It's correct that your mind is, essentially, a 'likeness' of god's mind, sort of like how if you cut 1/4 from a piece of holographic film you aren't left with 1/4 of the image, but 100% of the image at 1/4 size.

It's half correct in the sense that it doesn't explain the relationship between the likeness of god and god, nor does it describe anything about other stratified minds, nor does it acknowledge or describe the larger system of which both life and death are a part.

Most importantly, it doesn't describe the largest system, the 'set of all sets' so to speak which contains the syntax that governs all of these things.

Really?  First time?  Wow.  Anyway, it's about half correct.

It's amazing to me how few people realize that most of the 'big' questions in life can be known through what is directly evident at all times...and it really doesn't take a genius by any stretch of the imagination to figure out the correct answers.

Manipulation is such a loaded term.  Everybody manipulates the market, and everyone has the same goal - profit.  Manipulation is just thrown around most frequently when one of two things happens: 1) a big buy/sell makes people go "damn that's a lot of money!", or 2) there is an assumption that someone with deep pockets is keeping the price stable, though it should be noted that this is virtually indistinguishable from normal trading activity and therefore calls into question the assumption...

Bingo.  This is the factor to look out for.  Gox price was significantly overinflated due to withdrawal problems.  It's more important to see what's happening on bitstamp and btc-e.  Besides, payment processors like bitpay no longer follow the gox API (thankfully).  By all logic, Gox shouldn't be influencing the market to the same degree it had been prior to the shit hitting the fan.

I'm quite pleased to be honorably mentioned Fun competition!

It has happened, is happening, and will happen again.  And, while you're sitting on unspent fiat (if buying btc is always a better option, why haven't you spent 100% of your fiat on BTC yet?), I'm profiting from the miners I purchased.  I can make money from my miners whether the price of btc goes up or down, and I've done this repeatedly and successfully.  Why/how?  Because I've found that buying miners continues to be profitable if you find a decent deal.  Experiencially, your contention that nobody will buy "unprofitable" miners is misleading...I'm not buying unprofitable miners because I'm buying profitable ones, like block erupters. Hell, i still make a killing on GPU mining and am considering expanding my GPU farm for alt coins.   Trying to convince me that mining isn't profitable when I'm profiting is kind of dumb :/ 

Why is everyone in here trying to argue a point I agree with?  
If the price goes up, it's better to buy btc.  No shit.  So why haven't you cashed out your life savings for BTC yet?  Maybe because you don't know the future?  

And I think you're missing a few steps...


Scenario 1)... Person A sells erupter for .25 btc adding to his .85 btc yielding 1.1 btc.  

Scenario 2)... Person A sells erupter for $25 and now has $93.

Now person A has more than B in each case.

Someone didn't read very well, because if you did, you'd know that I agree with that statement.  Thanks for playing!

The hypothetical examples you selected are much more fabricated than the hypothetical example I gave of the BFL Single which suggests a realistic scenario unfolding from present market data.  I created the examples you selected as extreme cases that simply highlight the plausibility of the scenario -- if extreme examples are plausible, non-extreme ones are indicatively so.

Addressing the part I have bolded, keep in mind the name of the game is ROI independent of whether you initially purchased with, or whether you end up with, fiat or BTC.  Every miner I have purchased (with the exception of the BFL pre-order which will never achieve ROI) I purchased with fiat which has allowed me to achieve ROI, even with block erupters.

If I had purchased BTC at the time I purchased erupters, of course that would've been the best scenario -- hindsight is 20/20, and we all know the price of BTC has steadily increased throughout the past two months.  But, purchasing erupters with cash has allowed me an opportunity to achieve ROI and then some, and I will still achieve ROI even if BTC drops below the price it was at the time I purchased the erupters (i.e. assuming the price doesn't REALLY drop, like to sub-$50).  I purchased the erupters knowing that BTC ROI would likely never be reached, but yet I still bought them anyway.  Now, why do you think I would do that?  It's because I knew I could make money with them even if BTC takes a dive because there are tons, and I mean fucking TONS of irrational, stupid buyers.  Quoting Tommy Boy, I could sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman in white gloves in this market.

Why didn't I buy BTC instead?  Because there is no opportunity to profit in that scenario if the price of BTC drops.  With a miner, I can make money whether the market moves up or down.  Buying BTC outright, I can only profit if BTC goes up.

And, I disagree with your way of selecting a "better method" which you have defined as whatever method allows you to end up with more BTC.  By purchasing a miner, you simply have more KNOWLEDGE to guide your financial decisions, and not only do you know where you stand in the present, but you can predict on an ongoing basis where you will be in the future.  To me, this can be a much "better method," not because it yields a larger profit, but because you can calculate your actions instead of essentially flipping a coin on the market and hoping for the best.  And, with the bullshit clients are frequently experiencing with various exchanges, I'd argue that it's just about as easy to get someone to buy an ASIC for an inflated price as it is to exchange BTC for cash in your pocket.

Sold!   

1)  Valid point, and although it's totally plausible that Bitcoin will become worthless, the mere fact that I'm even talking about buying miners suggests that I'm assuming Bitcoin will stick around for a while.

2)  I can't speak for others, but ongoing math helps me determine a good time to sell, and I can move stuff pretty easily...

3)  ...because there are always irrational buyers.

4)  I've bought mining hardware on six separate occasions, all at different price points ranging from $4 to $108 with btc value oscillating between purchases (i.e. btc price neither rose continually or declined continually with each subsequent purchase).  Four of the six have paid for themselves.  One of them appears like it will because those are the erupters, and with the recent btc hike I'm still earning the same amount in fiat as I did last week despite the difficulty adjustment.  One hardware purchase will never achieve ROI -- a BFL Little-SC that I sold as a pre-order.  Because I purchased with BTC, I lost out on about 30 BTC by the end.  If I had purchased that Little-SC with PayPal, I would have about 350% ROI.  I agree that if BTC price goes up it's better to buy BTC outright.  But I disagree that buying a miner is either better or it's not, at least in the sense that I'm not a fortune teller.  Price oscillation changes the variance in profitability between each method, and I think that the way in which it affects that variance can make buying a miner a safer bet (obviously given certain conditions, but I think those conditions are more likely than you'd think).

5)  I disagree with the words "no matter what the exchange rate is."  If you can sell your equipment at a price such that (selling price + mined btc value) > (fiat purchase price), then you can still profit even if the value of BTC goes down.  However, the more BTC value goes down, the less likely this scenario becomes.  But, if you purchase BTC directly and the price drops, there is no possibility of ROI unless you wait and hope the price goes back up.  

As an example, I think it's entirely reasonable to think that someone could privately purchase a 60 gh/s  BFL Single for $3000 today (good for ~23 BTC), mine with it for a month, watch the value of BTC drop to $110, and sell the thing for 22.7 BTC (~$2500, so assuming a $500 depreciation in value in a month).  He would have mined between 10-15 BTC during that month, giving him 32.7-37.7 BTC in holdings, or about $3,600-$4,150.  If he had purchased BTC from the get go, he would have lost ~$470 (i.e. 3000 - (~23 x 110) = ~470) and would have 23 BTC.  Obviously this is a hypothetical scenario, but I think it's just one of many that are plausible and not unlikely.

6)  I didn't even take this into consideration, probably because I assumed that I'd have already sold my equipment long before the price breaches any freak-out low resistance level.

7)  The fundamental goal of any monetary investment is to at least break even.  The name of the game is ROI, and how fast ROI is achieved is influenced by many variables.  The analogy of choosing between $100 or $200 is irrelevant because you're assuming $200 already exists.  Again, if we know without a doubt that BTC will go up, then buying is always the better option.  But right now, $131.57 is the reality and it would have already been to $200, $500, $1000 and beyond if people knew the price was going to go there (they'd buy instantly with this knowledge, and so would you and I).  But, were not rushing to our wallets right now because we don't know $200 exists.  But, we do know that 1) miners generate daily income x(y) where x is the amount of btc mined per day and y is the fiat conversion rate, and 2) miners can be sold for a varying value, z.  Having (xy + z) as part of a known profit formula p = ([(E_(n)-->...xy) + z] - i) can be better than taking your chances on the unknown formula of the market, and unlike when you purchase BTC, you can actually calculate on the fly where you will be in the future.

 In practice, I get about 98% up-time. I get it up all the time.

9)  Yep, that would suck.

Edit:  Fuck my math notation skills.  How would you notate the sum of daily income xy?

Before you start with the ad-hominems, Ill tell you flat out that you're wrong.  First, you're wrong in the context of your argument.  I'm not saying purchasing a miner with fiat is always the best approach, I'm saying it has its merits.  So, I'm not even going to try to rebut your argument because it's a straw man fallacy.  You should be feeling stupid right about now.

Second, While you are correct that the objective profitability of a miner remains the same whether or not you bought it with btc or fiat, YOUR ability to profit absolutely changes.  I'm currently on track to achieve 100% ROI with my block erupters in about 3 months, and that's accounting for difficulty adjustments of about 33% each adjustment.  If I purchased with BTC, I'd likely never achieve ROI.

Think before you speak.

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It's true I made a generalized statement, and of course you can always make a poor hardware purchasing decision.  Some purchases are dead right from the get go, and sometimes people just flat out overpay for things.  However, acting within the right time frame, I think expecting 66% resale value for an ASIC isn't unrealistic.

However, the value of an ASIC is not "purely" determined by the BTC it generates because the value of an ASIC in terms if btc is mediated by fiat conversion rates.  If I spend $1000 on an ASIC that makes 0.1 btc per month, it's a good decision if the value of btc is $10,000.  It's better to receive 0.1 btc valued at $1000 than to receive 1 btc valued at $100.  Of course, if the price of btc drops, then the profitability of the miners also drops.  What I'm saying is that, given a reasonable purchase price, purchasing a miner with fiat may incur less loss than using that fiat to purchase btc.

So two general mathematical statements representing my point might be:

1) If btc price drops, buying btc < purchasing miner with fiat < do nothing
2) if btc price rises, do nothing < purchasing miner with fiat < buying btc

I'd start by looking at your language which is a direct reflection of your thought process and an indicator of your attitude. If you tell yourself " there is nothing else I can do," whether or not that is actually the case, you've committed yourself to this belief.  If "there's nothing else you can do," then why try?

Contrary to popular belief, isolation during depression can be a very good thing.  Similar to how our bodies provide an immune response to physical diseases, a response is also generated with respect to mental illness.  The symptoms of mental illnesses like depression are like road signs pointing you in the right direction. However, when most depressed people isolate, they do the wrong things in isolation that only exacerbate the problem.  These are often passive activities such as sleeping excessively, watching television, or using drugs.  Instead, there are active ways of combating depression in isolation, for example by exercising or meditating.

It's been suggested that purchasing a miner (e.g. Block Erupter) is futile because ROI should be calculated in terms of mined coins and not fiat.  This line of reasoning is based upon the idea that it is better to purchase coins and sit on them rather than buying a miner.

Contrary to this belief, calculating ROI of a miner in terms of fiat has its merits.

I purchased a few dozen block erupters a while back with BTC, but then immediately repurchased the BTC spent on the miners.  In other words, I essentially purchased my miners at a set fiat price since my total BTC holdings didn't vary.  

For kicks, lets say I purchase these miners with 15 BTC at a $100 USD conversion rate.  Is it likely that I will mine 15 BTC with these erupters?  Not likely.  But, since I effectively purchased them with fiat, recouping 15 btc is no longer a concern.  I simply need to recoup $1500 in mined BTC to achieve 100% ROI in the scenario.  If the value of BTC increases and continues to do so significantly, achieving 100% ROI becomes more and more likely.

This method protects against a drop in BTC value because the hardware itself serves to hedge against the initial investment.  If I spend $1500 to purchase 15 Btc and the price per btc declines to $70, then I'm down $450 (I.e. 30 x 15 = 450).  But, if I purchase the miner instead and the price drops to $70, I always retain the option to sell the miner.  For example, selling the miner purchased originally at $1500 for $1000 at a $70 conversion rate, I can receive 14.28 btc for it, and that's on top of the few btc I would've mined already.

In other words, purchasing a miner with fiat is better if the price of btc drops, but it's also better than doing nothing at all if the price of btc goes up.  Buying btc outright may be better if you assume that btc value will only continue to increase, but this is a riskier approach.

A couple months ago, I successfully sold a pre-order for a Little SC from BFL to a customer in Germany.

Due to restrictions on sending batteries and PSUs internationally, the buyer requested that I ship the Little SC without the PSU so that there wouldn't be any problems with customs.

So, I have a spare PSU from BFL that I no longer need.

I'm asking 0.5 BTC shipped to US customers only.