Megacruncher wrote:
1. Suddenly the situation changes - asteroid strike anyone? - and you either adapt or settle for extinction. :)
Is total credit that important? Are we being measured by the "sniper in the sky - See Alez's sig" and only allowed to enter Utopia if our TC is in the top 100? TC is flawed because we are trying to measure apples with oranges against cars and planets without an agreed and enforced standard.
Megacruncher wrote:2. Everyone else has jumped on the bandwagon. (okay our main rivals at least).
Lemmings come to mind. Just because one falls off a cliff does not mean we should all jump after it. Going back a few years, should we invest in the slave trade for huge profits or stand against something we know is wrong?
Megacruncher wrote:3. There are loads of precedents for peeps raising funds for good causes and raking off a percentage for themselves.
Very true. But I see BU as a business and nowhere close to a not for profit charity. A quick read of the forums shows their utter lack of financial acumen and business awareness. At a glance, they have just increased the goals of their campaigns
after they had been met. Is this to delay payment? They should have started a new campaign and given badges (or similar fun token) to those who contributed to a successful campaign.
If they really want to get my support they should be giving ownership of the bitcoin pool to the people they are earning for; or holding funds in escrow; or they need to be sending cash on a regular basis, weekly or monthly. A huge amount more transparency is needed.
I read somewhere they only have a 32GB hard drive. Are they really that poor and under funded?
Lacking in credibility.
Megacruncher wrote:
4. And this is the only ethical rather than pragmatic justification. It frees us up to do more science. To be honest, disproving the Collatz Conjecture by brute force exception calculation never seemed the best use of my GPUs but it was the only way of keeping myself and the team on top. Now the need to earn credits is taken up by cheap to buy & run add-on hardware which leaves the GPUs free to do Milkyway and GPUGrid or even Einstein.
This is true only if you accept point 1.
Megacruncher wrote:
5. If I all gets outlawed then at least I'll be able to do some bitcoin mining for myself which might just help pay for some of the kit & 'lecky!
Even with your new kit, I am afraid you will spend almost as much on lecky as you will earn.
People have spend thousands on new kit and are spending thousands on lecky. Give that money directly to Milkyway and they will be funded in no time, without a 15% fee.