fractal: looks like they're starting to learn -- http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1lc025/so_today_is_the_day_i_start_mining_with_my_or_or/cbxt3w9

fractal: mircea_popescu: so, losing money to be 'cool'? makes sense

fractal: mircea_popescu: has there ever been a case there the wording is too vague to decide and the coins were returned back to their owners?

fractal: mircea_popescu: how do the deciders decide ;)... do they read the discussion on the page?

fractal: mircea_popescu: are you the sole decider for bitbet resolutions?

fractal: mircea_popescu: I'm pretty confident that someone will make a 14nm chip that does over 2Th/sec ... care to make a BitBet on it?? ;)

fractal: mircea_popescu: I thinking is that that Intel is full of smart people, and they'd be able to build it for much less then $500mm.... I could be wrong, of course.

fractal: mircea_popescu: really? thats way more then I thought... Cointerra and others are rumoured to be spending $5M on masks for their 28nm chips.... I never thought it would be such a big jump from $5M to $500M for 14nm... crazy...!!!!

fractal: mircea_popescu: they'd only have to make a couple hundred chips at 14nm

fractal: mircea_popescu: I dunno, their CEO was a samgsumg lead designer -- he sounds credible

fractal: mircea_popescu: Cointerra is claming 500Gh chips.

fractal: mircea_popescu: their chips would be 10TH/sec each on 14nm. they'd need 70 chips.

fractal: mircea_popescu: $5 mil. tops.

fractal: mircea_popescu: you need more resources to do that. only a handful of entities can afford it

fractal: mircea_popescu: I can fab my own chips at home?

fractal: mircea_popescu: they still have to buy chips made by corps now?

fractal: mircea_popescu: ok, basically, i suppose state actors have the most resources, and can centralize mining if they wished ...

fractal: mircea_popescu: you're right... i just looked it up and samsung is making 14nm as well...

fractal: mircea_popescu: if you follow the inevitable logic -- the entity with access to the smallest manufacturing process will control a PoW such as SHA256. There is 1 entity who always has the smallest fab process -- Intel.. they can do 14nm and put the rest out of business. They won't until the US Government asks them to, or until mining is worth $5B / year or so to make it worth it

fractal: mircea_popescu: some devs expressed the same sentiment as me regarding botnets

fractal: mircea_popescu: also, Dan Kamisky thinks the SHA algo will be replaced due to centralized mining --- he seems to be a pretty smart guy ;)

fractal: mircea_popescu: I understand that custom hardware could be build for any algo, but my goal would to make it not cost-effective until the coin had a market cap of say $100B

fractal: hahahah you gotta love mircea_popescu's confidence ;) i actaully love seeing MPOE-PR posts on the forums and the rage replies.... although it will only work as long as he's right about everything ;)

fractal: mircea_popescu: yes, but the actual impact of it is mostly overblown in americas case.... its mostly a laissez fair keynesian capitalist state

fractal: mircea_popescu: maybe... it will be interesting to see how it plays out in a few years. i predict the US minting virtual currency is a certainty at some point

fractal: mircea_popescu: yes, due to sheep using it

fractal: mircea_popescu: hahaha amazing response.

fractal: mircea_popescu: right... so rich fiat btc users will hold , and poor btc users who mined will sell

fractal: mircea_popescu: i've always thought that becoming my own competition is the best way to provide the most efficient service to a market...

fractal: mircea_popescu: why not start a btct.co type site using your backend code? ;) you can own the small-fish market and big-fish

fractal: mircea_popescu: if significant competition comes around would you adjust to the market?

fractal: mircea_popescu: have you ever thought about lowering your fee to join mpex? maybe you'll get more volume/make more in fees?

fractal: hey mircea_popescu , what do you think of just-dice.com ? very impressive IMO.

fractal: mircea_popescu: i agree.... thats why law is a difficult field

fractal: mircea_popescu: right -- i meants the 2nd laptop comes with a power cord also

fractal: mircea_popescu: but your first laptop+brick as a UNIT wasn't at specs

fractal: mircea_popescu: So, 1 UNIT would be what was required to operate the original laptop at advertised specs.... if the company sent you a 2nd laptop to make up for the fact that your first laptop wasn't good enough -- you received 2 UNITS

fractal: mircea_popescu: depends what your definition of unit is, i suppose.... i think most people would say its one unit.... but if there were 2 laptops, because the first laptop wasn't fast enough, it would be 2 units

fractal: mircea_popescu: you're splitting hairs now i think ;)

fractal: mircea_popescu: its attached