Feel free to name a major pool with a 2 week ramp up time.

I'd rather get what I mine than worry about variance.  I have never heard a reasonable reason for reducing variance.  The excuses I hear for the ramping up and down are always that it doesn't matter, which tells me that it does matter, or it wouldn't be done.  And second, that it reduces variance.  Well, so what?  I don't think that something that I don't want done (reducing variance) should be used to justify a practice of ramping up and down that I also don't want.

Yeah, but there is a little bit of difference between a few hour ramp up and a 7 day ramp up.

The funny thing is that most of the excuses for the ramp up and ramp down I hear amount to it all coming out in the wash.  That basically it doesn't matter, because it all equals out in the end.  If that is true, then why have the ramp up and ramp down?  Seriously, if it truly makes no difference, why do it?  There is a reason.  Not that it will matter anymore really anyway, because Kano Pool is dead. 

LOL! Kano just deleted a bunch of my posts, because he couldn't defend his rotten pool.  All I did was tell the truth.  Any other pool pays twice as much. 

You are spot on about Kano's ramp up time.  He also says, it works out if you lose power and are still able to get profits from blocks that are hit if you are offline and he says that it evens out if you leave the pool and it ramps down.  Both are false.  First of all, if you lose power, you start the ramping down and then once you get power back, you start back at some stage of the ramping back up process.  The odds are you will take a hit on that in dust.  Also, when I left Kano Pool, no block was hit during the entire ramp down (which is 7 days now).  I got nothing on the ramp down.  Kano just got all of my profits on the 3 day ramp up I had to go through.  It's completely dishonest.  And if you have questions about it he gets angry and starts screaming about 5Nd being explained on his web page.  What that 5nD amounts to is Kano being better at embezzlement math than the average person whose eyes are going to glaze over when trying to understand what he posted about it, so they'll just assume it's legit and ignore it.

I am not really familiar with CKPool.  I will have to check it out.  Thanks!

Yeah I agree with a lot of what you have to say, but if Kano doesn't want to answer people, he doesn't even have to.  Not everyone is cut out for handling customer service.  Some people shouldn't even try it.  Other people in the forum are eager to help new people even when questions have been asked and answered many times.

But, like I said before, you and many other people may not be bothered by his rudeness.  You may be so knowledgeable about bitcoin mining that you never have a question anyway.

But at one time you were a newbie.  And many newbies come along all the time and just because rudeness doesn't bother you, it doesn't mean it won't bother everyone.  Newbies find the Kano Pool thread on this BitcoinTalk forum and expect that it should be an easy place to ask a question, even if it's a retarded question.  That is what the thread is for right?  Or why even have it?  And let's face it, a thread on BitcoinTalk is not an easy place to search for previous answers to a question.  It won't even allow you to do multiple searches without agonizing and pointless waiting times between searches.  I have no idea what that is all about.  I don't see how there can be a spamming exploit that can be abused because of being allowed to search.  BitcoinTalk is pretty clumsy, and non-user-friendly, especially for a new user.

Of course, that isn't Kano's fault.  But he should know it.  And he chose here to have his little thread going, rather than to set up something more user friendly himself or choose another forum.

I suppose I have digressed a bit.  My only point is that not everyone is as tolerant of rude and snide treatment as you may be.  People will just leave.  Even if it makes no sense to you that they do.  They do.  I did.  And he never even said anything to me.  I just got tired of the childish attitude toward others.  I enjoyed what others had to talk about.  But luckily, there are more pools out there.  And I am not sure if there is any pool out there that has lower earnings than Kano Pool at this time, so I am glad to be gone for more than one reason.

Oh, I understand that rudeness isn't something that bothers everyone.  I just pointed out that some people are bothered by it.  For me, it depends. When rudeness it domes with smug (I'm better than you) attitude and in a situation where I am a customer of sorts, I can just go somewhere else.

As for your reason for leaving Kano Pool, I can't blame you.  Something seems to be wrong with it.  I don't pretend to know what is wrong, but I find it highly improbable that "luck" is to blame.  If Bitcoin mining had a version of "Selling Short," I'd be all over Kano Pool!

I think you may have missed the point.  Whether Kano admits that he deletes posts or gives criteria as to why he does it is beside the point.  He is completely within his right to delete posts and to give a smug attitude toward all the people he wants.  BUT, this kind of behavior doesn't come without consequences.  There is no hypocrisy.  The OP of this thread isn't trying to garner "customers" for lack of a better word.  Kano is.  He lost me.  His pool didn't lose me.  He did.  He is skillful in the fact that he put together the pool in the first place, which is admirable.  But, he's rude.  Rudeness has its price.  He has every right to be rude.  He has every right to censor people on his pool's thread on Bitcoin Forum.

People who are the recipients of Kano's petulant tongue lashings and censorship don't have to take it.  They can move on.  You most likely won't hear from most people who do move on.  They just go.

So you see, it doesn't matter how well you defend his actions, it doesn't get me to join his pool again.  Even if I am wrong about taking any kind of offense to his snark or censorship, I can and will take offense, nonetheless.  That's why the "customer is always wrong" approach never works.  Kano can feel free to use it though.  It's his business.

Oh, and yes, I do like Slush Pool.  They charge more, but they don't try to use a lower charge to justify treating me like a peon.  I fly a lot and when I do, I fly first class.  Why would I do that if it costs more?  Because they treat me like a king.  

Oh no! The "what you say is what you are" debate technique!  I'm rusty dealing with that one, since I haven't heard it since 2nd grade, so you win!

Bingo!  I was mining on Kano Pool and was doing well.  I left the pool, because of Kano himself and his attitude in the forum.  I went to Slush.  I made slightly less on Slush, but it was worth it for a couple of reasons.  Everyone is friendly.  You don't have to feel like you are walking on eggshells because of some whiny child running the place who will delete your posts all the time.  And you don't have to deal with others who cow-tow to the child like little sycophants.  Slush miners chat in IRC as well and are always happy to answer questions, even for noobs.

It's too bad Kano is so immature.  If he were more professional, his pool would grow by leaps and bounds.  I would join it again if it were under new management.

I just installed Multibit HD, thinking it was going to be an upgrade.  What I found was that I can't create multiple wallets as I can in the older version.  At least if there is a way, I can't figure it out.  Is there a way?  The instructions on creating a wallet only pertain to "opening Multibit HD for the first time."  Please help.  This is extremely disappointing if I can only have one wallet.  I chose Multibit in the first places because of how easy it was to create and manage multiple wallets.  Please don't give me any comments about needing only one wallet.  Believe me, I need more than one for accounting purposes.