/snip
Prototyping serves to provide specifications for a real, working system rather than a theoretical one."
I would say the video shows a working prototype in every sense of the definition if we are going by what normal people think is a prototype. Stop spreading FUD.
There are a lot of things that BFL has done wrong but some of your guys go so overboard it borders on insanity. Do the community a favor and SHUT THE FUCK UP!
Let us assume the video was not a total sham like other PR from BFL (pictures, ship dates, specifications, etc). If the video showed a working prototype, they would manufacture to those specifications. They would certainly not say "when we get the new board our power problems should be fixed". The video purported to show a prototype that still needs more work. This is the admission of the BFL representative speaking in the video. They are still in the prototyping phase. They have been in this phase for 10 months. Until they actually manufacture product and ship it they will still be in the prototyping phase. Anyone can SHA-256 once, the challenge is doing it fast, cheaply, for long periods, in volume, and for a low price. They have not demonstrated a prototype of a product that can do this yet. When they show a video and say "ok, this is it, we don't have to make any more changes and our partners are doing a large volume chip run followed by a large volume PCB run" I will change my sig. Gladly as a matter of fact. This farce has gone on for far too long. Now that previous paragraph involves almost no skepticism on my part. If I was being skeptical, I would ask for actual proof of mining. Not just numbers scrolling on a screen which could easily be spoofed. I would want to see the unit mining (with proof) for more than 20 seconds at a time. Running it in short bursts does nothing to reassure me that it can run for any length of time. I don't know how they would accomplish this other than to let an expert neutral observer with credibility (e.g. not Luke-jr logging in remotely) actually take physical possession of a unit, take it home and run it through the paces. BFL has so thoroughly poisoned their public relations well, they may only be able to prove this by actually shipping several hundred orders and have them operate successfully for 6 months or so in the marketplace. Oh, and it would be nice if low post count sockpuppets didn't show up and tout BFL quite so often. First off, might want to look at my join date..I am not a sock puppet for BFL, I just post when I feel it is necessary. I won't waste my time arguing with someone who contradicts themselves with their own statements. I did not contradict myself. I contradicted you. Then I called you a shill for BFL, which may or may not be true. I can't control wether or not you support them in the face of relentless evidence to the contrary. I am still not contradicting myself. See me not contradicting myself? Watch carefully as I do not contradict myself.  If you really wanted to do some good for the community with your constant bashing for BFL, you should just stick to known facts. The easiest one is telling people that if you preorder now, do not expect your unit for at least 4+ months at the very least. I am sure that is something we can BOTH agree on that BFL does not tell customers.
I do. Thus my sig. A video posted by a company that has lied for 7 months, taken a lot of money from a lot of people, delivered no ASICs, and is run by a felon convicted of mail fraud for running a $20M scam is not a "fact". It is evidence that could be true or it could be misinformation. We do agree that BFL probably isn't giving anyone who orders a unit now anything for at least 4 months. I will be glad if BFL finally ships something real. I might even buy one if they prove to be a quality product and can ship in a reasonable amount of time. I am tired of the relentless scamming that goes on in these forums because so many people engage in magical thinking instead of critical thinking. As soon as BFL declares that they have sent the specs to the factory to produce the chips & PCBs in large volumes, I will amend the part to say they claim to have a working prototype that has entered production. I think posting the videos is a good thing for BFL (presuming they are not just more smoke and mirrors), it works towards recovering some of the credibility they have squandered over the last 7 months. |
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/snip
Prototyping serves to provide specifications for a real, working system rather than a theoretical one."
I would say the video shows a working prototype in every sense of the definition if we are going by what normal people think is a prototype. Stop spreading FUD.
There are a lot of things that BFL has done wrong but some of your guys go so overboard it borders on insanity. Do the community a favor and SHUT THE FUCK UP!
Let us assume the video was not a total sham like other PR from BFL (pictures, ship dates, specifications, etc). If the video showed a working prototype, they would manufacture to those specifications. They would certainly not say "when we get the new board our power problems should be fixed". The video purported to show a prototype that still needs more work. This is the admission of the BFL representative speaking in the video. They are still in the prototyping phase. They have been in this phase for 10 months. Until they actually manufacture product and ship it they will still be in the prototyping phase. Anyone can SHA-256 once, the challenge is doing it fast, cheaply, for long periods, in volume, and for a low price. They have not demonstrated a prototype of a product that can do this yet. When they show a video and say "ok, this is it, we don't have to make any more changes and our partners are doing a large volume chip run followed by a large volume PCB run" I will change my sig. Gladly as a matter of fact. This farce has gone on for far too long. Now that previous paragraph involves almost no skepticism on my part. If I was being skeptical, I would ask for actual proof of mining. Not just numbers scrolling on a screen which could easily be spoofed. I would want to see the unit mining (with proof) for more than 20 seconds at a time. Running it in short bursts does nothing to reassure me that it can run for any length of time. I don't know how they would accomplish this other than to let an expert neutral observer with credibility (e.g. not Luke-jr logging in remotely) actually take physical possession of a unit, take it home and run it through the paces. BFL has so thoroughly poisoned their public relations well, they may only be able to prove this by actually shipping several hundred orders and have them operate successfully for 6 months or so in the marketplace. Oh, and it would be nice if low post count sockpuppets didn't show up and tout BFL quite so often. |
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5.3 GH/s @ $149 = $28/ghps
It actually costs $274. They are comparing the historic prices of BFL and Avalon. If you're going to use the current price for the BFL unit then you must do the same for the Avalon, which is more than $10000 at current prices. BFL has no prices for products. One must first have a product before it can be assigned a price. So far, BFL is selling zero-coupon convertible debt with no maturity date. At some point in the future, the debt might be convertible into a black box assembled by amateurs that might mine bitcoins for some indeterminate period of time. And why should ANYONE listen to a nutjob like you that states in their signature that BFL has no working prototype in a thread that has a VIDEO OF A WORKING PROTOTYPE?? Is there proof that they have? ..... Do you have one? Do you trust luke-jr or them? I wouldn't since everything could be staged! just look on btl facebook page, they tested yesterday 5 gh's, it really has the power supply problem but looks workin well. and yes, its a proof enought for me, if u wanna sell your pre-order (only 5 gh's) i'll be happy in buying it Working well you say? For how long? What exactly did you see? You saw something print out that something was hashing for 20 seconds or so. This is evidence that they are still working on producing a prototype, but it is certainly not proof. Let us not forget that evidence can be falsified (and has in the past by BFL). At this point, I don't think there is any way BFL can release proof of anything without shipping product to trusted third parties for evaluation. I don't mean letting Luke-Jr logging in via SSH. I mean letting Tomshardware examine it. |
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5.3 GH/s @ $149 = $28/ghps
It actually costs $274. They are comparing the historic prices of BFL and Avalon. If you're going to use the current price for the BFL unit then you must do the same for the Avalon, which is more than $10000 at current prices. BFL has no prices for products. One must first have a product before it can be assigned a price. So far, BFL is selling zero-coupon convertible debt with no maturity date. At some point in the future, the debt might be convertible into a black box assembled by amateurs that might mine bitcoins for some indeterminate period of time. And why should ANYONE listen to a nutjob like you that states in their signature that BFL has no working prototype in a thread that has a VIDEO OF A WORKING PROTOTYPE?? Your definition of evidence and mine differ substantially. If their prototype was working, they would announce they were moving directly to production and the discussion would move to yields and assembly times. They have admitted that they *still* cannot convert the prototype (assuming the video was not just smoke and mirrors and we were witnessing a semi-functional piece of hardware) into a product. They admitted that additional work on the boards is still being done. After that work has been attempted, they will test again and see if things are working well enough to turn it into a product. Finally, one must take any press release from BFL with a grain of salt. They have been caught repeatedly posting photos with claims that were easily disproved by careful examination of the photo. Let us apply some devil's advocation to the video given BFL's track record of playing fast and loose with the truth: Even if they got the prototype to mine for 20 seconds in a video, does it hard crash after 15 minutes? Does it actually mine? We saw numbers printed on the screen which resemble the output of cgminer but could be spoofed with 5 minutes of effort. Can it run at 98+% utilization 24 hours a day 7 days a week without crashing? Will the board or chip burn out in catastrophic fashion necessitating an RMA after a few weeks of use? Can they actually make the chip & board and sell it profitably? Or do they need order volume in the hundreds of thousands before they can make enough margin? There is something that is preventing them from shipping product and being rich. Meeting the requirements of vaporware marketing FUD issued 7 months ago is not what is holding them up. There is a show stopper. |
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5.3 GH/s @ $149 = $28/ghps
It actually costs $274. They are comparing the historic prices of BFL and Avalon. If you're going to use the current price for the BFL unit then you must do the same for the Avalon, which is more than $10000 at current prices. BFL has no prices for products. One must first have a product before it can be assigned a price. So far, BFL is selling zero-coupon convertible debt with no maturity date. At some point in the future, the debt might be convertible into a black box assembled by amateurs that might mine bitcoins for some indeterminate period of time. |
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Lets assume the problem is solely about the additional power draw and therefor the problem is with power/cooling... I would guess that a good number of their customers would be happy to receive whatever they have now without any kind of case and insufficient cooling and mine at 25Gh/s next week (and the customer deals with finding an adequate cooling solution) rather than maybe in 3 months and have the ipod of miners.
FYI. Some cooling problems cannot be solved just with heatsinks & waterblocks. Liquid Nitrogen maybe... I'd totally buy a rig that had a cryogenic unit.  |
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Very disappointing. Fortunately, I never leave more than a day's worth of effort in pools.  |
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So I've been seeing a lot of stuff about how BFL hasn't shipped people's ASICs yet. This thread isn't about that. I just want some info about this: https://products.butterflylabs.com/homepage/5-gh-s-bitcoin-miner.htmlAm I incorrect in thinking that 5 GH/s is 5000 MH/s? At $274 (assuming BFL ever gets their shit together) isn't that an excellent deal? Also, it says it needs to be plugged into a host computer. What part of the host computer does it draw on? Yes. Great deal. Totally. See my sig. |
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At the moment, it likes the same as before BFL.
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So, observation A: the OP has little to no clue about engineering or electronics, yet is trying to make a decision based on his expertise in these areas. Doomed to fail. Avalon is the working version, so by definition it is better designed than BFL.
observation B: Avalon didn't spend any money marketing because their product sells itself. BFL has no product and they are selling investments in BFL, so their brochures have to be very shiny to pull in the dough. Pictures of products that do not exist, promises of riches, and sowing the fear that people will miss out if the don't invest now.
Looks like BFL snared another investor.
a) If your saying I have no clue about engineering or electronics, that would be an incorrect assumption. My earlier statement said that I had not heard of Butterflylabs, not that I had not heard of asics. I'm not claiming to be an expert, however, I do understand the process generally speaking, have some general knowledge in logic circuits, and programming. I also understand the process of designing and manufacturing circuit boards from a high level perspective. I understand that asics are basically the end of the road when it comes to mining and that no better technology currently exists to preform the calculations in a better,faster,cheaper way then an asic. Awesome, you read the Wikipedia entry for ASIC and can probably make an AND gate. You are disqualified from judging BFL on it's engineering merits. Experts can judge them, maybe amateurs with lots of experience can judge them, people with a bit of general knowledge cannot. So. b) It is a fallacy to claim that just because someone put a bit of time on their marketing that their product doesn't exist.
True, but I made no such claim so why are you making this point? I said that BFL is the best marketed ASIC and Avalon has almost no marketing. I presented the reasons why this is so, which you did not refute. So we are back to my original statement
No, you are back there. We are well past it. Was this over promised? Yes, it is clear that either by under-experienced mis-judgement, in the actual complexities and overall timeline, of producing and putting together such a complex product from the ground up (the more likely scenario in my mind) or by willful misinformation(hard to believe), this product was promised and not delivered according to the timeframe that was understood by all parties who were very early "investors" as you would like to call them. Yes, I get it. That will be enough to piss anyone off to the point of OP claiming they will "burn in hell" for the wrongs they have inflicted on society.
Lying to investors is the unforgivable sin. If they had a product but could not fulfill demand, that would be more understandable. And the point I have been trying to make is that, while yes, this is not good business practice to over promise, it doesn't merit the level of negativity that I'm reading a lot of the haters spewing out. Thus far, no one has lost any actual money, other then forgone profits of being first to market.
BFL is still holding investors money. They lied to investors about their prospects (which is illegal and should land them in jail). If they go bankrupt, a lot of people will lose all of their money. BFL presented an investment with low risk and high reward which is exactly the opposite of the truth. It has turned out to be high risk no reward (up to this point). However, I still maintain that if your buying a mining rig solely for the purpose of getting that one or two month advantage over everyone else, then you need to re-evaluate your strategy, as mining isn't a short term venture. It is a long term game.
Unless, you are first to market (high risk) then you can make a killing (high reward). Mining can absolutely be a short term venture, but that would classify it more as speculation than true investment in Bitcoin. You could buy hardware, mine with it, then sell it before it becomes obsolete and reinvest your proceeds into the next generation. "ASICs" are not the end of the line as you claim, any more than CPUs were the end in 1980. The efficiency and scalability of mining ASICs will continue to evolve as long as Bitcoin continues to grow. I have done the math, and even if the difficulty goes up to over 300M which i think is unlikely, and the btc price crashes to under $50, you will still be able to make 100% money back in less then 12 months.
You are presuming an ASIC and PCB designed and assembled by amateurs can run 24/7 at 100% output for 12 months. Another assumption made by someone with little to no experience in the relevant engineering disciplines. Also, Bitcoin might not be around in 12 months. So I say, being first to market really doesn't matter as much as most people think it does. Yes, you will not make $5,000 / day, become the next bitcoin millionare and retire at 35 but that is honestly pure delusion that anyone would think that that kind of a return should be expected in the first place.
Tell that to the people who were deciding between ordering from Avalon and BFL, read a post like your original, and decided on BFL. They had the right idea (invest in ASICs) but were fooled by charlatans and lost out on a tremendous opportunity. Of course they are angry. |
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Hrm interesting. I had only just first heard about them about 4 or 5 months ago. I lurked on the forums and what not for a few months and did my research. Avalon's offer is way more expensive and seems to be less well designed. ASICMiner, I really don't know much about them. I know you can buy mining shares on their system, and I spend an hour or two trying to figure out how it works but I really couldn't. The BFL solution looks the cleanest, and most high end. If they were selling on being first to market thats news to me. I had not seen anything that promised that anywhere. Maybe I'm just late in the game.
So, observation A: the OP has little to no clue about engineering or electronics, yet is trying to make a decision based on his expertise in these areas. Doomed to fail. Avalon is the working version, so by definition it is better designed than BFL. observation B: Avalon didn't spend any money marketing because their product sells itself. BFL has no product and they are selling investments in BFL, so their brochures have to be very shiny to pull in the dough. Pictures of products that do not exist, promises of riches, and sowing the fear that people will miss out if the don't invest now. Looks like BFL snared another investor. |
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Man, it sure would have been cool to sell those BFL mined coins at $250 a piece, wouldn't it.
Oh well, i guess $12 a piece is still cool.
$12 x 0 = $250 x 0 |
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OP ran Java in a browser.
OP clicked on a link from some random internet personage.
Everything that followed was a logical result of these two actions.
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All trading on Mt.Gox has been frozen until 02:00 UTC.
This is supposedly due to the huge lag (apparently this time caused by another DDoS attack) experienced for the last few hours (though it was down to single digits just before the freeze?).
Is it right that Mt. Gox interferes with the market when the price plummets, even though this is because of its own system's performance? Especially as it did not do the same for the two previous occurrences (yesterday and last week), thus reneging on a precedent without advanced warning or formal policy change?
There will be people who sold this time on the expectation that, if left alone, the price would have continued to descend (as it did on previous occasions). Is it right that this was not allowed to happen and those same people may stand to lose on account of extraordinary manipulation?
Of course, DDoS attacks in this context are a deliberate attempt to defraud - but they were allowed to run their course and others were also allowed to profit from buying at the end of such occurrences. Why is that different from people attempting to profit by selling on the way down?
BB.
Gox is correct to suspend trading if they cannot provide a fair (meaning no variable lag) market due to too much demand. Their mistake was signing up too many accounts before upgrading their hardware. |
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rs5AringKPLb5a97VGTevRjaiu8X5hnDSZ
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I am more asking for opinions on difficulty I guess. I just don't know enough to speculate. Assuming that BFL delivers then we know that ASICs will hit and the difficulty will surge. I just don't know what is a reasonable guestimate for it.
Like I said I am not concerned about the exchange rate, other than the fact that it is so high I wouldn't have to part with that many coins to order the device.
However if it is going to take years to even generate the coin back then it isn't a good investment.
If they deliver tomorrow, and BTC goes to $10000 it is an AWESOME DEAL because now you are rich. If they deliver in 6 months and BTC goes to $10000 it is a TERRIBLE DEAL because you could have bought BTC instead. If they deliver in 6 months, but the product is crap and burns out after 2 weeks of mining because they are amateurs and have no idea how to build complex electronic equipment it is a TERRIBLE DEAL If they deliver tomorrow, but the product is crap and burns out after 2 weeks of mining because they are amateurs and have no idea how to build complex electronic equipment it is an ever so slightly less TERRIBLE DEAL. Of course, the elephant in the room is that they may never deliver at all. But you declared that the elephant is not to be considered because it is large and gray. |
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FOREMOST: I am aware of the shipping issues BFL is having, so please no replys like 'No because you won't get it' This assumes that BFL will deliver.
With the recent increase in bitcoin prices I am seriously considering picking up some hashing power; however I was wondering if it would be worth it. I have never mined before, though I am highly technical (not worried about setting it up or running it). What I am worried about are things I know I don't know, and the things I don't know I don't know.
For example.... if you put 5 GH/s into a mining calculator today the return is great; however I would not get mine until most ASICs have shipped, I have no idea what to do for a difficulty estimate. I don't really care about the USD from mining, what I really want is to just set it up and have it generate some bitcoins over the long term for me. What I don't want is for 5GH to become like a single GPU card that really doesn't make it worth it.
So my question: Would purchasing a single 5 GH/s ASIC be worth it?
It is worth it to us, in comedic value. |
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<OP snipped>
Still laughing! Excellent humor. Now to post 2.
We need to take this thread's OP and your Box of Fans resistance is futile post and have them make babies together! |
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All 4 requirements for a fraud conviction are easily provable in BFLs case. BFLs only chance is to ship something fast.
I disagree, at least with this: That the accused did so willfully and with an intent to defraud; and When a company spends money on advertisements, (semi-)working hardware, etc, you can easily argue that they were intending to produce. It would be very hard for a judge to rule that BFL was *intending* to defraud people in an industry where legitimate companies fail constantly due to financial restraints and hardware failure. That said, they'd lose any case in regards to honesty in advertising and could be sued for that alone. In the end, they'd probably lose the same way Bruce Wagner lost for his mortgage venture. Bottom line: Taking insanely large amounts of money and not providing a single product. If I say I have something, then I sell it to you and take your money, then I tell you I will give it to you in 2 weeks, then it turns out I never had what I sold you, that is willfully committing fraud. Even saying you have something in stock when you do not is fraud if it is done on purpose and for the intent of taking a customers money who would not otherwise transact with you. None of this is in conflict with BFL actually trying to ship a product. |
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PS: just ignore nathanrees19... he's just a BFL fan boi  You realise that I'm flat out calling them stupid, right? I think the chances of you being so stupid that you actually believe what you're saying in this thread is < 0%. Therefore I'm putting you on ignore. I'm stupid for thinking that BFL is incompetent? I am sure their lawyers will have them use incompetence as a defense. However, their claims of having a prototype when it was clear they did not is misrepresenting the facts. If you take someone's money, promise them goods or services, and lie all at the same time, that is fraud. Since they did it over the internet it is wire fraud. http://www.federalcrimefaq.com/what-constitutes-the-crime-of-wire-fraud/All 4 requirements for a fraud conviction are easily provable in BFLs case. BFLs only chance is to ship something fast. |
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