Deep breaths Matthew.  You seem to be losing your humility and becoming pedantic and argumentative already, which kind of undermines your stated purpose for starting the thread.

There might be customs implications with this strategy.

Bulk shipping would probably be cheaper but you don't necessarily need to ship to one recipient - you just make the batch big enough to take advantage of bulk rates.  Generally, consignments are handed off to local delivery services for final delivery anyway so the units would land in the US as a batch and then be handed off to local services for individual delivery.

This is a very old thread.  You need to ask your questions in the latest Avalon thread.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137534.0

Nope.  In all three cases where "then" has been used in the OP, "than" was the correct word to use.  It's one of those errors which drives me nuts, too, because those words don't even sound the same so it's hard to understand how you can confuse them when writing (at least brain-farts over two, too, and to are understandable).  However, it doesn't detract from the substance of the post so I'm not sure why it was worth mentioning.

They limit their Dwolla exposure at any given time so Dwolla transactions are often back-logged.  There are likely other people ahead of you in the queue for Dwolla processing so your request may not get processed until a previous batch of withdrawals has fully cleared.

I sometimes think MtGox would be better off dumping Dwolla altogether as their risk management strategy for limiting potential losses is extremely customer-unfriendly even though it's very necessary.

10 threads on the same topic cluttering up the front page is hardly an improvement.

This is why we can't have nice things.   

From my point of view something is "shipped" once it's scanned into the system of the company handling delivery (or picked up by their couriers). Sometimes this means that it's not actually on a plane going anywhere yet but it's past the point where your supplier has any control over the delivery process any more.

I do think it's important to remember that Avalon stated months ago that shipping of the initial units would happen over a period of two weeks and that it could be affected by CNY.  Exporting a new product for the first time to multiple countries using multiple carriers is a nail-biting exercise in itself.

My main question is how you're going to stop the split from becoming just as out of control as the original. People have tried starting new threads in the past in an attempt to create a place for reasoned discussion and they've always ended up devolving into yet another clusterfuck - thus the reason why there's now only one BFL thread.

Maybe encourage people who want more reasoned discussion to use Service Discussion or Service Announcements rather than Custom Hardware for their threads and tolerate less bullshit over there.

I think the trolling in Custom Hardware has reached ridiculous levels but I also think that any solution has to encompass all ASIC vendor threads and not just those related to BFL.

Does that apply even if you drop your consignment off/pick it up at their airport service point (I've actually done this on public holidays here)?

Also, if I recall correctly they were talking about using companies based out of Hong Kong/Shenzhen to handle the customs-related issues so it's possible that the first packages won't be direct-shipped (you don't want to risk shipping the majority of your units until you know for certain that there won't be customs issues at either end).

You're somewhat different to most start-ups around here in having significant resources of your own.  You aren't desperate for outside funds to keep operating and to fund growth.  You're really the exception rather than the rule in that regard - not only are many other Bitcoin enterprises vulnerable to predation, they virtually beg predators to come through the door.

Of course there are much bigger sharks outside the Bitcoin economy than within it and it will be a very interesting time if someone with serious money decides it's "game on".

Most likely because production was only worthwhile with a guaranteed level of orders and plenty of people won't think twice about losing a small deposit.  Small deposits aren't a great measure of how many people will follow through to complete the sale months later. Having stock sitting around in a warehouse waiting to be sold costs money, which is one reason why so many businesses operate on a "just in time" basis.

Also keep in mind that if 100% of pre-order funds are sitting in a quarantined bank account, interest is being earned on those funds.

Don't get me wrong, I really don't like the pre-order model which has been used by ASIC vendors but there are some reasons why it might be attractive to them.

But then they'd be faced with questions they don't want to answer.

I doubt that any legal system would regard Matthew's bet as provable in bankruptcy given that the bet may well have been illegal in and of itself in Matthew's jurisdiction.  Unless the legal issues regarding the sale of Bitcoin Magazine have now been resolved, bankruptcy on Matthew's part could also make that more complicated. 

There's literally no reason at all to believe that Matthew has enough assets that any creditors would receive a payment if he declared bankruptcy.  That doesn't mean that he shouldn't, but people need to realise it would likely be a symbolic act.

BFL has said that they'll match the performance of any vendor who ships before them.  I believe that all vendors will ship with reserve capacity which can be enabled at a later date vis firmware updates (remember that when BFL initially upped their specs they said they'd originally intended to make that increased performance available to their customers via a firmware update after shipping).

I guess the interesting question is how long this first generation of ASICs can be kept profitable enough to stimulate ongoing sales.  Are we going to see a dramatic drop in unit price within 12 months or will vendors be forced to produce second generation products much sooner than they'd planned. 

Getting ASICs to market isn't the endgame.  It's only the beginning really.

OK, I'm going to throw in my two cents here.

The lack of transparency relating to failed Bitcoin enterprises bugs the shit out of me.  In the real world, you lose the right to remain opaque if your business venture fails owing people money - even if you're a private company - and I see no reason why that same principle should not apply in the Bitcoin community.  Transparency fosters accountability and it creates a repository of information which others can use to mitigate the risk of failure in similar future ventures.

Because the risk that these documents have been altered cannot be discounted, the possibility that they were sent to augustocroppo to damage his credibility has to be considered.  Why release these documents through augustocroppo if they're authentic when they can be released anonymously without involving any third party?

While my attitude is definitely "publish and be damned" - because I do think that GLBSE has lost its presumed right to any kind of confidentiality - I find myself in the very curious situation of simultaneously encouraging augustocroppo to publish them and advising him to remain aware that someone could be setting him up here.

Josh has said that the reduction in the number of chips in the first batch is due to the design changes - they'll get less chips per wafer with the upgraded design.

We have no idea what specs any ASIC vendor will actually ship with.  We also have no idea how much - if any - disabled capacity each vendor will have.

Did you adjust the post times for both boards to UTC?

Lulz.

More in keeping with the spirit of the OP, it's also true that outside the exchanges a fairly small number of people have enormous influence over which Bitcoin enterprises succeed.  It's a pretty incestuous little community when all is said and done.

It looks to me like a photo someone might have snapped for themselves at some point rather than a photo which was originally intended to be released for publicity.  I have a weird collection myself of photos taken during various projects which are outright strange in isolation and without context.

I kind of hope that all the ASIC manufacturers have a proper photographic record of their project development simply because this is a first but I understand that it may have been a low priority and that the only visual history may exist on people's cell phones.

For what it's worth, BFL has shown beautiful renders of their product and has recently shown photos of some of the actual components and it hasn't done much to convince people that they're going to deliver what they're promising.