tmsr - Search: a

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mircea_popescu: seems odd, a state machine is an abstraction.

mircea_popescu: it's not a matter of agreeing how we'd like the vase to look, but a matter of representing how gravity actually and in fact does work

asciilifeform: the only truly unambiguous definition of a computation is the computation itself.

mircea_popescu: no, because this is not art an we aren't making a vase.

asciilifeform: and never as a substitute for mechanics.

asciilifeform: 'natural language' only has a place here as a teaching aid.

asciilifeform: the way one understands a kalashnikov.

asciilifeform: but of one that can actually be understood, by a reasonably-intelligent person, with reasonable effort.

mircea_popescu: but of a definite one.

asciilifeform: the question is not of a 'perfect' implementation,

mircea_popescu: basically a pull rather than a push for now because we aren't yet as formalised

B007: oh a marker

BingoBoingo: B007: A sharpie in American terms.

B007: wtf is a laundry maker

BingoBoingo: B007: But a laundry maker in your pooper, write Bingo on your left asscheek and Boingo on your right asscheek. I'll pay 0.01 BTC for the picture.

mike_c: the problem is bitcoin has no competition. so we get away with doing a crappy job.

mike_c: hmm. interesting point. it just makes for a bumpier ride.

MisterE: :p nevermind me, I'm a n00b here and dunno who is friends

asciilifeform: mike_c: i'd love to read 'Bitcoin, the book.' with rationales. but it would be of little worth without a strictly-minimal, brain-loadable reference implementation.

mike_c: my counterargument was that a formal definition (be it BNF or fpga) of those is less useful than an english spec explaining rationale.

mircea_popescu: it's just in mpex' case it's been a private joke rather than the sad reality

asciilifeform: sort of how i once pontificated re: fpga implementation of bitcoind (e.g. verilog) would be a good 'cruft shedder' exercise.

benkay: for sensible, constrained declarations of a) network client behaviors and b) blockchain parsing

benkay: mike_c: is that a reference to the Python Enhancement Proposal?

MisterE: they sure do fill up my timeline with tweets a lot though

pankkake: you don't need a blockchain internally if you have trust

BingoBoingo: The Gox, if they are reliable narrators, problem is they rely on txid as a primary key in their databases. txid makes a poor primary key

MisterE: lol pankkake maybe a bad example

MisterE: I suspect Cox ran into a similar wall but without FBs resources

pankkake: well facebook is a pile of bad decisions

MisterE: a couple breakthroughs such as hiphop and the hip hop vm jit compiler saved their ass by like weeks

BingoBoingo: MisterE: Seems if they are are honest more of a problem of picking the wrong values to use as database primary keys.

MisterE: BingoBoingo: I reckon it was a problem with scaling

mike_c: if only they had a PEP to refer to when working on their custom shit.

BingoBoingo: MisterE: Right, but that is like a super n00by database problem

MisterE: the BTC malleability bug has been known for better part of a year

BingoBoingo: mircea_popescu2: Well, if they serve you a suspicious IP at least you can know it isn't the meta-nsa

B007_: i mean it has a 2

mircea_popescu2: i ended up having to connect by ip because chat.freenode.net for some reason was resolving to a suspicious ip

mike_c: A formal definition for protocol is necessary, but also insufficient. So now you know "how". But if you don't know "why", you are still going to end up fucked. The why is more important.

BingoBoingo: benkay: I'd venture even securing coins is something a casual user could do.

benkay: lissen mike_c i gotta dip a few blocks over to a nerd thing i'll be back online in like 20 or 30 minutes

herbijudlestoids: BingoBoingo: i understand, and apologise, but still, would value thoughts and opinions on what i think is a good article. if you like i can pastebin it?

Mats_cd03: crowdfunded by a btc addr

Mats_cd03: i have a great idea: what if someone offered a service for n number of nodes spawned through e.g. digitalocean

BingoBoingo: Hell, even a hairball of K&R C could almost pass muster as a spec

mike_c: would you want to try and understand a complex system by reading BNF?

benkay: except a CPP hairball is not a formal definition, and BNF is, well, a formal definition.

92AAAD6TI: are you saying that a graph is defined by how its nodes are labeled and not their relationships?

benkay: mike_c: you can compile a formally defined state machine into a parser in the language of your choice. it's not an academic exercise.

mike_c: so a UML diagram helps? I don't think it does.

mircea_popescu: it's a state machine whether we know/admit/notice this or not.

mike_c: it being a state machine is an implementation detail. a definition and spec would make the world better.

BingoBoingo: Someone found a pricing error: Basketball SE Missouri State 70 Tenn Martin 79Tenn Martin ML 2 hours ago 7.060 / +606 ฿ 0.005 ฿ 0.0303 paid

mike_c: what are a couple states the machine would pass through? I don't see it.

mike_c: it's not clicking why a state machine would make it great.

benkay: it's a formal definition of bitcoin, as opposed to the ad-hoc cpp hairball-as-canonical-thinger

benkay: what's more, a state machine approach satisfies the "spec" that mircea_popescu has been going on for lo these many forevers

benkay: i believe (and i'm open to suggestions and corrections from those wiser and more experienced than myself) that the appropriate implementation path for both the blockchain validatoin and the network client is a state machine describing the valid states of the validator and network client respectively, the messages they can process and what states those messages kick each machine into

benkay: if i might offer a different perspective, there are several disparate concerns that could be tackled independently and independent of language wars.

pankkake: I'll just do "import bitcoin" in Python, a la https://xkcd.com/353/

mircea_popescu: a shoddy bitcoin #1 is actually quite useful, you can have bitcoin #2 all prepared in the background.

BingoBoingo: Making a minimal functional client for the purposes of documenting a spec might make a rather ultimate battlegound in the C vs. LISP wars

mircea_popescu: decimation as a point of strategy, the would-be dev team power ranges may be foolish, but they're useful fools.

decimation: true. so many interesting advancements must wait for a well-documented spec

mircea_popescu: before yo ucan do that yotu need a protocol.

decimation: ideally - reduce it down to a credit card form factor

BingoBoingo: An interesting contest might be to see who can develop a cryptocurrency incorporating features agreed to be essential to bitcoin in the least amount of code (self contained so any calls that would be to external libraries have to be brought in)

decimation: yeah the concept of forth on javascript is hilarious, but it's a fun toy

benkay: it stands for Professional Hardcore Programmers for a reason, mang.

benkay: decimation: are you interested in working on a BNF rendering of the bitcoin network protocol?

BingoBoingo: As I understand the narrative, this is a n00bier database problem than 11 months ago.

BingoBoingo: decimation: No mircea_popescu Wants a spec.

decimation: You also said in the past that the 'dev team' ought to write a complete api/interface spec

decimation: Is there a coherent analysis of this supposed transaction problem somewhere?

asciilifeform: i still predict that gox et al will eventually 'repay' the chumps in a scamcoin minted for the purpose.

mircea_popescu: because hey, it's a golden opportunity.

mircea_popescu: BingoBoingo you know that a) gox is lieing about it being a problem and b) all the other scammers happy to follow suit

mircea_popescu: it's one of those "hey, let you give us free money" deals a la coinbase.

BingoBoingo: mircea_popescu: Rendering the Gox and Stamp, two cans and a string exchanges with these corrected transactions (corrected because leading zeros in signatures suck).

BingoBoingo: mircea_popescu: Well, that depends. 11 months ago there was a ridiculously central database derpocolypse. Nao there is a more subtle derpocolypse that doesn't seem as critical, but happens to hammer the fiat/BTC interface players hard while actual BTC cared about working too much to make those mistakes.

asciilifeform: for the $1, bought a keychain in a 'dollar store' when we landed. still got it.

BingoBoingo: mircea_popescu: Well, after the great fork of 11 months ago a blaming Hearn because redditards suck at picking primary key values for databases seems reasonable. (I mean both "crises" are essentially database problems)

asciilifeform: i (and countless other people) got a boyhood education in fiat. when my folks were packing for the u.s., i traded in a shoebox full of rubles for $1.

mircea_popescu: BingoBoingo inasmuch as it's mostly a reddit driven "omg we're retarded" panic, i doubt anyhing at all.

asciilifeform: ifetimes some tin-pot pseudo-nationalist leader will print up ugly slips of paper with pictures of dead people, Masonic symbols and big numbers, and attempt to charge people for using them as a medium of exchange in all transactions, and your great-grandchildren need to know, from an early age, that it is a scam. It is an official scvam, backed up by the threat of violence, but it is still a scam." ☟︎

asciilifeform: "... And so, you too should hold on to a few dollar, or euro, or ruble or yuan notes, in the highest denominations available at the time they all become worthless, as a keepsake. Then you will be able to show them to your great-grandchildren and say, 'Can you imagine, this ugly piece of paper was once a prized possession!' And your great-grandchildren will no doubt think that you are a little bit senile, but th

BingoBoingo: I wonder what part Hearn might have had in transaction malleability suddely becoming a problem

decimation: it's a useful conversation stopper for anyone who thinks fiat is a great long-term savings vehicle

decimation: indeed, I have a 100,000 mark note

asciilifeform: -ruble note, which seemed like a lot of money to me at the time, and was very surprised to hear that it was completely worthless and that I could take one and use it as a bookmark (which I did). It was not until the 1990s that Russia again issued a note in that denomination, which likewise became worthless soon after it was printed."

decimation: I have a small collection of Weimar Marks

herbijudlestoids: so my tick chart looks a little funny cos of that i guess

herbijudlestoids: mircea_popescu: lets say i place a huge at market MPOE buy order into the book and it clears the book for like twenty levels. what price does assbot report the tick completing at?

mircea_popescu: a, that.

mircea_popescu: decimation it's not even a fantasy. has plenty of actual usecases.

herbijudlestoids: so all we need for the realtime thingy is someone running altcoind and a webserver essentially?

decimation: it will be a long time before states give up on the fiat fantasy - even while everyone is banking ducats

decimation: There is talk amoung the elites in the us that there will be a push toward 'chip&pin'

asciilifeform: 'suspicious,' naturally, will mean that the heuristic suspects the luser of operating a (btc market, etc) card spoofer.