Why QQ?

[wrenchmonkey]

Apparently anybody who doesn't fabricate their own 'facts' is ignorant.

"If you don't know the answer, and there's no reliable way for you to determine a factual answer, just make up some wild speculation that has little-to-no-bearing on any of the facts you DO have. Be sure to base it all on your preexisting opinions of the company, and add as much bullshit as you can. Otherwise it would be confirmation bias, and willful ignorance, and stuff."  

[PuertoLibre]

Your original point that a mass refund would help BFL remains idiotic. Your defense of it is dogmatic. Saying that  you are after some charity money from BFL was sarcasm, you would not be worth it.

A controlled refund process would help BFL.

An uncontrolled refund process would be detrimental to BFL.

I am going to wear my SUPER Troll costume. Beware, I rarely put it on.

---------------------------

Think about it for a bit, if you are BFL what are your weakest links in a controlled refund process?

Think.

Well, if you are them, they rely on:

--A functional bank account or two.
--A functional PayPal Payment Processor.
--A functional Website.
--A pragmatic presence with (very) visible but (very) low interaction.

------------------

They are (I am pretty sure) already in violation of Paypal's policy.

Point 1: A controlled refund process requires that a company controls its outflow of money. You always should retain control of this process. If the process become an uncontrolled outflow, the company may collapse.

If as company, some customers were to raise the alarm that there are non-standard practices at play which would counter PayPal merchant policies or Term and Conditions, then the company may lose access to the PayPal network. Perhaps even lose access to the MasterCard and Visa network if they got blacklisted.

Point 2: The uncontrolled conditions. In early May, there was an incident where this occurred. Someone let Paypal know that BFL had not shipped a massive quantity of orders. Begrudgingly (it seems) BFL was forced to respond to the complaints and address the issue with their customers.

Suddenly, there was an outflow of orders. Strangely, it was mentioned By BFL that they were required to show proof (to Paypal) that they were shipping out units to customers.

Problem: Most of the people who recieved units were not customers, nor were they even paid orders.

Conundrum Question: How was the issue resolved if Paypal did not receive a valid notice of shipments?

[PuertoLibre]

--A functional PayPal Payment Processor.

Problem: Most of the people who received units were not customers, nor were they even paid orders.

Conundrum Question: How was the issue resolved if Paypal did not receive a valid notice of shipments?

The process of disputing with Paypal then turned into an incident where all customers were asked, point blank, if they still wanted their devices or if they were requesting a refund. (As well as accepting some changes to their purchased hardware.)

Josh from BFL stated that if the process of confirming the order wasn't completed in a reasonable time frame, then they would automatically refunds customers.

Problem: This does not appear to be the case. It appears that customers who did not answer the question were not refund automatically as stated by the rep. This is evident if you look through the BFL forums and recent blog posts.

Statements from BFL seem to indicate that those who did not answer the confirmation request resulted in:

A) Your order was not shipped even if you were next.
B) You did not receive an automatic refund as previously stated by BFL Reps.

----------------------

Question, what does BFL then do with that information?

It appears there was a purpose to the confirmation. This specific process seemed to "mysteriously resolve" the Paypal issue. Yet there are customers who did not answer.

The refunds requested by email are processed at a very lengthy period of time, at times. varying anywhere from 1 day to 1 month.

A large majority of those refunds are processed as "payments" (as opposed to straight forward "refunds") to customers via PayPal.

------------------------------

What happens if BFL then loses the only Payment Processor they have at this time? (BitPay not included as they are virtual currency.)

Can BFL (affordably) refund people using Bank Wires and BitCoin payments?

Would losing Paypal cause immeasurable issues? Would it result in big time issues when issuing refunds? I think so.

[k9quaint]

You were asking me to speculate on a company's operating capital with nothing but bits and pieces of information and conspiracy theories.  I'm all good on that garbage.

Why are you still talking about pages and pages ago? It was a hypothetical, and a ludicrous one admittedly, and you're just on and on about it when I've literally been done with it since well before this point:

You change the subject and I address your latest posts. You led this discussion, if you don't like where it goes, try staying on the subject you want to talk about.

You admitted you would not speculate or entertain anyone's speculation on the state of BFL's finances.
You admitted it was a ludicrous hyptothetical from BFL Josh.
Now here is a hyptothetical for you:
If BFL had burned through a large chunk of their pre-order money by financing development and operations over the last 11 months, a mass of refunds could bankrupt them.

One ASIC company has already fallen prey to this. The market did not save them, it turned on them. Your speculation that the market would rally to save a company facing bankruptcy is poignant but not realistic. As soon as word got out that BFL could not pay the refund requests, nobody would think they could afford to finance the purchase of parts to construct their units.

Sure, Josh claims that they have hundreds of TH/s of parts to build product from, But since they do not yet have a mini-rig or single design that works, which parts exactly will they construct these devices from? Did they buy everything before they knew what they needed to make the devices work (this has already happened once by BFL's own admission)? That is hardly reassuring.

If you (by your own admission) cannot know the state of BFL's finances, how can you be so adamant that a wave of refunds would not bankrupt them?
Without knowledge of BFL's financial state, you cannot know how badly a wave of refunds would affect them.

You will not deviate from the idea that BFL can only benefit from a mass of refund requests. So either you have knowledge of BFL's financial state, or you have speculated on BFL's financial state, or you are simply unwilling to contemplate a scenario where BFL fails.
Which ever one it is, your position is internally inconsistent.

Outside spectators are able to see it plainly, both the current situation as well as how terribly your position is holding up here.  I am not fond of the fact that you're forcing me to rub it in your face but how else are you supposed to give up and move on?

I'm really pulling for you, here.  Come back to the light of reality.  The trend is your friend.

You fail to address your own inconsistencies and wrap yourself in the adulation of the incompetent. The light of reality has never shown on you.
After you have been exposed to BFL for more than a couple of "Two more weeks (TM)", you will understand. Some people cannot learn from others mistakes, they must be burned themselves before they can internalize the lesson. It is obvious that you are such a person and therefore we must wait until you are burned by BFL.
Tick tock.

[Xian01]

You fail to address your own inconsistencies and wrap yourself in the adulation of the incompetent.

 ... which is why I had to finally add him to my ignore list

[wrenchmonkey]

You were asking me to speculate on a company's operating capital with nothing but bits and pieces of information and conspiracy theories.  I'm all good on that garbage.

Why are you still talking about pages and pages ago? It was a hypothetical, and a ludicrous one admittedly, and you're just on and on about it when I've literally been done with it since well before this point:

You change the subject and I address your latest posts. You led this discussion, if you don't like where it goes, try staying on the subject you want to talk about.

You admitted you would not speculate or entertain anyone's speculation on the state of BFL's finances.

Speculation based on nothing is not the same as speculation based on available facts. You have ZERO founded reason to assume that BFL has in fact touched the pre-order money, when the public information available states that this isn't the case. The only reason you have chosen to assume that the pre-order money is gone, is your own personal bias and hatred for BFL. You have no evidence that it isn't there. Zero, zilch, zip, nada.

Further silly hypotheticals based on asinine speculation and zero fact

Not worth addressing.

As soon as word got out that BFL could not pay the refund requests, nobody would think they could afford to finance the purchase of parts to construct their units.

They've clearly got SOME level of parts stock on hand, as they're currently assembling and shipping Jalapenos. Furhtermore, I can think of about 18,000 reasons why I would think they could afford to purchase parts for my units. See below:

If you find a way to clear the queue for us, PLEASE let me know, as I'll place roughly $18,000 of Jalapeno orders, IMMEDIATELY upon learning that there's no longer any backlog. I guarantee you that I am not the only one. I'd be willing to bet my house on it, right there along with others.

So please, do us that favor, and clear out the pre-order queue!

Ready? Go!

I am EXTREMELY confident that I would not be the only one who would be jumping on board to get at the front of the line for currently-shipping Jalpenos. A couple dozen medium-sized buyers, and it doesn't matter if they are 'financially insolvent' the day all the refund requests go in. The very instant that queue goes to zero (hypothetically, of course, since we know that's not gonna happen), their bank account will fill right back up

Sure, Josh claims that they have hundreds of TH/s of parts to build product from, But since they do not yet have a mini-rig or single design that works, which parts exactly will they construct these devices from? Did they buy everything before they knew what they needed to make the devices work (this has already happened once by BFL's own admission)? That is hardly reassuring.

Once again, are you assuming that they are lying, or do you have evidence that they don't actually have the parts? You just said that you think that they've spent up enough money that they could be facing bankruptcy. OK... On what, praytell, did they spend all that money? A year's salary for a small staff? Okay, pretty sure they've already shipped enough Jalpenos to pay for that. Where did all the rest of this allegedly 'all spent up money' go? Come on, guy, which is it? Did they spend the money, or didn't they?

If you (by your own admission) cannot know the state of BFL's finances, how can you be so adamant that a wave of refunds would not bankrupt them?

Without knowledge of BFL's financial state, you cannot know how badly a wave of refunds would affect them.

You will not deviate from the idea that BFL can only benefit from a mass of refund requests. So either you have knowledge of BFL's financial state, or you have speculated on BFL's financial state, or you are simply unwilling to contemplate a scenario where BFL fails.
Which ever one it is, your position is internally inconsistent.

A unified organized wave of refunds alone, aside from taking place only in your your wildest fantasies, would not be enough. It would require a wave of refunds, as well as a somewhat sustained lack of any replacement orders coming into the queue, and that's unlikely.

There are plenty of scenarios where BFL could fail, but the more likely scenario is that another 1-2 big players jumps in at competitive pricing, and has goods IN STOCK (Say, for example, KNC Miner, and Bitfury). If those guys come online overnight, get proven leigit, and have several TH of mining equipment available for immediate shipment, for a price that's competitive with BFL, well, in that case, the outlook for BFL would not be very good for BFL at that point. That's because MARKET FORCES and rational self-interest would be driving things, not because of some wannabe community organizer with zero skin of his own in the game who reckons he can convince people to abandon their own self-interest, in the interest of making a point.

Once again, you twist the discussion and move the goal post. The argument was never that BFL is too big to fail, or whatever. The argument was that you're not gonna take down BFL by standing on a soap box trying to convince the local farmers to go raze the town grain silos to the ground.

[k9quaint]

You were asking me to speculate on a company's operating capital with nothing but bits and pieces of information and conspiracy theories.  I'm all good on that garbage.

Why are you still talking about pages and pages ago? It was a hypothetical, and a ludicrous one admittedly, and you're just on and on about it when I've literally been done with it since well before this point:

You change the subject and I address your latest posts. You led this discussion, if you don't like where it goes, try staying on the subject you want to talk about.

False.  Your perception is pretty poor.  I stopped discussing it with you because you are apparently incapable of staying focused. 

Try to notice that the discussion has moved on without you.

Wrenchmonkey summed up quite clearly why that happened, I'm sorry if/that you can't comprehend it.

Once again you fail to address your logic gaps. I spelled them out in great detail.
You change the subject. You completely dodge my comments.

I know I am winning because you refuse to discuss it. That is the hallmark of willful ignorance.

[k9quaint]

You were asking me to speculate on a company's operating capital with nothing but bits and pieces of information and conspiracy theories.  I'm all good on that garbage.

Why are you still talking about pages and pages ago? It was a hypothetical, and a ludicrous one admittedly, and you're just on and on about it when I've literally been done with it since well before this point:

You change the subject and I address your latest posts. You led this discussion, if you don't like where it goes, try staying on the subject you want to talk about.

You admitted you would not speculate or entertain anyone's speculation on the state of BFL's finances.

Speculation based on nothing is not the same as speculation based on available facts. You have ZERO founded reason to assume that BFL has in fact touched the pre-order money, when the public information available states that this isn't the case. The only reason you have chosen to assume that the pre-order money is gone, is your own personal bias and hatred for BFL. You have no evidence that it isn't there. Zero, zilch, zip, nada.

We have months of statements by BFL proven incorrect. I suppose you will argue that. You argue everything else trying to deflect from BFL's failures.
BFL run by a person convicted of fraud and still on probation. I suppose you will resurrect your "IRS witchhunt" theory and I will have to post Sonny's plea bargain agreement again where testified against his co-conspirators in exchange for a light sentence.
BFL refusing to identify their source of funding and it's size (GIANT red flag in the start up community). I suppose you will say that mentioning once in a PR statement that a secret and nameless "private equity group" has backed them is "proof". We can have that discussion again, I would enjoy humiliated you over it again.
11 months of operations, photos, claims of improvements made to their "factory", employees hired. I have plenty of evidence of them spending money.
I don't need to prove it is there, they do. All you have is a statement by Josh (who's track record speaks for itself) that they still have all the pre-order money.

Hardly "speculation based on nothing". Quite the opposite.

[k9quaint]

As soon as word got out that BFL could not pay the refund requests, nobody would think they could afford to finance the purchase of parts to construct their units.

They've clearly got SOME level of parts stock on hand, as they're currently assembling and shipping Jalapenos. Furhtermore, I can think of about 18,000 reasons why I would think they could afford to purchase parts for my units. See below:

I am EXTREMELY confident that I would not be the only one who would be jumping on board to get at the front of the line for currently-shipping Jalpenos. A couple dozen medium-sized buyers, and it doesn't matter if they are 'financially insolvent' the day all the refund requests go in. The very instant that queue goes to zero (hypothetically, of course, since we know that's not gonna happen), their bank account will fill right back up

The customers of bASIC will be overjoyed to hear that they did not in fact lose their refunds and that the market will be surging to their rescue. And who says anyone with a Jalapeno order would cancel? You could put a $5 million dollar hit on BFL's books just by canceling the mini-rigs. If KNCMiner ships a Saturn, which has better price-performance than a mini-rig, who would buy from BFL instead? Wouldn't the market vote with it's wallet? Would you add your order to BFL's 90day Jalapeno queue knowing that they just got hit with the same style of refund wave which bankrupted bASIC and cost a lot of their customers their investment?

[k9quaint]

You were asking me to speculate on a company's operating capital with nothing but bits and pieces of information and conspiracy theories.  I'm all good on that garbage.

Why are you still talking about pages and pages ago? It was a hypothetical, and a ludicrous one admittedly, and you're just on and on about it when I've literally been done with it since well before this point:

You change the subject and I address your latest posts. You led this discussion, if you don't like where it goes, try staying on the subject you want to talk about.

False.  Your perception is pretty poor.  I stopped discussing it with you because you are apparently incapable of staying focused. 

Try to notice that the discussion has moved on without you.

Wrenchmonkey summed up quite clearly why that happened, I'm sorry if/that you can't comprehend it.

Once again you fail to address your logic gaps. I spelled them out in great detail.
You change the subject. You completely dodge my comments.

I know I am winning because you refuse to discuss it. That is the hallmark of willful ignorance.

Winning what? An internet argument? Congrats, man!

I also choose not to discuss (or, in your case, end discussions) with small children about finances when they don't understand how market forces operate.  It's not worth my time.

Another change of subject and more backpedaling. Run along. /pats ThatDGuy on the head.
Perhaps you can read about a real life example of what I am contending that occurred a few weeks before you joined us on these boards:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=152980.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=143496.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137876.0

Who am I kidding, you won't click on a single one of those links about a bitcoin ASIC mining company that got capsized by a refund wave.

[MooC Tals]

What the fuck is qq

I am 12
what is this?

lol could not help it.



No need they're doing it to them selves. GO TEAM BFL







and die lol

[wrenchmonkey]

We have months of statements by BFL proven incorrect. I suppose you will argue that.

What you have is months of missed targets, over-promising, and under-delivering. There's a big difference between missing a target, and deceit. I've said time and time again that I agree that BFL is overly optimistic.

However, being wrong about when they could deliver something does not equate to a false statement of fact. If BFL says "2 weeks" I think there's good reason to discount it, as they're just waaaaaaay too optimistic about this stuff.

If they say "We have not touched any pre-order money" there's no good reason not to believe it, other than personal bias, and your overpowering personal need to think of BFL as criminals and scammers.

Something, something, blathering horse shit about how much I hate Josh and BFL.

Once again, not bothering with it...

[k9quaint]

Sure, Josh claims that they have hundreds of TH/s of parts to build product from, But since they do not yet have a mini-rig or single design that works, which parts exactly will they construct these devices from? Did they buy everything before they knew what they needed to make the devices work (this has already happened once by BFL's own admission)? That is hardly reassuring.

Once again, are you assuming that they are lying, or do you have evidence that they don't actually have the parts? You just said that you think that they've spent up enough money that they could be facing bankruptcy. OK... On what, praytell, did they spend all that money? A year's salary for a small staff? Okay, pretty sure they've already shipped enough Jalpenos to pay for that. Where did all the rest of this allegedly 'all spent up money' go? Come on, guy, which is it? Did they spend the money, or didn't they?

20 people was the last headcount BFL gave us. That is easily a million alone in salary over the course of a year. They outsourced the design of a 100% hand routed ASIC @ 65nm with a 7.5 mm2 die size. You can fit 800,000 gates per square millimeter on 65nm, so their die could hold several million. That sort of chip complexity will cost you easily $500K in NRE. They had to redo the design (and have admitted to it) so even more money spent. Don't even get me started on all the taxes they face on the money they have collected for pre-orders.

Which parts do they have exactly? They have not yet successfully made the chips run at a density that would make a mini-rig or full size single viable. How could they have power supplies, or PCBS, or case mountings, or components for the PCBs picked out yet? Why do their chip pre-orders (limited to 100,000) face 100 days till delivery? I thought they had hundreds of TH/s of chips lying around.

How could they have stockpiled parts for a product that does not yet exist? If they stockpiled parts and they can't make the design work from their stockpiles, wouldn't that be worse? I am giving BFL the benefit of the doubt by saying they don't have a warehouse full of parts that they cannot build a product from.

[k9quaint]

We have months of statements by BFL proven incorrect. I suppose you will argue that.

What you have is months of missed targets, over-promising, and under-delivering. There's a big difference between missing a target, and deceit. I've said time and time again that I agree that BFL is overly optimistic.

I don't care whether they are "mistaken" or deceiving. People "mistakenly" spend all their company's cash all the time. Usually they are "mistaken" in front of a bankruptcy judge.

However, being wrong about when they could deliver something does not equate to a false statement of fact. If BFL says "2 weeks" I think there's good reason to discount it, as they're just waaaaaaay too optimistic about this stuff.

There are plenty of statements by Josh (like the power measurements that they took on the chips they didn't have that said they met their projections that they have since admitted they did not meet) that were clearly lies (some would call it marketing) to put pressure on their competitors and reassure their pre-order base (which they had to keep on the hook for another 6 months).

If they say "We have not touched any pre-order money" there's no good reason not to believe it, other than personal bias, and your overpowering personal need to think of BFL as criminals and scammers.

You are blinded by your undying love for BFL. You have never admitted they have ever done anything shady or wrong. I don't ever expect you to.

Something, something, blathering horse shit about how much I hate Josh and BFL.

Once again, not bothering with it...

Good idea, I already crushed you on those arguments and simply would have linked to the threads where you left with your tail between your legs.  

[wrenchmonkey]

Something, something, mental gymnastics to make my own position seem justified

 

There are plenty of statements by Josh (like the power measurements that they took on the chips they didn't have that said they met their projections that they have since admitted they did not meet) that were clearly lies (some would call it marketing) to put pressure on their competitors and reassure their pre-order base (which they had to keep on the hook for another 6 months).

Can't speak to that, as you provide no quotes or sources, and I can't trust your quotes/sources anyway, as you've clearly demonstrated your MO of distortion and deceit by altering or removing context.

More nonsense and appeal to motive fallacy

*yawn*

Declaration of victory in dead-horse-beating contest

Yes, congratulations, you've convinced me to give up on rehashing your sexual-fetish-level obsession with BFL and Josh.  

[k9quaint]

What change of subject? I've been trying every possible way to express to you that I'm no longer discussing the days-old topic with you because you proved yourself incapable of remaining in the hypothetical bounds of the discussion put there specifically to stay in rational terms.

The bASIC drama sounded like it was pretty bad.  How many bASIC units were ever sent out to actual customers?

You you keep changing the subject and declaring that you refuse to discuss the previous subject further because...
No reason yet supplied other than some vague complaint about "remaining within hypotheical bounds to stay in rational terms." Sounds like code for capitulation.

You may refuse to discuss the topic of the thread all you like. My purpose here is not to convince you or wrenchmonkey or any of the other BFL fanbois to change your stripes. That cannot be done. My purpose here is to provide a counterpoint to your reckless optimism and willful ignorance.

[Unacceptable]

I have a dog in this & would LOVE to express my feelings/presumptions/speculations....................but I'm not losing my day 1 preorder over it 

Just deliver my 30GH unit BFL.................for the love of god 

[wrenchmonkey]

My purpose here is not to convince you or wrenchmonkey or any of the other BFL fanbois to change your stripes. That cannot be done. My purpose here is to provide a counterpoint to your reckless optimism and willful ignorance.

That's funny, because your sexual-fetish-level fanaticism was here on the forum WELL before either of us got here. So who's providing a 'counterpoint' to whom, exactly? Your type are a dime-a-dozen on this forum, guy. You're all predictable, all fanatics, and all using the same tired talking points.

I have a dog in this & would LOVE to express my feelings/presumptions/speculations....................but I'm not losing my day 1 preorder over it  

BAM! Market forces at work!  

[k9quaint]

Something, something, mental gymnastics to make my own position seem justified

 

You have given up again. I suppose BFL is paying you whether you get schooled here or not.

There are plenty of statements by Josh (like the power measurements that they took on the chips they didn't have that said they met their projections that they have since admitted they did not meet) that were clearly lies (some would call it marketing) to put pressure on their competitors and reassure their pre-order base (which they had to keep on the hook for another 6 months).

Can't speak to that, as you provide no quotes or sources, and I can't trust your quotes/sources anyway, as you've clearly demonstrated your MO of distortion and deceit by altering or removing context.

You wouldn't believe the documentation provided by a federal court. You still believe Sonny Vleisides is a saint. Nothing I can link to would change your mind in the slightest. My links are for the people reading your sad little diatribes.

More nonsense and appeal to motive fallacy

*yawn*

You have given up again. I suppose BFL is paying you whether you get schooled here or not.

Declaration of victory in dead-horse-beating contest

Yes, congratulations, you've convinced me to give up on rehashing your sexual-fetish-level obsession with BFL and Josh.  

You cannot be convinced, but every time you make an idiotic statement and I catch you in it with facts, other people might notice.
Since you are typing right now with Josh's nuts in your mouth, I wouldn't bring up fetish level obsessions if I were you. 
If BFL delivers their mini-rigs before KNCMiner delivers a Saturn, BFL might still avoid the fate of bASIC.
BFL still has a shot at being the DeLorean of bitcoin mining. 

[Unacceptable]

My purpose here is not to convince you or wrenchmonkey or any of the other BFL fanbois to change your stripes. That cannot be done. My purpose here is to provide a counterpoint to your reckless optimism and willful ignorance.

That's funny, because your sexual-fetish-level fanaticism was here on the forum WELL before either of us got here. So who's providing a 'counterpoint' to whom, exactly? Your type are a dime-a-dozen on this forum, guy. You're all predictable, all fanatics, and all using the same tired talking points.

I have a dog in this & would LOVE to express my feelings/presumptions/speculations....................but I'm not losing my day 1 preorder over it  

BAM! Market forces at work!  

Yeah,"market forces"................forces me to look elsewhere for my ASIC needs