I swear I've had three nervous breakdowns this year. And I've not been running a BTC business. I thought about it seriously, but I was still reeling from the first nervous breakdown following understanding it for the first few weeks (8 tiring months ago). I felt it was too late for my business idea (variation on a hybrid web wallet) and that someone else must be working on the idea.  Those features are still not here.

For me, just grokking the tech, buying in, following the news was too much alongside full-time work. I couldn't start a business before understanding it more, everything from the ground up as well as researching all the origin stories and the implications of them (that was probably nervous breakdown 2). I couldn't start a web wallet service without learning OpenBSD and figuring out offline transactions, distributing paper wallets etc.

When I dive into most software projects I have a healthy disconnection with the end-game. I know roughly what it looks like and I'll wander around until I see the signs and trek on to the finish line. I have to assume that I can get the result without needing to prove it before chewing off the first, tiny bit.

Bitcoin on the other hand, despite thinking of myself as a fairly useful DevOps guy, feels like I've got L plates on and am about to get onto an Autobahn at 150mph where the cars out front are laying out the road like Iceman. As both of us have found out, you just can't treat Bitcoin that way. It will eat your life like it eats fiat. Take a break, lean on friends. If you want to sell as a going concern (I've no idea what you do, sorry) then you can use that sale to take the BTC/Fiat position you want. If you want to carry on then look for VC funding to take people on and you take the tech lead role. Pay of some of that technical debt.

You might be able to do both - sell, stay on as tech lead. These things might have been difficult at the start of the year but if you went to anyone with any sense and offered them a stake in an established BTC business you will likely get you hand ripped off.

Twenty-something? I'm flattered, really. Not all software is tested like financial trading systems. From your statements about deployments you've maybe never used puppet or chef -- are you a Windows guy?

I've been on the receiving-end of plenty of unacceptable business practices, most of it extortion by estate agents. Inflation has annoyed me for years, watching the prices march up faster than wages were rising. Negative equity left one family member up the creek and that was upsetting at the time. Hearing about share prices for huge companies double and crash overnight, affecting millions of people's lives, always for the negative, makes me furious.

I'm happy to wait for my chips if there's a chance some of these things could be fixed in the long-term. You invested in four young guys doing something experimental and potentially world-changing. Also, CISCO have awful business practices. You have to pay a huge tithing every year to move up the greasy pole and miss it just one time because you're too busy to do the exam and you're right back down at the bottom. Ain't nobody got time for that!

Hey burnin,

I'm thinking of a weekend or so in Germany, spending some coins in the world-famous Bitcoin cities and I would really like to collect my units while I'm there. Obviously I'll time my visit for when the boards will be ready but I was just wondering if collection would be possible?

Well done, a big thank you from all of us!

The software can be tested on the test network on one machine once the unit tests and integration tests (such as they may be in this case) are done. Software Developer here I would imagine that more likely reasons for the burn-in of some or all is to test for heat issues. I see no reason to prefer the test network in this case so why no generate coins? If Yifu wanted to mine so badly he could leave a few in a corner for a month rather than mess about rotating them. I mean, if there's one thing he probably doesn't need any more of it's Bitcoins.

There may be other forces at play as well. There's no standing still in the ASIC space and Yifu will now have a better idea of the details of his next generation chip. If securing that ambition may need funds and those funds can be made from burning in machines then that would be in the interest of the community in the long-term.

CISCO wouldn't have any reason to do something similar and don't even let you read their documentation, never mind support a group-buy of their prize components and release full specs for anyone to build their own. Does Barracuda install backdoors in your security gear? Does Sony distribute rootkits? Reputation takes time and Avalon are only just shipping their first full-scale product.

So I'm happy to cut them some slack for now, especially until I see an order of magnitude jump in hash-rate. I'm sorry you're so angry about it, if you've got a lot on the line it must be stressful.

Aimed vaguely at a reply I can't find right now:

I know the difficulty is increasing but if they run it for a day and you run it for the rest of its/your life, is it such a biggie? Maybe your break-even gets pushed back a day or two because of that. It's gonna get pushed way further out when all the rest get delivered.

And regarding the various manufacturers collaborating on deliver times, how do you know they haven't?

FD: I have 20 chips on the way. If I get one block reward before the next halving I'll be happy. Maybe it'll find another one one day if I'm still running it and the stars align. If I do I'll probably need it!

And one for luck. Happy hashing, peeps!

...Aaaaand 5

Lost count already...that must be four.

Hello noobs. Noob here too.

Hello again, noob here, ignore me. Or abuse me

Hi all,

Looking to level up to group-buy avalons and burnin's services. I'm a mug, I know.

Do I just spam here 5 times or do I have to reply to others?

Edit: does an edit count?