Information Control - it might look like slackening control but the reality is its a new rule to remind you who holds the leash and which end you are at :-)
Posts by besty
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16KM Online Now
by konceptual99 ineven more of what you don't want to read is online.
the km are now online under wol.
http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/lv/r1/lp-e/0/20397
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Bitcoins - anyone here mining?
by Jim_TX inhowdy!.
it's been a while since i've poked my head in here.... i was just curious if anyone on the forum is involved with bitcoin mining?.
i am, and am having fun doing it.
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besty
One of the basic concepts with mining is 'difficulty' - this is an adjusting factor set by the algorithm every 2 weeks to ensure that an even number of bitcoins are mined every 2 weeks irrespective of how much computing power exists in the ecosystem.
This creates an arms race where more and more compute power is deployed until it becomes uneconomical except at scale or with new generation chip designs. (sidepoint - 22nm is the current generation of chips commonly available from Intel etc except certain BTC ASICs are shipping with 20nm chips - to Simon's point of 'doing something more useful' :)
below is an example of how difficulty can bite the miner hard. After 10 weeks at 15% difficulty a 1TH miner will have earned over 50% of what it is ever going to earn, ever. After 6 months it is at 83.5% etc. Diminshing returns and the cost of electricity will determine when you turn it off.
Difficulty 15% GH 2 week period GH to earn 0.1BTC per day BTC earned Running Total BTC % of total 1000 1 7000.00 0.20 0.20 13.4% 1000 2 8050.00 0.17 0.37 25.0% 1000 3 9257.50 0.15 0.53 35.2% 1000 4 10646.13 0.13 0.66 44.0% 1000 5 12243.04 0.11 0.77 51.6% 1000 6 14079.50 0.10 0.87 58.3% 1000 7 16191.43 0.09 0.96 64.1% 1000 8 18620.14 0.08 1.03 69.1% 1000 9 21413.16 0.07 1.10 73.5% 1000 10 24625.13 0.06 1.15 77.3% 1000 11 28318.90 0.05 1.20 80.6% 1000 12 32566.74 0.04 1.25 83.5% 1000 13 37451.75 0.04 1.28 86.0% 1000 14 43069.51 0.03 1.32 88.2% 1000 15 49529.94 0.03 1.34 90.1% 1000 16 56959.43 0.02 1.37 91.7% 1000 17 65503.35 0.02 1.39 93.2% 1000 18 75328.85 0.02 1.41 94.4% 1000 19 86628.18 0.02 1.43 95.5% 1000 20 99622.40 0.01 1.44 96.4% 1000 21 114565.76 0.01 1.45 97.3% 1000 22 131750.63 0.01 1.46 98.0% 1000 23 151513.22 0.01 1.47 98.6% 1000 24 174240.20 0.01 1.48 99.1% 1000 25 200376.23 0.01 1.49 99.6% 1000 26 230432.67 0.01 1.49 100.0% -
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Bitcoins - anyone here mining?
by Jim_TX inhowdy!.
it's been a while since i've poked my head in here.... i was just curious if anyone on the forum is involved with bitcoin mining?.
i am, and am having fun doing it.
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besty
my thoughts on a couple of Simons points: (my main request is that people recognize that BTC is more than a currency and stop defining it in their heads in those terms)
1 - "its a waste of electricity which is harmful to the environment and could be doing something more useful instead"
I agree that clean power for the Internet is important. Greenpeace has rightly begun holding large companies feet to the fire on this issue. http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/Global/usa/planet3/PDFs/clickingclean.pdf Facebook seem to be in the lead on this, followed by Google and Apple. In the same way that fossil companies should not be allowed to sell their products with no regard for dumping waste byproducts into the atmosphere, Internet companies should not be free to consume dirty electrical power to the detriment of society at large. The company I am involved with is committed to 100% hydro energy and free air cooling for maximum efficiency - thats why we have built our Bitcoin mine near the Arctic Circle.
Who gets to decide what future technologies may be useful? Nobody really knows how digital currency is going to turn out. History has plenty of examples (eg the car, the PC, the Internet) which were derided as being only for geeks with no clear benefits for the rest of us.
2 - "nobody uses e-wallets"
http://www.coindesk.com/blockchain-passes-2-million-bitcoin-wallets/ 3 companies are claiming over 4m wallets between them. Yes we are in early adopter phase and yes the technology has to become much more seamless. Its not a reason to write it off though. You could have made the same argument about P2P downloads of music files a few years back. (Install Kazaa, find and setup your downloads from multiple peers, wait, save file to PC, transfer to MP3 player..etc - now we watch HD 5.1 content via Netflix on our TV's as easily as watching terrestial TV, but it had to start somewhere) Typically the technology to do cool stuff is really around for years before mass market adoption - it takes investment from large companies and/or VC's to get the ball rolling and that exists for Bitcoin today. Marc Andressen is a prime example http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/05/21/marc-andreessen-in-20-years-well-talk-about-bitcoin-like-we-talk-about-the-internet-today/
3 - "large retailers are only doing it for show"
Speculation m'lud :-) the large retailers I deal with have no time for show for its own sake. they are intimately concerned with profitability and consumer experience. Some of that experience may be theatrical in nature and yes - some companies do want to appear to be on the cutting edge. Show for shows sake - not in my experience. The Bitcoin halo effect is well reported on where retailers accepting BTC gain new customers who spend more on average. Sensible retailers will both want to offer consumer choice and keep track of potentially significant trends. I don't see a downside to either of those early-stage objectives.
4 - "low cost transaction fees aren't low cost at all, and anyway credit cards can offer a better deal if they are forced to"
If all that BTC achieves is making payment processors offer a better deal then OK no harm done :-) this statement also recognises the rip-off that has been taking place for years. Western Union and Moneygram are charging ~15-20% to allow migrant workers to send money home in the fiat ->WU -> fiat process. If BTC custs those fees in half or more we will have achieved plenty. I agree that the transaction fee-less concept needs mass adoption and for people to start living (at least partly) in a BTC economy. There is not much point in transferring small amounts of fiat into BTC and back again. But today, in practice not theory, I can transfer 0.00000001BTC or 10,000BTC without significant fees to any other BTC wallet in the world.
*Makes note to check back in 5 years.
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Bitcoins - anyone here mining?
by Jim_TX inhowdy!.
it's been a while since i've poked my head in here.... i was just curious if anyone on the forum is involved with bitcoin mining?.
i am, and am having fun doing it.
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besty
Cointerra along with KnC and other hardware manufacturers seem to have decided to stop selling ASICs and simply run their own mining operations and sell mining capacity as a service - cloud mining. (as well as stockpiling coins of course)
So in the link posted above the Cointerra box available for immediate delivery has been running in their own datacentre and they are now selling 'as seen' as its end of life for them personally. You decide :-)
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Bitcoins - anyone here mining?
by Jim_TX inhowdy!.
it's been a while since i've poked my head in here.... i was just curious if anyone on the forum is involved with bitcoin mining?.
i am, and am having fun doing it.
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besty
The consensus seems to be that hobbyist mining for short term profit is over unless you have access to very cheap electricity. Of course playing with trainsets doesn't neccessarily make financial sense either, and as a way to learn about digital currency mining is a great start.
For example https://cointerra.com/product/terraminer-iv-used-bitcoin-miners/ offers a 1.6TH/s machine for $1500 and its probably going to cost $200 per month in electricity minimum. You can model some scenarios here https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/calculator but its difficult to see how this can make money unless BTC rises in price or difficulty turns flat or negative.
If you are bullish on BTC then maybe simply buying some and using it to make purchases is a good start.
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Bitcoins - anyone here mining?
by Jim_TX inhowdy!.
it's been a while since i've poked my head in here.... i was just curious if anyone on the forum is involved with bitcoin mining?.
i am, and am having fun doing it.
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besty
what equipment are you running Jim_TX
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My Story: from JW Elder to Born Again Christian to Agnostic
by passwordprotected ini first posted here on 3rd june 2008. at the time i was an elder, appointed the previous october, i was 36 and i was a born-in.
at the time i'd become disillusioned with the society due to the governing body's letter explaining why the book study in private homes was being abolished.
april 2008 saw me start questioning this decision, privately of course, and this eventually led me to this site, to jwfacts and to many youtube videos, all of which began to errode my faith in the leaders of the organisation.. in july 2008, having discussed my doubts with my wife, i attended the district convention, deciding to give the society one last chance to convince me it was the truth.
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besty
Like you, your posts are getting better with time :-)))))
Its one of the big values of JWD that this type of journey is documented both in realtime and then for as long as Simon cares to maintain the site.
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Bitcoins - anyone here mining?
by Jim_TX inhowdy!.
it's been a while since i've poked my head in here.... i was just curious if anyone on the forum is involved with bitcoin mining?.
i am, and am having fun doing it.
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besty
anyone else in?
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48
Bitcoins - anyone here mining?
by Jim_TX inhowdy!.
it's been a while since i've poked my head in here.... i was just curious if anyone on the forum is involved with bitcoin mining?.
i am, and am having fun doing it.
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besty
I am working with a Bitcoin mining company. We have our own datacenter using hydro power. I would agree that individual consumers buying hardware and running it themselves is not economically viable. I would also agree that there is a lot of background noise and outright scammers.
The value we see is that BTC has the potential to disrupt banking including payment processing, money transfer and ecommerce. Large companies are now accepting it as a means of payment. Expedia and Dell are two examples
It is also a protocol that goes beyond banking - the underlying technology could be used for many things where validating identity without a 3rd party middleman would be useful. Examples include the exchange of contracts and voting systems.
We see Bitcoin disrupting many industries in the same way and at the same scale as the Internet has already reconfigured media and communications.
Whether it will succeed and how it will do so is highly speculative - its difficult to imagine that the concept of digital currency is not going to play out to the benefit of the consumer, maybe starting at scale with the 3 billion new folks that will have mobile internet access but no bank account within the next decade.
Just my 0.02BTC :-)
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Hey you guys...is someone at Bethel having a laugh?
by wizzstick inhas anyone else noticed the below?.
the mountain on the front cover of 'god kingdom rules' segues beautifully into the mountain on the front cover of 'crisis of conscience' (with a bit of cropping):.
coincidence?.
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besty
reading one is all uphill and the only way is down after reading the other?