A large group of people believe SDice transactions are bad. They recognize there will probably be similar organizations. In their infinite benevolence, they volunteer to launch a service providing pools and individuals with blacklists to prevent bad things being entered into the blockchain. We'll call this service "Community Blacklist."

Community Blacklist is accepted appreciatively by many TH/s within the community, and within a short span of time, comprises of ~1/2 the entire network. At this point, the Satoshi Shogunate (he was annoyed >80% of "his" blocks were being taken up by gambling) controlling Community Blacklist realize they can do more than just stop bad things from happening.

A VC works with the Satoshi Shogunate ("Satosh") and provides them with $250k in funding. Only Satosh and the VC knew, at that point, what the money was for. Satosh begins providing $1,000/%TotalNetworkHashrate/month to pools which use Community Blacklist software. Community Blacklist (henceforth known also as "Satosh") has now infected 95% of the network, given pools can now comfortably offer significantly more money than solo-mining.

Satosh goes to a meeting with SDice execs and suggests they pay 30% of profits. In exchange, Satosh is willing to allow SDice back onto the blockchain. SDice, having endured a month of unsuccessfully attempting to convert to an "internal" model where people must send BTC to personal addresses tied to their username on SD servers, wait for confirmation, then manually withdraw if they haven't lost everything, agrees, and Satosh has its first revenue stream, granted by the mighty authority provisioned by control of the monetary system. Satosh is publicly praised by the media for establishing the Global Bitcoin Users Agreement, creating punitive fines for all socially unacceptable behavior the blockchain is used for.

Satosh, showing its lethality, quickly evolves. Due to the blockchain being so horribly bloated, Satosh has decided a new scheduling system must be put in place for the good of the network. For the majority of the day on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, only "VIP transactions" will be processed, and all pools infected with Satosh must switch to using whitelists instead of blacklists. For 10% of monthly profits (certainly, the Satosh IRS will verify), businesses are entitled to enjoy uninterrupted transfer service on the blockchain.

Naturally, the Bitcoin community whines, but certainly no free marketeer would denounce greed, and so Satosh ups their offering to pools... $5,000/%TotalNetworkHashrate/month.

Things run fine for months, but eventually, the time comes for Satosh to secure a stranglehold. Monday-Friday are declared Days of Business, and only those willing to pay a flat 15% tx fee will be permitted. The "VIP transaction" schedule now includes every day of the week, and for all but 4 hours of the day, only those paying 25% of profits to Satosh will be allowed to have transactions processed on the blockchain. To ensure miners stay on board, Satosh now offers $20,000/%TotalNetworkHashrate/month, doling out a shocking $2m/month to pools, too much for anyone with large sums invested to protest. Bitcoin has finally succeeded on a massive scale.


On the first anniversary of Satosh, a 70gb file is pushed to pools. Henceforth, only whitelisted addresses may utilize Bitcoin. All addresses must be tied to registered entities, and all transactions must be explained in detail to Satosh. Users, of course, must agree to the inhuman (if only in length) agreement to be registered as a Certified Bitcoin User. If someone commits a crime, they're bankrupted until they make amends. Poof -- it's the voluntary world government we all crave, with more resources at their disposal than the USSR, China, and US combined! What a magical victory for individualism on Earth! ... Except then God sends a poisonous meteor to Earth, you have those plagues, and the wars and whatever.


ETA: Oops. I forgot we refer to the USSR as the old Empire of Russia again, because nothing says "reformed" like going back and forth between the titles of harsh occupational empires. Oh, well... Probably no Rurikovich jumped off his horse (riding bareback) to strangle bears to death for sport, and in the past century, they've become an anti-imperialist empire after losing almost all traditional feudal territory, which is possibly even more progressive than US Senators renouncing constitutionalism.

March 3rd Update:

Revised payment plan was released to unit-holders of more than 10 BDK.BND units. There will now be a more "flat" payment plan which is more in line with reality. $500/mo minimum payment for next two months, $1,500 each month after if hired on as explained in Feb 28th email update. Only minimum payments will likely be paid until around the end of 2013 to beginning of 2014. After that time, there will likely be significantly higher payments when the BTC price "seems cheap." Should BTC price remain as-is, I won't have this fully paid off probably until 2015-2016.

Currently, there are withheld payments of ~26.8BTC from cash on hand after higher-priority debts were paid. There is an additional $500 USD being withheld from the February 28th payment date, so ~$1350 total waiting to be paid. I'm waiting on Ukyo/Jon from BitFunder, ATM. I turned over the claims sheet, but Nef sent me the data in a different format than he sent others'... I'm not sure if that's what's causing the delay since Ukyo hasn't been replying to me on Skype. If March 28th comes and goes without anything from BitFunder, I'm planning on just doing sendmany transactions for payments. Assuming no launch on BitFunder, there should be a total dividend distributed equal to 26.8BTC + $1000 equiv either at the very end of March, or early April (given my work schedule, it'd probably be between March 30th and March 31st). Should I not list on BitFunder, there is no reason for this thread and it will be locked.

I was unable to get my usual person to regularly sell me BTC in the amount I want for SharedBranchingUSD at CUs. If anyone else in the US has a CU participating in shared branching, a very high reputation (or willingness to send first), and wants to regularly sell me BTC OTC with a minimal (or nonexistent) fee, PM/email/Skype me, please. (I'm generally only around 0-1 hour per day unless it's Saturday night or Sunday morning, in case you message me and wonder if I'm ignoring you)

No objection from me. 

Shit. Wish you'd have PM'd me (not your fault - I just haven't been around). I'll file a claim immediately and pass on whatever they give me to you. They were obligated to have it to you the day after I shipped.

Disregard my PM.

ETA: I called FedEx and they relatively quickly (though through many transfers) approved my claim and forwarded it to USPS for them to approve, since they're the ones who do the actual refund. If they approve the refund on their end, they'll refund the $87.35 in postage. I paid extra for it to be delivered via GXG because I didn't have it delivered the day I said. Since you're the one damaged by delayed shipment, it's reasonable for you to be refunded the entire amount via BTC once I've cashed their check, which should arrive in 1-6 weeks (pending USPS approval of the refund).

Cheers,
Ben

Updated OP to reflect that I'm no longer offering escrow services due to a lack of free time. Sunday will pretty much be my last day online.   

Updated OP to reflect sale of Icarus boards, added some info and gave a projection for February.

It's currently expected that $800 equiv in BTC will be paid on the 28th of February, March, and April. In May and beyond, ~$2.5k will be paid on the 28th of each month. No longer valid. See below.

Bidding's over. Sorry I'm 20m early.

If Satoshi were willing to reveal himself for money, wouldn't it make more sense for him to just cash out his holdings?

Anyway, if Satoshi came back, he'd probably end up with the SCAMMER tag because of some obscure bug two years ago which caused loss of 6,000BTC which Satoshi refuses to pay for.

Filed a claim within a week of GLBSE shutting down, received nothing until a shareholder complained to him. Didn't get BTC, only asset lists. Nef said I didn't file a claim. Gave him evidence not jiving with that idea. No response since I sent that response 2-3 weeks ago.

Oh, well. Guess I'll just be reasonable and not send out payments until Nef repays the full amount owed. 

(mods might want to make a separate thread on this, since we're OT)
I wondered about this a few days ago. GoxBTC is NOT BTC, but a debt-note. It's effectively a redeemable coupon for the amount of BTC listed. Gox doesn't necessarily need to have the reserves. They could use fractional reserve practices to use the BTC for whatever they please. By issuing debt-notes (GoxBTC or GoxUSD, of course with USD itself being a debt-note), Gox can sometimes seem more like a bank than merely an exchange. Aside perhaps the law, there's no reason Gox couldn't just issue $100k GoxUSD and cash it out on one of the exchanges which automatically accept the vouchers. Gox could then cash out the "AurumUSD" (or whatever) for "real" USD or "real" BTC as Maria suggested.

It's almost "too" powerful for an exchange to be able to issue currency and have it widely trusted and accepted within a community. I'm not sure what kind of safeguards are in place, but it'd be nice to hear more from Mark & team about what kind of systems are in place to prevent Mark from doing exactly what Maria accused. When lending, GoxBTC or GoxUSD was extremely convenient, fast, and free for loan payments. It was preferred over "real" USD or BTC because it was so frequently converted (and because GoxUSD transfers are internationally both free and instant, which is virtually impossible to get anywhere else). It is a superior solution, IMO, to "real" USD, and also has its advantages over "real" BTC. That centralization's more dangerous than an untamed fire-spitting dragon which makes millions of spikes fall randomly from the sky, though. (possibly exaggeration)

Thanks!

Could you explain why hard drives are different from GPUs or gasoline engines which have "health" decreased with excessive use? For example, assume you have two otherwise identical engines -- one has 10k miles on it, the other has 100k miles on it (or km). Why would the engine with less miles on it fetch a higher price, even if they were manufactured in the same year?

Or for GPUs, a GPU used lightly should fetch a higher price than a GPU which mined for the past 3 years. They are otherwise identical, but one has more "wear."

Why would a hard drive be any different?

Could you imagine a company going to VCs and saying "we really want to make a printer so versatile and powerful, it can replicate itself entirely, and for 1/10 of what we'll be charging!" I think it'll take a 3d printer company advertising it's able to replicate another company's printer to set that clusterfuck in motion... 

Without proof-of-concept, I'm having trouble imagining what kind of dividends the project could bring in. If an "average" project were to take .5kg of wire, wouldn't that indicate the fee to print is effectively ~$170? At a minimum, it'd cost 200*.04=8BTC, or ~$120, which is effectively just the service fee for you to print something. Will you be charging non-shareholders more for this service? My imagination's fairly limited and I haven't looked through the databases of open-source designs. What could be produced by the Makerbot justifying a $170 price tag?

I'd suggest # of shares owned corresponds to a discount in using the service, up to some maximum. So, if you owned, say, 1k or more shares, you get a 100% discount on the service fee (but not material costs). 500 shares would equal a 50% discount, 100 shares 10% discount, and so on. Alternately, perhaps you should have to pay the company to personally use the makerbot at the same rate you'd charge them. When a shareholder pays 200 shares as a service fee, are those profits distributed to the shareholders as a dividend?

Hrm... This one's more difficult. I *THINK* they should work, but I don't know enough about the differences between NA & EUR electrical wiring to say for sure. I can take a picture and upload, but not here, and I won't be going somewhere I can mooch off a high-speed connection by the time the auction ends. The power supplies are two-pronged (no ground), have input rating allowing 100-240V. The power adapter is labeled a "switching" adapter. I'm not sure if this relates to "switching" between different input voltages or the AC-DC switch. If I could load the Icarus page (I'll hit "refresh" on this page 2-8 times before my post actually posts), I could see if he had a separate North American and European version.... If he just had one version, it seems safe to say it was probably designed to work with either voltage inputs. ... But again, I'm not saying that definitively because I wouldn't be too pleased if the board worked, then fried.

(while I'm staring at the input specs sticker, 1A max draw, 50-60VA - 50-60Hz. The output specs show +12v, 2A max.The part number is R33215 from Sunny.)

You know -- lemme just email ngzhang and double-check. I'll get back with you. It'll probably be tomorrow before I hear something, so the auction'll be extended to 5pm EST tomorrow (Friday). If you want a "conditional" bid depending on what nghzang says, that's fine with me, too, fwiw.

You guys are so far behind the curve.... What you really need to do.... is create an underwater tornado!

http://abc.go.com/shows/shark-tank/episode-detail/episode-308/950320?page=3

It's in original packaging. Even comes with original tape (uhh - yeah, I guess I should tape over that, just in case ). I put them on risers and basically ran them inside the boxes after tucking the cardboard flap back.

Oh. If it wasn't assumed, the units do come with mini-USB->USB connectors. I believe one isn't original, though, so if you were looking for a truly "authentic" experience..... SoL. (One was malfunctioning when I bought it, changing the adapter cable solved the problem)

France shipping:
1-3 business days, $79 for both
3-5 business days, $47 for both
6-10 business days, $38 for both
"whenever," $25 for both

Will you let me quote you for an ad, yet?   

2 days left!

Three days left!

The recently-terminated will eventually be paid - possibly. A worker in a rural area where there's only one major business around would be totally screwed. They may be unable to find work for months or years, long enough to rely on charity (or in the current clusterfuck society, welfare).

Your theory is sound, but it's just a theory. Workers SHOULD find a new job where their work is worth more than they're paid. It makes sense -- they have bills to pay. - But will they? How long will it take for them to be doing nothing (which, as far as productivity goes, is probably worse than working at a loss) for them to find a new job? The skills they picked up at the old place may either be irrelevant, or the businesses could have very different policies in place, preventing maximum efficiency for the worker. Because the job is different, it's very likely the workers will not be as efficient, because they won't have as relevant experience as the job they were working (assuming they weren't temps or something).


So, let's make up a mock experiment using some made-up Best Buy corporate store. We'll say they have 20 cashiers and 20 salesmen. The company recognizes that each salesperson is technically bringing in net income for the company. However, their workload is relatively low. Many of them have more down-time than time able to work due to a lack of customers (and overstaffing). Most of the cashiers are worked beyond what they're able. Lines at this Best Buy store are thought by management to be too long, resulting in customers avoiding the store. Best Buy has two obvious options to help alleviate or solve the problem: fire some salesmen and assume customers will purchase fewer items, relieving cashiers OR retrain some salesmen to work as cashiers (keeping in mind these jobs have a lot of crossover skills).

Firing the salesmen, I'd argue, is simply giving up on the employees, and it's probably bad for the economy as a whole. By not retraining the salesmen to do something similar, you're letting them out into the wild where they now must explain termination on a resume. Should they readily find a new job (which I can assure is very difficult in a rural area), it's very possibly these people who've spent years or decades working their job will now go into a different type of job with an entirely different skill-set required. I'd argue when a company like AmEx lets go of a mass of workers like that, it's management basically just throwing their hands up and declaring "we don't know what we're doing. We don't know what to do with these people. We can't think of any way to use 'our most valuable asset' in a profitable way, and all this time, the arguments in upper-management have always been 'do we fire them, or keep them doing what they're doing?'" I can imagine a lot of scenarios where it isn't the workers' fault, but really the lazy management's inability to repurpose relatively valuable people (given they have a history with these people, they have lots of useful data).

Idunno. Lack studies to say anything authoritative, so I'm just shooting out speculation, too. It seems a little scummy to me to fire a large number of workers, though, without firing executive management. Maybe contractually give execs a special one-off monetary bonus to make the decision, but insist they can't be rehired, so they have to really think if there's absolutely no way to use these proven, skilled workers in some relevant way. Firing people just seems like a half-ass, lazy, "easy" solution. I'm really not arguing over whether or not government should be involved, though - just curious on whether or not firing "unproductive" workers is a net gain or loss for the economy once total unproductiveness in unemployment, demand decrease, and welfare are factored in. I guess, growing up, I only heard that "firing people is bad because companies make money, and they shouldn't make more money by firing people," and by the time I hit the age of reason, I was surrounded by libertarians so I've never heard any decent debates on the matter.