Mining Bitcoins should be renamed to burying.

[ElectricMucus]

Generating Bitcoins wastes electricity

Rendering stuff on your computer wastes electricity too judging by your logic.

Know of anybody who renders stuff only to get more media then the other guy while both pipe it to null?
I don't.

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[e4xit]

Generating Bitcoins wastes electricity

No.

Yes it does. I mined solo with my 5850 at a difficulty of 3 million at the time for several months, I didn't find a block. Was that electricity not wasted since I didn't even help the network?

What you were doing by expending that energy, was decreasing the chances (read: probability) of a malicious attacker with 'x' amount of hashing power from being able to perform an attack on the bitcoin network (read: payment verification network).

Some of those were my payments, and I paid fees for that protection. Not wasted at all, I think.

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

Generating Bitcoins wastes electricity

No.

Yes it does. I mined solo with my 5850 at a difficulty of 3 million at the time for several months, I didn't find a block. Was that electricity not wasted since I didn't even help the network?

Actually the system worked perfectly: it stopped a random guy with a 5850 from doing a 51% attack.

If you look at it like that, but I was asking, where did all that energy go?

@e4xit
I was not decreasing any chances. The network was not affected by my mining. It was as if I never mined.

[franky1]

well talking about carbon waste.. im not wasting carbon. in the UK it is getting cold and so usually i would have my electric heaters on. each heater is 1000W. my avalon miners are only 600W, yet im sat here nice and comfortable without having my electric heaters on.

so i am saving carbon compared to last year by using less electric to heat my place. and i am making money to pay for all my bills.. this is better then solar power for me, especially as we dont get much sun.

[alp]

Is this some sort of inquisition?
I made a habit of pointing out ridiculous things about Bitcoin long before ripple came along.   If you don't like how I post there is a bright yellow button at the left that spares you my insights. But then please don't post in my threads.

This thread is not about that though.
It is about how dumb the term "mining" is.  It was called generating Bitcoins at the start, which is a way better term. The introduction post was just my way of pointing that out.

"Mining" makes more sense to the layman because it invokes the idea of "hard work done" to gain a certain limited resource.

"Generating" does not invoke the same image to most people.

Also many things mined in the real world do not allow for electrical generation by burning or changing. The most obvious analogy being Gold.

We mine Gold for which most is used for jewelry or a store or wealth (use in electrical components is a very small amount of worldwide usage.)

Mining Bitcoins is quite similar to mining Gold with respect to work done to gain a shiny material as a store of wealth.

Mining Gold should be renamed "Generating Gold", obviously.

[ElectricMucus]

well talking about carbon waste.. im not wasting carbon. in the UK it is getting cold and so usually i would have my electric heaters on. each heater is 1000W. my avalon miners are only 600W, yet im sat here nice and comfortable without having my electric heaters on.

so i am saving carbon compared to last year by using less electric to heat my place. and i am making money to pay for all my bills.. this is better then solar power for me, especially as we dont get much sun.

In the civilized world people heat with natural gas/oil or even a modern hyper inverter air conditioner in heating mode which costs less than an ASIC rig.

[ElectricMucus]

Mining Gold should be renamed "Generating Gold", obviously.

Into alchemy?

[balanghai]

Yeah, the deeper it gets, the more expensive to do it.

[alp]

Mining Gold should be renamed "Generating Gold", obviously.

Into alchemy?

No, just smoking some of the same stuff you clearly are.

[ElectricMucus]

Mining Gold should be renamed "Generating Gold", obviously.

Into alchemy?

No, just smoking some of the same stuff you clearly are.

I doubt it.

[NewLiberty]

It was called generating Bitcoins at the start, which is a way better term.

Yes, very much more accurate, more descriptive. Don't know if that means better or not though.

The introduction post was just my way of pointing that out.

Seems to have gotten under some skin, so bravo for the marketing, you memester you.

[rhuian]

meh. does it really matter what its called? What the point of renaming it anyway?

[flyguy]

OP is a fucking idiot.  That's it and that's all.

[Shallow]

How about ElectricMucus runs on a treadmill to power the miners

[gaston909]

"Mining" makes more sense to the layman because it invokes the idea of "hard work done" to gain a certain limited resource.

But there is no "hard work" being done.  The "miners" simply guess random nonces until one is found that will produce a valid hashed block. It's similar to throwing spaghetti against a wall until one keeps sticking to the wall and declaring that one the winner.

Well the nature of "proof of work" is in computer terms, hard work.

Real mining involves digging and hoping this batch of dirt has the shiny stuff, I can see a very direct analogy here.

All good points.

[ElectricMucus]

The major difference here is the more overall effort is put into digging stuff up the more overall product comes out of it. Since Bitcoins are generated at a regulated rate increased effort can only increase the amount generated temporarily till the regulation sets in. And that is only because the mechanism is overdamped.

The only thing "mining" emphasizes is "doing work". which it is not, even in "computer terms". Work has the inherent property of the effect being directly proportional to the amount of work, and useful work that of a useful product which is more useful if it is the product of more work. "Proof of work" nonces are only useful "by definition" of the protocol. You might argue that a nonce resulting in a lower target is more useful but it's really not. Any nonce is exactly as useful as another since they only ever protect against an attack of half the hashing power, whatever that may be.

[BitchicksHusband]

Can we take a 51% vote on renaming ElectricMucus?  I'd vote for that.

[crumbs]

I think the word mining is used to appease the Neolibertarians.
"Mining" obfuscates the fact that more money is minted daily (just like teh US Mint), and allows Neolibs to perpetuate the myth that bitcoin is noninflationary.

As far as mining being a good analogy for hashing, perhaps.  But what, exactly, is being mined?  Other than waste heat & an abstraction called "network security"?  Any other mining operations digging for "peace of mind" that you can think of?

Security is increasing exponentially, at a rate far outstripping bitcoin worth.
The lock, at this point, is millions of times bigger than the door it protects.

[canton]

I know this is just a troll topic but regarding energy expenditures, it's worth pointing out that real life gold mining is incredibly expensive in terms of energy and more importantly toxicity to the environment. It's really heinous. That Bitcoin can be mined only using massive amounts of electricity is one of its benefits. Electricity can (and will, increasingly) come from the Sun, wind, etc.

Interesting article:
http://www.ijee.net/Journal/ijee/vol3/no5/11.pdf
"Environmental Impact of Electricity Consumption in Crushing and Grinding Processes of Traditional and Urban Gold Mining by Using Life Cycle Assessment"

[crumbs]

I know this is just a troll topic but regarding energy expenditures, it's worth pointing out that real life gold mining is incredibly expensive in terms of energy and more importantly toxicity to the environment. It's really heinous. That Bitcoin can be mined only using massive amounts of electricity is one of its benefits. Electricity can (and will, increasingly) come from the Sun, wind, etc.
...

Electricity will come from the sun, wind, etc., only when it becomes cheaper than burning carbon fuel, which pretty much translates to "after we burn up all the coal, oil & natural gas."
*Mining bitcoin is not good for environment just because gold mining is bad for environment -- that there's a logical non sequitur.