Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Being Skeptical: Can you make $$$ mining bitcoins? (2017 edition)



With Bitcoin around 8000, people are once again excited about mining Bitcoins. But does it make sense for YOU to order a mining rig and start mining yourself?

Frankly, no, unless you live in an area with extremely cheap electricity.

You can play with the profitability calculator.  http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/

Remember to plug in the cost of the rig (assume Antminer S9 cost $2000, 1600W, produces 14 TH/s), and cost of your local electricity (assume $0.13/W), AND the current BTC/USD conversion (use $8000)

Even at the current prices of $8000 USD/BTC, you won't break even for 5 MONTHS (breakeven is calculated for 140-160 days depending on electricity costs). The ONLY way this can be profitable is you setup where electricity is cheap, like in India and China, where electricity is 1/3 less than in the US.

Sunday, November 19, 2017

Scam Spotting: Is this kitten for sale page on Facebook legit or not?

Someone brought this to the attention of /r/scams... is this legit?

FB page claims to have Sphynx kittens for sale at $600 
The initial page is already problematic. Google photo search comes up with a for sale ad from south Australia town of Glenunga.


Scrolling through the cute photos shows they've been advertising these cats since January 20th, 2017.

A volunteer contacted them via Facebook Messenger, and they claimed to be in Dallas, TX.


Their first timeline photo is this cat:


While I cannot find the EXACT photo, it was pretty obvious it was a screencap from a video, as I was able to find this photo of the same cat, the same potted plant, the same plastic sheet on the same table, just different pose, but it's from a classified ad in Granada, Spain.  There's a video below (no longer available) so presumably, that's where the above "photo" came from.