Yeah. It begs a comparison to other pools, but it's not using the same criteria as they are... so, well, it just gets a little awkward.

That said, though, if anyone is stupid enough to read any "X% fee!" at face value, and not do their own investigating? They deserve what they get.

The XX% is YY dollars is a calculation we all have to do ourselves. When you think of it, yeah, I *AM* paying ~100$ a month to mine here. Period. I'm paying more to mine here a month than I do for my cell phone bill, assuming values stay somewhat around this mark. But I view it as worth it to get the same, exact, rate, constantly

I have to ask, guys: Why are you still mining here? I mean, I love BurningToad and all, he's adorable and looks fantastic in cut off jeans, hubba hubba, but he's clearly, from his own mouth, not involved in the pool at all.

With the plethora of other pools out there, why are you guys still chugging away here? The downtime alone, since he's not responding as quickly as if, ya know, he was still interested in it, would keep me away.

But, each to their own, I suppose

Ars in the heyday was the shit, I will never deny that.

Are the balances still playing "catch up" from this morning's freeze on payments? I'm looking at approximately a 1.2BTC deficit from normal.

Thanks!

I personally doubt they'd get much from ads, at all. I mean, who here DOESN'T run adblocking software on their browser? Seriously?

My only desire, and I've mentioned it in the past as well, is to bring about namecoin mining, and allow some sort of automated selling of the NMC->BTC, for an extra kick in the ass in terms of overall income. It's something other pools offer, and it's something that would be well received here. I understand not doing it, and I'm clearly fine with it, as I still have 22k mh/s sitting in the pool, but it would be nice.

It's not as if there's a plethora of options in terms of "pools like this". If the 4% fee drives you away, so be it, but I have a hard time imagining your 4% fee is going to net into a lower daily payment than the comparable, also-have-a-fee pools, without the benefit of instant gratification.

Figured it was coming eventually. Logical. Can't really argue against a fee in the big picture, unless you're brain dead. FWIW, and I suggest everyone else do the same: Change your donation to 4% now, so you'll see what your results will be with the new fee.

We can cancel eachother out. When I sell, price goes up.

If you buy, and I sell, at the same exact time, the universe will explode.

Yeah, it's just one of those "cover your ass" kind of statements, and most pools should say the same thing. If they get hacked, you're fubared if you have a crap load of coins sitting there. They ain't going to cover your losses, just as no other pool is going to cover losses like that.

The pool is pretty damn boring, in all honesty. It runs, I get the same amount of BTC given the same hashrate, and I continue on unabated. The best thing I can say is the sheer boredom: No wondering when we'll find a coin, no checking on my Phoenix clients to ensure they're still connected, no... nothing. It just works.

As for the 0% PPS thing, I have to assume if they were losing money hand over fist, they'd change it to an enforced X% donation. They're not idiots. If that means we've gotten lucky and they have a huge surplus of BTC, so be it, or if it means they're getting enough through donations, that works too.

If they enforce a donation/fee, cross that bridge when ya come to it. I can't honestly see joining ANY 0% pool without donating SOMETHING, but that's just me.

My only big wish/desire/hope is they implement Namecoin mining at some point in the future, using the same methodology that they're doing today, or do something like NMC->BTC conversion, and deposit the BTC directly into our existing deposit location. One can only dream...

Viper, what version of Phoenix are you using?

If nothing else, and this is just sort of a blanket suggestion, I'd try the newest version of Phoenix, which is 1.7.0 IIRC (I'm running it on a few Windows 7 x64 machines here, that I could not get CGMINER working on).

Other than that, no suggestions. Troubleshooting those errors suck

Well... he's right and he's wrong. There's not going to be a "best" pool, they're all going to differ slightly, and you'll have to make your own choice. I know I commented on ABC in the ARS thread, but figured I'd farm for more posts contribute some more of my valuable information here

The way I look at it, all of the pools are "active", save ARS. I mean, really, it's not like there's "dead" pools out there. Which always amused the hell out of me; WHO THE HELL WAS MINING AT ARS AFTER BT LEFT? I mean, there were a few 10k+ GH people still mining there. WTF? Are you people dense, or is your botnet really hard to change targets or something? ARS was good, ARS was one of the first big, good PPS pools, but my God people, move your damn miners. It's not like BT even posts anymore. I was honestly concerned he'd just outright vanish and we'd be out any coins we've mined. I can't imagine still having 10k GH/s pointed to a dead pool, Jesus.

Anyways, I digress. Here, however, is my opinion on the pools. Take this with a gigantic grain of salt. Do not try to argue with me, because frankly I'm *SURE* I'm wrong on some points, but you're going to need to do your own research anyways, eh?

YourBTC is closing. Too bad, so sad, at least he told us.

To me, Deepbit and BTCGuild and Slush are some huge, monolithic behemoths swallowing up the entire universe. Clearly, other people disagree with me. Though I do have to question if most people don't just use them due to their "size", and don't really look into it that deeply. They're not the cheapest, they're not the most stable, they're the biggest DDOS/pool hopper targets, and their interfaces aren't that unique/special/awesome.

OZCOIN is Australian. LOL AUSTRALIAN. I have them as a backup pool, since I figure if we (the pools located in parts of the world that don't have sex with kangaroos) all get DDOSed, OZCOIN might still be up. Please note: I'm kidding, OZCOIN, I love you, and have nothing against you.

EMC is just screaming to be screwed over with that whole Paypal thing. I can see that ending incredibly poorly. Plus, at, what, sub 200GH/s, the payout routine would bother the hell out of me.

ABCPool.co: This is where I'm currently at, mostly because, frankly, I'm lazy, easily bored, and just want my X amount of BTC a day. I then turn my X amount of BTC a day into X amount of dollars and spend the dollars on Yuengling. With ABCPool.co, I know I can buy X amount of Yuengling, drink my problems away, and forget about another week of life. I don't care how many coins we've found, I don't take glee in "Beating" anyone else in stats (because all it means is I bought more 5830s from Amazon than you, nothing else. It's not a skill, it's a money pit. Congrats, we've pissed away money on old video cards). I don't care what coins I found. I don't care how I compare to every other person in the galaxy. I just want my X amount of BTC a day, a stable server, and payouts. And ABC delivers that. I don't have to THINK. I just CLICK, and turn away. There's no surprises. There's no "oh, my heavens, we didn't find a coin for 12 hours, now I'm sad in the pants". If and when they add Namecoin mining, for that 1% bonus or whatever, that'd be even better.

But, each to their own, clearly.

Sad to see you close your doors

Frankly, ARS has been "dead" since BT stopped working on it. Relying on a pool that has no operator is... ballsy? I wish BT the best in life and hope he's okay and all that, but the minute he said "Yeah... not doing this so much", it was pretty much a sure fire sign to leave

As to what's the best PPS? I like ABCPool.co. I mean, it's just... mine mine mine get BTC yay yay yay.

I'm all for consistency, though. ABCPool is nothing if not consistent. I have no idea when we found a block last, nor do I care; I just get credit. Yay me.

YourBTC.net was top notch too, and they offer Namecoin as well, but I prefer the consistency of ABCPool.co, even if YourBTC might be "better" long term due to how they payout. They really need a larger hashrate to make it consistent enough for me to enjoy (not a knock against them, mind you, but if they were solving more blocks quicker, the consistency would be up).

Yeah. He's been losing money on the thing for awhile now.

The problem was always the "big hitters" never donating damn near anything to the cause. I was donating some paltry little ~3-4% @ 15GH/s and was almost always 2nd or 3rd in the total donations. It just meant the big boys set it to 0%.

That's the problem with a lot of the pools; yee-freaking-haw if someone cranking out 5GH/s donates 5%, if the big guys never donate, it's all for naught.

That's why I love you.

Having some connection issues this morning, sure you're aware.

Love,

Hotdog

Any reason you're using GUIMiner versus CGMINER? I was the happiest person in the world when I discovered CGMINER and swapped.

I do sort of miss Phoenix's slightly-higher (for me anyways) performance, but CGMINER's features are just stunning. I don't CARE if ABC goes down, since I know they'll all move over to someone else, intelligently

I missed the predictability, even if it's not a maximization versus some other methods.

I'm back in your warm embrace.

I said, I'm back... yeah. That's right. Embrace me.

Embrace me tightly. Don't mind that tightness. Just go with it.

Yup. The pool is incredibly boring from that aspect; the bitch just runs and runs and runs and runs and runs.

Yeah. And it's the hosting bit that made most of us laugh, as if you could start running 40 videocards in a basement of a house you rent and:

A) Go un-noticed
and
B) Not have to massively upgrade your power distribution network
and
C) Not melt from the excess heat.

I see it hitting 1001$.