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.