Hi, Dave Perry of Coding In My Sleep here. I realize this is serious necromancy (120+ day old post) but I just found the thread and felt the need to reply. I doubt most of the people who posted in this thread will be at all convinced by any statement I could give, but what have I got to lose, you already hate me, right?

Since this is so old I'm not sure when you refer to my promotion of the Monarch whether you're referring to the article I wrote or the fact that my sidebar ad was updated to reflect that product, so I'll address both.

As for the article, I've made it widely known that I'm big into mining and I'll release whatever news or review whatever product any company wants to send me. If these elements of my site disproportionately favor BFL it is merely because they have been more willing than most to give up information, products and face-time with their higher-ups. I had talks with the guys at Avalon that nothing ever came of, I did a couple of videos with a USB stick ASICMiner sent me, I'll take apart anything anyone wants to put in my hands. It's also important to recognize that BFL is the MtGox of the ASIC world - for better or worse they're a huge name that's been here for ages (comparatively speaking) and what they do is news.

Now for the ad. Frequent visitors to my site might notice that I've removed the "Sponsors" page entirely and only one ad remains in the left sidebar. This ad is the last ad that will ever appear on my site as I have moved (rather successfully) to a tip/donation system - for exactly this reason. I felt that I could not maintain any kind of objectivity with those ads on my site and I'd been bitten once or twice by inadequate vetting, which is not the sort of thing I have any desire in spending a lot of time on. The entire idea of putting manually-managed ads on the site was just a terrible idea that I'll not repeat. BFL's ad is the last remaining ad on my site simply because they bought a great deal of ad time in advance and it has yet to expire. The ad itself is hosted on their server so they can update it at any time and at some point around the time this post originated they did change the ad to one for the Monarch, hence why I'm not sure which thing we're even talking about. In any case, their time is up come June and then the entire sidebar will disappear.

As for my decision to keep (and mine with) the Jalapeno they provided me, all I can say is that it's an impossible situation to be put in. There's a lot of motivations to keep it, even aside from the financial aspect (want to see the first production Jalapeno ever made anyone?) and the ethics of that decision did in fact daunt me at the time. In all honesty what sealed my decision to keep the unit is that a few days later Ars Technica came out with their review and everyone kept saying what idiots they were for destroying their private key in the name of integrity. If I'm to be called a shill for keeping it or an idiot for returning it, then "shill" hurts a bit less... and pays better... and supports the network... and gets me a historical Bitcoin artifact that will sit proudly on a prominently-displayed shelf LONG after it's obsolete. How can you turn that down?

Many thanks to those who attempted my defense or preached reason. I'm honestly flattered that you care enough about what I write to have felt disappointed or angry when it didn't live up to expectations. For that small bit, I will apologize - I do the best I can with what I'm given to work with and always strive to do better. Hopefully you've stuck around and hopefully I've won you over again in the time that's passed. If not, I'll gladly listen to any reasonable criticism you'd like to offer. And a slice of that cheesecake bitcoinarnold was talking about. I'm not gonna lie, you've seen my picture. I do enjoy a good cheesecake.