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mountainboy

31 karma · joined July 20, 2020

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mountainboy··on Git Branches: Intuition and Reality
Interesting, so then which path(s) does git display when running git-log on this?
mountainboy··on Cryptographers solve decades-old privacy problem
blind signatures are nice and verifiably unlinkable but digital bearer certificates require a trusted central "mint" to issue and reissue them. This central point of failure can and inevitably will... fail, as Chaum's company (Digicash) did. And it can also inflate the currency without anyone knowing.

Bitcoin was the result of cypherpunks going back to the drawing board to create a decentralized solution. Unfortunately bitcoin sacrificed unlinkability for decentralization. Modern "privacy" cryptocurrencies utilizing zero-knowledge proofs are advancing the state-of-the-art in terms of having both properties.

A decentralized DBC "mint" is theoretically possible. However there are two more downsides to blind signature approach: (1) auditing is impossible because there is no history so detecting if mint-node(s) have colluded to cheat or catching an inflation bug is unsolved problem. (2) Arbitrary amounts are not supported so it is necessary to create fixed denomination "notes", which then add size and complexity to every transaction.

source: been there, done that. bought the t-shirt.

mountainboy··on Tech talk: Mutator Sets offer new approach to scalable, layer 1 privacy [video]
See also:

blog post: https://neptune.cash/blog/mutator-sets/

technical paper: https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/1208.pdf

mountainboy··on Tech talk: Mutator Sets offer new approach to scalable, layer 1 privacy [video]
This talk was given at Hackers Congress Paralelní Polis 23 by the architect and lead cryptographer of the Neptune.cash project.
mountainboy··on X traffic and monthly active users are in decline, report claims
I stopped clicking on twitter (yeah, X, whatever) links after they started requiring login to view tweets/threads. I have an old account I could use, but simply don't feel the need to bother. If they want to alienate readers, so be it.
mountainboy··on ‘Blue lights’ flash in sky moments before Morocco earthquake
1. there is a an electromagnetic connection between the sun and the earth. 2. lightning is constantly equalizing voltage from space to earth. 3. earthquakes are probably caused by electrical imbalances, not the reverse. 4. most everyone here probably will deny 1..3 above and downvote me to oblivion. 5. read Christian Birkeland's biography. Or Hannes Alfven. then come back.
mountainboy··on ‘Blue lights’ flash in sky moments before Morocco earthquake
1. there is a an electromagnetic connection between the sun and the earth. 2. lightning is constantly equalizing voltage from space to earth. 3. earthquakes are probably caused by electrical imbalances, not the reverse. 4. most everyone here probably will deny 1..3 above. 5. read Christian Birkeland's biography. Or Hannes Alfven. then come back.
mountainboy··on It's TCP vs. RPC All over Again
> SOAP, from the XML era.

Don't forget XML-RPC :-)

mountainboy··on Hydrogen: Does Earth hold vast stores of a renewable, carbon-free fuel?
quote from article: "The Ford engine ran until its spark plugs gave out a few years ago and a newly installed fuel cell—quieter and more efficient—has not yet been hooked into the village grid. Bourakébougou is dark, waiting for a hydrogen future to arrive."

They couldn't replace a few spark plugs?

mountainboy··on Mary, Queen of Scots prison letters finally decoded
wow, an entire article and no link to the actual decrypted texts, way to go Guardian.
mountainboy··on Morning exposure to deep red light improves declining eyesight
the sungazing community has been aware of this for decades, if not centuries, millenia.
mountainboy··on Gophie – modern gopher client for Windows, Mac, Linux
I migrated from OS/2 directly to linux.
mountainboy··on Faecal transplants reverse hallmarks of ageing
The commenter prefixed with "kindly" which is about the same thing as saying "please". This makes it not imperative, but a request.
mountainboy··on Science of Fasting
the bigger question is: who would pay for such studies?

big pharma? government lobbied by big pharma? universities given grants from government lobbied by big pharma?

actually though, the soviets did do serious research into the science/benefits of fasting. Too bad it never really made it to the west.

Watch the video: "The Science of Fasting" for an overview.

mountainboy··on Does Time Exist?
afaict, "time" is simply a measure of matter in motion... ie resonant frequency or how long it takes a liquid to flow x distance. Thus, time is just a mental construct, not a "dimension", and "time travel" is not possible. There is only "now".
mountainboy··on Iron Cycle based energy storage and generation
that sounds cool. did you get it working?

Stirling engines are quite tricky to get right, as I understand it. And that sounds like you'd need a good sized one, not a toy.

mountainboy··on Iron Cycle based energy storage and generation
NI-FE (nickel-iron) are pretty good batteries that basically never die. terribly expensive though, and comparatively low power density.
mountainboy··on Parking kills businesses, not bikes or buses
I blame government zoning laws. These prevent entrepreneurs from opening restaurants and markets near to where people live.

In a truly entrepreneurial society, anyone can operate a small business open to the public right out of their house. Not so in the US states/counties I've ever been to.

mountainboy··on Newly Measured Particle Seems Heavy Enough to Break Known Physics
hypothesis: the great filter is simply an adequate understanding of physics. The galaxy (and beyond?) is happily chattering away using physics we do not understand. We are a pre-contact tribe in the jungle completely unaware of the "radio" signals passing all around us. Once we understand the principles, we can build such a radio and participate.
mountainboy··on Language of fungi derived from their electrical spiking activity
This goes to the age old debate between vitalists and materialists.

In other words, does conciousness/spirit precede and shape matter, or does matter precede and shape conciousness/spirit?

Modern/western science is pretty firmly entrenched in a materialist view. Although it seems more are questioning that these days.

Personally I think that the brain is probably closer to a radio than a CPU. In other words, it is the bridge that enables our ethereal spirit/conciousness to experience and interact with the material world.

Just as hackernews does not exist in my laptop, neither does my "self" exist in my brain. Rather my laptop and my brain are each providing a terminal to a remote realm.

No amount of examining and dissecting my computer will reveal the code that runs hackernews, youtube, google, etc. It would be foolish to suggest it.

Yet that is exactly what neurologists try to do... with predictably miserable results.

mountainboy··on The State of Fortran
thx for this!
mountainboy··on Test Microwave for Radiation Leakage
a cheap consumer RF meter detects "high" levels of RF from 5+ feet away, at least on the 4 or 5 random units I've tried. So the faraday cage doesn't seem to be doing its job in full.
mountainboy··on You cannot police misinformation in a fair, reproducible, and representative way
"The sky is blue". Ok, we pretty well agree on that. But do I perceive "blue" in the same way that you do? We'll never know.

Regardless, people are not using the term "misinformation" in that way. They are using it for phenomena we cannot all readily observe for ourselves, and for which there is a claimed, but not actual consensus.

800 years ago it was "misinformation" to claim that the Earth orbited the Sun. Today it is "misinformation" to claim that germ theory is incorrect or that vaccines are not always "safe".

But the people using and spreading the "misinformation" meme are human and have imperfect knowledge just like everyone else. Indeed, they seem closed-minded and intolerant of others' opinions. For me, if a person uses that term, it is a clear signal that the person is wedded to a particular worldview and it is pointless to even engage them in conversation on the topic in question.

mountainboy··on You cannot police misinformation in a fair, reproducible, and representative way
freedom of speech.
mountainboy··on You cannot police misinformation in a fair, reproducible, and representative way
One cannot even define "misinformation" in a fair way. The entire concept is anathema to a sane, rational person.

No one has a monopoly on the truth. No one is omniscient. No one actually knows how life works, or the fundamental nature of the universe.

So how can any of us presume to define for everyone else what is true or not?

The most we can do is have our personal understanding and beliefs. This makes all information subjective. In the eye of the beholder.

To think otherwise is megalomaniac insanity.

mountainboy··on Bitcoin's fungibility graveyard
umm, no. just no.

fungibility means that two units are interchangeable/equivalent. Legality doesn't enter into it.

anything that makes unit A perceptibly different from unit B can cause humans to value unit A more less than B.

Some units may be perceived as "better" than average and carry a premium. Others may be perceived as "bad" or "tainted" and trade at a discount.

Such differences are generally considered undesirable in a money.

mountainboy··on Surviving the desert by building a motorcycle from a broken car? (2017)
alcohol in the fuel tank?
mountainboy··on The pandemic has deepened an epidemic of loneliness
oh yeah, that personal liberty is so dangerous. gotta be wary about that.
mountainboy··on The pandemic has deepened an epidemic of loneliness
great insights about social fabric ruptures! so true.
mountainboy··on The pandemic has deepened an epidemic of loneliness
The pandemic public policy reaction has deepened an epidemic of loneliness.

ftfy.

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