Show Idle (>14 d.) Chans


← 2020-08-04 | 2020-08-06 →
01:20 verisimilitude http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/asciilifeform/2020-08-04#1017833 I wholeheartedly agree, asciilifeform. I've found it queer that programs are written, with changes measured line-by-line, in such a jilted fashion, where the popular debugging method is to revert changes that break, rather than seek true understanding.
01:20 snsabot Logged on 2020-08-04 22:06:01 asciilifeform: the problem isn't 'outsource', but the very idea that hundred+ people can 'write software together', is crock of shit
01:22 verisimilitude http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/asciilifeform/2020-08-04#1017850 The main issue with timestamps, in my eyes, is not necessarily the odd timekeeping methods in common use, but the fact that time is an unbounded quantity, so using a fixed-size to handle it is fundamentally wrong. Discarding with time is an automatic simplification.
01:22 snsabot Logged on 2020-08-04 22:12:10 asciilifeform: timestamps are intrinsically bogus, in my lights.
~ 51 minutes ~
02:14 gregorynyssa http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/asciilifeform/2020-08-05#1017864 << I call this "evidence-based programming" and it is indeed the dominant paradigm within our present industry.
02:14 snsabot Logged on 2020-08-05 01:20:44 verisimilitude: http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/asciilifeform/2020-08-04#1017833 I wholeheartedly agree, asciilifeform. I've found it queer that programs are written, with changes measured line-by-line, in such a jilted fashion, where the popular debugging method is to revert changes that break, rather than seek true understanding.
02:16 gregorynyssa the ideas of XP, "scrum," and "agile" are basically outgrowths of this dismal worldview.
~ 7 hours 36 minutes ~
09:53 trinque themselves outgrowths of yes, cheap, ever-printed money.
09:53 trinque "run as fast as you can just to stay where you are" if that.
~ 1 hours 24 minutes ~
11:18 asciilifeform http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/asciilifeform/2020-08-05#1017866 << note however -- a 128-bit epochtime runs long past sun burning out.
11:18 snsabot Logged on 2020-08-05 01:22:34 verisimilitude: http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/asciilifeform/2020-08-04#1017850 The main issue with timestamps, in my eyes, is not necessarily the odd timekeeping methods in common use, but the fact that time is an unbounded quantity, so using a fixed-size to handle it is fundamentally wrong. Discarding with time is an automatic simplification.
11:20 asciilifeform ( afaik 128b epoch not in use anywhere, because idiots )
11:20 verisimilitude A one hundred and twenty-eight bit integer is also usually large enough, but that doesn't discredit arbitrary-length arithmetic. The point stands; eliminating time is a better solution.
11:22 asciilifeform verisimilitude: the trouble w/ arbitrary-width arithmetic is that there's 9000 places where yer stuck with a finite bitness. e.g. packets.
11:24 verisimilitude Timestamps have the same issue.
~ 2 hours 9 minutes ~
13:33 asciilifeform !w poll
13:33 watchglass Polling 12 nodes...
13:33 watchglass 205.134.172.4:8333 : (172-4.core.ai.net) Alive: (0.033s) V=70001 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.7.0.1/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=642360
13:33 watchglass 205.134.172.26:8333 : Alive: (0.091s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=642360
13:33 watchglass 205.134.172.27:8333 : Alive: (0.105s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=642360 (Operator: asciilifeform)
13:33 watchglass 205.134.172.6:8333 : (172-6.core.ai.net) Alive: (0.146s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=642360
13:33 watchglass 108.31.170.3:8333 : (pool-108-31-170-3.washdc.fios.verizon.net) Alive: (0.225s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=642360 (Operator: asciilifeform)
13:33 watchglass 208.94.240.42:8333 : Alive: (0.190s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=642360
13:33 watchglass 192.151.158.26:8333 : Alive: (0.206s) V=70001 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.7.0.1/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=642360
13:33 watchglass 143.202.160.10:8333 : Alive: (0.171s) V=70001 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.7.0.1/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=642360
13:33 watchglass 213.109.238.156:8333 : Alive: (0.335s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=642360
13:33 watchglass 176.9.59.199:8333 : (static.199.59.9.176.clients.your-server.de) Alive: (0.288s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=291039 (Operator: jurov)
13:33 watchglass 188.121.168.69:8333 : (rev-188-121-168-69.radiolan.sk) Alive: (0.347s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=642360
13:33 watchglass 103.36.92.112:8333 : (terebe.ns01.net) Alive: (0.643s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=642360
13:39 asciilifeform verisimilitude: in principle, a 256-bit timestamp would span the entire life of universe, as per supposed state of art, from start to hypothesized end. in nsec.
13:43 asciilifeform ( in practice, prolly unnecessary, e.g. the 8k years that span civilization of egypt, fit in < 38bit seconds ... )
13:52 verisimilitude It also must be noted that it's a waste of space. My preferred method, must I've timestamps, is to choose a larger unit. Second-granularity on, say, server access logs, is perhaps unnecessary in some situations, and granularity as large as an entire day would be reasonable. A twent-yfour bit day count would last tens of thousands of years, which is ``good enough'', if it must be recorded.
13:53 asciilifeform verisimilitude: on the contrary, i often find that second is insufficiently granular for logs, where a process can piss out 9000ln/sec., for guaranteed preservation of ordering
13:54 verisimilitude It depends on the server, I know.
13:54 asciilifeform depends naturally on what yer loggin
13:54 verisimilitude For an HTTP or Gopher server, I wouldn't really care for anything more than a few hours accuracy, and proper ordering within the hours.
13:55 verisimilitude A timestamp acknowledgement server, for reasonably guaranteeing the existence of a file at a certain time, would likely be fine with second-granularity.
13:56 verisimilitude It depends on who the users would be.
13:56 asciilifeform verisimilitude: current state of art for 'guaranteed time', deedbot, gives multi-hour granularity (i.e. until block is mined)
13:58 verisimilitude I'd in mind, in particular, the SPARK program mentioned in chapter eight of that book I reviewed.
13:58 * asciilifeform doesn't see much point in washington-style 'magic box in palace' centralized timestamping services
13:58 verisimilitude It seems like it has an obvious use, in the proper context, there a university.
13:59 verisimilitude I don't mind a magic box, so long as it's my magic box.
14:00 asciilifeform right, clock is useful to owner. but anyone who relies on 3rd party clock as absolute authority, is simply a chump .
14:04 verisimilitude I like how the linked bitcointalk forum discussion contains this: ``One or more bitcointalk.org users have reported that they strongly believe that the creator of this topic is a scammer.''
14:04 verisimilitude Am I to understand not every topic is prefaced with this?
14:05 asciilifeform verisimilitude: unlike many of the other ex-#t folx, asciilifeform never frequented that forum. but iirc it had various comically ad-hoc pseudo-WoT mechanisms, yes
14:07 verisimilitude Oh, what it would change were I involved with bitcoin from the beginning; I probably wouldn't've had some of my nice ideas, however, so it evens out.
14:08 asciilifeform revisiting clocks -- see also old thread re 'the key moving part of bitcoin is the decentralized monotonic timestamp', i.e. if had nuffin else but it, could trivially implement broad class of reliable mechanisms for multi-party agreement
14:08 snsabot (trilema) 2017-03-02 asciilifeform: it is worth recalling the gedankenexperiment where it turns out that all you'd need to build 'martian bank' on earth, is if martians merely supplied an infallible 'martian clock', a service whereby they take a string S , at regular, say, daily, interval, and return its hash H
14:09 verisimilitude So, bitcoin plays the ten-minute martian, then?
14:10 asciilifeform verisimilitude: 100% of the mechanical pieces existed in '90s (chaum et all), the item that made present-day bitcoinism possible was specifically the longest-chain hash work mechanism
14:10 asciilifeform ~10 avg., in practice varies wildly
14:10 verisimilitude I recall a business put ads in the New York Times for a similar purpose.
14:11 asciilifeform it's possibly world's least accurate electronic clock. its only virtues are monotonicity + immutability.
14:11 asciilifeform verisimilitude: current-day nyt (and other fishwraps) routinely monkey w/ archives (and charge iirc significantly moar for ad that makes its way into printed birdcage liners, vs. www-only)
14:11 verisimilitude Wouldn't the least accurate clock be a clock which is perfectly incorrect, and thus useful in how it can be trivially made correct by a constant transformation?
14:12 asciilifeform verisimilitude: recall from grade school, 'accuracy' vs 'precision'
14:12 verisimilitude That is this: A line which always bitflips is perfectly reliable.
14:13 asciilifeform illustration randomly plucked from net
14:13 asciilifeform the figure on upper left corner -- 'accurate, but not precise' -- reflects btc picture of time.
14:14 verisimilitude I stretched the thought too far, perhaps.
14:15 asciilifeform verisimilitude: arguably i mislead in the earlier summary, oughta have said 'least precise'
14:16 verisimilitude Alright. So, asciilifeform, I'm correcting a minor flaw I found in my MMC today, and will document it in my Finger service; what programming has been done lately?
14:16 asciilifeform point being, knowing block # gives you a quite loose picture of the 'absolute time'. rather on the level of photo of night sky on given time.
14:16 asciilifeform verisimilitude: after lengthy dry spell (heathendom matters) returned to cleaning up ch21b for publication.
14:17 asciilifeform ( 21b is the derivation of the algo + proof ; 21c -- discussion of code itself. the code is written and polished, since early may )
14:17 verisimilitude Oh, that reminds me; it won't be considered poor form if I leave a comment on every chapter as I read it, right? I could see the frustration of ``That's covered next chapter.''.
14:18 asciilifeform verisimilitude: don't hesitate to comment
14:18 asciilifeform verisimilitude: have you been reading for some time, or recently picked up ?
14:18 verisimilitude Alright; I'll only hesitate to read; there's always so much reading to be done, although that's better than having none.
14:19 asciilifeform lolk
14:19 verisimilitude I've commented on at least the first chapter.
14:19 verisimilitude I certainly intend to finish it, know.
14:19 asciilifeform verisimilitude: i wrote in , imho, sufficiently small chunks that can be eaten in <1h per ch.
14:20 asciilifeform ( longer if you intend to attempt the puzzles, perhaps )
14:20 verisimilitude It's a nice writeup, asciilifeform, and I'll certainly read each chapter as if my life depended on it, so that I may be the one who discovers any flaw to then report.
14:20 verisimilitude Are earlier chapters updated with notes on flaws found?
14:21 asciilifeform verisimilitude: i was mildly disappointed that none of the historical readers found the mine in ch15 . but i also did not find until later, so haven't any room to laugh at others
14:21 verisimilitude I'll try my best to have an excuse to laugh at others.
14:21 asciilifeform verisimilitude: the linked item thus far is the only lethal bug found & revealed.
14:22 asciilifeform and yes i put a link in orig. ch15 text to the fix.
14:22 verisimilitude Alright.
14:23 asciilifeform 21 is taking as long as it is because specifically intend to rule out the ch15 situation by posting rigorous proof from beginning.
14:23 asciilifeform ( a la ch14 )
14:28 asciilifeform while on subj of programs that take yrs -- picked back up also my gnat-on-bare-x86 (orig. based on ave1's demo for linux)
14:29 asciilifeform idea being, single-task msdos-style os, bootable from <1MB storage (incl. rom, if preferred) that contains peh, simple text editor, speaks via rs232 port (incl. to FG) .
14:30 asciilifeform with zero heathen coad inside.
14:32 asciilifeform notion being, can perform cryptographic operations purely in ram (w/out littering nonvolatile storage w/ intermediates) , on just about any old x86 junk box.
14:33 verisimilitude That's certainly a neat idea.
14:35 verisimilitude Without a schedule, it's far too easy to let goals slip by; from now, I'm going to aim for one chapter of FFA weekly, asciilifeform.
14:35 asciilifeform it aint the logical conclusion of peh (that'd be a 100% clean iron on e.g. 'ice40') but has the advantage of ~0 cost takeup .
14:36 asciilifeform verisimilitude: at one time i published ffa 1/ch/wk like clockwork. then at one pt no longer could (day job ate time) and this caused epic wank, began the process whereby broke up w/ mp et al
14:37 verisimilitude Oh, I'm not too familiar about that drama.
14:37 asciilifeform verisimilitude: historical interest strictly
14:37 verisimilitude I recall ``asciilifeform did nothing'' which was clearly false.
14:37 asciilifeform see also .
14:43 verisimilitude I should revise my SHA articles so they're more interesting to read, with hindsight; I've noticed next to nothing on loper-os is touched after publication, but several of my articles have been greatly improved by multiple rewrites, so it's worth considering, asciilifeform.
14:43 asciilifeform if asciilifeform , like some of his critics, had been sitting on $millions, could've entirely wrapped up ffa in '17. but 'if wishes were horses' etc.
14:44 asciilifeform verisimilitude: normally when i amend an item after publication, i leave a clear mark to indicate, with date.
14:44 asciilifeform ( typos and similar excepted )
14:46 verisimilitude I hold the idea of, since I could lie or forget about the timestamp, along with not caring, I never leave any.
14:46 asciilifeform verisimilitude: i leave time marks largely for self, when reading yrs later, helps to have rough chronology
14:47 verisimilitude I like subverting expectations, and anyone who thinks websites should have update notices should be made to recall that any of them could be lies.
14:48 asciilifeform verisimilitude: sorta why i dun think much of timestamps in e.g. gpg sigs (and have no intention of including concept of time in peh)
14:48 asciilifeform they're promisetronic.
14:49 verisimilitude Not only can they lie, they can simply never be present, and I'm certain ``trustworthy'' sources gaslight in this fashion constantly.
14:49 asciilifeform of course they do.
15:02 asciilifeform verisimilitude: this is the essence of the concept of 'promisetronic'. in other words, the diff. b/w bitcoin and a heathen bank.
15:02 asciilifeform or b/w gpg and heathen idiocies a la 'protonmail' & similar
15:04 asciilifeform there's a whole ocean of 'homeopathic crypto' where 'secure' until&unless rando third party happens to decide to lie one day
15:04 asciilifeform the 'ssl' tower o'shit is simply the best-known example.
15:08 asciilifeform there's, sadly, no shortage of examples. say, the 'encryption' supposedly built into some brands of ssd .
15:08 asciilifeform ( where user has 0 way of knowing what actually happens internally, whether the pw is retained in plaintext (in all units reversed to date -- it was in fact squirreled away in the controller somewhere ) etc.
~ 2 hours 7 minutes ~
17:16 feedbot http://mvdstandard.net/2020/08/lebanon-puts-all-of-their-port-officials-under-house-arrest-after-massive-explosion-yesterday/ << The Montevideo Standard -- Lebanon Puts All Of Their Port Officials Under House Arrest After Massive Explosion Yesterday
~ 1 hours 37 minutes ~
18:53 newland0 to me, items that are published benefit from having a timestamp for reader convenience
18:53 newland0 2020-08-05T22.53.27Z for example
18:54 newland0 a vpatch would be very unlikely to need anything outside of that range or precision
19:08 asciilifeform newland0: nuffin stops anyone from placing timestamps in the text. in fact, custom for a while has been to place btc block #s in manifest.txt .
~ 1 hours 36 minutes ~
20:44 newland0 cool, that works
20:50 newland0 so what can i do with all of this, that might be incidentally of some benefit to others? stand up a node maybe?
20:50 newland0 how many GB does that require these days?
~ 23 minutes ~
21:14 mats ~316gb
~ 47 minutes ~
22:02 asciilifeform wb mats
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