1) Highly experienced in their industry in general is what I would take that to mean. I would assume they mean that they have engineers onboard who have designed ASICs for other projects before. Obviously, they hadn't designed an ASIC for Bitcoin mining before. No one had.
2) They've probably developed ASICs before, which are most certainly microprocessors.
3) You have no proof of them lying about this.
4) Ok, I agree, a lie, or at the very least, a half-truth. They should have clarified this by stating "procuring and installing high-speed equipment". However, I still put this statement in a much different pool than I would put them in if they said the same thing and they weren't actually buying any equipment to install.
5) You have no proof of them lying about this.
See how you have to bend over backwards to believe their claims. They're the one making claims that no one can verify. And no, I wouldn't believe you, because you haven't given me good reason to believe you. However, if you began to post verifiable indicators of your vast store of wealth, such as photos of you driving your Ferrari and pictures of your Bitcoin miners inside your mansion, I might believe you.
How did you know I just bought a Ferrari? I'm installing it in my garage right now. https://i.imgur.com/dIlxd.jpgcreativex has another opportunity for me, so things are looking very bright for my retirement. Right. They have chosen not to allow some of their claims to be verified. That is NOT the same as lying. Again, I believe them because they have given me no reason not to believe them. If they had a history of lying, then I wouldn't believe them. Thus far, they have had a history of bad estimates and poor wording, but no broken promises or outright lies. Because of their history, I expect their estimates to be off and I request clarification on anything important that isn't cut-and-dry, but I don't expect them to lie. When you post a picture of you driving it (as well as some image verifying that the driver is actually you, perhaps by holding up a sign of your bitcointalk username), then I might start believing you.  |
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They certainly were planning to ship out in October. So? Unforeseen delays happened. What do you expect them to do?
I expect them to tell the truth. They were not "highly experienced", they're working on their first ASIC and finding out ASIC design isn't as easy as FPGA routing. They were not "a market leader in microprocessor design", they are FPGA programmers. They had no real hope of "shipments for October", they just wanted you to think that so you wouldn't buy from someone else. They were not "installing high-speed equipment", they were simply bidding on ebay for such hardware. They don't have "venture capital funding", they just have $19 million stolen from customers in a mail fraud scheme and a lot of customer pre-order funds. I'm scheduling to retire with $10 million in the bank next week. Do you believe that? 1) Highly experienced in their industry in general is what I would take that to mean. I would assume they mean that they have engineers onboard who have designed ASICs for other projects before. Obviously, they hadn't designed an ASIC for Bitcoin mining before. No one had. 2) They've probably developed ASICs before, which are most certainly microprocessors. 3) You have no proof of them lying about this. 4) Ok, I agree, a lie, or at the very least, a half-truth. They should have clarified this by stating "procuring and installing high-speed equipment". However, I still put this statement in a much different pool than I would put them in if they said the same thing and they weren't actually buying any equipment to install. 5) You have no proof of them lying about this. And no, I wouldn't believe you, because you haven't given me good reason to believe you. However, if you began to post verifiable indicators of your vast store of wealth, such as photos of you driving your Ferrari and pictures of your Bitcoin miners inside your mansion, I might believe you. |
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Interesting article. I'm an FHA borrower myself (big mistake), and recently refinanced my home to take advantage of much better loan rates. When we bought in late 2008, the mortgage insurance cost was about $50/month. When we refinanced, that went up to $150/month. Yikes! On the upside, the difference in interest rate still made it a worthwhile deal, given that we pay almost $200 less per month and about $50 more per month is going to principle. It just sucks to have that $150 tied up as well, because that could be an extra $150/month in our pocket (and for 5 years, even if we pay off more than 25% of the loan in that time!). Oh well... Also, lol @ FHA... go figure, you loan to people with sub-600 credit scores and they default at a very high rate!  |
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But maybe you need to take responsibility for not doing enough research on the people your loaning. I highly doubt ANY OTHER LOANING SITE WILL TAKE LEGAL ACTION ON BEHALF OF THERE USERS. I have yet to see this.
I don't know about all other loaning sites, but LendingClub.com will submit your default to credit agencies, ruining your credit score, and will transfer your loan to a collection agency, which will come after you hard. I believe that is what people expected BTCJam was going to do, based on them collecting credit report info, and claiming they will work to implement those types of actions too. Prosper.com does the same. If BTCJam does indeed have the SSN and other pertinent information for given parties, they SHOULD submit the default to credit agencies and transfer the loan to a collection agency. Doing nothing is admitting defeat to the scammers and the fraudsters. Also, the BTC from loan requests on BTCJam should be sent via mail to verify that the requester is actually who he says he is (alternatively, a verification letter could be sent before the loan is funded if the requester wished to expedite the process). It's so cut and dry, and a 40% fraud rate is exactly why these actions should have been taken from day 1. I've been watching BTCJam with interest for a while now, but why this hasn't been done yet just boggles my mind. |
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Not in Oregon!  What time period are we speculating on? If the Fed is holding interest rates low and essentially re-inflating the bubble (and probably stimulating the housing market through inflation of the currency) then short - medium term prices would probably rise, but they can't artificially hold rates low forever can they? Well perhaps they can if the Fed just keeps expanding the money supply, but that is unsustainable. Long term when rates inevitably rise and /or the economy weakens then more people will be underwater on their mortgages and supply will rise causing prices to fall.
But if the "normal" state of the economy is one of inflation (3%), then when we achieve that inflation rate again, can you really call it a bubble? Regardless, these waves of booms and busts seem to be a normal part of the economy. A way of self regulating and testing the boundaries. I don't think we'll see another recession as bad as this one for a while, but you never know... it could happen. I think many people (with exception of the government) have learned their lesson about taking on too much debt with this 4 years of lowered incomes. |
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How would a court know that you didn't just steal the private key, that you actually accidentally happened upon it?
IMO, the money is not yours, you did not work to acquire it and it was not purposefully given to you, you should not use it. It belongs to someone else.
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Their delivery timeline is, and always has been, somewhere between late October and January 1st.
Let's look at their actual statements, not your opinions: So will the BitForce SC product line REALLY come out in October? This is a fair question. Let's review our track record. If you're not aware, our initial product, the BitForce Single had a slow delivery cycle. This was initially due to a last minute design change before initial product release. When we did release it, we weren't quite prepared for the explosive success we had. After several rounds of scaling, single delivery is in sufficient volume to catch up quickly. The Mini Rig product release has followed it's development and release timeline pretty well. Initial deliveries aren't far from estimates and the speed of production is on pace to ensure most customers will get their Mini Rigs ahead of schedule. The SC product line has been under development for quite some time and is not the result of an expedited development process. Although there are always issues during development, our team is highly experienced in exactly this field and we're currently ahead of our original timeline. Honest Abe, we're scheduling shipments for October of 2012.
They gave every impression that they'd really really be shipping in October. October came and went. November came and went. December is going to come and go, and you'll keep making excuses for them. Get ready for the yearly BFL Chinese New Year excuse for more delays. They certainly were planning to ship out in October. So? Unforeseen delays happened. What do you expect them to do? |
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I'm with you as far as BFL/Josh/Inaba's word goes. I wouldn't invest a thin dime based on what he or anyone else at BFL says(if there is anyone else at BFL) w/o solid evidence at this point...but that's just my opinion and my dime. I do however believe in ngzhang, Cablepair, and friedcat. If Tom wanted to really screw folks that pre-ordered his products he'd not have announced a two month delay that has understandably rattled many(myself included), he'd have announced a 2 week delay x4.
The when of ASIC mining gear is admittedly still up in the air, but the second reputable company's shipping deadline is approaching so the clock is ticking.
100% agreed. While it sucks the bASIC got delayed, I would much rather have it handled the way Tom did. Honestly I wouldn't have minded BFL's delays as much if in October they just said 'sorry, there is a delay. We will ship mid December' instead of October, I promise. End of October. Sorry delayed til first week Novemeber. Sorry delayed again mid November. End of November, I promise. Little delay again first week December, I promise. Ok ok this time I pinky swear promise, mid December. Thing is, each of BFL's delays was for an individual reason. It wasn't that they knew they wouldn't ship until December back in October, or they would have said so. Estimated ship date, provided nothing went wrong, was late October. As October neared, they looked at the parts that still needed to come in and revised their estimate to early November. Then, the chips needed a revision, so they delayed to late November, which is when they expected their new chips to come in. Chip run was delayed to December, so they revised again to 12/11. I'm not sure if 12/11 is when they are receiving the chips or are expecting the units to be assembled, but time will tell I suppose. So, sure, they could have arbitrarily given a December date way back in June, but why? When they were expecting to ship in late October, provided everything went smoothly, why not say that they expect to ship in October, provided everything goes smoothly? And then when delays happened, why not state that they were delayed, and when the new expected ship date would be, provided there were no other unforseen delays? That's what they did, and I don't have any problems with it. I know that this sort of development is tricky, and that there could be delays for a variety of reasons, but I wanted to know the "best case scenario" ship date anyway. I've always viewed late October as a best-case scenario ship date, never as an expected ship date. I don't see anything nonsensical in the way BFL handled the situation myself. |
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We are talking about implementing a player-to-player Bitcoin-based economy on MinecraftCC's server... players could gain BTC by mining or placing blocks in-game as they already do, then use that BTC (or BTC they deposit) to buy blocks or items from other players. I already see many player-to-player trades go down, but also many that are unfulfilled because the right player isn't online at the right time to make the trade happen. Money would certainly facilitate a much larger amount of trading. The only concern I have is that it might turn a bit into a "pay to win" scenario, which is definitely against everything the community stands for, but I think if only player-to-player trading was considered, it wouldn't get out of hand. It'd be really awesome if the plugin developed for this could automatically match orders between players. No shops involved, just type "/sell cobble 1000", the server would respond with "Best price for 1000 cobble: 0.00000580", the seller responds with "/sell confirm", and the trade between the players is done. I've never played around with economies in Minecraft, so I am not sure if this is already how the bulk of economy plugins work, or if it's something never done before. It's how I would like to see it done though. Automatic order-matching just like a currency exchange. |
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Excellent! One more question, and I can experiment to answer this myself if you like, but is it possible to send multiple amounts to the same address in the same sendmany transaction? I know that was one barrier that the other PHP package I use couldn't deal with, because the array used Bitcoin addresses as the index. EDIT: Also, something.com is awesome. I aim to make all the Bitcoin functions to work exactly as if you were querying them directly through RPC JSON. v0.0.30 should be posted today with the sendfrom and sendmany low-level functions. I suppose it should work then. I know it is possible, because I have seen sendmany transactions with multiple outputs to the same address before. I'll give it a shot when you get the latest version up.  |
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Anyone who has been waiting more than 30 days after they sent their payment is entitled to a refund under US law. So, they sure as hell better be honoring refund requests.
From the information I've seen, the 30 days time limit only applies where no specific delivery timeline was specified. Since BFL did state an expected delivery time of October, as soon as they missed that deadline they were required to contact everyone who'd ordered from them and tell them that their order wouldn't arrive on time and they'd get a full refund. (Actually, legally I think they're meant to automatically refund anyone who hasn't explicitly consented to the delay 30 days after the original delivery deadline, but that's probably not workable.) Note that the FTC guidance I read explicitly stated it was the earliest delivery estimate that mattered, so if you quote an estimate of October and then add a bit elsewhere in the small print that you won't refund before January, the fine print's not going to save you. Their delivery timeline is, and always has been, somewhere between late October and January 1st. |
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Excellent! One more question, and I can experiment to answer this myself if you like, but is it possible to send multiple amounts to the same address in the same sendmany transaction? I know that was one barrier that the other PHP package I use couldn't deal with, because the array used Bitcoin addresses as the index. EDIT: Also, something.com is awesome. |
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Why do we need more full nodes? 70k nodes storing the EXACT same information across all of them isn't enough? I'd say that 700 would be enough myself... as long as the nodes cannot practically collaborate with each other, it would be fine...
Cause the more full nodes running the better protected the bitcoin network will be. The stronger it will be against attacks. Remember we are still a pretty small community, in another 3-5yrs we maybe under powered for the growth, so I think is good to start thinking about that now. Mining protects the network. The number of nodes does nothing more than verify that every node has the correct data. I don't see any attack vector involving the number of nodes except on those relying on them for lite clients. DDOS and protecting the quality of the data. A DDOS on 70k nodes? Is that even possible? Can you clarify what you mean regarding protecting the quality of the data? |
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No one will recognize that they are mining until...
- An unsatisfied employee squawks
- A visitor happens to notice
- Suspicious activity is recognized at a pool or particular IP address
- Something else happens (other unknown risk of being discovered)
Now couple that risk with the fact that they wouldn't be able to mine the whole 3500 BTC. They might be able to mine a few hundred BTC and not be noticed for at least a little while. But what is a few hundred BTC a day? $3,800? Over a year, they make less than $1.5M? Sure, not pennies, but far less than what they have generated in sales thus far, and they're looking at the long-term plan too. You think they're going to risk tens of millions in future sales (if Bitcoin continues to be successful) for a measly $1.4M in a year? I just don't see it as a viable business plan, much less an attractive alternative compared to maintaining a solid reputation and continuing sales.
Anonymous mining is not a problem. As for the rest you're right (An unsatisfied employee squawks, A visitor happens to notice). If the sale is more profitable than mining , what is the point to buy ASIC  . If they will have more profit from sale than from mining its means that mining is unprofitable! If people will buy ASIC for $ 10 million they count on fast ROI (10million $), If a company sold $ 10 million worth ASIC, earns ~ $ 5 million. Who earns more, the people or ASIC company? If a company have already ASIC technology and access to very low-cost chips (all for free, with money customers), have reached goal and no longer need customers in the future. They already have or will have from mining the funds for the second-generation ASIC and will earn more from mining. It is not possible to make more money by selling money-producing machine (assuming that these machines have a fast and reliable ROI) than using these machines . Someone always has to lose to another may gain, "Money Does not Come from Nothing" !!! They can do two things at once, sell and mining (additional profit). Is it just a rumor that the BFL / Inaba has big FPGA mine ? No, I agree with you - more money cannot be made than can be made in mining. But, BFL is looking at the long term. They hope Bitcoin is successful. If the Bitcoin price raises from $13 to $26, they can sell twice as many ASICs. If it goes to $1000, they can sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth. Now, you might say that if they mine, they would also see the same increases in profit based on price, which is true, but the price isn't going to go up if one entity controls a large amount of hashpower either - no one would trust the large entity to not acquire 51% and stage an attack. So then, if they mine, they could not feasibly acquire more than, say, 10% of the daily prize without everyone losing confidence in Bitcoin and the price plummeting to nothing. If they sell the miners, their miners could make up 80% of the network. So they would make more money by selling the miners, because they could acquire (indirectly through the sale of miners), say, 80% of the network profit instead of 10%. Also, as Bitcoin matures and stabilizes, miners will be willing to outlay capital for longer and longer ROI periods. So the current expected (based on preorders) 4 month ROI will stretch to 6 months, 8 months, a year, longer... that ROI stretching will stretch sales as well. It is obvious that BFL is not interested in big risks, and there are many risks and unknowns with mining Bitcoins. How would their investors feel if they destroyed their reputation for a mining spree that killed confidence in Bitcoin, and now they have worthless equipment to mine a worthless currency without any ability to pay back their investors? This sort of risk is not in the plan - it just isn't reasonable for a company backed by venture capital to take such a risk. BFL does NOT have an FPGA farm. Inaba does, but it is separate from his employment, and he profits from it, not BFL. Most of the miners he has in his 500GH/s are other people's miners that he stages on their behalf for a monthly fee. |
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No, the recipient already has his copy of the OTP way way before any pigeons are ever sent.
Unless they had a whole library of them, it isn't technically a one-time pad. If that's the case, then the numbers at the end of the message may be which pad to use to decode it. Would somebody be kind as to explain to me (or others interested) as to why the length of the words(?) are all five letters long? ~Bruno K~ My guess would be that spaces are removed in such a cipher to make it that much more difficult for an enemy to crack. Once decoded, it is easy enough to figure out where the spaces should go. OR, one of the letters represents a space. They're grouped into 5's to be easier to read/decode without losing one's place. |
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Why do we need more full nodes? 70k nodes storing the EXACT same information across all of them isn't enough? I'd say that 700 would be enough myself... as long as the nodes cannot practically collaborate with each other, it would be fine...
Cause the more full nodes running the better protected the bitcoin network will be. The stronger it will be against attacks. Remember we are still a pretty small community, in another 3-5yrs we maybe under powered for the growth, so I think is good to start thinking about that now. Mining protects the network. The number of nodes does nothing more than verify that every node has the correct data. I don't see any attack vector involving the number of nodes except on those relying on them for lite clients. |
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I disagree. It doesn't hurt Bitcoin - it simply doesn't help Bitcoin in that way. Are you suggesting that we don't want to introduce new users to Bitcoin? Judging by what I've being seeing for the last year and a half that is one of the main thrusts in this community. Everyone rejoices when more new users get exposed.
Absolute not we should never stop growth or exposer. I am just saying lets be a little bit smarter as to who we target, and lets get people who can really help the community. I don't know if you really look into the under belly of bitcoin, but we need more full nodes and we need more people that have the know how to run bleeding edge test builds for developers. Plus creative sites have really taken a nose dive. IMO the Qt client will improve and one day be usable by newbies. Maybe some newbies will be willing to put up with it, but turning off new users because we demand they use that client is not beneficial to Bitcoin. Otherwise why do we bother developing all these alternatives?
But then post like that ruin the rep of bitcoin-qt and really hurt the network. Alternatives clients have there place, and ecosystem, soon growth will start hurting the network, unless we encourage newbies who know what is going on to make a smarter decisions. I am thinking long term not just today and tomorrow. Why do we need more full nodes? 70k nodes storing the EXACT same information across all of them isn't enough? I'd say that 700 would be enough myself... as long as the nodes cannot practically collaborate with each other, it would be fine... |
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Question - can I send Bitcoins using this? I didn't see anything mentioned about sending bitcoins anywhere in the API or Wiki... maybe I'm just blind.  And on top of that, can I do sendmany transactions? |
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Xenland, I just found this. THANK YOU. I hate dealing with anything to do with JSON, but have managed to plod my way through it with the bitcoin php package made in 2011... this is awesome though! I will certainly download it and give it a try... |
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