Anyone w/ FPGAs should keep their eye on this

[rynmln]

This may be off topic as it doesn't have anything to do with mining, just the hardware used for such.

If ASICs do come around, those with FPGAs should collaborate on something like this if you plan to quit mining. The SETI@Home project is just one of the many BOINC projects out there, but FPGAs seem the best suited for SETI@Home. The FPGA@Home project doesn't seem to have much going on yet but it looks like he could use some help from you guys that know things about FPGAs. Donating those wonderfully efficient, easily re-purposed cycles really could make an impact on that project. Thoughts?

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[BR0KK]

Or use coinlab... Currently with GPUs but I can think of a opening towards fpgas there.

[lassdas]

If ASICs do come around and people plan to quit mining they probably do so because they don't get any high returns anymore.
Now what you ask them to do will give them even less than that, instead of keep mining for maybe 1, or 2 bitcents a month, which is way less than the power-cost to run those rigs, but at least it is something, you want them to run the rigs on some other project that doesn't return anything at all.

That doesn't make much sense to me.

[SgtSpike]

If ASICs do come around and people plan to quit mining they probably do so because they don't get any high returns anymore.
Now what you ask them to do will give them even less than that, instead of keep mining for maybe 1, or 2 bitcents a month, which is way less than the power-cost to run those rigs, but at least it is something, you want them to run the rigs on some other project that doesn't return anything at all.

That doesn't make much sense to me.

Some people donate to charity too.  That doesn't make much financial sense either.

[Luno]

If ASICs do come around and people plan to quit mining they probably do so because they don't get any high returns anymore.
Now what you ask them to do will give them even less than that, instead of keep mining for maybe 1, or 2 bitcents a month, which is way less than the power-cost to run those rigs, but at least it is something, you want them to run the rigs on some other project that doesn't return anything at all.

That doesn't make much sense to me.

Some people donate to charity too.  That doesn't make much financial sense either.

You can ask the aliens for a quantum mining rig when they get here.

[SgtSpike]

If ASICs do come around and people plan to quit mining they probably do so because they don't get any high returns anymore.
Now what you ask them to do will give them even less than that, instead of keep mining for maybe 1, or 2 bitcents a month, which is way less than the power-cost to run those rigs, but at least it is something, you want them to run the rigs on some other project that doesn't return anything at all.

That doesn't make much sense to me.

Some people donate to charity too.  That doesn't make much financial sense either.

You can ask the aliens for a quantum mining rig when they get here.

I've never been involved in the SETI@home program.  I think aliens and other intelligent life is utter nonesense.  But that doesn't mean I think people have no legitimate reason for putting computing power towards such a project.  If they believe in it, why not?

[lassdas]

If ASICs do come around and people plan to quit mining they probably do so because they don't get any high returns anymore.
Now what you ask them to do will give them even less than that, instead of keep mining for maybe 1, or 2 bitcents a month, which is way less than the power-cost to run those rigs, but at least it is something, you want them to run the rigs on some other project that doesn't return anything at all.

That doesn't make much sense to me.

Some people donate to charity too.  That doesn't make much financial sense either.

Nothing wrong with donations.
It's not about which of both make financial sense, it's about what you think is a good cause.

Is BOINC/folding/ET-search a better cause and thus more worth donating to, than having a free (as in freedom) payment network?

Said this on some other thread already, but anyway:

When I started mining (and that was back around the time when 1BTC was less than $0.01) I only did it because i thought having a free (as in freedom), decentralized, secure, non-government-related, non-bank-related payment network was a very nice idea worth donating some of my CPU-cycles to.
And that hasn't changed yet, it's still a good idea and nice to have, worth donating to, even if that means i have to actually pay something for it.

I can't really say it's worth donating to BOINC or similar, I simply don't know, nor does anyone else.
Even if someone folds some proteins (or makes donators do so) and finds the cure for <insert-scary-disease-here>, those that are in deep need for it probably don't get/can't afford it anyway and only the Pharma-Mafia profits.

Anyway, it's your resources, your choice how to use it and what to use it for.  

[SgtSpike]

If ASICs do come around and people plan to quit mining they probably do so because they don't get any high returns anymore.
Now what you ask them to do will give them even less than that, instead of keep mining for maybe 1, or 2 bitcents a month, which is way less than the power-cost to run those rigs, but at least it is something, you want them to run the rigs on some other project that doesn't return anything at all.

That doesn't make much sense to me.

Some people donate to charity too.  That doesn't make much financial sense either.

Nothing wrong with donations.
It's not about which of both make financial sense, it's about what you think is a good cause.

Is BOINC/folding/ET-search a better cause and thus more worth donating to, than having a free (as in freedom) payment network?

Said this on some other thread already, but anyway:

When I started mining (and that was back around the time when 1BTC was less than $0.01) I only did it because i thought having a free (as in freedom), decentralized, secure, non-government-related, non-bank-related payment network was a very nice idea worth donating some of my CPU-cycles to.
And that hasn't changed yet, it's still a good idea and nice to have, worth donating to, even if that means i have to actually pay something for it.

I can't really say it's worth donating to BOINC or similar, I simply don't know, nor does anyone else.
Even if someone folds some proteins (or makes donators do so) and finds the cure for <insert-scary-disease-here>, those that are in deep need for it probably don't get/can't afford it anyway and only the Pharma-Mafia profits.

Anyway, it's your resources, your choice how to use it and what to use it for.  

Then why did you say it doesn't make much sense to run the rigs on some project that doesn't return anything at all (or to be more clear, hasn't returned anything yet)?  Obviously, you were at that time asserting that you COULD say it wasn't worth donating to BOINC or similar.  You're contradicting yourself.

I agree with your latter post - each individual much determine what is worth it and what is not to themselves.

[lassdas]

No, you missunderstood that.

It's the reason to change that doesn't make much sense.
The reason was, that ASICs come around and you don't get (enough) bitcoins anymore on your FPGAs.
And it still doesn't make much sense to me, to switch the good cause that i'm donating to, just because I don't get (enough) bitcoins in return for my donation anymore (especially to switch to something returning even less than not enough). 

[Gabi]

Because keeping the fpga on bitcoin would be useless? At least on BOINC it would do something useful

[tvbcof]

<derail>

I've never been involved in the SETI@home program.  I think aliens and other intelligent life is utter nonesense.  But that doesn't mean I think people have no legitimate reason for putting computing power towards such a project.  If they believe in it, why not?

From the point of view of probabilities, it seems almost inconceivable to me that humans represent the pinnacle of life in the entire universe.  We send out intense beacons looking for other 'folks', so it also seems likely that some of the (presumed) others would be doing the same.  One of the bigger mysteries to me is why we've not detected any such beacons yet.

There are a number of hypothesis I can think of to explain this mystery.  One of the more interesting ones is that certain life forms have become advanced enough to be able to manipulate or isolate areas in geographical space from electromagnetic artifacts.  When a civilization is in a primitive state (defined by still being war-like torturing assholes) but is starting to get a handle on certain technologies like (radio-astronomy and number crunching) they are isolated for general 'humanitarian' (sic) reasons.

</derail>

[SgtSpike]

No, you missunderstood that.

It's the reason to change that doesn't make much sense.
The reason was, that ASICs come around and you don't get (enough) bitcoins anymore on your FPGAs.
And it still doesn't make much sense to me, to switch the good cause that i'm donating to, just because I don't get (enough) bitcoins in return for my donation anymore (especially to switch to something returning even less than not enough). 

So something that was once used with a profit motive cannot be reused by the same person for a donation motive?

Really, I feel like you are saying that someone who is motivated to make money cannot be motivated to donate.  An FPGA would be useless for making money after ASICs are going in full force.  If you make a couple of bitcents with one, but then have to pay out $5/month in electricity, you'd be losing money.  Thus, if a person was solely profit-motivated, they wouldn't even turn it on after it became unprofitable.  But, they might find benefit in using the device towards non-profit purposes.

To put it another way, doing anything for profit or non-profit nets a benefit.  A person will switch from for-profit mining to non-profit calculating when the benefit for the non-profit activity exceeds the benefit of the for-profit activity.  Obviously, it's a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison, which is why each person has to decide for themselves exactly where that point is.

[lassdas]

Because keeping the fpga on bitcoin would be useless? At least on BOINC it would do something useful

Says who?
What makes it useless on the bitcoin-network?
My guess is that even when ASICs are around the probability to solve a block on FPGAs is still higher than the probability to do anything useful on BOINC.  

[lassdas]

So something that was once used with a profit motive cannot be reused by the same person for a donation motive?

No, it can of course be reused by the same person for a donation motive

 But, they might find benefit in using the device towards non-profit purposes.

Sure and one of those non-profit purposes might be the free payment network that Bitcoin is.

[BR0KK]

If ASICs do come around and people plan to quit mining they probably do so because they don't get any high returns anymore.
Now what you ask them to do will give them even less than that, instead of keep mining for maybe 1, or 2 bitcents a month, which is way less than the power-cost to run those rigs, but at least it is something, you want them to run the rigs on some other project that doesn't return anything at all.

That doesn't make much sense to me.

Some people donate to charity too.  That doesn't make much financial sense either.

You can ask the aliens for a quantum mining rig when they get here.

I've never been involved in the SETI@home program.  I think aliens and other intelligent life is utter nonesense.  But that doesn't mean I think people have no legitimate reason for putting computing power towards such a project.  If they believe in it, why not?

Inelligent life ... That's a good one :d

[Gabi]

Because keeping the fpga on bitcoin would be useless? At least on BOINC it would do something useful

Says who?
What makes it useless on the bitcoin-network?
My guess is that even when ASICs are around the probability to solve a block on FPGAs is still higher than the probability to do anything useful on BOINC.  

Let's speak about CPU mining  Is it useful today?

Your guess is epic wrong btw. SETI isn't the only projects, there are dozens of other projects, biology, medic, physics etcetc and everyone of them released dozens of scientific papers with their results. No need to make "guess", facts speak.

[lassdas]

Let's speak about CPU mining  Is it useful today?

It isn't less useful today, no matter how fast/big the network is now.
True, it's not profitable anymore.
True, it's pretty expensive compared to GPUs, or FPGAs.
But it's just as useful as GPUs, or FPGAs.
Every MH is as useful as another, no matter what hardware hashes it, or how many power is consumed by that hardware.

Your guess is epic wrong btw. SETI isn't the only projects, there are dozens of other projects, biology, medic, physics etcetc and everyone of them released dozens of scientific papers with their results. No need to make "guess", facts speak.

That's the nature of guesses, they can be wrong.
And i have no doubts that those dozens of other projects release results, the question is if there's anything useful in it.

[TraderTimm]

Life is out there, its just either too remote or too smart to get involved with us. (Probably both.)

As for bitcoin nodes, I'd run one just to support the network - because I believe in the change it can bring to the world.

[SgtSpike]

So something that was once used with a profit motive cannot be reused by the same person for a donation motive?

No, it can of course be reused by the same person for a donation motive

 But, they might find benefit in using the device towards non-profit purposes.

Sure and one of those non-profit purposes might be the free payment network that Bitcoin is.

I'm scratching my head trying to figure out what your point is.

So someone can donate electric costs worth of MH/s to the Bitcoin network by spending electric costs less small bitcents of revenues,

OR

someone can donate electric costs worth of computing power to other distributed computing projects.

Do we both agree on this?

Assuming so, a person would choose to donate towards the Bitcoin network or another distributed computing project based on what they believe and value.

Do we both agree on this?

Assuming so, what gives you the right to say that it makes no sense for someone to choose to donate their electric costs worth of computing power to distributed computing projects other than Bitcoin?

[lassdas]

Yes, we both agree on both of those statements.

And for the right to say: I didn't say that it makes no sense for someone, I said it makes no sense to me to switch for the only reason that the current project doesn't make me profit anymore, especially because I think that the current project is the one that helps people now, while other projects might help someday, but maybe never will, outcome totally unknown.

Just my 2cents, nothing to worry about.
I'm totally fine if every FPGA-owner decides to switch to BOINC, I'll just let mine sit on Bitcoin, or shut them down completely if i can no longer afford the power. Donate them to BOINC? Not so much.

[SgtSpike]

Yes, we both agree on both of those statements.

And for the right to say: I didn't say that it makes no sense for someone, I said it makes no sense to me to switch for the only reason that the current project doesn't make me profit anymore, especially because I think that the current project is the one that helps people now, while other projects might help someday, but maybe never will, outcome totally unknown.

Just my 2cents, nothing to worry about.
I'm totally fine if every FPGA-owner decides to switch to BOINC, I'll just let mine sit on Bitcoin, or shut them down completely if i can no longer afford the power. Donate them to BOINC? Not so much.

Ok, fair enough..!

[Raize]

Some people donate to charity too.  That doesn't make much financial sense either.

It does make sense if you want a better world. I donate to a ton of charities that have a proven record and I like and write off the donations on my taxes. I live within my means and save a reasonable amount of money, too. I'd rather give the money to charity than the government, anyway.

[SgtSpike]

Some people donate to charity too.  That doesn't make much financial sense either.

It does make sense if you want a better world. I donate to a ton of charities that have a proven record and I like and write off the donations on my taxes. I live within my means and save a reasonable amount of money, too. I'd rather give the money to charity than the government, anyway.

I agree it makes sense, just not from the perspective of finances.  If you donate (which truly means giving money away without expecting anything equitable in return), then you are in a worse-off situation financially.  You exchange your donation for the feeling of doing some good in the world and for benefit given to other people.

[abbeytim]

um why wouldn't you just keep mining with a fpga  they don't consume much power
and if they have already paid for them selves just keep mining withem

people still mined with gpus even after the fpgas came out

[SgtSpike]

um why wouldn't you just keep mining with a fpga  they don't consume much power
and if they have already paid for them selves just keep mining withem

people still mined with gpus even after the fpgas came out

Because when you make 0.05 BTC a month, it doesn't make it worth it no matter how little electricity it consumes.

[Jack1Rip1BurnIt]

um why wouldn't you just keep mining with a fpga  they don't consume much power
and if they have already paid for them selves just keep mining withem

people still mined with gpus even after the fpgas came out

Because when you make 0.05 BTC a month, it doesn't make it worth it no matter how little electricity it consumes.

Amen

[rynmln]

OP here, didn't think there was going to much response to that post after I saw it fall down the page with no response. Anyhow, what you do with your FPGA is your choice. Continuing to mine for whatever you can get might make sense if BTC price continues to rise, but that's pure speculation.

Using it in a different distributed computing project is up to you. I only mentioned SETI@Home because it seems best suited for powerful FPGA processing and that website seems to be working on making it happen with that project first, then other, more complex ones later. Also, Folding@Home uses a lot of floating point processing which FPGAs aren't well suited for and adapting it to an FPGA has been put on the "won't do" list on their wiki somewhere.

It was just a suggestion and I'm glad to see some discussion over it. If you were to stop mining it would be a shame to see them collect dust. So, I proposed some info that could be just one of many solutions. Also, as far as power is concerned, however efficient they are, one could consider lending/renting them to a local institution for their own research or participation in a distributed project they want to help out. You could profit marginally with it that way as well.

Anyway, like I said, just trying to inform so you can make your own informed decision with said information.

[||bit]

This may be off topic as it doesn't have anything to do with mining, just the hardware used for such.

If ASICs do come around, those with FPGAs should collaborate on something like this if you plan to quit mining. The SETI@Home project is just one of the many BOINC projects out there, but FPGAs seem the best suited for SETI@Home. The FPGA@Home project doesn't seem to have much going on yet but it looks like he could use some help from you guys that know things about FPGAs. Donating those wonderfully efficient, easily re-purposed cycles really could make an impact on that project. Thoughts?

Good idea in general. Maybe something like the protein folding project would be worthwhile.

But I wouldn't waste the time & energy with SETI. Even if life existed in another star system, though astronomically unlikely, there are too many problems and too much space between here and even the closest star (about 4.5 light years). It's a binary star system with only one likely planet I have read about (w/ temps @ ~1500C). So, don't expect life there.

Other issues: What power would need to be transmitted? And how directional would it be? The more directional, the least likely we would be the star system receiving anything. The less directional, the least likely there will be enough power to transmit a detectable signal to earth. Even so, would you be listening at the correct location & time the alien life was at a stage of technology capable of transmitting anything? etc...

But the general idea for some other collaborative computational projects useful to humans here/now on earth still seems a worthwhile prospect.

||bit

[Unacceptable]

http://zidbits.com/2011/07/how-far-have-radio-signals-traveled-from-earth/

[axilla]

If ASICs do come around and people plan to quit mining they probably do so because they don't get any high returns anymore.
Now what you ask them to do will give them even less than that, instead of keep mining for maybe 1, or 2 bitcents a month, which is way less than the power-cost to run those rigs, but at least it is something, you want them to run the rigs on some other project that doesn't return anything at all.

That doesn't make much sense to me.

Some people donate to charity too.  That doesn't make much financial sense either.

You can ask the aliens for a quantum mining rig when they get here.

I've never been involved in the SETI@home program.  I think aliens and other intelligent life is utter nonesense.  But that doesn't mean I think people have no legitimate reason for putting computing power towards such a project.  If they believe in it, why not?

So you honestly think humans on earth in an infinite galaxy are the only living life forms.. do you believe we came from the lord and savior jesus christ? lol

[jborkl]

Not to be picky, but you mean Universe.

We know the size of the Milky Way Galaxy

And out the 400 billion stars in our Galaxy it is arrogant to think we are so special to be alone, never mind the rest of the Universe.

[||bit]

If ASICs do come around and people plan to quit mining they probably do so because they don't get any high returns anymore.
Now what you ask them to do will give them even less than that, instead of keep mining for maybe 1, or 2 bitcents a month, which is way less than the power-cost to run those rigs, but at least it is something, you want them to run the rigs on some other project that doesn't return anything at all.

That doesn't make much sense to me.

Some people donate to charity too.  That doesn't make much financial sense either.

You can ask the aliens for a quantum mining rig when they get here.

I've never been involved in the SETI@home program.  I think aliens and other intelligent life is utter nonesense.  But that doesn't mean I think people have no legitimate reason for putting computing power towards such a project.  If they believe in it, why not?

So you honestly think humans on earth in an infinite galaxy are the only living life forms.. do you believe we came from the lord and savior jesus christ? lol

The galaxy is not infinite. Neither is the universe. Worse still, assuming the big bang theory is true, everything (space/time/matter) came into existence from nothing.

So, suppose he does believe in Jesus. He could then account for everything that we normally assume is true (morals, logic, mind... and of course life, etc..). However, what's your belief on the origins of things such as morals, consciousness or logic? That fish crawled out of the water and gave rise to philosophers? ..ok..whatever... good luck being consistent.

||bit