So, according to dreamwatcher all my laptops should be fried by now from me dismantling them piece by piece every 3 months without any kind of ESD protection whatsoever...
Cool!
Haha, same. I just set it on my kitchen table and have at it. :p |
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Here they are, being prepped to ship:  I stopped by the BFL offices the other day and wow, they've expanded a ton since I stopped in a few weeks ago. I met a number of new hires as well, so it looks like they are gearing up for faster production. The Minirig assembly line was full of Minirigs. I was able to take the above picture of one of the areas they are assembling the singles... I tried to slip a few in my pockets, but my pockets were not big enough, sadly. I may try again and wear some cargo shorts. I think maybe I could fit a six pack of Jalapenos in some parachute pants, too. RE: ESD Straps... Look at the outlet closest to the 90's radio. There is some sort of 2 prong device and then what appears to be an ESD strap lead plugged into the ground terminal. Just sayin'  Also, you can see some sort of surface with rounded corners on top of the workbench. Look next to her left elbow. Maybe that's the ESD mat, and the lead from the ground terminal is grounding it? |
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Videos aside (because I don't want to watch them), explain a bit more about the ammo, and what is actually being shot out of these.
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Why does the title say WSJ (I am assuming Wall Street Journal), but there's no WSJ link?
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I agree - I see ASIC as a sign that serious investors are taking Bitcoin seriously, which is a good thing!
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Hopefully the windfall that mini-rigs represents to them will allow them to grow up as a production facility and at address process better.
I agree with you there! |
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Sarge: Sorry, nope, unfortunately it doesn't make it any cheaper. Basically we do what you stated, we take a 4U space and put a shelf adapter in it and it sits there, so it's more or less using up the same space as a 4U  Sorry, but it would be the same price. But, PM me, let me know around what price range you were thinking, maybe we can work something out close to that. Got it, thanks. |
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I seriously hope that they are not using a broom in a static sensitive environment. If this truly is an assembly room, I now have serious reservations about BFL. I do not see grounding straps used, the staff are not wearing anti-static outer garments and the flooring is hardly what should be used in electronic assembly. Open liquids (coffee cup) in an electronic assembly room??? Seriously???  Maybe a QA center for units already assembled, and thus already static protected? I hope this picture is a joke else everybody should be really careful about ordering from BFL and demand proper assembly conditions. Also, failure rate currently unknown, presumed to be one single unit that ngzhang has dissected. If it works, who cares? The walking dead. A major chunk of ESD damaged electronics are considered "walking dead". They will not fail immediately, but have severely shorted lifespans and/or other problems. I don't know about you, but if I am paying up to $30k for a piece of equipment, I EXPECT it to be assembled professionally. Have you seen the inside of any other electronic assembly area? They are normally spotless, with special flooring and stations. The employees wear grounding straps and usually some kind of anti-static outer garment. Exposed electronics are carried around in "clam shells" or at least anti-static bags. I once worked in a cordless phone factory, that produced phones that at a max went for around $80, and all the above protocol was used. You are honestly OK with your equipment being assembled in the area pictured? The only expensive part of proper ESD protocol would be changing the flooring, the rest are extremely cheap insurance to put out a top rate product. They sold me a quality product. Do I care what their shop looks like? Not really but I do like the oak floor  Oak floor, non conductive, perfect for building a static charge. Good luck with taking the risk on receiving an ESD crippled product , you should care what the shop looks like, it is an indicator of the quality of the product. I cannot believe anybody here with any experience with electronics assembly or design would not care about what they see here. Seriously, does nobody here have any experience in this field? Come on posters, somebody else here has to see the serious quality control problems here, it will not change unless you demand it changes. Just because others here are willing to take whatever BFL hands them, does not mean that the rest of us cannot expect at least a BASIC level of ESD protocol when dealing with electronics. I am not even talking about a higher standard, just the basic standard used in the industry. That being said, I am still hoping this is some kind of joke or that BFL will post stating that this is some kind of misunderstanding and what we are looking at is not an assembly area. Do you have a better alternative product? No? Ok, then, moving right along... WoW, that was mature. So because there is only one vendor of a specialized product, you should just take what is handed to you? Only one restaurant in town, so you should just eat whatever they hand you? Why are you defending these practices? Do you have ownership or work for BFL? Honestly, this is both baffling and intriguing. People handing over thousands of dollars not caring about the most BASIC industry protocols when it comes to electronic assembly.Simply accepting whatever is handed to them. You have to be trolling. I cannot believe people as smart as I have seen on these forums accept this. Again, I have nothing against BFL and I sincerely hope this is a misunderstanding. Perhaps this is a returns area, or other non-sensitive area. My point is, what are you going to do about it? The only choice is to order or not order. For me, I very much EXPECT their production line to look like that. They are a company with exponential growth in a very short timeframe who hasn't had years of time and profits to reinvest into state of the art electronics manufacturing facilities. And if I was them, I'm not even sure I'd want to make such an investment at this point, given the volatility of Bitcoin and potential upper limit of sales. It doesn't make sense to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars into a proper manufacturing facility when you make as little sales as they do (when compared with other electronics assembly lines). That said, I definitely agree with you and see some areas where they can improve, but it's not going to stop me from buying from them. If it breaks in less than 6 months, I'll send it back for replacement. If it breaks in longer than 6 months, well, I only expected it to last 6 months anyway. |
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I seriously hope that they are not using a broom in a static sensitive environment. If this truly is an assembly room, I now have serious reservations about BFL. I do not see grounding straps used, the staff are not wearing anti-static outer garments and the flooring is hardly what should be used in electronic assembly. Open liquids (coffee cup) in an electronic assembly room??? Seriously??? Maybe a QA center for units already assembled, and thus already static protected? I hope this picture is a joke else everybody should be really careful about ordering from BFL and demand proper assembly conditions. Also, failure rate currently unknown, presumed to be one single unit that ngzhang has dissected. If it works, who cares? The walking dead. A major chunk of ESD damaged electronics are considered "walking dead". They will not fail immediately, but have severely shorted lifespans and/or other problems. I don't know about you, but if I am paying up to $30k for a piece of equipment, I EXPECT it to be assembled professionally. Have you seen the inside of any other electronic assembly area? They are normally spotless, with special flooring and stations. The employees wear grounding straps and usually some kind of anti-static outer garment. Exposed electronics are carried around in "clam shells" or at least anti-static bags. I once worked in a cordless phone factory, that produced phones that at a max went for around $80, and all the above protocol was used. You are honestly OK with your equipment being assembled in the area pictured? The only expensive part of proper ESD protocol would be changing the flooring, the rest are extremely cheap insurance to put out a top rate product. They sold me a quality product. Do I care what their shop looks like? Not really but I do like the oak floor Oak floor, non conductive, perfect for building a static charge. Good luck with taking the risk on receiving an ESD crippled product , you should care what the shop looks like, it is an indicator of the quality of the product. I cannot believe anybody here with any experience with electronics assembly or design would not care about what they see here. Seriously, does nobody here have any experience in this field? Come on posters, somebody else here has to see the serious quality control problems here, it will not change unless you demand it changes. Just because others here are willing to take whatever BFL hands them, does not mean that the rest of us cannot expect at least a BASIC level of ESD protocol when dealing with electronics. I am not even talking about a higher standard, just the basic standard used in the industry. That being said, I am still hoping this is some kind of joke or that BFL will post stating that this is some kind of misunderstanding and what we are looking at is not an assembly area. Do you have a better alternative product? No? Ok, then, moving right along... |
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Dargo - line breaks. They are your friend.
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@ jfreak - how much per month if I converted it to a 4u? Would that make it cheaper? The pricerange is close to what I am looking for, so it definitely has potential. And 5 IP's would be awesome too!
I like your line of thinking coga. Not sure I agree regarding the tips - that would add extra complication on the client side that they might not want to be involved with. I still like the idea of the payments being distributed according to how much of the file each node contributes when the file is downloaded. I am just uncertain as to whether it would be possible to track such a statistic.
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You have to remember that 18% of us have PhD's or Masters.
That's awesome! What is your source for that number? Did somebody do a poll? Yeah, there was a poll with 200+ respondents. Don't know where though, you'll have to search for it. |
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Well the one time is the Hard drive then your just paying for server and internet, you never again pay for HD, just server usage. Colo: Yes I do , just not publicized since we do it very seldom. What do you have rackmount or tower? It's a full-size tower. Could stuff it in a 4U though. |
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People are so much nicer and more intelligent here than on Reddit. I'm not sure if its because there are less 12-year-olds here, or just that people on this forum have already done lots of thinking on these topics. It seems like reddit reaches a very wide audience, and this forum reaches a very smart audience. You have to remember that 18% of us have PhD's or Masters. |
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The magazine won't be in the racks of B&N until maybe September. It takes a while to process even after the contract is signed (which it is). Asking them not to stock it though is productive though.
Will do! |
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Change thread title to indicate resolved status?
No refund has been made. I'll change it when it is really resolved. Did you end up getting your refund? No, at least they emailed me and said I would get one, but I'm still waiting. In the mean time, I can't order the SC's until they refund my bitcoin. Dear Bitcoin Daddy, We apologize for the time it has taken to process your request. This is mainly due to the huge number of emails we've received lately. I must say that if your intention is to convert Bitcoin to SC, then you will not loose your place/priority as time goes by. Regards, BF Labs Inc. I still haven't gotten the refund, it's been 8 days Not sure what you mean - I have no place in line and when I finally get the refund, everyone else will be ahead of me. I think what they mean is, instead of asking for a refund and then submitted an order for SC, just change your order to SC. Then you won't lose your original order spot. This is good news for me too though - it sounds as though prior orders that are converted will take precedence over new orders! |
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What about people who currently have preorders for prior-gen singles, and want to upgrade to the new ones? I've seen this question asked all over the place, but have yet to see an answer for it...
EDIT: Oh, and a question to go along with that. What would be the priority of the changed orders? Are they part of the 1/3 group?
If you've paid and have yet to receive your unit you can upgrade your order to SC based products. You would have to make up the difference in values if any depending on what you wanted to upgrade into. Regarding shipment priority classification, you'd be in the upgrade group. If you intend to upgrade anyway, you're better of taking delivery of your current gen unit and enjoying it's mining power til your SC upgrade is ready to ship. If on the other hand you want to conserve your investment, then converting your undelivered order would be a viable option. You'd only loose mining time in the wait. You should also consider the relative hashing power of today's gear is probably going to be similar to the relative hashing power of gear after the market stabilizes at some unknown point in the future. The strong initial profitability will balance out as the market matures. Thanks for the response BFL. I have 4 prior-gen singles on order. I don't have significant additional funds to invest in mining, so didn't want to take delivery of all 4 of them. I would rather change the order to 2 of them, and save the additional $1200 to put towards upgrading to 2 of the SC Singles when the time comes (paying the difference between the two orders, of course). Two more questions then: 1) When/how can I upgrade part of my order to SC based products? 2) Will I be placed in the back of the line of all of the people who have submitted upgrade orders for SC products already?I do understand and agree that the market will balance out and stabilize in the future, and it is my opinion that it won't be all too different from current ROI's, but I certainly want to get in the game as early as possible for some of that first-miner advantage as well. Waiting to place an order is a terrible idea if that in the upgrade group they deliver in order. Why wouldn't they deliver in order received? So, I can imagine what the answer will be, but to leave no doubt remaining this question needs to be answered. Well, that is my hope that they would deliver in order received, which would mean anyone who ordered prior to the SC pre-order who wanted to convert their order would get first delivery. |
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Great, cause Ill be a grandpa before this comes out..  But seriously, realistically, what grandmas is going to use a bitcoin device that cant or dosent have a smart phone.. This argument is lame.. Talking about a market genre thats worthless to cater to... I might as well make guns for hunting, catered to animal rights activists.. Cause you know.. they hunt too... Then again, the iPhone was easy/simple to use, but wasn't targeted towards grandmas. Some grandmas use them anyway though. :p Some people just want a device that works. I like to tinker with my computers, but my phone? No, I don't want to deal with having to root it to get the features I want. I want something that is basically perfect from the get go, so I bought an iPhone. It does the job perfectly for me. It's easy to use, it does what I want, and more importantly, it always works. And I don't ever have to tinker with it. So far, there are no Bitcoin wallets available from the app store (that don't eventually get removed by Apple), which means if you want to use Bitcoin, you have to jailbreak or use the buggy Android platform. I see a standalone device being much more reliable than any application running on Android, and not many people want to jailbreak their iphones either. I can see the merit of having a bitcoin wallet on a smartphone, but there's also many benefits to releasing a standalone device. There's certainly a market for both. |
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But how are the banks going to survive 20% inflation with so much locked into 3% home loans? Inflation is the pin that'll make the banks go pop.
20% inflation is caused by money printing, which lowers rates.. 3% home loans means that the banks are awash in 0% cash from the fed, which=inflation.. The only thing that will make the banks go pop is if the fed raises interest rates (by printing less money, which slows the rate of inflation), that ain't gonna happen anytime soon. As soon as the economy starts turning around though, the fed will stop printing all of that money. We see low interest rates today because the money printing is what they are trying to use to turn things around. Tis a good point about the banks, and I am not sure what measures they could take to prevent large losses in the event of high inflation. But, we have had inflation rates in the 15-20% range before and the banks found ways to survive, so I am sure it could happen again. Who says the economy is going to start turning around at all? Have you listened to Chris Martenson explaining this?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WBiTnBwSWcYou are making the classic mistake of thinking that what was normal for the past 40 years is what we are eventually going to return to while ignoring how abnormal the last 40years have been in terms of money printing and credit expansion and subsequent growth of the economy(more like numbers of GDP). You also make the mistake of thinking that past crisis are similar to what big banks are going through today while being completely oblivious how starkly different the fundamentals are this time around where there's this huge mountain of debt hanging over everyone instead of having savings that could be tapped into and help survive the loses, have you listened to Peter Schiff at all explaining this?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdB9I79BQRIYou do bring up a good point. The extra debt taken on in the past decades have helped spur economic growth, but at the cost of future economic growth. Even once we get past paying off that cost of future economic growth, we (hopefully) won't make the same mistakes again with regards to taking on debt, which will mean limited economic growth compared to the past. |
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I misunderstood - I thought you were offering 2 TB of online storage for ONLY a one time fee, no monthly fees!
BTW jfreak, do you do colocation? I have a server running from my house, and it's a nice high-spec server (would cost hundreds/month to rent something comparable), but I don't have all that much upload bandwidth. I'd love a good 10Mbps or 100Mbps non-residential connection to run it on! All the colocation services I've looked in to are very expensive though...
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