GOATS!

[AngelusWebDesign]

To be quite honest, I'm not sure if all this talk about giving goats / mining for goats is serious, or if it is satire.. WTF?!

It's serious!

What, because an agrarian life is so far from most people's reality, they think it doesn't exist?

You're right-- people ALL OVER THE WORLD live like Americans. They live in planned subdivisions with names like "Deer Creek", "Whispering Valley" with identical-looking, poorly constructed 2-story houses a few feet from each other and surrounded by 8-foot-tall privacy fences, with garish consumer items in the lawns, large trampolines in the backyard, etc. They all have strip malls a couple miles from their house, homeowner's associations, and they work at retail establishments for a living. They drive there in their sedans and SUVs that they're leasing, etc. You get the idea.

No, plenty of countries actually grow/raise their own food. Usually because they don't have a choice, and that's the way it's always been done for them. They haven't been "Americanized" yet.

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[Phinnaeus Gage]

Re: Phinneas's last post (not quoting because lots of images)

We've chosen to donate through Heifer International because of their great reputation, and are aware that they are other services which donate goats at a lower cost.  However, we trust that Heifer is spending the $120 per goat wisely: they include education on how to raise the goats and ongoing support to the families who receive them, which is likely why it costs them more than their "competitors".  

To be clear, I have no issue with CoinLab or Heifer International. I just wanted to present a couple facts in the strange Phinnaeus Gage way. Hopefully, no harm.

I did a lot of reading about the "Give a Goat" programs available, and you are correct that some go the extra mile. I'm fully intrigued with this goat thing, but also took into the consideration of the video content of which I linked.

That said, is there any way HI would consider accepting Bitcoin as a donation option on their site? If they did, Bitcoin 100 is in position to send them BTC100. That currently equates to donating exactly 11.258333333 goats, but I have some pull and can round it up to 12 goats, for nobody would want .25833333 of goat unless it's a Greek entree.

Later, bud.

~Bruno K~

[Monster Tent]

To be quite honest, I'm not sure if all this talk about giving goats / mining for goats is serious, or if it is satire.. WTF?!

It's serious!

What, because an agrarian life is so far from most people's reality, they think it doesn't exist?

You're right-- people ALL OVER THE WORLD live like Americans. They live in planned subdivisions with names like "Deer Creek", "Whispering Valley" with identical-looking, poorly constructed 2-story houses a few feet from each other and surrounded by 8-foot-tall privacy fences, with garish consumer items in the lawns, large trampolines in the backyard, etc. They all have strip malls a couple miles from their house, homeowner's associations, and they work at retail establishments for a living. They drive there in their sedans and SUVs that they're leasing, etc. You get the idea.

No, plenty of countries actually grow/raise their own food. Usually because they don't have a choice, and that's the way it's always been done for them. They haven't been "Americanized" yet.

If you own a goat you must be a terrorist.

[SgtSpike]

To be quite honest, I'm not sure if all this talk about giving goats / mining for goats is serious, or if it is satire.. WTF?!

As others said, quite serious.

My family/relatives actually pool money together every Christmas to give to needy families around the world.  We've done the goat thing several times as part of it.

[BkkCoins]

.25833333 of goat unless it's a Greek entree.

Later, bud.

~Bruno K~

I couldn't help but think of this...

[Bendur]

Great to see two of the coolest things in the world (bitcoin and goats) together at last. Well done coin lab, keep up the good work!

[franky1]

heifer international do not supply the goats.. their partners do

guess who the partners are.

OXFAM

heifer make profits.. oops that word should not be used when they call themselves non-profit.. so lets use the phrase, huge managerial labour costs.

so get rid of the middleman and put the cash through OXFAM send 2 goats to the needy instead of just 1

[Spekulatius]

.25833333 of goat unless it's a Greek entree.

Later, bud.

~Bruno K~

I couldn't help but think of this...

Exactly what I thought.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

.25833333 of goat unless it's a Greek entree.

Later, bud.

~Bruno K~

I couldn't help but think of this...

Exactly what I thought.

For the life of me, I can't see the humor. Please explain so I too can enjoy it. I don't even know how to Google for the answer.

Thanks in advance.

~Bruno K~

[Raoul Duke]

heifer international do not supply the goats.. their partners do

guess who the partners are.

OXFAM

heifer make profits.. oops that word should not be used when they call themselves non-profit.. so lets use the phrase, huge managerial labour costs.

so get rid of the middleman and put the cash through OXFAM send 2 goats to the needy instead of just 1

Quoted for importance.

Source please?

[franky1]

heifer international do not supply the goats.. their partners do

guess who the partners are.

OXFAM

heifer make profits.. oops that word should not be used when they call themselves non-profit.. so lets use the phrase, huge managerial labour costs.

so get rid of the middleman and put the cash through OXFAM send 2 goats to the needy instead of just 1

Quoted for importance.

Source please?

ok image from heifer website

the quote "this great investment allows our partners".blah blah

so lets check out the partners
http://www.heifer.org/inside/our-partners
click on non-profit and top of the list is bothar

ok now look into bothars partners
scroll down to the title "walumba Women's Draught Cattle Project" and oxfam is listed as partners
http://www.bothar.ie/index.jsp?p=191&n=206

i know that bothar is linked with oxfam for the supplys stuff.. but heifer is not a goat SUPPLIER.

heifer ask for £120.. but oxfam/bothar only ask for £50/£55.. so i would prefer to give oxfam the £120 so they can buy atleast 2 goats and 40% towards a 3rd goat. which adds up the more that is donated.

heifer keeps atleast £60-£70 of funds..

i got nothing against a charity that atleast gathers some money for worthy charities as its better then no money.. but for the most effective use of the money. give it to oxfam

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Franky1 makes a valid point, but as I've already stated, we don't need to run any of the efforts put forth into the ground, albeit I guess I started it, of which I apologies. I did see what you saw, Franky, but tried to present such facts in a subtle way, letting the chips fall as they may, the whole time envisioning a better system during the research of 'Give a Goat' programs.

I started another thread to explore another option: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=131946.0

I will not be dissing any efforts presented within this thread, and thank CoinLab for bringing awareness to Bitcoin via a unique means.

~Bruno K~

[augustocroppo]

i know that bothar is linked with oxfam for the supplys stuff.. but heifer is not a goat SUPPLIER.

heifer ask for £120.. but oxfam/bothar only ask for £50/£55.. so i would prefer to give oxfam the £120 so they can buy atleast 2 goats and 40% towards a 3rd goat. which adds up the more that is donated.

heifer keeps atleast £60-£70 of funds..

i got nothing against a charity that atleast gathers some money for worthy charities as its better then no money.. but for the most effective use of the money. give it to oxfam

Wow... I personally understand that as a scam. This was not disclosed so far in the Coinlab internet page:

http://pool.coinlab.com/partners/goats

CoinLab’s Give a Goat program lets you donate your idle Graphics Card’s computational power to raise money to be donated a charitable organization.

We offer a small, downloadable Give a Goat client. You download it and let it run in the background to raise money to purchase goats, which are given to impoverished families.

By giving a goat to a family in need, you are providing them with path to lifting themselves out of poverty.  The milk goats produce is nutritious and valuable, so the family can stay healthier themselves and sell extra milk as an extra source of income. Goat manure is also a useful fertilizer, so families can make their farmland more productive.  Finally, the offspring of the goats can be kept to grow the family’s herd, or sold for additional income.

We believe in the phrase, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” When a family receives a goat from one of our partners, they are also educated about animal care, so they learn the skills needed to keep their goats healthy, happy, and productive.

Click here to download the Beta version of the CoinLab Give a Goat Client. If you have any problems, questions, or feedback, email us at goats@coinlab.com.

Frequenty Asked Questions
What are the system requirements for the client?
- Windows (XP or greater)
- Internet Explorer 6 or higher (we recommend at least IE9 for the best experience)
- One or more Graphics Cards (AMD 5000 Series or higher recommended)
- Up-to-date Graphics card drivers. AMD Drivers, NVIDIA Drivers

What kind of computation are you doing?
At launch, all computation will be Bitcoin Mining, because it is the most valuable compute job today. We're currently working on getting other High Performance Computing work units on our network, such as Protein Folding, Gene Sequencing and Video Encoding.

Bitcoin is a distributed peer-to-peer value-transfer system. New Bitcoins are created by adding computational power to the network. Bitcoin transactions are irreversibly sealed into a permanent public record that the entire network shares and maintains. The last 10 or 20 minutes of the history of this ledger can only be undone with a greater amount of computational power than created it, which is exponentially harder the further back in history you try to undo. Because of this, the bitcoin protocol pays people to add computational power, making it harder and more expensive for people to attack the network. Part of why people think Bitcoins are valuable is because the Bitcoin network is now the world’s largest supercomputer.

CoinLab loves Bitcoin. If you’d like to learn more about Bitcoin, weusecoins.com is a great place to start.

Which Graphics Cards perform best?
Currently, AMD graphics cards tend to earn more than NVIDIA cards. We recommend an AMD 5000 series card or better.

Where can I find the Terms of Service?
Here!

By the way, there is no term of service available.


http://www.geekwire.com/2012/geeks-charity-bitcoin-mining-give-goat/#utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+geekwire+%28GeekWire%29

How geeks do charity: Use your GPU to churn out goats
December 20, 2012 at 8:13 am by Todd Bishop

Your computer’s graphics processor might be more charitable than you think.

CoinLab, a Seattle-based tech startup that focuses on the Bitcoin digital currency, has come up with a way for PC users to take advantage of their spare GPU cycles to raise money to buy goats for impoverished families around the world.

Yes, real goats. This is not FarmVille. The software program is grounded in the mechanics of the Bitcoin system — in which units of the digital currency are generated in exchange for adding computational power to the Bitcoin network.


Mike Koss and Peter Vessenes

CoinLab, co-founded by Seattle entrepreneurs Peter Vessenes and Mike Koss, normally works with game developers. CoinLab’s program lets gamers voluntarily install a program that makes their idle computing resources available to generate Bitcoins, in exchange for in-game virtual goods and points from the developers.

In the spirit of the holiday season, CoinLab recently created a charitable version of its software for anyone to use — called “Give a Goat.”

Users who download and run the Windows-based software can donate the spare processing time from their GPU to generate Bitcoins for charity. CoinLab says it will donate 100 percent of the proceeds to Heifer International, which provides animals to families to help alleviate hunger throughout the world. For every $120 raised through the Bitcoin mining, they’ll be able to send a goat to one family.

CoinLab explains on its Give a Goat page, “By giving a goat to a family in need, you are providing them with path to lifting themselves out of poverty. The milk goats produce is nutritious and valuable, so the family can stay healthier themselves and sell extra milk as an extra source of income. Goat manure is also a useful fertilizer, so families can make their farmland more productive. Finally, the offspring of the goats can be kept to grow the family’s herd, or sold for additional income.”

They estimate that someone with a good graphics card can earn up to $1 per day toward a goat by running the program. CoinLab will take care of the donation (after converting the Bitcoins into U.S. currency, unless the Heifer project wants the Bitcoins).

The software even comes with a dashboard and dials for users to track their contributions.
Bitcoin was a hot topic in the tech industry at one point last year, but the virtual currency’s price volatility and other problems made many people skeptical. Vessenes and Koss are big believers in Bitcoin’s potential, and hope to help legitimize it for more widespread use. The company raised $500,000 this year from investors including Tim Draper to push ahead with Bitcoin projects.

More background on the “Give a Goat” program is available here.

[SgtSpike]

Wow... I personally understand that as a scam. This was not disclosed so far in the Coinlab internet page:

I wouldn't go that far.  Perhaps, a less efficient user of their resources. 

As Coinlab mentioned, perhaps heifer takes up the task of teaching the people who receive these goats how to care for them, while offloading the responsibility of acquiring and delivering said goats to a 3rd party?

[augustocroppo]

I wouldn't go that far.  Perhaps, a less efficient user of their resources.

There is a promise: 'For every $120 raised through the Bitcoin mining, they’ll be able to send a goat to one family.'

That implies that the coast to delivery a goat is $120.

Now evidence shows that the delivery of a goat is less than half of the value promised. This indicates that there are hidden costs which were not disclosed for the general public. This hidden costs are above any reasonable threshold expected from a charity organization. For each goat obtained for delivery, the charity organization is keeping an extra goat for themselves.

This is attempt of fraud because the hidden costs were not disclosed. The people which will donate is being tricked to believe that $120 is the price to delivery a goat.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/fraud?q=fraud

Definition of fraud
noun
[mass noun]
wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal

This is a attempt of wrongful deception which Heifer (or Coinlab) intended to result in financial gain for themselves.

As Coinlab mentioned, perhaps heifer takes up the task of teaching the people who receive these goats how to care for them, while offloading the responsibility of acquiring and delivering said goats to a 3rd party?

This is a joke, right?

The people which receive the goats do not need a special lessons to receive a goat or to care for goats. People which receive the goats already know what to do, how to do and why to do with a goat. It is part of their cultural formation. What they lack is the goat, not the skills to look after the goats.

[SgtSpike]

I wouldn't go that far.  Perhaps, a less efficient user of their resources.

There is a promise: 'For every $120 raised through the Bitcoin mining, they’ll be able to send a goat to one family.'

That implies that the coast to delivery a goat is $120.

Now evidence shows that the delivery of a goat is almost the half of the value promised. This indicates that there are hidden costs which were not disclosed for the general public. This hidden costs are above any reasonable threshold expected from a charity organization. For each goat obtained for delivery, the charity organization is keeping an extra goat for themselves.

This is attempt of fraud because the hidden costs were not disclosed. The people which will donate is being tricked to believe that $120 is the price to delivery a goat.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/fraud?q=fraud

Definition of fraud
noun
[mass noun]
wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal

This is a attempt of wrongful deception which Heifer (or Coinlab) intended to result in financial gain for themselves.

As Coinlab mentioned, perhaps heifer takes up the task of teaching the people who receive these goats how to care for them, while offloading the responsibility of acquiring and delivering said goats to a 3rd party?

This is a joke, right?

The people which receive the goats do not need a special lessons to receive a goat or to care for goats. People which receive the goats already know what to do, how to do and why to do with a goat. It is part of their cultural formation. What they lack is the goat, not the skills to look after the goats.

Not a joke.

People who have never had a goat may not know how to properly care for one to ensure its health and longevity.  Even though their neighbors may have a goat and have taken care of it, that doesn't mean it's the best method either.  Maybe their neighbor's goats could be living twice as long, and produce better milk in greater quantities if they had the knowledge that this organization could provide.  The thing is, you just don't know - you're only making assumptions.

Certainly, many charities could be considered frauds, given how much "overhead" they have, but I think you need more information to go by in this case.  Start digging.  Find out what the $120 goes towards, besides just the acquisition of a goat.  Look at that charity report website that shows what percentage of donations go towards the people.  But don't go around calling charities frauds when you have no evidence to support it.

[augustocroppo]

People who have never had a goat may not know how to properly care for one to ensure its health and longevity.  Even though their neighbors may have a goat and have taken care of it, that doesn't mean it's the best method either.  Maybe their neighbor's goats could be living twice as long, and produce better milk in greater quantities if they had the knowledge that this organization could provide.  The thing is, you just don't know - you're only making assumptions.

Poor populations in developing countries learn skills related to their needs more than you and me will even learn in our whole life time. Living there is more than just wait for the waiter to serve the lamb meal you choose in a fancy menu.

Certainly, many charities could be considered frauds, given how much "overhead" they have, but I think you need more information to go by in this case. Start digging.  Find out what the $120 goes towards, besides just the acquisition of a goat.  Look at that charity report website that shows what percentage of donations go towards the people.  But don't go around calling charities frauds when you have no evidence to support it.

There is not need of further investigation, the necessary evidence is already published in this thread. If you decided to ignore, I have no obligation to respond to your demands.

[SgtSpike]

So, you argue that the "teaching" portion of the charity isn't necessary.  All I am saying is that I'd like to give the charity the benefit of the doubt that the teaching portion DOES have benefits, and until I see evidence to the contrary, I will continue giving that benefit of the doubt.

[franky1]

heifer keep the $70 difference...

its organisations like oxfam which teach people how to deal with goats. and they do it for $50..
heifer is classed as charity sponsers/advertisers/campaign managers.. not charity ground troops doing the hard work for the needy.

i would not call it an outright scam until there is proof that $0 ends up as a goat. what i would say is definetly a huge chunk of the cheese never reaches the needy. and its a insuffiencent use of peoples goodwill.

coinlab if you are reading this. drop all ties with heifer. and make it an oxfam buy a goat scheme instead.

same rules apply: people mine for bitcoin you cash out the bitcoin and buy a goat directly with the charity that actually buys goats.

we dont want to see our good will of $120 being only used for $50 of actual charity work

get rid of the middle men. no one minds a 5%-10% admin fee's.. but not a 60% fee for just going to the oxfam website and pressing a few buttons

[SgtSpike]

heifer is classed as charity sponsers/advertisers/campaign managers.. not charity ground troops doing the hard work for the needy.

Do you have proof of this?