tmsr - Log 2018-10-20

asciilifeform: ACHTUNG, panzers! zoolag going down for ~30min for test of experimental patch, in ~10m

asciilifeform: !Q later tell phf i found today that your keccak-vdiff is unable to eat a 40MB file ( dies politely with stack overflow ) ☟︎☟︎

asciilifeform: ( and yes mod6 it will have to be reground, but it experimental patch, so this is not avoidable at any rate )

asciilifeform: adventurous souls who can spare ~hour of CPU, are invited to shit out own snapshot, and diff w/ above.

mircea_popescu: i guess so. there were some other items scattered about re what should go in the config file for vtron

asciilifeform: ( once i finally shit out the cleaned/reground/keccakized genesis thereof, it's near in the conveyor )

phf: http://btcbase.org/log/2018-10-20#1864346 << ty, this is a bug in vdiff for sure, i'll investigate ☝︎

a111: Logged on 2018-10-20 01:44 asciilifeform: !Q later tell phf i found today that your keccak-vdiff is unable to eat a 40MB file ( dies politely with stack overflow )

lobbesbot: phf: Sent 12 hours and 59 minutes ago: <asciilifeform> i found today that your keccak-vdiff is unable to eat a 40MB file ( dies politely with stack overflow )

lobbesbot: phf: Sent 12 hours and 52 minutes ago: <asciilifeform> plox to snarf http://therealbitcoin.org/ml/btc-dev/2018-October/000315.html into 'experiment' tree.

phf: i suspect when i was removing various optimizations from c diff, i removed something that let it eat larger files, because regular diff obviously diffs

phf: i also don't think it's a stack allocation issue, ksum against the file works, and the integration between c diff and keccak was designed with chunk reading in mind

phf: hmm, i wonder if it's maybe c/ada interop? straight ksum gives me the answer, and it uses the same incremental mechanism (already trie)d

phf: 70af5c296fb8a9e9bae4c871cbedc67345db91f3e380170fc07b83871e8b5079b9ae55d44a7f5c9afb6eea64211712eaf88a608a4d7e52bcf209c425f776cc9c snap_546400.txt

asciilifeform: i was on a box without the standalone keccak, so tried to use vdiff to get keccakization

phf: diana_coman's keccak interface uses a KeccakWholeThing(...) method (not the actual name), in vtools i added a new interface, which follows the classical hasher format: KeccakCtx() UpdateCtx(ctx, data) EndCtx(ctx, resultHash)

phf: but i like your suggestion also, i suspect diana's interface can be used against your mmap result

asciilifeform: it will have to be cured at some point, keccakization currently eats 8x moar memory (9x if counting the fact that it cannot run in-place) than it ought ☟︎

phf: +++ b/snap_546400.txt 326782a77b9ca1d83da6af8e28f305d5fd6c0b509507effbf50f1cd932c4e882edeb8887632664c073c8dca097145cada941490efdae6443e82bbb85a9ca1371

phf: no no, that's an unreleased enable sha512, so my point is that it must be something in ada/c interop, or the particular way i do it in vdiff: ksum works though it uses same interface, vdiff sha512 works though it uses an architecturally identical sha interface.

Mocky: oh my god I found some humans today

Mocky: talked to me for a couple hours about biznis, Qataris etc. got some good info ☟︎

Mocky: yes, actually, but they don't call it hookah here, they call it shisha. but that wasn't today and no humans in sight

Mocky: today was at a cheesecake factory, in a mall bigger than my home town in which I got lost twice

phf: they ought to call it argile, but i suspect shisha is more international. in turkey they call it nargile almost exclusively, and only call it shisha when trying to communicate with a foreigner

asciilifeform: 'И, склонясь в дыму кальяна На цветной диван, У жемчужного фонтана Дремлет Тегеран' (tm)(r) !

Mocky: phf well i've only spoken to foreigners here about it so that could be the case here as well, but it does say "shisha" on the printed menu, but also printed in english for foreigners

Mocky: an older american lady who works in a qatari house and has authority over the financial dealings of the sons with business degrees from uni and because of the status of the father (her boss) there are other lower station qataris that she doesn't need to listen to

Mocky: the other was an Egyptian veterinary doctor who has been working freelance here for some years

Mocky: i met others as well, europeans, americans, canadians but they didn't know about biz or qataris enough to contribute to the convo

phf: diff's block reader doesn't necessarily attempt to keep the blocks small, allocates a 39098690 buffer, which crosses the boundary and immediatelly hits the part you've already pointed out: x8 bitstream allocator

phf: i suspect a temporary solution as far as vdiff is concerned is to spoon feed keccak smaller blocks

asciilifeform: really, keccak oughta be doable in-place. but i haven't loaded it into my head yet and cannot immediately say how to rewrite equation so that it could

phf: Mocky: oh yeah i didn't mean to imply that in qatar specifically it's only foreigners term, seems like the words used are entirely regional, e.g. egyptians call it shisha also. i've smoked too much hookah, so i like to know the whole set, so that i can effectively communicate with the locals :)

billymg: curious what type of browser environments the lords use -- when writing a theme for mp-wp will need to know what kind of font, css, js support to expect ☟︎

asciilifeform: billymg: pretty much errybody uses 'lynx' at least occasionally, and sometimes ordinary graphical browser

asciilifeform: billymg: most folx have multiple boxes, for different occasions, with diff contents

billymg: is there perhaps a list of "definitely don't use [feature], will never load for republicans" ☟︎

asciilifeform: js is used pretty much entirely for mircea_popescu's linkable-text-selection thing

asciilifeform: there aren't really explicit lists of 'don't's, the philosophy is really 'don't do obviously dumb things'

asciilifeform: e.g. building a www that doesn't correctly display when put through archive.is , is evidence of having done something dumb

asciilifeform: if your thing is bookmarkable, and readable in 'curl' output, it's generally healthy.

a111: Logged on 2018-10-20 15:13 Mocky: talked to me for a couple hours about biznis, Qataris etc. got some good info

diana_coman: http://btcbase.org/log/2018-10-20#1864385 -> yes; perhaps as it gets used more, the trouble becomes more pressing and then it'll get done... ☝︎

a111: Logged on 2018-10-20 14:55 asciilifeform: it will have to be cured at some point, keccakization currently eats 8x moar memory (9x if counting the fact that it cannot run in-place) than it ought

asciilifeform: billymg: on list of 'definitely nobody in his right mind will use' -- sslism comes to mind

asciilifeform: diana_coman: which item in your 'shelf' contains the most recent keccak , to go from ?

asciilifeform: but for the most part crapple succeeded in exterminating flashism ( to replace with own 'html5' abortion )

asciilifeform: they're distinguishable ~only in that 'flash' at this point requires elaborate gymnastics to run, involving pretty much sacrifice of a whole box (sorta like java)

asciilifeform: whereas 'html5' past ~decade of graphical browsers will mostly display (if with eggogs)

asciilifeform: afaik the only thinking folx today with copy of 'flash' are , like asciilifeform , running it on dedicated winblowz leprosorium, specifically for unpacking virii which require it...

Mocky: so i dug into what it's like to be in business with Qataris and how their attitudes are, with my 11 new acquaintances at breakfast today. 3 of them have had first hand experience in their business dealings for years now and happy to tell stories. I'll relay the gist of it here. on the following points there was not the slightest disagreement from anyone at the table, only nodding heads and further stories illustrating the exact same points.

Mocky: They have a very poor appreciation for intangibles. They want to get something they can hold in their hand when they spend money. If it's something they can't see, they balk at paying for it. And if they do pay for it, it'll bother them to no end. One example was dude decided he wanted a car, ordered a brand new, fully customized Bentley. 350k USD. Wouldn't go pick it up when it arrived because balked at having to pay 900 USD /month for insurance. not

Mocky: because insurance was to expensive for the given coverage, but because "paying money to get nothing". ☟︎

Mocky: Another example was horse needed some major surgery. owner had no problem paying for facilities, staff, ancillaries but balked at paying surgeon fee. "i pay you much less for minor treatments, why must I pay more for your time now". Selling them preventative medicine or machine maintenance is a non-starter. They'd rather pay 10x when the emergency hits because then they know they are getting something for their money.

asciilifeform: Mocky: is the implication also that they dun bother to look into totalcostofownership before buying ? hence the legends of bedouin sheiks buying a merc and leaving it in desert when fuel tank empty ..? ☟︎

Mocky: impression i got was totalcostofownership can't compete with how they feel about it in their gut

asciilifeform: Mocky: sounds like they're perfect candidates for selling iron to, rather than softs, then

diana_coman: more of "wouldn't pay if I don't need it" and they might not need the shitinsurance

Mocky: diana_coman, that could be a reasonable assumption and i suggested the same to my companions, they shook thier heads. ☟︎

Mocky: i've haven't seen personally, so all i can do is report for now

Mocky: This goes hand in hand with their feeling that everyone comes to Qatar to take their money and rip them off. So all these fancy insurance / maintenance contracts "feel" like they give nothing to the buyer, plus they were dreamed up by foreigners who come to rip them off and decieve them. They detest such things. Easier to sell them a spoon they can old in their hand today for a million dollars than get them to agree to a monthly payout to a vet for care of

Mocky: a stable of horses, no matter how much it saves them in the long run.

diana_coman: Mocky, maybe it's worth writing it all up in a blog post? it seems to me you have quite a lot to say and it's easier to have a reference point afterwards

asciilifeform: possibly will be a tough audience for the traditional type of consulting, where you '$ 1 : turned screw $499,999 -- knowing which screw'

Mocky: also seems to go hand in hand with their impulsiveness. 3 different people described this exact scenario. Qatari goes opens a business with someone (one freelance vet service, one animal rescue shelter, one doggy day care) 3 months later decides, "I didn't realize I was going to have to keep paying so much every month (payroll, rent, etc.) where's the profit?" "it may take a year to become profitable, it's only been 3 months" "I'm not paying anymore." which

diana_coman: asciilifeform, I don't think so; I think they would pay *you* that 500k if you manage to convince them that you are worth that for them ☟︎

Mocky: isn't necessarily bad, but bad that they waited till 3 months in to even think about it. In the case of the shelter, it was a charity, never meant to make a profit. but still "dun wanna pay anymore"

asciilifeform: diana_coman: hmm, from my reading seems that they won't pay anybody for 'which screw' , gotta also supply a physical talisman they can hang on wall

asciilifeform: thus far sounds like typical savages, with both plus and minus, won't buy 'how to dig well' but will buy musket.

Mocky: Also re impulsiveness: one school adminsitrator said they have a rule of 3 for instructions comeing down from Qatari management. Let them ask three times including an official goverment memo before you do anything they say. Because as soon as they start to see the fall out of random impulsive decisions they will reverse it and have you undo all your work.

Mocky: and this wasn't like just one school. was city wide "make every teacher do x" after 900 parent complaints "stop doing x"

diana_coman: so "impulsiveness" would be "don't think it through"? or "won't listen/care about more than 2 steps ahead"?

Mocky: came across like simpleton management, decree whatever occurs to you, dilbert-esque pointy haired manager on steroids ☟︎

Mocky: like both don't think and won't listen

Mocky: One Qatari owns a chain of 9 fittness supplement stores. 3 of the stores were found to have someone pocketing the cash from transactions. Owner fired everyone in all 9 stores because "see, everyone tries to steal from us". Also he had his driver who can barely count to 10 doing store inventory for him.

diana_coman: so why are those people starting doggy rescue/care biznis in qatar of all places? ☟︎

Mocky: that I don't know

asciilifeform: diana_coman: ikr? it's the last thing i'd think of pitching to dar-al-islam ☟︎

Mocky: Word is that they want to make a profit, but don't want to have to put money into it. and they want the profit now. but don't think it thru, maybe can be convinced easily

Mocky: and don't want to have to put sweat into it either

Mocky: maybe they want to claim "i started a charity like my older brother" no idea yet why

Mocky: no dogs but word this morning was that expat western women keep them here like surrogate children just as elsewhere, and there are enough to make a good business

Mocky: cats a plenty

asciilifeform: Mocky: cat is a++ mohammed-approved beast. biznis d00d oughta have opened a cat biz.

Mocky: but ~all cats i've seen are stones throw from open dumpster. i bet if they had auto-closing lids on dumpsters cats would go extinct

Mocky: the cats tho! so skinny and downs syndrome looking

Mocky: and move so slowly

Mocky: to much time seeing fat cats in US

Mocky: Being as the requirement for standard LLC is 51% Qatari ownership, this new info suggests to me that having two locals who split the 51% may be the way to go. They can still close it down but not at the whim of a single person. ☟︎

Mocky: And sticking a Qatari with ongoing expenditures was never on my radar, def seems like something to explicitly avoid.

Mocky: files swim to safety?

Mocky: too many keyboards sitting on lap

Mocky: got a years worth of rain here today

diana_coman: Mocky, I wonder though how much those burnt partners actually catered to the qatari partner as an ongoing relationship rather than just "he gives money for my biznis" (and how the hell is a charity a business, ugh) ☟︎

Mocky: i get the impression from other talks (not today) that there is no end of "i have great biz idea for importing from my home country india" being pitched ☟︎

Mocky: asciilifeform, this I haven't heard, but flashy stuff like rolex, lambos, bentleys I have heard ☟︎

asciilifeform: ( asciilifeform worked for some yrs for a fella who regularly traveled to dubai, and never failed to mention the 'gold bar ATMs' )

asciilifeform: Mocky: aand do they still stick to the koranic prohibition against lending-at-interest ? (is that why they spend on 'bling' and oddball 'charity' ..? )

asciilifeform: ( i dun recall whether mircea_popescu revealed whether this is troo in egypt, also, come to think of it )

Mocky: yes lending at interest illegal. credit card issuance with interest, illegal

Mocky: bank invests, shares profit

Mocky: if there is more beyond that, i haven't dug deep enough to find it

Mocky: bitcoin is also illegal for banks to exchange in. which apparently some wanted to do but now central bank authority has banned ☟︎

Mocky: re meeting Qataris, I found that 30-something aged men interested in business hang out at certain places on a daily basis. if you go and hang there and get to know them, if they like you they may invite you to majalis. which is the regular practice of closing off half of the home from women in the evening and doing man cave shit ☟︎

Mocky: normally is informal "playstation" time, but occasionally, perhaps once a week, it's more formal and they talk business

Mocky: this is only done by qataris established enough to have own household

Mocky: the vet doc has been invited 12 times. he said in the beginning he prepared things to say, ways to pitch business. but they never wanted to talk business with him, just playstation

Mocky: "majlis" not majalis

Mocky: the regular spots are mostly 5 star hotels on the water. St. Regis, The Four Seasons, The Pearl Qatar & Medina Centrale. Also there's some pickup beach volleyball at katara beach on fridays once the day cools off ☟︎

Mocky: men from a couple of the most powerful families hang out at a Costa coffee chain in the shittiest mall in the city

Mocky: but that was suggested as not a good place to start

Mocky: a chick unrelated to todays info breakfast also suggested the coffee bar in La Cigal Hotel

BingoBoingo: <Mocky> i get the impression from other talks (not today) that there is no end of "i have great biz idea for importing from my home country india" being pitched << WTF does India export that people with options would buy?

Mocky: remember, it's indians coming up with those ideas so options dun enter into it

BingoBoingo: <mats> reads like some qataris are like amateur daytraders << Kinda like early MPOE-PR era Bitcointalk

Mocky: it could also be that the above descriptions have selection bias of young Qatari biznis noobs, or peripheral wot members

Mocky: but so many nods around the table, makes me suspect flaws widely present, to some degree

Mocky: i also reached out to local bitcoin guy. turns out there are two. one sells other buys. I reached out the the seller but no response yet. The buyer doesn't have contact info listed and i don't have the bitcoin to answer his ad so haven't contacted yet. ☟︎

Mocky: theres also a "blockchain doha" group with 103 members, I can reach out to ☟︎

Mocky: I found out why cars are so nice toward pedestrians in the crosswalks. if you run a red, 3000 USD fine. cameras at most intersections

Mocky: also huge fine if you stop past the "stop line". If you go over camera starts recording, tiny light flashes. if you reverse back to proper spot and wave your hand out the window showing submission at the camera, you don't get a ticket!

Mocky: if you are a white woman or a doctor, cops very accommodating toward you, let you off tickets