For one example, and mainly for the benefit of people who jump to the end of the thread:  I showed above that you (futilely) to retaliate against actmyname with negative trust between 9 hours and 35 hours after he (actually) bled your trust.  You said it was “over three days”.  Proofs are above.

Edit to add:  It should go without repeated mention, only an abject moron would buy your crock of a story about throwing 50 merits to a random user in an airdrop thread as a “test”.  Yes, and I have a bridge to sell.

You just described in a nutshell why we need the merit system.  Do you think that soniclord would ever have attained “Legendary” status with a merits requirement?

(By the way, kudos for trawling his post history.  I didn’t bother after I caught him in repeated lies, because I hate liars on principle.  Proofs are above in this thread.)

“Status allows”?  Just who do you suggest will stop me?  I play by the forum rules, which are fair and reasonable.  I don’t need any of your “status” to say whatever I damn well please.

(Also, by definition, an actual novice does not know anything substantial at all.)

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I myself have an account created in March 2017.  It was inactive until December.  I only ranked up from Jr. Member to Member just yesterday.  By contrast, you have a rank of “Legendary”.

Well, so much for you questioning about my “status”.  So which is it?  Are you concerned about being squashed from above by somebody who was a Jr. Member yesterday, or are you trying to pull rank on me by questioning of “status allows” me to say what I do?

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It looks more like childish acting-out.  A temper tantrum fit for a toddler (who likes to yank the tails of tigers).

At least you got the 50 merits I said you deserved.  I will laugh about that, myself.

(More posts as I was typing...)

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...on second thought, I take back what I just said.

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That sounds like a better idea.  My mistake.

Assuming uniform distribution of the Hash160 (SHA256→RIPEMD160) output, each Bitcoin address can be spent by approximately 2⁹⁴ different keys.   (160+94=256)  There are numerous posts (indeed, entire threads) on this topic in the forum archives.  I regret that I don’t have any links handy.

Thus, te proper number to examine in this context is 2¹⁶⁰.  As I said above in this thread, that is on the order of 10⁴⁸.

Given that n addresses control spendable funds, where n is a number which can be determined from the public blockchain at any given point in time; and assuming that the n addresses are uniformly distributed throughout the 2¹⁶⁰ search space (viz. that people have working CSPRNGs); what you are asking is the probability of colliding with any of them, when you pick a new address randomly from a uniform distribution.

Working out the precise answer is left as an exercise to the reader.  A reader who is more solid with subtle statistical calculations than I am—I don’t want to give potentially bad information.

Attention, everybody following this thread:

Prior to my giving merit for Laszlo’s famous pizza post, the oldest post to which I’d assigned merit was this 2014 explanation by gmaxwell on the problems with DHTs which once upon a time much educated me.

I had been intending at some point to comb through my bookmarks to many such excellent posts from the past—the quality of posts I wish I could now experience.  The archive of this forum contains a hidden library of invaluable information—a record of dialogues involving the brilliant minds who took Satoshi’s client and shaped it into the global financial networking bedrock which today holds value equivalent to hundreds of billions of dollars.  Reading those posts teaches both Bitcoin history and Bitcoin technology.  We can bring all that to the surface, and perhaps even slowly revive the forum to those glory days!

If we desire to highlight good posts from the past, could we please also start giving merit to the deep technical discussions by Core developers?

This post exemplifies one reason why we need the merit system.

+0.  Write better posts if you want to rank up.

Make that 37 merits.  Some others must have added since you last checked; and I just did, myself.  I’m in an expansive mood—and hungry.

At current exchange rates, Laszlo paid the equivalent of well over a hundred million dollars (100000000 USD/$) for his pizzas.  I think he deserves some merit.  (Though not enough to give him any myself, when he’s been inactive almost four years.)


Indeed, one is necessary for the other.  One can’t tend a garden by only throwing down weed killer, without also nurturing desirable plants to take over the soil.

I don’t know you; but a reasonable person might ask if your opinion of what is “bad for the forum” might be coloured by your being a Jr. Member with zero merit, as you are at present.

Edit—P.S., to be clear about my own biases or lack thereof, all my current merit was earned by me; none came from any prior status.  I ranked up to Member at the the activity rollover yesterday, 30 January.  This may be easily verified by anybody who examines my post history and calculates the activity periods.

I infer to the point to be that you may risk your life on your intuition, when travelling in an automobile at x miles per hour.  But would you risk your Bitcoin on your intuition?  Perish the thought!

Well, the latter is exactly what you’d be doing if you were to cook up your own RNG based on intuition, “a little knowledge” (a dangerous thing!), or anything else other than studied expertise.

The day I let some pretentious moral moron shame me over my own language mastery is a day which shall never happen.  Moreover, it is an ill omen when anybody accepts your transvalued inversion, whereby illiteracy is a mark of virtue and high standards a brand of vice.

And no, persons who lack adequate English skills do not belong in an English-language forum.  Full stop.  Their economic status is irrelevant; and your mention of that only makes it worse:  People with mediocre but passable English who have something worthwhile to say have never been rejected anywhere in such situations; but those who have nothing contribute are spammers and scum, whether they be dirty dirt-poor or otherwise.  Nobody has a right to “start somewhere” and make money by befouling the communications of other people.

To be excruciatingly clear:  Your dear “non-English speaking newbs trying to make a buck” are unwelcome, and I wish to make them feel that as intensely as I can.

That must be beyond faux pas:  It must result in an instant automatic permaban.

It can’t always be caught; but it should be made risky enough that no craven blackguard with a high-value account would find it economical.

LIAR.  The date stamp on actmyname’s negative trust feedback to you is 2018-01-25, as any reader may verify on your trust page.  This was as for 50 merit you sent Chetty (uid #1080650) 2018-01-25 14:00:16.  You left retaliatory negative trust for actmyname on 2018-01-26.  That is also on your trust page, and in the screenshot I posted earlier; have another look:


It is unfortunate that the trust datestamps lack greater precision (maybe via some API?).  The lower bound on how long you waited is 9 hours, 59 minutes, 44 seconds (2018-01-25 14:00:16 to 2018-01-26 00:00).  The upper bound is 35 hours, 59 minutes, 44 seconds.  Either way, you waited nowhere close to 72 hours, and certainly not “more than 3 days”, before leaving gross retaliatory feedback you had no right to leave anyway.


I have the right to evaluate my feelings myself.  Having offended me, you injured me by making me feel disgusted.  I evaluate that at 1000000 BTC cost.  I will now leave you negative trust based on that number.  Deal?

(Somebody does not understand the concept of an objective measure.)

I will not waste my time with the rest of your drivel in this or other posts to present.  You lie, and you get caught, and you keep lying.

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+1.  If I had it to spare, that ought properly be +50.

Well, that first post by hopeAo which you cited is substandard.  It is poorly written.  It makes flagrant technical mistakes; since when is C++ a “basic commands line code [sic]”?  It mentions half the title of Mastering Bitcoin, but without providing any link for the book—as another user, pebwindkraft, had already done upthread!  Much of its other information is repetitive as to prior posts, poorly written, and/or technically wrong; does the poster even know what a “computers console [sic]” is?  “Git Hub there's lots of chain codes there”—seriously, that deserves merit?

I could continue picking that post apart, but I think I made my point.

It may be related that the thread was largely stupid.  It started with a uselessly vague one-line question by a self-proclaimed “Tactical Genius”:  “What are the basic requirements for developing a blockchain?”  The very first response by Fantum was the best (“First off, not having to ask that question.”).  Some of the other early responses were of reasonable quality.  But the thread generally was trash.  I myself saw that thread repeatedly pop up; I ignored it.

(As the cherry on the sundae, the thread contained two spam posts which I just reported.  Thanks for drawing it to my attention.)


Well... you asked.

I did not look at your other selections.

Long-suffering Tor user here.  I should clarify the blocking issue and “noscript” workaround in hope it helps other Tor users, or non-Tor users as the case may be.

Bitpay’s support page for Tor users may currently bear the date of “January 04, 2018 02:28”; but it’s had substantially the same text for a very long time, including the same talk of “developing a fix” and an “immediate workaround”:


Last I tried this, it actually did work.  But I still dislike Bitpay. #NO2X

So, so, so...

First, you sent 50 (fifty) merits to Chetty for a post in a thread advertising a “90% AIRDROP”, a post which said only and exactly this:


Approximately:  “Yes, certainly, he said he sent 9% of the coins.”  Fifty merit points for that is not a “test”.  Either you are claiming to be such an imbecile as might make such a “test”, or you presume that we be such imbeciles as to believe such a transparent lie.  ...well, well, well.


Then after you got red-handed and your trust bled, you sent a message posthaste to someone whose profile page expressly states:


Oops!  actmyname kept his promise by ignoring you:


As you conveniently forgot to mention, you also sent retaliatory negative trust against actmyname.  Of course, this will accomplish substantially nothing:  Nobody trusts you by default.  actmyname’s trust will not bleed like yours, except for people who explicitly add you to their own trust lists.  You even helpfully lied, and claimed that you risked 1.0 BTC in a matter whereby actmyname violated your trust (n.b. that actmyname properly claimed he risked 0.0 BTC as to you).


Though you have been on this forum since 2015, somehow, you are ignorant both of how trust works, and of the policy that theymos does not intervene in such trust disputes:


And you have the nerve to ask:


Well, here’s a hint:  Maybe, just maybe, people on this forum have become a tad peeved and impatient with swindlers who use alts to pump scamcoin airdrops just like you did, prima facie, you sneaky bastard.  And either you are guilty of that, or you are guilty of criminal stupidity; there is no third option here.

Thus now, your life is “broke”.  Ruined!  Destroyed by the evil merit system, whose malevolent tyranny knows no bounds!

Therefore, I suggest that you get a life.

I believe the proper word would be complainant, as used in a court of law.  Whereas I used the word “whiners” by way of dismissing the complaints for lack of merit.

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I don’t know an English word for the receiver of complaints; and I doubt one exists, for he who hears a complainant’s prayer must be a judge.  Thus, you understand my call to be judgmental.

Such measures are of unfortunate necessity; for we are not in the age “when Man yet new / No rule but uncorrupted reason knew... / Needless was written law, where none opprest: / The law of Man was written in his breast”.  (Now, there’s an „Emblem für immer in der Brust“.)

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“...my call to be judgmental”—case in point, a complaint without merit:


It is all a conspiracy against you, personally, because you are a special snowflake—and the universe itself hates you.  That is why the universe always disappoints special little you.  I suggest that you convert to misotheism.

The complainant’s motion is DENIED.

The complaint is DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE.

Bye.

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+1 for appreciation of fine English, and for compelling me to haul out a Latin dictionary—hah!

Given your penchant for both languages, mayhap you appreciate my humour over the origins of the word merit juxtaposed against etymologically odd cousins, meretrix and meretricious.  Sadly, it may be expected that some will merit merits through the meritorious discipline of soldiers, whereas the meretricious will behave as the lowest class of whores.⁰

The solution to such problems can only be social and cultural:  Thus do I call down obloquy on any who seek merits meretriciously and not meritoriously.  Is honour so cheap as to be bought?  Can respect be begged, and thus beggared?  Let it be not so!

P.S.:  Being decentralized and uncontrollable, Bitcoinum nullius est.

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0. Another etymologically vexatious word; cf. care, charity.  Those wise in words also may use “nice” as a covert insult.

Thank you for that link!  Though many (including myself) have discussing the “network layers” analogy for a long time, this is very well worked up; and it’s the first I’ve seen the quite apt comparison to unicast vs. broadcast.

Admittedly overextending the analogy a bit, I think this will also excite the mental wheels of anybody with IP routing knowledge.  I haven’t been following LN development closely enough to know; but I’d be surprised if Lightning engineers hadn’t already been combing the vast repertoire of routing algorithms knowledge for useful things.

The merit system is a promising idea.  But it will only work if we develop a strong cultural expectation that merit will only be awarded for meritorious posts.  Requests for merit must be declared extreme rudeness, a forum faux pas.  Such a thing is fit only for social opprobrium, derision, sneers, and shunning.

In most cultures, fishing for compliments is viewed as something between boorish and unthinkable.  Asking for merit is worse, because it may accrue monetary value due to signature campaigns.  It is like begging a professor for a top grade, instead of doing work worthy of earning a top grade.

By contrast, those who have something worthwhile to say will take pride in earning merit the normal way:  By making posts which others find valuable.  Whereas those who have nothing worthwhile to say, as such have nothing to add to the forum.

For my part:  Nobody who ever asks me for merit will ever get any from me—period.

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P.S., all the whiners complaining about the merit system ipso facto thus demonstrate that they are incapable of writing meritorious posts, and therefore worthless to the forum.  Make good posts, and people will notice.  Or shut up.

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Edit:  Added the paragraph about people taking pride in earning merit the normal way.

You think?  If so, it’s still a troll—and that would not be the first time I may have been trolled here, though the other one was much less plausible.  Thus, the possibility had occurred to me; but yet every time I have ever imagined that there must be an upper bound on human stupidity, a greater idiot has proved me wrong.

In any case, I am a long term-thinker; and I do anticipate that this thread may be a handy reference.  Much of Anti-Cen’s spew about Bitcoin and Lightning is delivered in such a manner as may be effective FUD to scare and confuse newbies.  That was my first thought when I saw this thread.  There are enough bottom-feeders serving as paid shills to post such things; we don’t need more from someone who does it for jollies due to lack of any higher aim or greater pleasure in life.

Well, anyway, I appreciate the tip.  Perhaps I ought return to my usual occupation of manufacturing MD5 ASICs for Bitcoin mining, or doing carpentry with a screwdriver to put in nails.