the same as making profit. Your upfront cost is realized immediately when purchasing your share of the pool of risked capital, the same as purchasing mining equipment. The liquidation time is considerably faster (almost instant with JD), certainly, which means that you can jump out the very second you get ahead, if that's what you want to do. But that wasn't your assertion. You said that you could invest into gambling and make money instantly. I'm simply pointing out the flawed logic.

One universal truth exists in commerce: All costs are passed along.

This is true either in prepaid costs from a subscription, or a set fee per transaction, or from a percentage deducted on the back end, or from the fact that you're getting a smaller percentage than you would be getting if costs were not a factor in the calculation of the owner's take. It doesn't matter how you think you're getting paid, you are not receiving as much as you would if costs were not factored in. Just because you can't see the costs deducted doesn't mean they aren't a factor.
The cost of running a website is not comparable to the cost of running an ASIC manufacturing and farming system. Then again, the profits are not comparable, either.

Sure you do - it's just that the costs are hidden from you in the form of commissions on profit taken by doog. Don't kid yourself - you are paying for upkeep in that you do not get a cut of gross profits, but instead you get a percentage of net.

And here we were, waiting for more details. Huh. Our bad, I guess.

Fixed.

if that Chinese word was "七彩神仙鱼" (Google says this translates to "Discus fish"), it's probably a block mined by one of these:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=254350.0
See original poster "discusfish"

I have yet to see any solo blocks that suggest they have anything to do with Labcoin, and I've been checking throughout the day (although it's likely I missed at least one in the chain, I haven't been taking notes about which ones I've looked at).

^^^ This is about as simple an explanation as it gets.

To expand a little, if I may, SEC and other regulators are there to try and enforce accountability between real people (and the companies they run) and their promises and duties to investors. A type of enforced trust, really, to give confidence that regulated transactions are governed by well known and long established rules to protect both parties. But, even given the regulatory hoops one must go through to list on a regulated exchange, investors are still well advised to do their due diligence against the promises made by a company. In the end, regulations are really only there as a practical base to allow investors to sue after the fact if promises are made in bad faith.

Given the pseudonymous nature of Bitcoinlandia, these types of regulations are largely unenforceable at a governmental level, as "after the fact" generally means nothing at all since funds cannot be seized by the nature of bitcoin itself. So we are left to regulate ourselves as best we can by way of community-accepted trustworthiness built over time and demand for disclosure, such as it is. But no amount of regulation can really stop anyone from performing a scam.

And another thing to keep in mind: just because you might lose money in an investment doesn't mean it was a scam - a scam requires bad faith. If a company acts in good faith, but is merely slow to fulfill its promises, or misses a few deadlines, or doesn't communicate to your level of comfort, your natural remedy is to sell your shares, perhaps at a lower price than what you paid. Such is the nature of risk and reward. Now, I'm not saying that regulation is something that should be abandoned - on the contrary, I think burnside has done a marvelous job of balancing the demands of the market with reasonable protections for all parties. But he's exactly right in that he's not responsible for the broken promises of anyone that lists with him - it's the sole responsibility of the pseudonymous entity you transact with when you buy shares. If you're not comfortable transacting with that party, demand a lower price to fit your risk model, or walk away.

Perhaps.

I'm confused why you chose to take the time to post "no", then. Normally, if I see something and think "I don't agree with that, but I don't feel compelled to make an adequate argument to change their or anyone else's mind", I just go to the next thread, or go get some cheetos or something. I don't usually take the time to voice my unsubstantiative displeasure with a monosyllabic grunt. Then again, I usually try to add to the discussions I'm involved with, but I guess that's just my way of doing things. Sorry for projecting.

OK - you first.