Gox isn't for the patient. 

Same thing for me last time I went to withdraw to OKPAY :  had errors, received vague replies to my email, had no idea whether it was going to be a day, week or month to complete the funds transfer.

But you can't argue with Gox. It's just best avoided if you looking for any sort reliable USD withdrawal time.

I wouldn't get too paranoid about them selectively shipping stuff. I'm sure shipping stuff from 'some place in China' is highly variable thing. Two packages beside each other in shipping could end up in completely different parts of your country in their big circuitous world tour getting to you.

Certainly looks worthwhile then for every Avalon owner to get some Artic Silver and goop it up.

Excellent, this could work out really well then. I'll pm you with my email address.

I might even be able to write off a bit of my vacation expenses as a legal business tax deduction then, where I to do this, which would then be even better...

Well I was planning a Bali holiday in September.... hmm would be pretty awesome if I could move this up a bit and swing by to pick up a Klondike while I'm in the neighbourhood

Thanks Bicknellski for taking it upon yourself to introduce more Indonesian youth to Bitcoin. 

I continued to be surprised how strong sales are for BFL even to this day. Guess it goes to show you how much of an impact advertising can have, and how this sizzle is often more important than the steak.

I can also understand somewhat how folks who haven't read too much about Bitcoin, or much at all on these forums, could be seduced into buying a sexy BFL 'pre-order' after punching in basic numbers into that top Google ranked Bitcoin mining calculator, which has the big prominent BFL ad on the same page.

What I don't understand is how so many people could be so screwed by this company, and yet, how very few seem to request refunds.  Even let's suppose BFL ships in 2 months or so. How can you justify being lied to repeatedly and still trust this company -- there is no way in hell they could have expected to finish their product in any of the initial timelines they regularly proclaimed.  

And if you even then presumed that they were being honest when saying '1 or 2 more weeks' for the last forever, (and going great lengths to win that 'shipping' bet) then you would than logically have to suppose that the level of BFL's incompetence is such that it'd be a far better investment to move your BTC anywhere elsewhere.

Get a refund while you can. Cut your losses.

I'm not all-pro like as some folks are around here but my 2 cents:  you have gpu threads set to 2, so you can  not use a thread concurrency of 20k or so.

You can either have a gpu thread of 2 and use a low thread concurrency of somewhere between 7500 - 9000 for your card, or a gpu thread of 1 and have a thread concurrency of 20000 - 24000  (mine is set to 21712) .

Also, did you know that for scrypt, the intensity settings are all different than sha-256 ?  You may want to try an intensity of 19. High intensity for scrypt is 14-20

I basically agree with your appraisal of the situation OP.

I think if most major exchanges in most first world countries were shutdown, it would hurt the valuation of Bitcoin. But even if this is the case, Bitcoin would still be fine -- it would just grow a lower rate.

Even if Bitcoin was made 'illegal' in much of the world I still think the price would still rise (but at even a greater penalty). Even if Bitcoin was only limited to use as a blackmarket illegal currency, the future still looks bright.

That's a beautiful machine. Thank you for the video .

Sorta wish now I was able to have my own instead of just a group share!  

My Seasonic 1200W is honestly one of the best components I've ever bought.

I think it is extremely well made. 5 stars, totally recommended.

I bought for it for $220 I think. I would not be surprised if I use this thing for like 15 years.

It even came in this swanky purple cloth bag which is perfect for holding Cassius coins.

I think I side with the pessimists on this one.

I only started mining in March (besides a brief stint in 2010). Seeing the LTC difficulty go from about 60 to about 600 in less than 2 months was a depressing surprise. I knew difficulty went up quickly, but I didn't really get just how fast it went up until seeing it myself.

I don't think that BFL will ship in bulk, or over 5% of their orders. I think they'll run out of, or away with, the money (just my opinion.) But even with BFL out of the picture GPU mining is just about done.

There'll be more ASIC companies coming out. I think some of ya'll are in denial that we are at the start of the ASIC wave in earnest. As no one mines on CPUs hardly, no one will be mining in GPUs by the end of this year, I don't think...

Anyways I'm currently planning to sell my 5 video cards around mid-June, and put that money towards other Bitcoin  investments. I'm in Avalon batch 3 and plan to get into the next generation of ASICs whenever they become available.

Buying any new GPUs from this point forward, for mining, is not a good way to spend money IMHO.

Gigabyte Windforce 7950.

I have one and also get over 600 with scrypt.

Best card of the three models I have.

Not sure if the prices are the same for you, but often, for non-stock models, this card was also the least expensive, making it an easier choice.

...and if you have been won over yet, this video card is also fantastic as it has no plastic shroud covering on the top of the card, making it really easy to mount a fan directly on top, pushing air through the card's cooling fins...

Well you have to factor power efficiency into this. Sure the two are still comparable -- but the usb miners take a far less amount of power, space, and output much less heat, which is are big selling points.

If your in that rough shape (sorry to hear) have you considered auction of your unit? Especially with b2 shipping now I'm sure you'd get some takers, and imagine somewhere around the 180% mark.

Ya it's weird. It's almost like BFL is a scam or something.

Hey crabm -- sorry batman, batch 2 has now (at least begun) shipping. So we can rejoice a bit.... yeeha!

I'm going to guess there won't be a huge delay between the shipping of batches 1 and 2, but on the down side, it's going to be overall a somewhat slow process to get all of batch 1 , then batch 2, shipped.

But all good. Super stoked. And I think lateness should be well within my personal acceptable range of 1/10th of late as BFL, so I'm happy.

I think Netcoin will just naturally rise above scam coins with ease .

It'll be successful because of the merits of its design.

As for a quick-copycat netcoin, there would be a heck of backlash against it. I can't easily imagine any scenario where a quick coin copy cat would be able to supersede netcoin's prominence, with such a healthy launch being planned.

This bodes great for BTC in general.

One could imagine that without all the bad stuff that happened this week, instead of having it's price stablized, BTC / USD would have instead climbed.

My bet is that within the next year or two, it'll be China that'll save BTC.

The US gov' has a great deal to fear in seeing BTC become successful, and will probably try to disrupt BTC.

But the Chinese 'communist party' would love any avenue to take besides holding massive quantities of USD, and in doing so, being subject to the ridiculous amount of manipulation that USD is subject to. I could see the Chinese elite (basically the richest folks run the gov', even more so than most countries) investing in BTC as a counter to worldwide American currency dominance.

If both governments become hostile to BTC, than I think BTC will survive fine as a currency primary for money laundering and black market exchange, but it will not reach anywhere near its current potential.

Was going to add something but isn't much to say after that great ^^^ post which sums it all up.