asciilifeform: in fact, now that i think of it, btc is the missing puzzle piece in the ancient problem of bootstrapping a global radio mesh.
asciilifeform: bonus points if you can engineer the net to make operating a node a profitable affair, like btc mining
asciilifeform: since this would have to be a piece of physical hardware, the only solution afaik is to manufacture a tremendous number of widgets and give them away.
asciilifeform: where, in principle, one can radiate sufficiently little at any given point of spectrum to make classical triangulation virtually impossible
asciilifeform: anyone interested in the subject would do well to understand the basic principles of 'spread spectrum'
asciilifeform: even ignoring various 'license-free' radio bands, you can easily send bits to everyone on your side of your mains power step-down transformer
asciilifeform: (actually, strong incentive in the other direction)
asciilifeform: mesh net is surprisingly easy, but largely non-existent because there is very little commercial incentive
asciilifeform: my argument isn't even that 'the great anti-btc firewall of earth' is coming, but that modern telecom is an extremely fragile beast
asciilifeform: would help to get the 'ham radio' / mesh network / btc-over-pigeon system now, rather than when it becomes the only possible means of running the network.
asciilifeform: re: the btcapocalypse: still seems to me like it would be wise to invent the parachute before, rather than after, being pushed out of the plane.
asciilifeform: or the ms 'embrace and extend'ed turd
asciilifeform: if no consumer ever bought a winblows pc in a retail shop again, it would survive in something close to its current size, simply from the government largesse
asciilifeform: and ms isn't a company in the sense of, say, coca cola (or even the original 'standard oil') - it's a crown monopoly
asciilifeform: the software 'industry' has the memory of an alzheimer's patient. it's like the '90s never happened.
asciilifeform: ms turned the 'email virus' from an urban legend into reality, single-handed.
asciilifeform: decimation: i get to consider this every day, for money.
asciilifeform: apple is the 'good cop' in a classic 'good cop / bad cop' number.
asciilifeform: never forget why MS bailed out apple in the '90s.
asciilifeform: nubbins`: don't be surprised if mac os '11' or whatnot simply refuses to run 'unsigned' apps
asciilifeform: decimation: vendor usually specifies a max current. and then you go, X cm^s, Y watts dissipated, need such and such heat sink...
asciilifeform: nubbins`: welcome to the Nintendoized world
asciilifeform: decimation: the vendor toolchain usually calculates your maximum clock rate, based on theoretical path delays (usually a conservative figure, as you'd expect)
asciilifeform: this is how soviet clones of DEC chips ended up exact duplicates, complete with the (poorly translated, with a dictionary, by DEC) profanities
asciilifeform: if your design maps well to what you have, you get decent (minimal) 'footprint' and speed
asciilifeform: e.g. multipliers, shift registers, etc
asciilifeform: likewise, each vendor (and even particular flavours of fpga from same vendor) provides slightly different building blocks on top of the usual LUTs
asciilifeform: those are directly related. but yes, both.
asciilifeform: and the whole shebang is speed-limited by its 'weakest link' (longest delay)
asciilifeform: because each logic element (incl. switch matrix) in the path is an extra few ns. of delay
asciilifeform: if you don't optimize for a particular fpga, you can't get anything close to the maximum rated clock of the sdram in question
asciilifeform: take, for instance, sdram controllers
asciilifeform: and therefore have mediocre-to-poor performance on most jobs
asciilifeform: because the opencores libs aren't optimized for a particular fpga
asciilifeform: the major vendors earn far more renting out 'cores' (read: libraries, for things like ethernet and pci) than through selling the chips per se.
asciilifeform: the reason for this secrecy is interesting and perverse
asciilifeform: the correspondence between each bit of the bitstream and the internal logic of the fpga is a $billion secret
asciilifeform: the protocol for pumping in the 'bitstream' is simple and documented;
asciilifeform: decimation: depends what you mean by 'self-modifying'
asciilifeform: "can you prove to me the entire troop of us hedge funds aren't little maddofs running around, shielded..." << i can prove that this /must/ be so
asciilifeform: ThickAsThieves: would be interesting to see a widget like 'metafilter' with a 1btc entry.
asciilifeform: but this requires the user to actually give a damn
asciilifeform: one can take photos, sufficiently detailed to include imperfections of the pcb, solder joints, etc. and sign them
asciilifeform: there is no 100% defence, even in principle, against a world-class forger
asciilifeform: a sufficiently qualified enemy deserves your arse.
asciilifeform: the way a Pashtun understands his Kalash.
asciilifeform: the only real defence against an elaborate fake is to actually understand the function of the device
asciilifeform: each unit will also come with a set of high-res photographs of its internals, signed with my personal key.
asciilifeform: FW is signed, and users will be encouraged to suck it in and verify the sig
asciilifeform: pankkake: there are two identical rngs (removable.) each is an analogue device, with convenient probe points and a very simple circuit (29 parts, 26 of them passives)
asciilifeform: the art of forging seals is centuries old.
asciilifeform: if they weren't fucktarded, they'd do it 1) two years ago 2) embedded in run of unrelated IC, antifused out in consumer ver. 3) powered up silently 4) ip-proxied to look like 100,000 lamers with GPUs.
asciilifeform: and this is the ideal figure - does not include memory controller, scrypt crap...
asciilifeform: recipe for those disinclined to be chumped: 1) read published (3 yrs +) verilog src for sha256. 2) build. 3) see minimum gate count for unrolled hasher 4) laugh
asciilifeform: 'those who refuse to do arithmetic are doomed to talk nonsense.'
asciilifeform: for anyone who has these same fit-ten-pounds-of-shit-in-a-five-pound-bag skillz.
