I dont see much difference when it comes to pride between BFL and Pirateat40. Same bullshit different day/year.
Yup. That should tell us something. Not something definite, but a decent clue. That is why on a different post I did not except the assertion that Josh was stupid or incompetent. It's just that most people (including his fiercest opponents like you) are totally mis-mapping what 'competence' and 'skill' mean in the context of BFL. Just as was the case with Pirateat40, a brazen 'in-your-face' attitude is/was very effective bait for a certain class of 'customers'. This kind of operation in Bitcoin-land seems to be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. If Josh was competent his time estimates would have been much more accurate. So no, he doesn't have a fucking clue about any part of the process. Or he does and was just lying. Either way it is pathetic. He had as much of a clue as he needed...which was not really a whole lot. Don't be thick.
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I dont see much difference when it comes to pride between BFL and Pirateat40. Same bullshit different day/year.
Yup. That should tell us something. Not something definite, but a decent clue. That is why on a different post I did not except the assertion that Josh was stupid or incompetent. It's just that most people (including his fiercest opponents like you) are totally mis-mapping what 'competence' and 'skill' mean in the context of BFL. Just as was the case with Pirateat40, a brazen 'in-your-face' attitude is/was very effective bait for a certain class of 'customers'. This kind of operation in Bitcoin-land seems to be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.
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I don't think there will be a 'downfall' to BFL. I think they will achieve everything they set out to achieve and probably more than they expected to.
Your statement above is already a fail. They missed their October, Nov, Dec ... April dates for shipping. They missed their specs. Mini Rig has no real solution (their supposed cases are too small) just to name a few things they set out to achieve and failed. So no your expectations are already in the clouds and unrealistic when it comes to BFL. Plain and simple. I don't think pirateat40 had a 'downfall' either. His operation had a distinct endpoint although it was not predictable exactly when it would happen. When I say 'downfall', I mean only that I don't believe that the BFL operators will end up in jail or even find it necessary to undergo clawbacks for a significant fraction of their take. Plain and simple.
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Please define "effective" ![Huh](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/huh.gif) ... Separating fools from their money.
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... Josh: "That's the thing about being in a position where your skills are valued and you aren't just another cog in the machine."
Josh is hinting that only in "his position" one can do whatever he wants, because his skills are so much more valuable than the skills of anyone else (aka us worker slaves). That he doesn't have to play by the rules.
That is one of the few things Josh has said that I actually don't doubt all that much. Like it or not, the guy probably is fairly bright and effective at what he does. Unfortunately that is also why a lot of people are out a lot of money. This ignorance and this arrogance will be the downfall of BFL.
I don't think there will be a 'downfall' to BFL. I think they will achieve everything they set out to achieve and probably more than they expected to.
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Another Oregon-er, but not (recently) from the metro area.
My interest is potentially conflicting somewhat (explained below.) I am interested almost exclusively in the K1 USB style units.
My interest is mostly political (in a Bitcoin sort of way) in that I feel it would influence Bitcoin to remain more 'peer2peer' if the barrier to entry for mining were as low as possible. People who are participating as non-commercial miners are not going to wish the solution to grow past the state where they could realistically mine.
I believe that individual users already overpay for bandwidth which they do not use, and the power costs for a small efficient rig would not even factor into most people's economics. Thus, widely distributed mining may be competitive with commercial operations which do need to factor in power use as a major cost of operation.
So, I would be interested in any leads you may turn up in terms of local manufacturing and would certainly make an attempt to compensate for any effort it might save me. Or if at some point you wish to and are able to coordinate such an effort that might be interesting to me also. Secondly, if anyone else reading this might be of a similar mindset as I, I would be interested to hear from them.
Even if you (OP) are interested in a project along the lines of what I am talking about, I would not waste to much time on research. It is more likely than not that I will lose interest. But if you are talking shop with any leads and the conversation comes up, I'd be interested to know what you/they think.
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The main issue isn't necessarily trust in my opinion but rather the fact that bitcoins are NOT consumer friendly. The vast majority of people who use bitcoins are highly tech savvy. Bitcoins are complicated and security and storage is challenging.
Why you filthy blasphemous heathen! You are probably going to tell us that the Emperor has no clothes next I suppose ![Smiley](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/smiley.gif)
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Well then there you have it. You've proved my point for me! Bitcoins carry a significant risk of being stolen and you have to go to extreme lengths to prevent that. BTW I found this on the forum. You may be interested in it: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=203531.0When I say 'trust' I am talking about 'counter-party risk'. If you think I proved your point, you probably didn't understand much of what I said (and are likely not alone...) As for some magic crystals to keep my secret keys safe, I'll pass. Relatively speaking, and from the standpoint of someone who is proficient with basic computer security methods, it is not that difficult to reduce the risk of theft and loss to near zero. Mostly just tedious and inconvenient. Not unlike dealing with gold in fact.
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I am a computer geek too but I am still not 100% confident that I have done enough to guarantee the security of my coins. Also computer geeks have been robbed of coins too. Just the most recent incident that has come to light: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1e79ig/how_were_my_encrypted_bitcoin_and_litecoin/About PMs, in my country only one company is allowed to import gold. Trust in the purity of gold is so low here that gold sells for a lower rate than outside the country. People actually travel to Dubai just to buy gold because they trust the jewellers there more than the ones here. So it depends on where you live and your circumstances. A glance at that reddit indicates that that guy is on a whole different plane than I in pretty much all ways (not to sound to conceited or anything ![Smiley](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/smiley.gif) Of course I don't treat all of my coins in the same way, but my main stash is completely inaccessible even to me unless I go to a bank and lock myself in a room. Alone. On top of that, I was super careful that even if my secure workstation (a BSD box) got hit with a hot-disk attack by someone who knew how to us dd, it still would not be possible to retrieve my secret keys. My biggest danger is probably that I could be tortured to death by someone trying to get my stash, but at least they would fail. As for PM's, ya, they are an expensive hassle to acquire and dispose of. As much as possible I engineer such an events to be 'several times per lifetime' affairs for that reason. If I'm getting paid, buying trinkets, etc, etc I'm perfectly happy with fiat, checks, Visa, PayPal, etc. In fact I prefer them to Bitcoin in a lot of cases since I can do charge-backs or use the court system if I get ripped off. Sacrilege here on the forum, I know. That should earn me at least one more 'ignore' ![Smiley](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/smiley.gif)
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One of the major things which draws me to Bitcoin is that it is completely trust-free by design. Just like physical precious metals. In fact I would go so far as to say it is The (with a capital T) big draw in my mind.
You've obviously never bought physical gold or silver. The biggest risk there is that your are being sold non-precious metals with gold or silver coating. Or that you are being sold something that is less pure than advertised. That is why coins and bars from reputable sources carry a premium. edit: To add, bitcoins are truly fungible. But they carry their own risks. The risk of being hacked and having all your coins stolen for instance or the risk of a fall in the value of bitcoin. Buy PM's from a reputable dealer who's been in the biz for a long time. I pay the premium for the piece-of-mind of having technical work done by a professional just like countless other services. No biggie. As a computer geek I can managed the risk associated with Bitcoin theft with as much precision as I need to make it vanish. An Achilles heal of Bitcoin is indeed that this has proven fairly challenging for ordinary people and many BTC have been lost to thieves. It is not the only system which undergoes such a 'transfer of wealth' though. To summarize, both gold and Bitcoin allow me to trust myself rather than to need to trust others. I like that.
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you guys won't kill me if fro mthe day i get the package to mailing it all out is 3 or 4 days, will ya? christ there's a lot of you, and a lot of chips...
That's kind of what I expected. The chips should be shipped in order of size ordered; the more chips you bought the more you are affected by delays. I ordered 20 and if I don't end up piggybacking on a group pcb build, fully expect to be shipped somewhere near last. wouldn't that go against the overnight shipping offer? or, then again, it kinda compensates for shipping later doesn't it, if you arrive sooner/ same time... hmm. Next time you run one of these (if you are not so burnt out that you'll swallow glass first), think about a policy where the shipping queue is organized based on the order in which people paid up when the call for funds went out. If I were doing one of these, I'd be tempted to see if I could leverage some automation of some sort. Google Forms comes to mind but that's only because I've seen it. There are probably other such things, or one could possible roll one's own. http://support.google.com/drive/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=87809
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65nm
Fun factoid. The original 65nm (single chip/16 core) design was supposed yield 7.5Gh/s per chip. The current specs shown to date are actually about 2.5Gh/s Yeah damn - only 9 times the Avalon chip for 2/3 the Watts and it's also under clocked in the original Jalapenos ... Yup. If blowing the estimate by three X was the worst mistake that BFL has made it would be a much happier world for their 'customers'. I mean how big a deal is power usage in production-level mining-land anyway? If there is actually a reliable betting site in the Bitcoin ecosystem these days someone should do a bet on whether the chip in the devices BFL has shipped is actually 65nm.
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i know it IS included. i assume attached, as, why not? but i also know they don't technically need them. so who knows. i could get two boxes, one full of heatsinks "no, it's not a solid block of metal! honest!" and one full of usb sticks.
I could see logic to having them loose. I plan to have mine heatsinked, but I suspect that many/most people will not. Probably the less screwing things on and off the pcb, the better. I'm glad to hear that there will be an option. And I never thought of the utility that they may have in shipping ![Smiley](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/smiley.gif)
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... BTW, has ~friedcat mentioned anything one way or another about any QA they might do at the shop? I've not spotted it in any of his posts.
that's what we're waiting on actually. him getting the chips and testing them. ... I would not be to concerned about the chip per-se. I figure they are given some amount of testing in fab and packaging. The biggest concern I would have would be mechanical on the PCB. That reminds me, was there any discussion on how/if the heat-sink is to be included? None? Loose? Attached?
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I think I would rather receive my unit untested rather than have it run under-current. I'm not an EE...which is probably part of the reason I am paranoid about these sorts of things. Also I worry a little bit about the time it might take to get the cgminer or whatever software figured out for these brand new devices. I'm sure you will be keeping us informed of progress through the time you crack open the big box. In the hopeful case that we get that far at any rate. If everything goes smoothly and seems to be working, it would be nice to have the optional QA. BTW, has ~friedcat mentioned anything one way or another about any QA they might do at the shop? I've not spotted it in any of his posts.
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Hilarious, maybe. But there would be serious criminal charges. Even if only part of the solution is 65 nm (ie - one of the ancillary chips) a jury would convict BFL after hearing the evidence.
So, I doubt BFL would have put themselves in such a position. *shrugs*
I seriously doubt that they would ever get prosecuted, and even if they did it is unlikely that such a thing is even legally a problem. I mean specs change all the time. In the very best of circumstances the specs, appearance, timing of the units are going to be way off of the originally projected item. Nobody is going to sue anybody over that. Or at least they are not win anything until the distant future. BFL could just deliver some unit at some point after the 1/2 million Avalon chips get glued on to an open-source board for $10/ea and get the legal monkey off their backs. Or at least put it in a cage for 10 years. BFL has check-mated their 'customers'. Time to suck it up and move on.
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I've noticed that this phone of bfl's chip have geostamp pointing to Unive in Fremont, CA: http://ow.ly/i/1EM8oThe company produces ASICs from 130nm to 600nm. Ummm,... Hypothetically, let's say the Fab has an updated web site. Would this mean there is a possibility that BFL's ASIC's are not, in fact, 65 nm. And, if so, that would constitute quite a serious charge of fraud. Surely, they wouldn't be so careless. Disregard. Or speculate. Whatevs. (I'll just leave this here. BFL chip power spec 5x what was 'anticipated') 600nm. Super-size me baby! You know our moto in America: "Bigger is Better!"
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This is the mistake that people usually make when thinking about Bitcoin.
It is not a store of value. It is not money. What you transact for it—that is the money.
Bitcoin is anti-money. Not a generalized unit of value, but a reciept, which proves that a specific transaction occurred.
Gold is still the money—the USD is still the money in Bitcoinia. Bitcoin's value is due exclusively to its ability to be liquid, it is an essence of liquidity in a level in the hierarchy of abstraction blow generalized units of value.
That is your interpretation of Bitcoin, money, value, and etc. And it is fine. Other people look at things differently and come to different conclusions or at least different ways of describing the same conclusion. I view fiat, Bitcoin, and gold as nothing more than 'accounting systems'. Each have their own properties, strengths, and weaknesses.
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... Distributed cryto-currencies will always have more complexity and hence more risk than a chunk of metal. I rely on PM's not to grow but rather to simply act as a storage tank which does not leak to much. My Bitcoin footprint is still on the highly speculative end of the scale and if it does not grow significantly it will not live up to my hopes. I expect it to take a lot more tending to however.
No, there is nothing complicated at all about mining, forging, transporting, storing, and securing a chunk of metal. When the Krugerrand hits my hands, it's a chunk of metal with the inherent simplicity (and thus, reliability) that I mentioned. The fact that it took some effort to get it into my hands is a factor in the 'store of value' aspect that I expect of it. --- As an aside, Bitcoin is similar in a way in that a relatively short string of numbers is the analog of a Krugerrand. Even if the transmission system failed there would still be a set of entries in the block chain which have value to me and me alone. In that case, though, actually extracting value from the blockchain would be somewhere between extremely challenging and impossible (unless one had wisely broken their holdings into multiple wallets before-hand...hint,hint...) whereas the pool of market participants with which one could exchange gold or silver coins would be much more expansive.
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