From what I understand, BFL's last announced shipping date/goal is around the same time as Tom's? Are we just assuming that they won't make it? I gather that they have a reputation for not meeting shipping date goals.
Prior to the beginning of this week, BFL was scheduled to ship before BTCFPGA. Now they are about the same time. That's why I said Tom now has a chance to be the first to ship an ASIC.
#btcfpga already exists on freenode
people chat and support each other already
I went in there once to look for Tom, but he had already gotten off the computer. So I called him instead and he picked up

Gonna dust off my IRC client and lurk in there now
