asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: 'provided by universe' is a practical thing - like calculating digits of pi works the same regardless of whether you do it with darts, afghan - with kalash, and me - by throwing rocks, in a circle-in-square.

asciilifeform: using dope, brainwashing, destruction of family unit, 1,001 crackpotteries

asciilifeform: usg is at this very moment attempting a cleave of 'socialism fails'

asciilifeform: this is right back to the 'cleavables' thread.

asciilifeform: asbestos suit - walk, walk

asciilifeform: (the notion of 'high vacuum', interestingly enough, ~has~ a hard spec: mean free path of a particle in the vacuum must be larger than the vessel is wide along any axis)

asciilifeform: the latter - specced.

asciilifeform: whether the constraints are provided by universe for free (e.g., all vacuum everywhere has same permeattivity constant, you don't have to sweat to get correct one) vs engineered.

asciilifeform: 'When I worked in South Baltimore I had to check the aerosol whip before I touched it. Down there those fends would unzip the seal and blast all of the gas up their nose right there in the aisle, resulting in nose bleeds. Most nights that I worked at the Fort Avenue store I had at least one canister on the dairy shelf with blood and other nasal secretions dripping down the side.' << l0l!!

asciilifeform: waiwut where

asciilifeform: http://www.lib.ru/ZELQZNY/TheGreatSlowKings.txt << for ze logz. ☟︎

asciilifeform: http://www.loper-os.org/?p=305&cpage=1#comment-17831 << corrected, and with link.

asciilifeform has quite practical and spartan approach to insect control.

asciilifeform: normally a quick stomp suffices, i haven't the patience or time to pull the wings off.

asciilifeform: http://www.loper-os.org/?p=305&cpage=1#comment-17831 << answr'd, believe or not. perhaps he comes back.

asciilifeform: ah

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: waiwut

asciilifeform: Framedragger: neato

asciilifeform: http://s175.photobucket.com/user/Dakguy201/media/IMG_4558.jpg.html << moar.

asciilifeform: there we go.

asciilifeform: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Different_gauges_in_China_Railway_Museum.jpg << like so ?

asciilifeform: see, i was expecting worse, some orcish atrocity with 'spare' rails.

asciilifeform: lulzy.

asciilifeform: so inner set for coal cart or the like.

asciilifeform: ah !

asciilifeform: like in, e.g., ru border ?

asciilifeform: ah so they have symmetric sets, for variant gauges ?

asciilifeform: for the train to move

asciilifeform: gotta have standard gauge, no ?

asciilifeform: yes but ~where~

asciilifeform: or where do they put them

asciilifeform: they lay sleepers extra-wide in advance ?!

asciilifeform: pics?

asciilifeform: at switches ?

asciilifeform: waiwut

asciilifeform: everything from bayonet lug up is in inches, 'mils', pound, etc.

asciilifeform: incidentally for so long as isis army fights with american gear, they are stuck with monkey units.

asciilifeform: (how much ocean gives you 100 pounds per square inch of pressure ??)

asciilifeform: monkey units are in no useful way inter-related

asciilifeform: aha.

asciilifeform: http://btcbase.org/log/2014-02-02#474922 << thread ☝︎

asciilifeform: $s postel's law

asciilifeform: did we ever do a 'postel's law not only considered harmful but a disaster of epic proportions, quite comparable to leaded petrol' thread ? ☟︎☟︎☟︎

asciilifeform: i ask because apparently british units survive in afghan.

asciilifeform: do they ?

asciilifeform: http://www.loper-os.org/?p=305 << see also.

asciilifeform: that's sorta what happened.

asciilifeform: but yes, fundamentally spec was born so that a man could part out a rifle.

asciilifeform: napoleonic war tech.

asciilifeform: but if they aren't ~interchangeable~ you have no industry.

asciilifeform: can be as well made as you care to pay for

asciilifeform: fuck that.

asciilifeform: in the sense of 'each one is precious and unique and handmade'

asciilifeform: i don't WANT a screw as motherfucking 'art object'.

asciilifeform: any way you cut it.

asciilifeform: specified threads were a win.

asciilifeform: (for n00bs: to cut a thread, your lathe needs: a threaded part! itself !)

asciilifeform: (metrological 'idols' in paris, etc.)

asciilifeform: and the problem was solved in ways which mircea_popescu would find quite unsatisfying

asciilifeform: and 'the implementation was the spec', at least for a long while.

asciilifeform: where lathe men had considerable trouble specifying threads ~on paper~

asciilifeform: re the ~original~ specs of the 1700s.

asciilifeform: did we ever do a screw threads thread ? ☟︎

asciilifeform: *they

asciilifeform: quite a read.

asciilifeform: i actually own some of the trees the killed.

asciilifeform: bell corp. certainly ~tried~, it was comical.

asciilifeform: (i.e. individual telephone sets, but not 'the phone grid')

asciilifeform: normally, ones you can throw out if they fail.

asciilifeform: whole concept of spec only makes sense in application to testable man-made objects

asciilifeform: try specify electron.

asciilifeform: if scale small enough - then surely not satisfactorily.

asciilifeform: 'relates inputs to outputs' does not exclude time, voltage, sex, whatever.

asciilifeform: you can put whatever you want in a valid spec, so long as it is deterministically testable.

asciilifeform: it simply wasn't in my example.

asciilifeform: i didn't say 'time can't be specified' !!

asciilifeform: or was it in, say, india, and it did ?

asciilifeform: but road did not switch directions for hours while mircea_popescu drove wrong way. spat him out.

asciilifeform: bitcoin network is a dogvomit, because it happily accomodates folks driving wrong way.

asciilifeform: to the extent that bitcoin does ~not~ behave this way, it is broken design.

asciilifeform: like going wrong way in traffic will kill an idiot

asciilifeform: at any rate, spec is a weak animal when it relies on promise, rather than protocol. ideally you want a simple litmus test for conformance that insta-zaps deviants

asciilifeform: what more you want.

asciilifeform: did say 'unambiguous' and testable

asciilifeform: or dragon-presence is not a testable thing.

asciilifeform: ~i~ ought to be able to summon dragon likewise.

asciilifeform: 'dragon came for me from this here well, ergo it contains dragon' is not an objective test

asciilifeform: because not objective. cannot be ~replicated~

asciilifeform: how do you test the network ?

asciilifeform: a spec must be objectively, deterministically testable.

asciilifeform: can specify 'bitcointron' but not 'the network'

asciilifeform: which isn't a fit subject. you can't specify a dog vomit, it won't sit still

asciilifeform: my definition is fine, you are trying to apply it to a dog vomit

asciilifeform: there is no room for dice rolls in a spec.

asciilifeform: rejected today, accepted tomorrow.

asciilifeform: this is pointedly NOT a specification.

asciilifeform: clearly?!

asciilifeform: the wild animals of the forest are not a spec

asciilifeform: but it has none at all

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: only because it presently has no other specification