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."
First off, before I say anything else, let me be perfectly clear: I hate Beta as much as everyone else, and if classic (or at least something very close to it) ceases to be available, I'll leave.
However, this kind of crap disturbs me:
I have a 5 digit userid (of course the beta won't display that anymore).
I'm gone if the beta is forced on me.
That's what you're worried about most?!?
I'm sure this will cost me karma, but I don't give a damn about how many digits your userid has. It tells me absolutely nothing about you, other than that you were probably alive 15 years ago. (Although, I'm sure at least some dead people have passed a userid onto someone else....)
There are lots of people with low IDs who have been an important part of the community for many years. I applaud those of you who fit into that category. Some people were away for a long time and came back. Great.
There are also lots of people with low IDs who haven't posted in a decade, and only come on to complain or make some troll-like comment every so often. There are others who only show up when some stupid userid pissing contest gets started. ("You think you have a low number, look at mine!" "No -- you moron, I have only 4!" "Ha -- mine's smaller!" The only pissing contest in the world where smaller is better....)
I'm not against displaying a userid. I like it because it's traditional to this site. I can see how it was useful back in the day.
For the record, I've never posted about this before, but I did browse the site for at least a few months back in 1998 or 1999 -- and I'm certain I even signed up for an account and made a handful of posts. But for the life of me, I can't remember the name I signed up under -- I was trying to be clever, and I used a name I never used before. And I don't have access to the email account I used to have, so there's no way to figure it out... not that I care that much. It would be meaningless, because I didn't come back for 6-7 years, and only then did I actually start contributing seriously. Having that number tacked onto my comments would give me an air of respect or legitimacy to some people that I wouldn't deserve.
I used to care, and one day I spent a couple hours trying to figure out what my old username might have been... but after being really active here for over half a decade, I can safely say that I don't give a crap about that anymore. I don't even notice the numbers, except as identifiers sometimes. I care about posts that are actually helpful and insightful, not about what your name or number is.
If we want to put some metric that tells us something about your status or contributions to the Slashdot community, how about the total number of modded up posts, or +5 posts, or some karma measure, or the number of modded up posts per year or something? (Just not the stupid Beta "trophies.") That would actually tell me something about whether you're likely to have something good to say, or whether you're a good citizen in the community. Your userid does not.
I really mean no disrepect here. But if your 5-digit userid is the thing you care about most concerning this move to Beta... well, I think you might want to reconsider your priorities. I give a damn about the community. I give a damn about good structured commenting systems that are clearly displayed and easily accessible.
And I'd be happy to keep the userid system for tradition's sake -- it ain't broke as far as I'm concerned, except when comments like this come around.
I care about Slashdot. I don't give a damn about your ego around some meaningless number.