They got stuff (especially design files) to peer review?

example:

  https://github.com/leaflabs

Watched the interview.  de la Cova touched on something which hit me as something of a 'killer app' of Bitcoin within minutes of my having a basic understanding of the solution (and have vocalized on this board off and on since that time.)  That is, as a transfer mechanism for physical gold since both gold and Bitcoin of fungible, divisible, reliable and offer a degree of privacy if one puts a priority on that.

It may occur to Turk that his outfit is potentially very well positioned to capitalize on a need for services here.  That is, if he does not mind relinquishing physical control of his inventory on demand.  And if he does mind doing so...hmmm...

Of course GoldMoney has to put up with all of the regulatory issues so it legitimately may not be worth the hassle to broker physical gold transfers.  Like Bitcoin itself, a much higher degree of questionable financial behaviour would be involved with a population of participants who value the capabilities of the solution.  And I personally am not about to hand over my biometric data to PayPal, Mt. Gox, or GoldMoney even though there is nothing I do which is even remotely questionable...at the present time and under the presently understood laws of the jurisdictions in which I operate at least.

Bah.  It's tangible (imo) because it's effectively irreproducible (just like gold, but simply leveraging different mechanics.)

Interesting thing is that one block chain is as good as another for actually doing accounting.  Similarly, a brick of gold is no better or worse than a brick of lead for knocking someone on the head if that is the goal.  But it's not.  If the very goal is to do reliable accounting, a block of substance with a specific number or protons in the specific number of nuclei, and a balance in the what I call 'blockchain zero' have a very strong similarity.  And both gold and Bitcoin(orig) have the 'mindshare' required to serve their purpose.  For now at least.

Thanks for pointing out the remarkable overlap.

No.  Just reading a portion of bitcointalk.org forum over the last year or so.  Prior to that a decade or so dead-space of actually working, but before that some time running across Libertarian prattle on usenet.

From what I've been able to pick up out of the playbook without actually studying it, it seems that senile oldsters are weak and it is the place of the weak to be devoured by the strong in order for the world to work as it should.

Has anyone run the numbers on this?  I've not paid attention to mining gear up 'till this point, though I may when we are into a generation or two of ASIC, but it occurs to me that people can produce reasonably complex gear (i.e., Maple boards or Soekris) for a decent price even doing a fair amount of original hardware work.  If much of the work can be taken from open source, it could be surprisingly cheap and low skill to get some vaguely functional inventory on the street.

I found it through the SA forum.  Although the thing is quite a remarkable amalgamation of group-think, envy, ignorance, and confusion, they do turn up some interesting things on this forum from time to time.  Unfortunately one has to wade through lots of posts about the fire danger of mining rigs and several other themes which are repeated ad-nauseum by people who clearly have not done a damn thing in life and thus have a noticeable hatred for those few people who have.

It does seem that the thrill of ripping people off really has an impact on a fraction of people.  To the extent that they will sometimes even be willing to take a loss in order to do it!  Thankfully it seems like a fairly small minority of people are in this category.  A minority of the general public anyway...not necessarily of those in the Bitcoin community...

I'm not sure if there is a recognized fraud like one poster claimed as being one where smaller items are delivered to develop confidence for the big kill.  Probably I suppose, and I've no doubt that it happens, but it seems to me that it would be awfully difficult to prove.  It is a fairly legitimate business strategy to leverage all financial resources one can muster in order to meet the various demands required to achieve fulfillment (and it's probably not a competitive strategy to do otherwise.)  And delays happen.  Nor is there an obligation on BFL's part to disclose the minutia of their operations.  So, as long as the big iron was so much as a theoretical possibility there is an argument to be made that they were/are acting in good faith.  If people send them money this in and of itself implies that the customers had done as much due diligence as the customer required.

The poor guy got burnt on some summer house rental auction thing once and the whole community humiliated him to no end.  It would not surprise me if he were so butt-hurt about that that he would consider screwing everyone over to be something of a pay-back, and possibly lucrative as well.  Even if BFL is a scam it's not the kind of thing anyone gets in trouble for (except perhaps those who are already on parole or whatever.  Damn inconvenient government getting all up in people's business and all rather than letting the free market sort things out.)

I think his sig does the community a service in that it demonstrates what a freeloader the guy is so they can better decide whether or not to do business with him or pay any attention to what he says.

I think you are over-estimating things somewhat by not simply choosing a basic classification and then analyzing how the solution really compares to other solutions which fall into the classification.  As a Bitcoin fan myself, and someone who really does believe that Bitcoin has the potential to rock things significantly, I've done the same.  But I find it valuable to step back and put on my jaded view glasses to try to better see where the pitfalls lie.  In this way they might be addressed proactively.

The problem you face is that in the case of a currency system, things seem to always roll back to centralized control in spite of such solutions as PM's being known about and in widespread use for periods of time through history.  So either the analogy you've drawn is backward or not to the magnitude you image (buggy vs. automobile.)  (As an aside, without the ability to obtain and transport liquid fuels the thing an automobile owner may wish he had most might actually be a buggy and a whip to drive it...but that's a different story.)

I should qualify things a bit by stating my belief that there is little difference between Bitcoin and gold.  The latter former is simply a set of clever tricks which add utility...and fragility as well to be fair.

edit: slight fixes

I suspect Bitcoiners are sometimes a little to prone to believe that 'the people' will be on their/our side.  Particularly US Bitcoiners.

To people who:

 - rely on direct assistance from the government for necessities like food (a rapidly growing number)

 - rely on the government for employment (a pretty large number which, notably, include the paramilitaries)

 - rely on the framework which the government facilitates such as infrastructure, foreign policy pressures, etc (a huge number)

threats to the USD, and even similar replacement in the event of a failure, are pretty much a direct and immediate threat to their mode of existence.  This is actually a reality, so all the government really has to do is to make the reality apparent in order to sway probably a significant majority to support 'the official system'.

Since very few individuals have gold, and even fewer have BTC, I don't think that the 'powers that be' would have to much trouble provoking the plebs to adopt the position which they find desirable.  And although not a certainty, I doubt that the position will include private citizens autonomously controlling either physical gold/silver or Bitcoin secret keys.

@ $12.6x/BTC.  Oh ya.  Now we're cooking with gas!

Even with my cautions 'expect the worst' nature, I was a bit surprised that we fell so far so fast from the $15 a month ago.  (But due to that nature, I was not shocked nor hurt...it was just an item of interest.)  I lack a solid explanation for either the run-up or the drop off, but it will be really interesting to see if one or both events are replicated going forward.  We seem to be getting into the 'run-away train' up phase over the last day or two,

If you are planning to put a relatively large chunk of capital down, it is probably worthwhile to not only understand how the Internet works today, but also to anticipate the various paths of evolution it could take in the future.  I hope you've been paying attention to how much money the US government is putting into technologies which store and monitor traffic.  I hope you don't believe that multiple simultaneous undersea fiber-cuts a few years ago was a matter of chance.  I hope you've actually tried to run a reasonably high traffic and reliable service through the onion.

I'm in the same boat, but consider my BTC stash to be technically more speculation than savings.

Much to the annoyance of a lot of people I suspect, I hold (and vocalize) my contention that at this time fiat works reasonably well and that the situation will likely severely hamper Bitcoin as an exchange currency as long as it persists.  I'm not hesitant to voice this opinion because I figure that the more people who conceptualize it, the less heartache among the more idealistic when they expect more from the solution than it is likely to give at the present time.  Assuming my analysis is roughly correct at least.

Secondly and more recently, I hold that Bitcoin actually involves non-trivial fees and hassle to obtain, and it may get much harder at any moment (that is, if there is more of a crack-down and pressure on exchanges.)  Thus BTC are somewhat dear to me and I would much rather burn fiat on things I want/need...all else being equal and as long as I have fiat to burn.

That seems to align with my observations (even of myself to some extent.)  It makes a lot of sense (for humans) to hoard in some environments, and probably has for a long enough time that certain genetic sequences code for the behavior.  And many neurological/psychological maladies stem from an over-expression of 'normal' behaviors.

Relatedly (generally...not in the context of the OP) I suspect that manic/depressive behaviors actually have some advantage in certain environments.  Namely in ones where there are long winters with not much to do and it is counterproductive to burn energy.

I would not be surprised if both of the aforementioned abnormalities were more prevalent in populations from certain environments.  But I've not really studied it and it is also quite possible that there is enough mobility in genes due to migrations and what-not that there is no statistical relevance.  Or that my hypotheses are simply wrong.

Cool story.

I'm guessing that a healthy percentage of Bitcoin will go down with the owner of the secret key(s) never again to surface.  If/when almost everyone is at least aware of Bitcoin, a bit more effort might be put toward finding the key(s) and/or recognizing them when they are found, but probably nowhere near as much as with PM's.

...in exactly the manner as the rich and powerful have designed.

Tell me, are more people:

 - running Carrier IQ and related technologies, or

 - flashing a custom build OS who's source is peer reviewed (not to mention the radio firmware...)