Can the forum software be modified to auto-lock threads after say 180 days of inactivity? Lately it seems there seems to be a rash of pointless thread necros.
If a thread is really that important mods could have the ability to unlock it.
Is there a reason to ban necros? A healthy thread does not die if it is relevant again. I've seen many people detest necros, but I detest more pointless threads that repeat a point made a year ago. |
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Yes he does have a scammer tag. And people being dumb or careless with their money doesn't make it right to steal or lie. There's no excuse that justifies that. And if you think there is then you're morally bankrupt and should stay away from society in general. I just saw that he has the scammer tag. I had double checked but still overlooked it. My apologies. I would have replied to your moral stand point and offered a more investigative perspective on social dynamics, but honestly, the fact that I got one of my facts wrong renders everything else mute as well. But allow me to give it a humble shot nonetheless: If there was a poor kid and a rich kid and the poor kid stole or tricked the rich kid into giving him money because the poor kid refused to be the rich kid's servant to secure his economic survival and because the rich kid failed to go into an economic mutuality with the poor kid, i.e. failing to recognize the poor kid's right to prosperity, either due to segregational beliefs or ignorance. If you were god, how would you decide who was right or wrong? TL;DR: If your only chance of escaping servitude or death was to steal or lie, how could it be immoral? (this is fairly off-topic so I don't mind if you don't reply.) It's not immoral. But this is not even relevant. Most scammers on this forum do not need to scam to escape servitude or death. Not a single scammer has proven otherwise. |
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I am very disappointed in the mint, private company as it may be. While it may not be in their best interest to award the prize to a competitor, it is a public relations disaster and counterintuitive to democracy.
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NOW total minted BTC is above 10000000. Theymos did some counts, and apparently some blocks are invalid: It's the upper limit. If you remove coins that have been obviously destroyed in that way, the number would be 200.01000001 less than the upper limit (at the moment).
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I agree with that. I was just saying, if price rises this much, it's natural that volume in terms of value or currency has risen to some extent. To predict the market state, the relative volume w.r.t. market size, which you can neatly measure in BTC, is the more interesting statement. And that volume was not very large lately.
Put another way, with such a change in market behavior, it's hard to tell where the price would be if the market were in an equilibrium state, like it was for a few months this year. My guess is, it would still be lower.
Ah, I see. You're saying that the actual volume matters little for speculation purposes, because relative volume correlates better with market structure. I tend to agree. |
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Why is pirate not here? I thought you said it would be done after 3 weeks
For the record, at this time no completely valid estimate seems to exist. Maged's blockchain analysis reveals 200000 BTC as an estimate, and paper loss reveals 500000 BTC as an upper bound. Aside from this, I don't think any definite values are known. |
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So uhm, is 0.6.x effectively "long term support" version?
No, these are Luke's pet branches, which I think are a bad idea because they divert development and testing efforts away from the latest release. The first real 'stable' release will be 1.0, and we're not there yet. I think these are a good idea because they are in theory more stable, not having as many bugs as the master branch might. |
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I'd not call it "consistently high volume" like that. USD is a strange measure; put this way, the statement is redundant with the high prices.
Not necessarily. To be honest, we can all agree that at the moment, the USD fluctuates less than the BTC. To measure the volume of value traded, USD volume is likely more useful. Of course, USD volume with CPI factored into account may be even more useful, but with a measly three years of history, I doubt it would make much of a difference. |
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hash extension attacks are only possibly on arbitrary sized message.
Bitcoin block headers are fixed size. A valid block header must be exactly 640 bits (no more, no less).
I was going by this. |
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I wonder if the endian-ness of things might be a clue as to Satoshi's origins... maybe he was a big-iron programmer from back in the day or something? Hmm. Never thought about that angle before. I mean for 99% of programmers all these endian conversions just make the code more confusion to understand however for some programmers it might be second nature. Then again there are a lot of other "quirks" which are equally hard to explain. Why use 32 bit nonce + extra nonce? Why not just use a 64 bit nonce? Why a double SHA-256? If the fear was that SHA-256 would be partially compromised one would gain some security by using two algorithms but you don't really gain much performing the same algorithm twice. The double SHA-256 prevents, I believe, hash extension attacks. |
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I have a plan for improving this list in the near future. First, I have to sort out the BS&T mess and the Kronos.io hack (which, by the way, I still do not have a date for). After that, I should begin some systematic reanalysis of each theft to revise the estimates into better ones if possible. To aid this, I am planning on an accuracy scale for the estimates: | Scale Category | Definition | | Level 0 | Exact amount given by official source, third involved party, or blockchain analysis; almost universally accepted. Appropriate references must be included:
- One reference from an official source, third involved party, or blockchain analyst revealing the approximate amount.
- One reference from that source, could be the same as the previous, mentioning the exactness of the amount.
- If the source is a blockchain analyst, two additional reference from a third party confirming the blockchain analysis.
Depending on the reliability of the main source, a third party confirmation could be required. This can be one reference from another type of source, types given below, that outlines a value confirming or supporting the main source.
- Official source
- Third involved party
- Blockchain analyst
| | Level 1 | An approximate amount obtained from official source, third party, or blockchain analysis. Amount should not be, within a reasonable doubt, off by over 5%. The following references must be given:
- One reference from an official source, third party, or blockchain analyst revealing the approximate amount.
- One reference from that source, could be the same as the previous, mentioning the level of error expected should be low.
- If the source is a blockchain analyst, one additional reference from a third party confirming the blockchain analysis.
| | Level 2 | Both a lower bound and an upper bound obtained from official source, third party, blockchain analysis, or my personal analysis. The upper and lower bounds should be, within a reasonable doubt, absolute. The upper bound should not be more than three times the lower bound. The following references should be given for each bound, unless it is determined through personal analysis, in which the appropriate references backing the personal analysis must be given:
- One reference from an official source, third party, or blockchain analyst revealing the bound.
- One reference from that source, could be the same as the previous, mentioning the absoluteness of the bound.
- If the source is a blockchain analyst, one additional reference from a third party confirming the blockchain analysis.
| | Level 3 | Only an estimate is obtained from the official source, third party, blockchain analysis, the media, or my personal analysis. Up to one absolute bound is known, but not two. The upper bound should not be more than three times the estimate, or the estimate should not be more than three times the lower bound, if a bound is known. The following references should be given for the estimate, unless it is determined through personal analysis, in which the appropriate references backing the personal analysis must be given:
- One reference from an official source, third party, blockchain analyst, or media source revealing the estimate.
- If the source is a blockchain analyst, one additional reference from a third party confirming the blockchain analysis.
If an absolute bound is known:
- One reference from an official source, third party, blockchain analyst, or media source revealing the bound.
- One reference from that source, could be the same as the previous, mentioning the absoluteness of the bound.
- If the source is a blockchain analyst, one additional reference from a third party confirming the blockchain analysis.
| | Level 4 | No reliable estimate is known, so one is calculated through a third party or personal analysis. Up to two bounds are known, but they may be far apart. No references are required, however, methodology should be present if no references are included. |
Thoughts? |
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It's been a wild August, but a quiet September amidst press from east to west. Here are a few points (Mt. Gox USD market) I find noteworthy: Consistently High Prices. Bitcoin has not traded below 10 $ since 2012-09-03. This makes 17 full days above 10 $. The only other streaks of over 10 $ that lasted longer than a full day were: - 2011-06-03 thru 2011-08-02: 61 days
- 2012-09-03 thru 2012-09-19: 17 days (streak still active)
- 2012-08-03 thru 2012-08-18: 16 days
- 2011-08-15 thru 2012-08-24: 9 days
- 2012-08-25 thru 2012-08-30: 6 days
Consistently High Volume. Measured in USD, the volume has exceeded 100000 $ since 2012-05-27. Such a streak has never before occurred in the past, not even during the 2011 bubble. Low Volatility. September 5 th, 2012-09-05, was the last day to have considerable volatility. Since then, volatility has been either normal or below normal. This volatility coincided with the Romney ransom. Yearly Gains Continue. Compared to 365 days ago, 2012-09-19's weighted average was 103.11% higher. Prior to September, such an increase over one year was last seen in April 2012 (2012-04-27). As we approach the North American holiday season, and with it the block halving shortly followed by mass selling for gift purchases, volatility is likely to move up again. A good time to speculate, indeed. |
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I say yes.  This is nearly impossible. There are only 26 days until Thanksgiving, and we are still at block 198497 (11503 blocks remaining). To succeed, the average time per block needs to be less than 196 s, or slightly more than three minutes! If this were true, the difficulty would be 269 times what it is now by Thanksgiving. That is equivalent to almost 5.4 PHz·h (where h denotes one SHA256(SHA256(...)) hash) of network power. The four people who voted "yes" are insane! If you are so sure, then why not make some money off of it: http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=664November 24 isn't Thanksgiving. I'm pretty sure not even the Texans have it then. |
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Very early adopters are unfairly rewarded (I admit I am in this category); indeed, this slows adoption in the middle and later phases of adoption
But that truth holds for every other SUCCESSFUL project which ends up in an IPO. You NEGLECT to mention all the other projects which bite the dust in the meantime. Then being a very early adopter means you lost your investment (time and money, maybe some opportunity cost as well). So just like ABBA sings... the winner takes it all. So you should complain about life - not about bitcoin. Turns out the minting algorithm seems to be specifically important to attract miners and secure the network. So the reward SHOULD be proportional to the state of security of the network: - if the security is low: throw out big rewards - if the security is high: throw out small rewards That is indirectly achieved in bitcoin through the competition effect. Also, it is interesting to see that PPcoin adds another aspect to that equation: the reward is a function of difficulty. So miners are even more rewarded in case the difficulty of ppcoin drops to critical levels! I do not neglect to mention all the other projects which bite the dust. As an early adopter myself, I can state with certainty that I took the risk and I should deserve the reward. Unfortunately, our rewards do slow down middle and late stage adoption. This is not optimal. |
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I do not think Satoshi did minting right, because of the many issues that it brings: - A mature Bitcoin deflates during economic growth and inflates during economic decline
- The initial minting artificially inhibits free-market transaction processing mechanisms
- Not all coins are created equal; i.e. bitcoins are not truly fungible: PPPool or Eligius coins are worth less than solo-mined coins
- Very early adopters are unfairly rewarded (I admit I am in this category); indeed, this slows adoption in the middle and later phases of adoption
- Currently, Bitcoin's money supply is hyperinflating at unrealistic rates, and this will continue for a while
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Can membership be revoked? |
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Oh yeah, I think I get it. A group of one, then a group of two, then a group of three... So you can indeed store an infinite number of reals. That's pretty smart. Thanks. I've learnt something today.
Erm, no, you can store an infinte number of rational numbers. Representing the set of all real numbers (both rational and irrational) is harder, and may pose a potential security risk for the infinite divisibility fork: creation of infinite bitcoins through an infinite overflow caused by sending an irrational number of bitcoins (proving that bounds checking is still important, even when dealing with infinite memory). With an countably infinite memory, you can store a countably infinite number of real numbers. This is easily derived through basic set theory. However, the process of storing the real numbers will take a countably infinite amount of time, unless the operation is atomic, so in practice even given an infinite memory, storing arbitrary reals is impossible. |
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This thread refuses to die.
I apologize. I really do. If someone feels the need to discuss Atlas, they can do it in another thread. |
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It follows that:  I'm not sure it is obvious that this is a "consequence". Seems interesting though. Although it is a simple derivation from the theorems of set theory, the intuitive explanation can be complex. Here's an example that should demonstrate how a countably infinite amount of reals between 0 and 1 and be stored. We start with our infinite tape, beginning at position zero and storing a single bit each. We can encode the numbers in binary, with the "0." being assumed and only the decimal point encoded, and assume uniqueness of representation is not important (if it is, we can define the unique representation as the one ending in only zeroes when there is a choice). From position zero, each position's bit is used in exactly one number. Here's the mapping: | Pos# | nth real number encoded | | 0 | 0 | | . | | 1 | 0 | | 2 | 1 | | . | | 3 | 0 | | 4 | 1 | | 5 | 2 | | . | | 6 | 0 | | 7 | 1 | | 8 | 2 | | 9 | 3 | | . | | 10 | 0 | | 11 | 1 | | 12 | 2 | | 13 | 3 | | 14 | 4 | | . | | 15 | 0 | | 16 | 1 | | 17 | 2 | | 18 | 3 | | 19 | 4 | | 20 | 5 | | ... | |
This is a variation of Cantor's proof that the rationals are countable, and in fact the derivation of the theorem relies on the countability of an ordered pair of members of a countable set. Hopefully this sheds some light. |
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A countably infinite amount of memory can represent any member of a continuum, which real numbers, complex numbers, etc. are. In fact, a countably infinite amount of memory can represent a countably infinite number of members of a continuum.
No, unless I misunderstood Cantor. You probably did.  It follows that: |
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