#asciilifeform | 2021-01-22

the latter is the first nobel prize novel that I've tried reading, if the translation counts; and I must say, it is quite terrible. I am strongly tempted to abandon it, despite being close to the end.

03:31

wrt "crypto", as opposed to actual cryptographic tooling: my impression is that there are at least to markets for this, and perhaps one of the errors [whether 'coarse' or 'fine' is a separate question] is in marketing the product to the wrong audience

03:31

*

adlai corrects: at least _two_

03:32

the first market, and arguably the correct one for any honest volunteer to service, is that of personal computing and its operators.

03:33

the Nth-and-onwards markets are those of ... I don't want to call it "enterprise" computing, because my familiarity with it is from the military, and that is a slightly different world from the private sector.

03:35

point being: the granularity of sovereignty is quite different; it's an explicit anti-feature for a single 'Pfc Wintergreen' to have mathematically strong tools; and it's a requirement that some signals company technician be able to voodoo apart the computer on the other side of the valley, without actually walking through the minefield.

03:36

the alternative to this, which does actually occur when necessary, is to increase the density of the minefield, get as many of them as possible triggered, and hope that the statisticians gave a sufficient estimate of the ordnance required for long-distance erasure by conventional munitions!

03:37

however, that is expensive along pretty much every axis; thus, the preference for systems that, from the perspective of sovereign individuals who want robust tools for personal computing, are defective-by-design. of course the microscope's base is not the most effective hammer.

03:40

fwiw, the reason that it's a terrible design for each and every NIC, router, and pnoje in a field battalion, to have a distinct discrete logarithm, is that such a system is slightly too readily repurposable for espionage.

03:41

*

adlai fades back to reading about the experience of idjits who actually were 'in computing'

~ 6 hours 23 minutes ~

10:04

adlai: the crypto-for-slaves thing is discussed in my piece on seekrit nsa algos.

10:08

adlai: i gotta admit, it aint clear to me what it has to do with yesterday's thread, however.

~ 2 hours 46 minutes ~

12:55

$ticker btc usd

12:55

btcinfobot

Current BTC price in USD: $32305.46

12:55

!w poll

12:55

Polling 15 nodes...

12:55

185.85.38.54:8333 : Could not connect!

12:55

185.163.46.29:8333 : Could not connect!

12:55

205.134.172.26:8333 : Alive: (0.021s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=666880

12:55

205.134.172.4:8333 : (172-4.core.ai.net) Alive: (0.083s) V=70001 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.7.0.1/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=667191

12:55

205.134.172.6:8333 : (172-6.core.ai.net) Alive: (0.082s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=667191

12:55

71.114.46.209:8333 : (pool-71-114-46-209.washdc.fios.verizon.net) Alive: (0.096s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=667191 (Operator: asciilifeform)

12:55

205.134.172.28:8333 : Alive: (0.084s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Return Addr=0.0.0.0:8333 Blocks=667191 (Operator: whaack)

12:55

192.151.158.26:8333 : Alive: (0.146s) V=70001 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.7.0.1/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=667191

12:55

54.39.156.171:8333 : (ns562940.ip-54-39-156.net) Alive: (0.180s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=667191

12:55

208.94.240.42:8333 : Alive: (0.161s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=667191

12:55

143.202.160.10:8333 : Alive: (0.253s) V=70001 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.7.0.1/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=667191

12:55

176.9.59.199:8333 : (static.199.59.9.176.clients.your-server.de) Alive: (0.273s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=391693 (Operator: jurov)

12:55

84.16.46.130:8333 : (182518.pk.3pp.slovanet.sk) Alive: (0.370s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=447315

~ 31 minutes ~

13:27

It's rather amusing to consider the objections to a different architecture.

13:27

http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/asciilifeform/2021-01-04#1028189 ``But that would require millions of tiny machines to be useful!''

13:27

snsabot

Logged on 2021-01-04 12:22:13 asciilifeform: ( i'll add to the story -- if yer ~not~ trapped in a vn machine, then sort not even o(n) -- if you can simply tell the sticks to 'walk forward if you see a taller stick in front of you; otherwise stand still' and they take ~at most~ N steps ! )

13:28

Isn't that an amusing thought, to bring back dedicated sorting machines?

13:29

verisimilitude: it aint any odder than e.g. iron neural network accelerators (sold 'on erry street corner' for some yrs nao)

13:30

I'm recalling mechanical punch card sorters is all.

13:32

*

asciilifeform not used

13:33

This would be an example of ``The more things change, the more things stay the same.''.

13:33

iirc they worked simply by pulling out item if it is found to be out of order. and so ad infinitum.

13:36

The USA has used different architectures in its missile systems, at least a few decades back.

13:37

I'm aware of one missile design which housed a bird, and the interior was arranged to manipulate the bird into correcting the missile's course, by mimicking nature appropriately. I don't believe there were any ejection system for the poor bird, of course.

13:45

verisimilitude: the pigeon aiming device was skinner's. it was never built, and i'm quite convinced that it was a derisive joke at the expense of the idiot brass.

13:48

verisimilitude: at the time, in red army, however, dogs had been trained to carry a sack of explosive and jump under enemy tanks. was not mega-success (the dogs were trained on t34, and so if there were friendly tanks in the battlefield, they in fact went ~there~)

13:50

attempts to train circus animals to fight in war continued (as i suspect a lucrative boondoggle) on both sides of cold war, what with dolphins with knives attached etc.

13:50

afaik nothing interesting ever came of it, not even in the 'interesting wreck' sense.

13:50

hard enuff to train humans properly.

13:52

Oh, I wasn't aware it hadn't been put into practice; I'm aware of the Russian dog issue, as it's the butt of jokes.

13:54

I was going to joke about putting human children inside missiles in a similar fashion, but there are probably better uses of children who would qualify for such.

13:55

verisimilitude: humans dun work well at 10+g (see also 'baka bomb')

13:56

That's disingenuous; we just established they don't work so well at ground level, either.

14:00