Additional bid:

30 @ 0.30

24 @ .29

Thanks, so did today's dividend still get paid on BTC-T?  If not, could you please just pay to the bitcoin addresses and all future dividends?  Pain to keep having to log in to withdraw :p.  Thanks for everything though, hope the shutdown is going smoothly.

Have the regular AM shares been converted to direct shares yet?  Anyone know?

I don't think your post makes much sense.

Theme of first part:  It is amazing that people will pay so much for ASIC miners.
Idea in second part:  Next generation we should not sell ASIC miners.

I understand that you think that gen 2 will initially more profitable than currently mining with gen 1.  But if people are willing to overpay now for ASIC hardware, it is also likely that they will overpay for gen 2.

Thanks for posting freedomno1.  I think such milestones at competitors are definitely worth posting here.  It definitely has a great effect on AM's share price and valuation.  Personally to me, this still does not prove that they are legit.  They could have just used some of the IPO funds to buy some blades.  If they really had chips, I don't see why they would have such difficulty snapping a few pictures.  But I will leave that discussion for Labcoin.  Thanks for posting!

So MPOE-PR, how do you feel about the fact that MP believes "There is no such thing as the crime of 'rape'?"
http://trilema.com/2013/the-prosecution-of-sexual-activity/
 
This is seriously disgusting.  The fact that you associate with such a misogynistic pig is truly saddening.

It's called a back of the envelope calculation and common sense.

I also stated I think Flotes' calculations are reasonable but a bit low.  Please read the coin analogy to understand my principle issue with the DnT's conclusions.

Haha yea, I admit I got a little overly heated...  Sorry for the derail all... Except the people who accused me of being of course    You guys are idiots

EDIT:  Never said I knew how to calculate, just that DnT's calcs were clearly wrong.

LOL no shit you idiot.  If it we knew that the hash rate was constant, this entire discussion would be irrelevant.  We would just be able to more accurately predict the hash rate as we collected more data.  Nonstationary data would not be an issue.


Its a bigger issue than that.  The whole point is that calculating the probabilities of mining 0 blocks for a GIVEN PERIOD is different than calculating the probability that a 6 hour period will occur with 0 blocks mined.  Please see coin flipping analogy... This is not hard.

I do admit that I am assuming that DnT is making the calculations so that he can predict the probability that a given 6 hour period will occur with 0 blocks.  I agree that his calculations are reasonable for expected value calculations for a specific 6 hour period.  They are not reasonable for the conclusions he is trying to make.


This statement does not make much sense.  Either you can "prove" it to be true or you cannot.  It is binary.


Again, no shit.  The entire point of calculating the probabilities is that we know that the hash rate is NOT stable.  


Your illogical assumptions that contradict the entire point of performing the calculations make it a fairly nonsensical bet.  I agree, if you assume a constant hash rate, then yes, the results are poission distributed.



Not sure if sincere, but OK.  I would have preferred a community full of intelligent people and stimulating discussion, but I am OK with these dynamics as well.  It just does not bode well for mainstream acceptance... Hopefully another cyprtocurrency with better PR and community won't capture bitcoin's position as market leader.  But unfortunately with a community of condescending idiots like you, I fear that may not be the case.  I hope I am wrong, and I hope the cryptocurrency that finally wins will not be invented by a bank or huge corporation.

Regardless you clearly already took the gloves off with your first post which is fine with me.  Heated debate with personal attacks is also fine with me.  "Come at me bro."

Response to DnT:

My apologies if I came off condescending.  My entire career I have worked with numbers and have a “feel” for probabilities, but I was not totally sure that you were incorrect.  I was just hoping you would post your calculations so I could identify the issues.  It is definitely a tough problem, so figured would be best to work together.

Normally I would just ignore this error, but please look up the difference between “your” and “you’re.”  I mean this sincerely because such blatant errors are red flags for sloppy thinking in the professional world.  You state that you are a CEO in your signature, so I am hoping you will take some pride in what you post.  Also your sentences are so poorly constructed that it is sometimes difficult to understand your meaning.  It is a forum, so minor errors and fragments are expected.  But your terrible writing really does make it difficult to understand your meaning sometimes.  For example, your “sentence” under 4.  It is difficult to interpet, but I will do my best.  You should really try using periods and constructing proper sentences.  Sentences are truly easier to understand than rambling fragments.
With respect to your points:

1. I wrote in my initial post, “Don't mean to be hard on you or anything,” because I did not want you to take it personally.  Being wrong really isn’t a big deal.  People make mistakes all the time.  We are human, and it is a part of the human condition.  As I stated initially, I just don’t want your misguided analysis to mislead others.

2. ASICMiner’s rate of discovering blocks is certainly NOT a poission process. As I wrote earlier, this does not mean that the results are not poisson DISTRIBUTED.  But again, I can state with great certainty that the distribution of AM’s mined blocks is NOT poission distributed.  It is likely a reasonable approximation for large periods of time assuming NONSTATIONARY DATA, but it is certainly not reasonable for a 6 hour period.  It is also not reasonable assumption for an individual miner’s results.  For the entire network, a poission distribution seems appropriate.

3. You failed to consider much more than that.  

4. This point is the fundamental error in your analysis.  Again, please try to think about this for a second before responding.  Yes, your calculations are reasonable for a GIVEN 6 hour period.  But you are trying to apply these questions to answer the question, “What is the probability that a 6 hour period will occur with 0 blocks?”  I admit that I am assuming a bit, but it seems to be the intent of your calculations.  The probability that 0 blocks will be found in a GIVEN 6 hour period IS MUCH DIFFERENT than the probability that a 6 hour period will occur in which no blocks are found.  Please think about this for a second…It’s really not that difficult.  

“there is a 97% probability that the zero blocks founds is NOT due to bad luck and instead due to some non luck reason.”  These are exactly the type of statements that reveal your ignorance of probability and statistics.  All events are the result of luck and “non-luck” to use your term, regardless of the resulting value.  You can say things like, “wow, that is lucky.”  Meaning a low probability event occurred.  Yet all outcomes are equally a product of luck and other “non-luck” factors…

I apologize if I came off as a bit of an ass, but I think you are just overreacting to me pointing out the errors in your calculations / logic.

EDIT:  I believe you edited in that part to add the part about being wrong?  Glad you edited that part, and I totally agree.  You should definitely become accustomed to being incorrect.

Simple answer:  we don't know because AM's hash rate does not conform to any common distributions.  Also I am quite comfortable admitting that it is a difficult problem, and other posters on this board could probably make better calculations than me.  IMHO Admitting your own limitations is perfectly OK...

But I said 4 posters weren't thinking critically enough, but I was not counting you because I believe your calculation is reasonable.  You were the only one to recognize the concept that a GIVEN 6 hour period is different than ANY one 6 hour period. 

You assume a distribution function that is not accurate, but it is reasonable.  Realistically, given that we know that AM's hash rate is varying (sometimes it is higher and sometimes lower as friedcat as mentioned several times that blades occasionally go down), your percentage is probably too low.  But really from any given hash rate estimation (ie 10 blocks found in 6 hours), all you can do is construct confidence intervals about the hash rate.  For example, we can say things like, AM's hash rate is likely between 30 and 60 THash/s for a X time period.  As you get more data you can improve the accuracy of the hash rate, but the problem with collecting more data is that you now you have an issue with nonstationary data. 

We will never know what AM's hash rate was exactly over a given time period, but we can construct reasonable ranges.  Just all the pseudo-intellectualism and misleading of other posters kind of infuriates me, so I apologize if I come off too strong.  Its just that the smugness / condescending posts bother me.

Fair, next time I will avoid being polite and state it more frankly.  You do not know what you are posting about, your numbers are wrong, and you are misleading posters that don't know probability and statistics well.

The calculations depend greatly on assumptoins, parameters, length of time to view, etc.  That is why I wanted you to post your calculations, so as a community we could work through them and arrive at a reasonable result.

Yes, do you know how to apply distributions to answer probability questions?

Wow, 4 people that think they know statistics because they know what a distribution is and can google simple statistics concepts.  But really you aren’t thinking critically enough.

1.  Why do you guys think that AM’s rate of finding blocks is poission distributed?  It is definitely not a poisson process, but I admit that that fact does not preclude its results from being poission distributed.  That being said, due to the variance in AM's hash rate that friedcat has admitted, we know that it is not poisson distributed.

2. Many of you are missing a crucial point.  The difference between the expected value for a GIVEN 6 hour period is a VERY DIFFERENT question from the probability that 0 blocks will be found in ANY ONE 6 hour period.  Allow me to illustrate with an example, and I think even you condescending / smug posters will understand.  The probability of flipping a coin 3 times and getting heads each time is VERY DIFFERENT from flipping a coin 50 times a getting a string of 3 heads in a row.  I really hope you guys see why...  Now, I know thinking is difficult but please try.  Now think for an example how this concept applies to this situation.  Do you see now?

You guys are really my major problem with the bitcoin community in general.  At first it seems like a community full of really intelligent people.  But the more time you spend, you realize its actually full of condescending people that are pseudo-intellectuals.

You guys think that because you have tons of posts that you are intelligent.  But really that is not the case at all.  Just because you took intro to stats you think that you know probabilities well, but you guys are misapplying the concepts.  On top of that you act like egotistical dbags to people that are trying to help you see the error in your ways.  Really concerns me about this community, and bitcoins' longevity...  Especially you members with a ton of posts and activity.  People assume that you guys are intelligent and know things--couldn't you at least take a little bit of responsibility?

Sorry for ranting, but it really is saddening  

Calculations to support these probabilities?  They do not seem accurate to me.

Also there are several errors in your post.  All results are "due to luck" whether they are much lower than the expected value, exactly the expected value or much greater than the expected value.  The word "chances" should be "probabilities."  And it doesn't make any sense to say "~3% chance of 0 blocks vs 3.6 blocks."  I think you mean to say "~3% chance of 0 blocks when the expected number of blocks is 3.6."

Don't mean to be hard on you or anything. It's just that you write that as if you know what you talking about, but you clearly do not.  So I don't want other readers to be misled by your post if it is completely inaccurate.

The orphaned blocks are due to a poor network connection to other bitcoin nodes, correct?  If AM is having issues connecting to other bitcoin nodes it will have the same issues with connecting to a pool outside of the firewall, no?

Again I prefer no hash rate meter as it give more info to competitors / malicious attackers.  If shareholders have an issue with that, that is fine.  No one is forcing them to invest.

I don't think the bolded part is a fair conclusion.  I think his meaning is more that it would add an additional responsibility and commitment of resources because if it went down then people on this board would be screaming and going nuts.  So overall its just not worth it and is a waste of resources.  Plus it would allow DDoS's and other malicious attackers a method of determining EXACTLY how effective their attacks were.  In case you haven't notice, friedcat is a very unique cat indeed in the bitcoin mining community (honest, thoughtful, intelligent, takes care of his customers / shareholders, not willing to engage in malicious behavior, etc.).

Also I think it is a bigger issue than just hiring a sys admins.  Since the parent company owns the vast majority of the shares, obviously it is also in friedcat's best interest to fix the issue.  It makes no sense for any party involved to just shrug at the number of orphaned blocks.  I am sure if it was a simple fix that he would do it.  I think its a bigger issue related to China's internet firewalls, weird network issues and other Chinese internet idiosyncrasies.

pretty sure it will go lower than that