If you publicly told everyone that your game would pay out more to those who played first, it won't be a scam. Scam implies you are telling people something that is untrue. No one is hiding anything here. Sending money to someone in Nigeria after they tell you they just need money and won't pay you back isn't a scam either.

I want to start a fully automated upscale bitcoin restaurant. I found out that on Center St. in Cumberland, MD, an upscale restaurant is being foreclosed on. This isn't publically known yet. The restaurant estimated price is around $175,000. Since Cumberland is an economically depressed town, I can probably get it a bit cheaper. I want to buy the restaurant and convert it to be entirely automated. If possible, I would keep the menu at the same high class, but the food preparation will be done by robots and automated machines, and instead of waters, dishes can be delivered by conveyor belt systems. Since the town is mostly inhabited by retirees at this point, this will be great because I won't have isues looking for young people wlling to work as waiters, and the older folks won't have to worry about dealing with annoying teenagers. The restaurant will also accept Bitcoin, and will be bitcoin themed to promote bitcoin, with things like bitcoin logos on plates and on decorations on the walls.
The cost of the restaurant, as mentioned, will be around $175,000. I will the need another $25,000 to develop and test the robots, and another aproximately $100,000 to actually build and intall them, and maybe $50,000 for start up costs such as licenses and operating funds, for a total of $350,000. I am looking for donations to collect enough money to start this. These donations will be considered 0% loans until I save enough money to start this, and until the restaurant starts generating revenue. After that, these loans will be converted into investments, and will pay out 5% return, which is much higher than you can get from putting your money into a bank savings account.
I think I would be great for this, and you can trust me. I have been on this forum for many months. I have a high school diploma, and I've taken many community college classes, including some on management. When I was in high school, I built a lot of robots and machines out of pneumatic components and various materals, including legos. I did this at home as a hobby, and as part of a team in my high school class. I also helped run a finance business in SL, and managed some people when I worked at McDonald's, so I know what it takes to run a restaurant. I also know a lot about mortgages and can calculate interests and payments, so I know what it wuld take to finance a project like this.
If you are interested in investing, please post here and let me know, and I'll contact you directly to give you an addres to send money to.

So, are you saying slot machines, Black Jack, Roulette, State Lottery, and all other forms of gambling are a scam? In this "ponzi" everyone is aware of what it is and what the chance of payout is. How is this not just a Ponzi style lottery?

The cost of higher electricity is not necessarily a bad thing.
Take gasoline for example. In US it is HEAVILY subsidized. In part directly, in part indirectly through our military paying for protection of oil fields. Thus, a gallon of gas costs about $3.50, when it really should be around $6. There are other alternative technologies out there. Ethanol and natural gas are a bit more expensive, electric is even more expensive when you take the cost of batteries into account, super-capacitors may be cheaper, but they are very expensive to research, and investors are reluctant to dump money into them, and hydrogen fuel cells are the most expensive, at close to $6 a gallon equivalent. The benefit of gas subsidies is we can all drive around on cheap gas. The benefit of NOT having these subsidies is that all of those alternative "green" technologies everyone keeps talking about will actually become competitive, and there will be a HUGE incentive to develop and implement them, which in turn will make them cheaper due to mass adoption/production. Subsidizing roads, such as adding more highway lanes using tax payer dollars, also keeps public transportation like trains from being competitive. Benefit is slightly less traffic, downside is lack of the excellent transportation infrastructure like the one in Europe and Japan.
With electricity it's pretty much the same thing. Sure, low electric costs are nice, but the upside to letting prices go up is that investors will suddenly see alternatives as viable, and will dump money into it. There are plenty of technologies waiting on the sidelines. Besides the well known wind and solar, there is a personal nuclear reactor being developed in Japan, which is the size of a small buss, is fully automatic, can be buried underground, and provides enough power to support a small community, meaning the costs can be split among many people. It is cheaper than current electricity prices, but still very expensive to develop. My university is also developing a generator that will be about the size of a refrigerator, which will gassify combustible materials and burn the gas to generate power. So, your house can be powered by anything flammable, like your bills, junk mail, lawn cuttings, leaves and twigs, and food leftovers. Again, this can easily compete with electricity you get today, but still needs investor capital, and won't be able to compete effectively until there is mass adoption, which won't be easy with cheap subsidized electric power.

If you don't have to pay for electricity, a 4 GPU heater can still bring in $50 to $100 a month at current prices. People who need a heater will be using that electricity either way. Question is how long are you willing to wait for your heater to pay itself off, if there are enough cold months ahead to do it in, and whether Bitcoin will maintain it's level and not drop further.

I still think it's funny that everyone here and on SA, including Matthew, are trying to "change" or "fix" Atlas. Can't be done. You can't change people even if you call their parents. But it's entertaining to watch you all try.

No, one who has internet access, electricity, and a space heater, but would like to reduce the cost of running their space heater or get a space heater much cheaper than it's cost.

Now they are going to say you cost them their time, brain cells, and IQ points, when they're the ones clicking on and reading your posts 

Seconded on the heater idea. Instead of giving these away as PCs, set them up as dedicated miners running some very basic linux, with about four cards inside, and make the case to look and work like a heating unit. Make it very automated so all they have to do is turn it off and on with a simple switch after initial wifi setup. Give them away for free, or sell them at a huge discount, and let people register them with your service, where they can receive a percentage of the mined profits. You can even set it up as a tiered account, where those who got it for free get 15% mining profit, and those who paid almost full price get 90% profit. Make sure they always get at least some portion of the profit to make sure they don't just repurpose them and have an incentive to keep mining. Most importantly, make these HEATERS, not computers, even if that means disabling most of the ports on the motherboard and gluing the cards in place. You can then sell them to North Americans, Greenlanders, Scandinavians, and anyone else who need to use heaters most of the year, and would have to pay for electricity to do it anyway.

You are shouting in a language many will not understand, and most won't even bother to read. You might as well shorten your posts to "GRRRAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!"

Hey, if he pays back the money, who cares? People shouldn't be investing in or lending to anyone before they research them, anyway. It's as if Giraffe is implying everyone but him are gullible idiots.

It sort of was. I didn't feel like debating JeffK on the details, so kinda blew him off with the least thought full and explanatory reply possible. It was kind of a retort to his almost "Nuh-uh! That's not how it is because I'm saying it's not!" replies.

That PDF wasn't me, it was Atlas. But thanks nonetheless for the compliment.

^^^ Noted.
I hope you don't regret spending so much time on me. You make good points. The parents changing careers example was opposite of what you interpreted it to be. My parents often said that "with a good education (and a degree) the world is a lot more open to you. Employers don't care what your degree is in, only that you have proven you are willing and able to learn." That's their explanation for being able to get jobs in database software development with Masters degrees in microbiology. Not sure exactly how much fundamental truth is in that.

I'll leave it at that

I know for a fact that SomethingAwfull appreciates the loving out of Atlas's posts. Evidence in how much time they devote to him. Good luck with the gambly thingy.

Focused education can land you in a life of focused jobs. What will those blocklayers and pipefitters do when the tech changes, or when their jobs are out sourced to some other country, or replaced by machines? You know where the economy is going; a steady life-long job is quickly becoming a myth thanks to technological progress. I'm sure they are happy living their lives at their level of income, and that's fine, but I doubt most of them have a choice, either (I don't want to get into a conversation of grownups accepting their lot in life and being happy with it). As example, my parents both have degrees in molecular biology. Dad ended up working in genetic engineering instead. When both of my parents jobs hit a pay ceiling, they both studied and switched to software development. It's not a subject either of them particularly likes, and learning it was difficult, but since school and the rest of life was a difficult education in how to learn, they did ok.
As for learning, the biggest issue is that you can't learn something if you don't know what it is or what it's called. Google is a vast resource, but even it can't help. For example, if you wanted to invest in a mix of stocks/bonds, and wanted to know how to calculate the optimal mix, how would know know what information to even search for if you did't know the terms " markowitz efficient portfolio theory?" Better yet, how would you even begin thinking about it if you didn't know that such a concept even existed? Only bringing this up as example because I actually personally ran into this specific problem myself a few months ago.
As for examples of uninteresting but required subjects, everyone should know how cells, blood, nerves, etc work (anatomy) so you can make informed medical decisions, even if the subject is boring. Everyone should know at least some rudimentary algebra and basic finance to deal with money, loans, investments, and other life things (I just had to use it for te recipe I was cooking up this week), even if they hate math. Everyone should know some basic physics and understand the scientific method, even if only time they'll need it is to pull a car out of a ditch, lest they think science is conspiracy bunk and start believing crazy religious/cultish shit. I think everyone should have some exposure to culture and history, if only to know where they came from and on what foundation to build their life upon. Sure, there are thousands of people that don't have much of an education, work their normal hard low level jobs, and are perfectly happy. Personally, I think they just don't know any better, and that's their business. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.
The phrase "I don't know and I don't care" is also something that my family and have never encountered before coming to America. And I think it embodies shameless intellectual laziness. I don't like ignorance or laziness.

Red, similar story in my family. Back in '89, as soon as USSR opened it's borders a tiny bit, my parents just up and left with nothing buy a suitcase of clothing, $300, and two young kids. Even left the teacups on the table, with tea still in them. Our other family members and some of my parents' friends thought they were stupid and crazy for doing that, especially with two kids. When they first came here, they worked as janitors. Then they got jobs they had degrees in. Then when that didn't pay enough, they took evening classes, and now earn six figure incomes each. From $300 to start, and nothing else, while even supporting two kids. Some of the friendships back home eventually had to be broken off, though, because it went from "wow, I have rich American friends!" through "can you get me this and that? You make so much money, you are rich!" to eventual resentment because they are "rich only because they are lucky to be living in America, and aren't sharing their wealth with the less fortunate," as if their hard work had nothing to do with it, and even though those friends had the same opportunity to move here, and even moreso after USSR fell apart in '91. So, no sympathy for whiners from me.

I speak Russian. I think the OP could've summarized his reply to the scammer in just three words

Ёб твою мать

and left it at that, instead of writing up such a big email. Doubt the Russian could understand half of it anyway.

Why the hell does it matter what the definition of inflation is? Just so that one person can pidgeonhole Bitcoin into it and say they are right? I don't think Bitcoin cares whether it's inflating or just dropping in value.

In Soviet Russia, school adapts you. No, seriously, that's how it was. No interest in school? Tough shit*t. Do the material and learn the subject or else :/