Slashdot Mirror
The Bitcoin Death Star: KnC Plans 10 Megawatt Data Center In Sweden
1sockchuck writes "Bitcoin hardware vendor KnC Miner has begun construction on a a 10 megawatt data center in Sweden that it will fill with high-powered computers mining for cryptocurrency. KnC has emerged as a leading vendor in the volatile market for ASIC mining rigs, focusing on underpromising and overdelivering. One goal of its move into cloud mining is to cushion any fallout from delivery delays on new hardware, which have been a sore point for miners in the fast-moving Bitcoin market. "Over the next few months we are bringing online enough hashing power to make sure that any delay in the Neptune timeline will be compensated with a completely free hosted hashing packages to all fully paid customers," KnC says in its newsletter."
than whoever planned slashdot beta.
They need that much power to render the Slashdot Beta javascript.
Why not just keep the Bitcoins they mine?
Why not just keep Slashdot Classic? Fuck beta.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The Beta will mark an end to some of the most informative and most insightful users from their daily input on Slashdot. Many have voiced disgust but Dice has decided to be tight lipped and head strong in the face of civil disruption.
If you want a progressive and forward thinking Slashdot you must voice your opinion on the matter now. Dice is moving to what will certainly be a call for exodus.
Why would Dice buy Slashdot only to destroy it?
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
They could *own* bitcoin if they wanted, surely (with their processing power, I mean) Why haven't they?
"Company finds new online betting infrastructure cash cow"
Yup , just set up some cloud bitcoin mining facilities and charge some mugs a load of money of which 99% of them don't have a hope in hell of recovering via any bitcoins they recover.
I wonder if you can pay for the service in bitcoins? Now wouldn't that be ironic.
The constant BS about the beta will put people off the site, nevermind the content or look and feel... I think people get it....
Fuck you, Dice. No one wants this beta bullshit.
Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to mine Bitcoin is insignificant next to the power of the Fuck Beta.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
http://www.slashcode.com/www.slashcode.com/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/slashcode/
food for thought: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SlashDot
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
If the "new site" had been designed by competent programmers, then it would have been a trivial matter to swap between the "new" and "old" interfaces. Apparently it is not. They must have hired the contractors that couldn't get a job working on healthcare.gov.
Continue to turn the comments threads into a trash heap to drive people away. And don't forget to turn on your ad blocker. Do what you can to get their attention until they publicly acknowledge that this is a mistake -- because they're not going to pay attention otherwise.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Please post this to new articles if it hasn't been posted yet.
On February 5, 2014, Slashdot announced through a javascript popup that they are starting to "move in to" the new Slashdot Beta design.
Slashdot Beta is a trend-following attempt to give Slashdot a fresh look, an approach that has led to less space for text and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot look. Much worse than that, Slashdot Beta fundamentally breaks the classic Slashdot discussion and moderation system.
If you haven't seen Slashdot Beta already, open this in a new tab. After seeing that, click here to return to classic Slashdot.
We should boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta until Dice abandons the project.
We should boycott slashdot entirely during the week of Feb 10 to Feb 17 as part of the wider slashcott
Moderators - only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta
Commentors - only discuss Beta http://slashdot.org/recent - Vote up the Fuck Beta stories
Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention.
Discussion of Beta: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=56395415
Discussion of where to go if Beta goes live: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&type=submission&id=3321441
Alternative Slashdot: altslashdot.org (thanks Okian Warrior (537106))
I submit stories. I read stories. I add comments. I moderate comments. I am the reason that there is ad revenue.
I am Slashdot.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
I would be interested in reading the summary buuuuuuuuut... Fuck you Beta. Hard. With fiberglass insulation for lube.
Bitcoin mining is a boat I missed and I have no intention of trying to swim halfway across the channel to catch it. If KnC can actually over deliver and under promise then the more power to them. It would sure beat the Butterfly Labs debacle. Like any gold rush, I wonder if the only people getting rich are the ones selling the shovels.
Speaking of shovels... can someone help me bury Slashdot Beta?
fuckbeta
If money is the tool of the Devil then Bitcoin is even worse. Exponentially wasting electricity and semiconducts to generate a unique numeric key. Great!
Is that more or less than a jiggafuckbeta?
[FUCK BETA]
What are the ways this community can keep alive the classic Slashdot...if not today, tomorrow some sort of 'improvement' will be forced up on the site and it will be too late.
What about a new website following open source ideals? Or what about a fund to buy Slashdot from Dice? Or bribe the managers and PHBs so that they keep the classic version alive?
There should be a way out.
Tat Tvam Asi
That describes practically every data transaction we do involving money in this world, and it is still much better than printing paper and transferring it by truck, train or plane between one place and the other.
from an AC too.
I've been a lurker for a long time, probably a couple of years before registering for an account, and have never posted a thing (I have moderated over the years) I'm going to break that tradition now for: Beta is awful, please please keep access to Classic. I cannot read Beta on any device other than my home PC. If I can't read your site, I will not be coming back. Please do not completely break Slashdot
In that it continues showing off the problems of the beta site. Thanks for the reminder! DOWN WITH THE BETA.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
"If you like your classic slashdot. You can keep your classic slashdot."
Sounds like some dude from Thailand. Who is he?
I've seen many calls for a boycott, and such a thing might be in order to get the powers that be to understand that the future of /. is rather bleak without actively participating users.
One thing is missing from these boycott calls: a means of communication before, during and after the proposed boycott. Without such a means of communication nobody will know whether the boycott is successful or not. At the most they'll head for /. - thereby negating the effect of the proposed boycott - to see whether it is as empty as intended.
If anyone has a suggestion for a good place to discuss and connect during the boycott, please speak up. Understand that many /.-ers are wary of all the social boondoggery which infests the web so don't come with suggestions like 'facebook' or 'twitter'. A newsgroup would work, as would another discussion forum. That newsgroup should have a web interface, preferably one which does not require you to login using a Google/Yahoo/Microsoft/Facebook/Twitter/other-big-data-vacuum account.
Any suggestions?
--frank[at]unternet.org
That describes practically every data transaction we do involving money in this world,
No, it does not, in any way.
Now that the VHS_Mob controls this Deathstar we will crush and Betas that oppose us!!
FUCK BETA
When did they start measuring data centres in how much electricity they consume? What happened to megaflops, or MIPS, or TPS ?
When they're big enough to require their own power plant?
It will no longer be an obvious badge as we're all just a name over in Beta.
Exponentially wasting electricity and semiconducts to generate a unique numeric key.
It is far better than the damage done by gold mining, which can result in erosion and mercury contamination. But even the environmental damage done by gold mining is better than Slashdot Beta.
Please remove the Beta so we can get back to enjoying our dayjobs.
F the B
Exactly! Why would anyone in their right mind sell a magic money press? Develop the ASICs and run it yourself is the only way to get rich here.
There are other companies like Butterfly Labs doing exactly this. Their "shipping date" is conveniently right about when mining difficulty gets hard enough that their product is only marginally viable and for a short time at that. You have to know that the ASICs exist right now and they're using them until the profit curve is right to sell. Any other course of action would be stupid.
This is really totally stupid. So they are wasting 10,000 kilowatt of electrical power on some artificial "currency".
... of those bitcoins will it cost to fuck beta?
It is now known as the FuckBeta effect.
CowboyNeal: Governor Alice. I should have expected to find you holding Beta's leash. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought onboard.
Alice Hill: Charming to the last. You don't know how hard I found it, signing the order to terminate Slashdot.
CowboyNeal: [sarcastically] I'm surprised you had the courage to take the responsibility yourself.
Hill: CowboyNeal, before Slashdot's execution, I would like you to be my guest at a ceremony that will make the Beta shitfest operational. No tech site will dare oppose Dice now.
CowboyNeal: The more you tighten your grip, Hill, the more tech sites will slip through your fingers.
Hill: Not after we demonstrate the power of this revamp. In a way, you have determined the choice of the website that will be destroyed first. Since you are reluctant to provide us with the location of the rogue site relaunch base, I have chosen to implement Beta's destructive power on your favorite website of Slashdot.
CowboyNeal: [shocked] No! Slashdot is peaceful. We have no hot grits. You can't possibly–
Hill: You would prefer another target? Then name the system! [stepping closer to CowboyNeal and pinning him against Slashdot's editors] I grow tired of asking this, so it will be the last time. Where is the revamp based?
CowboyNeal: [looks at Slashdot for a moment, then, resigned] AltSlashdot. They're on AltSlashdot.
Hill: There. You see, editors? She can be reasonable. [to sysadmin] Continue with the operation. You may launch Beta when ready.
CowboyNeal: [panicked] What?!
Hill: You are far too trusting. AltSlashdot is too small to make an effective demonstration, but don't worry. We will deal with your revivalist friends soon enough.
CowboyNeal: No!
Fuck Beta! Everyone get in touch with Alice Hill, the person who actually runs the show at Dice - her LinkedIn.
I don't understand the business model of renting hashing out to people. Either its profitable so you effectively lose money by renting it out, or its not profitable so noone in their right minds would rent it off you!
SURELY NOT!!!!!
Do not make beta mandatory. Keep classic.
Your sitting in it.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
They should post a job ad to get someone to fix this place up. Wonder what job ad site they will choose?
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
And your name is Robert Paulson.
Seriously am I the only one that is getting tired of this F**K Beta virginal posturing on every post? I come here for "News for Nerds and stuff that matters" and on every post I have to see all this whining and moaning... seriously kids.. it is getting old quick and accomplishing close to 0. Please at least try to grow up!
sounds like they're moving on up!!
Thats ridiculous
You make some insightful points and I agree, but I would just like to say Fuck Beta. Thank you for your time.
Filter error: You can type more than that for your comment.
I can or I must?
Contact the advertisers. Tell them that you will leave when Beta is forced on everyone.
Suggest to the advertisers that they request from Slashdot the number of users selecting classic vs beta.
Suggest that they watch the traffic when the beta becomes the real,
Suggest that they might want to get a hedge on their advertising dollars such that if traffic falls off they do not have to pay as much or at all.
Suggest that they start investigating places that will still have an active readership in a few months.
We are not Slashdot's customers. We are their product. If Slashdot's customers see a diminishing product with the advent of "New" Slashdot, we might see another "New Coke" moment.
You know what? You "fuck fuck beta" types get on my nerves.
Fuck Fuck Fuck Beta.
Beta needs more whitespace.
(Yes, that was sarcasm)
If gold were to collapse the stuff still has industrial uses. Energy used to mine a collapsed cryptocurrency is a betaesque waste of resources.
A man made a wooden image of Mercury and offered it for sale. When no one was willing to buy it, he cried out that his statue could bestow wealth and heap up riches to anyone who bought it. One of the bystanders said to him , "My good fellow, why do you sell such a statue when you yourself can enjoy the good things he has to give?" Why," he replied, "I am in need of immediate help, and he tends to give his good gifts very slowly!"
youbetcha
capt: trolls
test
FUCK BETA. I want my classic back. And one more thing, FUCK BETA!
Sure it does.
All that power frittered into stupid algorithms. What a terrible waste Bitcoin is.
This one puzzles me somewhat. If one can make money by mining with ASIC rigs, why would anyone sell or rent them, wouldn't they make more money by mining? If they make more money by selling or renting, then wouldn't that mean that mining is silly?
- Raynet --> .
Why oh why did I choose "bitcoin fuck beta" as the trigger phrase for my trending activated doomsday device. Just what are the odds???
Can everybody STFU about the beta? I like it. I remember the one before the last one, and everyone whined back then as well.
How about how much Visa burn as energy to secure its network? How many buildings? Employee who burned fuel every day to go to work? That's energy too... and the result is the same, they both securing their network.
If I had to choose between more banner ads on Slashdot and the current beta I'd go with the extra ads hands-down. I've had the option to disable ads for a long time but I left them on.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
How about how much Visa burn as energy to secure its network?
I dunno. Ask the nerds doing security how active they are, and then check their candy bar and Mt.Dew consumption.
How many buildings? Employee who burned fuel every day to go to work? That's energy too... and the result is the same, they both securing their network.
Yes, but the energy costs of printing real money is fairly low, and non-constant.
The energy costs of PRODUCING Bitcoins (which is what the GP you were responding to, wrongly I might add) is incredible.
More comparable to what YOU are talking about are the costs of maintaining a Bitcoin "market". Which is a whole different set of power expenditures.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
You would think that they would have known better than to try to bullshit such an intelligent userbase with some retard-obvious shit like that.
You're talking about slashdot, correct? Have you ever used that site and looked at the comments? I'll be surprised if half of the people even notice the page changed. As long as it's shiny, they'll be happy.
Yes, but the energy costs of printing real money is fairly low, and non-constant.
On the other hand the energy necessary to produce the paper and the ink used are significant, and the energy used to circulate this physical money is constant and several orders of magnitude higher than the energy necessary to circulate virtual money.
Freenode #slashdot-refugees
How about how much Visa burn as energy to secure its network?
Per transaction handled? Far, far, far less than the Bitcoin network.
Slashdot has editors?
Exponentially wasting electricity and semiconducts to generate a unique numeric key.
It is far better than the damage done by gold mining, which can result in erosion and mercury contamination. But even the environmental damage done by gold mining is better than Slashdot Beta.
Which in turn is far better than exploding all the nuclear bombs around the world leading to environmental damage.
Just because there's something else out there that's worse doesn't mean we should embrace something that's only bad. Especially when this "only bad" Bitcoin mining waste isn't replacing mining for gold. It's done in addition to mining for gold.
Well, it's not as if there are not many kilograms/tons of rare metals in a Bitcoin data center's equipments..
When 50% of the cost of the centre was for its power supply and its cooling. And that doesn't take into account actually running the things. Look at TPC benchmark declarations, and the costs of the systems, there's a breakdown of the cost - power is the single biggest thing. Processors, RAM, storage, interconnects, etc. don't come close.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Yet even printing paper and delivering it by truck is better than Beta. You also get the news much earlier.
..The more FUCK BETA you'll get on your fingers...
Nope, it is getting anoying. But still: beta is so so much more anoying that all I want to say is
Fuck beta.
Can someone please link to calculations performed on how many CPU/GPU/FPGA/ASIC hours have been wasted "mining" for bitcoins and, estimates on the resultant carbon emissions?
And, oh yes, Slashdot Beta sucks.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Slashdot Beta is chock full of Death Star.
Where's an X-Wing when you need one?
It could target a Bitcoin with a 10 Megawatt laser and hit it 9 times out of 10 and then the Slashdot Beta Empire would be no more.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I wonder if Commander Taco regrets selling his baby to these butchers. I, for one, am not feeling a lot of love for him right now...
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I suspect that, proportional to the distribution of the currency, that hasn't been true for more than a year now.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
The energy costs of PRODUCING Bitcoins (which is what the GP you were responding to, wrongly I might add) is incredible.
Not as incredible as you might think. The current generation of ASIC mining hardware is quite a bit more efficient than the generation before, and the next generation is more efficient still.
And Bitcoin miners are a drop in the bucket compared to worldwide computer use. They're probably a drop in the bucket compared to all the computers used by all the people who collectively make up the finance industry.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
FUCK IT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Noble Sweden which has given us so much, stay away from this btc nonsense - what a waste of energy - metaphorically but mostly literally.
Bitcoin is not different from ordinary currencies, after all: the more money you have, the more money you can create.
With USD or EUR, banks create money through loans. With BTC the mechanism is different, but the result is the same. Now we just have to wait for banks to join the BTC fest.
Sashdot UID# 8361
Member since ~ 1997-2000
Been here since the beginning....considering leaving.
-- Given enough time and money, Microsoft will eventualy invent UNIX.
Economies of scale at play.
If visa had 1/100th of the users, they still would have most of the costs and energy expenditure related - since their main energy expenditure is not the computing power.
Bitcoin is still small - just wait until it grows a bit more, since the energy expenditure per transaction expands by the hashing over and nothing else. It will eventually level off.
Besides, this point is moot.
The operational differences in bitcoin as a value totally exceeds the expenditure in energy consumption.
Unless you happen to be one of those who likes their money depreciating, arbitrary limitations, someone snooping on your payments and very high transaction costs
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
...they're focused on shitcoin. The biggest scam ever.
So I get that the beta sucks, but aren't we going to discuss these stories a bit too? If Dice gets the idea in their heads that we're all unappeasable *and* that /. is unprofitable, they'll give up on the paint job and just sink the whole ship.
Anyone throwing a huge amount of money at ASIC mining doesn't know where the profitability is in cryptocurrency. The place to earn your money is in the first few weeks of any new coin, even more so if they offer a hashing algorithm that is resistant to ASICs or GPUs. It's savvy technicians getting pools up for the launch of new coins that should be doing well, not bloated companies who mindlessly throw more SHA-256 hash at bitcoin.
Then you suspect wrongly.
wait, you're not talking about high frequency trading? the stuff for which they lay undersea cables and build new microwave relays?
Exponentially wasting electricity and semiconducts to generate a unique numeric key. Great!
Then move to another crypto-coin.
- Litecoin use a different hashing algorithme which is *NOT* scaling exponentially with generation. (Good CPUs can still pose a challenge to mid-range GPUs, FPGA and ASIC deliver the same performance range as graphic cards, only at a lower power consumption. Even when companies start selling Scrypt ASICs, your graphic card won't be worthless).
- Quarkcoins are a good test-case for newer generation SHA-3 family of algortihms (the current winner and other contender).
- Primecoin is even an entirely different beast.
Instead of simply generating hashes, primecoin generate actually useful research data in the field of mathematics.
(my personnal current favorite)
- Not happy with any of these? Then try imagining a way to generate even more useful result during mining (Hey, can someone invent a valid way to turn BOINC or Folding@HOME into an actually useful crypto-currency?) The code to the bitcoin protocol is free, launching a new coin nowaday is mostly trivial. (as you can see with all the multiple alt-coins emerging everyday. Even joke coins like Dogecoin).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]