My PC (desktop) has only 1 Radeon Hd6950 but when it's mining away,it can heat up my entire flat in less than 30 mins (and even then it's unconfortably hot).The card is heavily OC'd as well and can get a little noisy but that waste heat heats up my flat instead of using 2 more wasteful room heaters (provided by flat).The power use is just under 300W when mining from the wall.
Here's a headline for ya,1 computer heats up entire flat in 30 minutes. :-)
Here's a headline for you: some dude claims three 100-W light bulbs heat up his entire flat. Reputable as any headline you read in the mass media. |
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Great post. I would add, without any sarcasm and with lots of joy, that in 2011 Bitcoin survived two major disasters related to breaches of security in two significant businesses (Mt.Gox and MyBitcoin). The fact that months later Bitcoin is still being used worldwide proves resilience and fundamental value of the idea.
Also, there were two international conferences held, in New York and in Prague.
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Mining income is clearly different from trading income/losses (capital gains and capital losses). Any thoughts as to reporting your mining income? I'd say mining is most similar to a lottery, and in Canada lottery winnings are not taxable - but then again, Bitcoin mining is surely not recognized and regulated as a lottery by the government.
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Bitcoin is something new and hard to define in conventional terms, and as such will have a hard time fitting into any kind of conventional regulation. If states legalize online gambling, they will also regulate it, including the flow of fiat currency. Bitcoin will not be welcome, as legalization of online gambling by the states is really only an introduction of the stupidity tax to help deal with budget cuts. It's unrealistic to expect that they would accommodate an alternative to Fed-controlled fiat, even if they could find a way to tax it.
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Miners do not give a shit about the moral implications of charging taxes.
They just mine where there's money to be made. That is decided by the amount of economic activity in the network (tx fees) and the size of the economy it covers (value of each coin). What network do you think it is most profitable to keep secure?
Most of the people in this world most of the time do things for reasons other than making money. Do not underestimate ideology, emotions, sex drive, fear, jealousy, love, ignorance, curiosity, stupidity, spitefulness, and yes, moral implications. Any analysis based on the assumption that people always choose the best deal based solely on money is out of touch with reality. |
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While I agree with the general premise of the OP, I think the term "Ponzi scheme" is not appropriate, as it implies an intent to profit at the expense of new adopters. While I did profit from the naive speculators who flooded the market with fiat in June/July, I never intended to. I never even hoped to.
The inflation rate is relatively high right now, I agree. However, the potential balancing events are unpredictable. We had a huge influx of fiat money due to "get rich fast" speculators in June/July. Most of them got burned, and left. The exchange rate may now plummet, or it may again pick up due to, for example, a sudden adoption for online gambling or for international money transfers. We will only know in retrospect.
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This is great, I'm sending three days worth of my mining income. Hope they would be able to spend those coins directly rather than exchanging them for fiat.
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Should bitcoin rebrand itself as "The People's Currency"? It is, after all, created, by the people, for the people.  Perhaps it would make it more appealing for bureaucrats in the certain People's Republic...? Seriously, though, this is an important aspect of Bitcoin. Not only is it Open Source, but the infrastructure itself is decentralized, distributed, and open to any and all users. I'd be careful calling it People's Currency around people who suffer from socialistophobia, though. |
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After getting some reading and thinking done, I am still not sure what to make of it. Right now I am leaning towards "past performance indeed is NOT indicative of future results."
Here is some food for thought, with the caveat that I am completely uneducated and non-indoctrinated in the field of economics:
(1) price/value of a stock or commodity is mainly influenced by factors other than past performance. This is, I believe, called "fundamentals." This is why insider trading is considered unethical/illegal - obviously knowledge of things other than past performance can help you predict the price trend and profit. Ergo, it's not about past performance, but mostly about plans and business decisions. It's also about completely external factors, such us competitors' moves and inadvertent timing with related products or technologies (the time was/wasn't ripe, etc.).
(2) Bitcoin is presently an oddball because fundamentals and external factors are essentially non-existent. The economy, apart from SR and maybe some laundering operations is simply not here yet. Therefore, the price is mostly formed by speculative trading, and many traders believe in technical analysis and don't buy the subject line of this thread. Ergo, bitcoin price indeed is to some extent shaped by trends and fashion. Having said that, it is still a complex system (different and changing strategies, especially recently with trading robots; relatively small market cap that enables significant move of the market by individual players).
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Ok, So suppose MtGox lends out 10% of their Bitcoins. They have then increased the money supply, right? Assuming people agree, what do I do about someone who is editing the wiki and talking about 'substitutes' and other nonsense instead of leaving it the way it was?  Isn't this what types of money means? You are talking about MB, M1 or whatever, and they are including M2, M3, or whatever in their definition of the supply... |
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Oh no?
What genius determined the economy is a one way function?
More importantly, who are the idiots that don't understand that sometimes a system can be so complex that it's much more truthful (and, less arrogant) to simply say, "Well, past performance probably, almost certainly, IS indicative of future results, but I'm too dumb."
The economy isn't the only system in the world and it is by no means closed.
Oh yeah, another thing...
If you're equating "past performance" with price (cross-sectional data), then this is a whole new issue. Sometimes a market will go to $5 because it is at $2, whereas the same market would go to $1 if it is at $3. Sometimes a price is too high and this can have a negative impact on the market for various reasons. Conversely, sometimes a price is low, but this can have a positive impact on the market because of the context in which the price is embedded.
What does this mean? The price you see is not a completely reliable indicator of "performance," nor is price simply an arbitrary number -- the price is established because of a multitude of factors, so the price is a reflection of these factors. Maybe once we realize that 1) Some things are just far too complex for a human to deconstruct, or 2) that the ego doesn't like to be wrong and it likes to project ignorance onto it's environment, we will look back on the phrase in the subject heading and say, "so THAT'S why I always hated school..."
You wrote a lot, but didn't explain what you meant by "past performance." Once you define this clearly we can proceed with the discussion. |
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Quite interesting to watch interest over time on Google Insights... You can see a surge and then decay of searches from China, followed by the recent surge from Russia.
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Obviously the journalist did not do even the most basic job before writing this. We should write to the editor. What's next, an article in Business Week about trading, where they interview a jailed expert from Enron without mentioning the scam and the fact that he is in jail?
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That chart isn't exactly designed to be used as a tool to aid in trading decisions.. It's really neet to look at but if you want info to use for your trading activity you want to look at the ticker and orderbook in a more structured manner. i.e., write a script for it or use one of the many trading apps out there that will let you plug in api data.
You are missing my point here. That chart IS (was) generated based on the API data. It is reasonable to assume that the glitch was in the data, not in the chart. It wouldn't be the first time. |
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glitch in the matrix. not the first time it has happened and won't be the last.
How do I tell a glitch from legitimate data? This one is obvious, but how do I know there aren't less obvious glitches? How do I know that the whole MtGox price is not a glitch? As much as I generally appreciate the service MtGox has been offering, problems like this one make me wish for a third-party audit. |
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what happened here?  |
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Alright, I do get the "I just got hacked" linked as a second subentry of the bitcointalk.org (which is right on top of the list of hits). This also happens in private browsing mode, without cookies. I'm in Canada.
How can this be dealt with?
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Excellent thread. I would like to see a few sentences at the end that also explain the initial creation of the supply. Whenever I try to explain Bitcoin along the lines of what is attempted here, I get asked about the origin of Bitcoins in circulation. Any suggestions?
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I got hacked is the first sub-link for me, dunno what you're seeing without a screenshot I posted that on purpose, JeffK. I agree with the sentiment that each person would get a different result because of Google's algorithm. Curious, though, what would the results be if you had a brand new computer or, at the very least, search without logging into Google via a freshly installed browser you haven't used in the past. Wouldn't Ctrl+Shift+P in Mozilla do the job? AFAIK, Google searches are personalized based on your Web history if you are signed in, and on cookies in case you are not signed in. Search results today are affected by IP only regionally, and not personally. I'm signed in to my google account when I use it, so I'm pretty sure it personalizes me at that level, not only by cookies. That was exactly my point. If you wish to check non-personalized results for your geographic region, simply use private browsing mode and don't sign in. On top of that, you are welcome to use Scroogle, ixquick, etc. There is too much unwarranted fuss about "search bubble" and personalized search. |
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