It’s an oversimplified explanation.  The blockchain forms a Merkle chain of unalterable history, whereby correct knowledge of the present can be used to verify correct knowledge of the past.  Adding a Hashcash-style POW function for transaction ordering, it becomes a Byzantine fault-tolerant distributed database with no central authority or trusted “supernodes”.  That’s the simplest explanation I can provide in two sentences.


Solving the problem of creating a Byzantine fault-tolerant distributed database with no central authority was a work of genius by Satoshi.  This required design trade-offs; and as a result:  The blockchain may well be the world’s most inefficient database; and it has very limited scalability.  These are not problems, because higher-layer solutions (Lightning Network) can use the blockchain as a foundation.

Thus, yes:


A trusted database system can always beat a blockchain-style system hands down for performance.  But then, the best currency you could build would be Paypal 2.0.  Whereas Bitcoin is a trustless, permissionless currency which nobody controls.


ICOs are scams, ipso facto.  Avoid.


To improve Bitcoin’s blockchain and the more efficient usage thereof, a few examples are:  Segwit (done), Schnorr signature (in development), MAST (in development).

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Aside:  Complexity is not the issue with smart contracts:  Correctness is.  To see some of the advanced research work being done to potentially bring powerful, mathematically provable smart contracts to Bitcoin, read the paper on Simplicity (PDF).

(That’s not on the topic of the blockchain itself; but it’s no secret I despise the centrally controlled exploding clown car amateur show of Ethereum, and I do so look forward to the prospect of things being done right for Bitcoin.)


Transparency of data is not required.  Zerocoin (the concept) and Zcash (the existing currency) use zero-knowledge proofs such that all that is revealed is, “a valid transaction occurred in which outputs did not exceed valid inputs”.  There is other work being done to obscure information, such as Confidential Transactions for Bitcoin.


There was a collaboration between JPMorgan and Zcash to produce a zero-knowledge proof implementation for banking use.  The precise reason was that big banks do not want to reveal confidential transaction information to competitors seeking business intelligence.  Note:  I am in no way, shape, or form endorsing JPMorgan’s Quorum, or anything whatsoever to do with JPMorgan, a/k/a Evilbank of Evilbanks.  I am simply relating some interesting facts which pertain to what you said.


This is not a valid concern.  The important part is your node; and nobody controls your node in Bitcoin.


A “private blockchain” is also known as a hyped-up dog and pony show based on buzzwords and not engineering.  An ordinary ACID database is inconstestibly superior for 90+% of use cases for so-called “private blockchains”; and for 9+%, there exist other network database solutions which will be far more efficient.  There are only a few corner cases I can imagine even in my wildest fantasies whereby a “private blockchain” might make sense.  Adding a central authority instantly removes some extreme engineering challenges.

A “private blockchain” which amounts to Paypal 2.0 will be slower and costlier than Paypal 1.0.  Why bother?

(Aside:  I mostly disagree with your post, but it was cogent.  Also, it pointed out something I am well aware of, but most Bitcoiners don’t realize:  Big banks and huge corporations do not want to reveal their private info in a global public ledger.  Sure, they want to rape your privacy—but they jealously guard their own.  Thanks for bringing that up.  +1.)

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Not a limitation of the blockchain.  Rather, a product of corruption at the wetware [human] layer—resulting in intentionally divisive disinformation campaigns.


Any advanced technology will involve jargon incomprehensible to those who have not studied it.  So...?

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Interesting angle.  But it is an issue with decentralized P2P systems, not the blockchain per se.

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That’s not a limitation of the blockchain per se, but rather, a security limitation of its design for using Hashcash-style POW for transaction ordering.

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And this is one facet of a very significant reason to not switch POW algorithms.  Thank you.

It would be funny to watch him struggle to keep this going, if the joke hadn’t been old as of a few days ago.  It is still amusing to see this level of desperation from Quicksy.


As Grand Poobah of your basement, you may find your peremptory edicts to hold some weight there.  Out here in the real world, actual evidence must be at hand before the subject of an accusation can be called to answer.  N.b., the word “actual” implies “neither dredged from the fantasies of fellow scammers who got red-handed, nor magicked out of thin air with a wave of your hands”.

Apologies for the heavy tech talk.  I know that’s not the purpose of Beginners & Help.  Some parts of my earlier posts upthread assume a firm grasp of basic Bitcoin concepts, up to (at least) an intermediate level.

For my last post above, I repeatedly edited and rewrote it to better explain without tech jargon or required background knowledge.  Please let me know if it helped you, and if you have questions about it.  It is good you want to take the time to understand.

If you read my last post and then look upthread, you may better understand some parts of my discussion with alia_armelle about weight units, etc.

Copypaste plagiarist and probable bot #1840335 “Abrham1123” (reported to mod and archived for reference; list of recent posts archived for reference):


Original (got a +11; are any bots set to target these now?):


Report to mod:

I apologize for the double post.  But I just realized that OP (Original Poster: coinomy.net) had two misconceptions unanswered by others, plus what seems to be an implicit question; and I want to be sure that OP sees this:

From the way you stated your question, I infer that you are wondering about fee estimates reported by your wallet software.  These are usually stated in terms of the fee which is estimated for confirmation within 1 block, 3 blocks, 5 blocks, 10 blocks, 25 blocks, etc.  For reasons I will clear up below, this is only an estimate of the amount of time which will be required for confirmation of a certain fee.  It is not any sort of directly calculated fee or agreement that “this transaction will be confirmed in x blocks”.

Now, Misconception #1:


Note:  The correct word in common use is transaction, not transfer.

Miners do not calculate any fee.  Rather, the creator of each transaction sets the fee for that transaction.  A block has limited available capacity; and if the block is full (= too many transactions to fit), then miners will pick the most profitable combination of transactions which they can fit into a block.

At that point, people are competing with each other to get their transactions into the next block.  Due to competition, fees rise.  They do not rise because of any authority setting a fee:  Rather, users compete with fees to make their transactions more attractive to miners.  Almost always, of course, miners will select the transactions with the highest ratio of fees paid to block capacity used (ratio of BTC/WU).

The fee estimator in your wallet is only estimating how attractive your transaction will look to miners, so that they will choose it.  If you set a high fee, then many miners will want to grab that transaction for inclusion in the next block.  If you set a low fee, then many miners may ignore your transaction—pushing it aside in favour of transactions which offer higher fees.

Unless the fee is ridiculously low, then eventually, as the level of network activity fluctuates, some miners will probably decide that the transaction is worthwhile to include in a block.  Most likely, you don’t just need one miner to choose your transaction:  You need enough miners to choose your transaction to make it probable that one of them will get lucky, and solve the block.

When your wallet software tells you, “fee x for confirmation in y blocks”, that is somewhat misleading.  What it really means is that based on a complicated calculation over recent network activity, your wallet estimates that for a given fee, it will probably be about (say) 10 blocks before a miner who liked your transaction gets lucky.

Misconception #2—some pertinent concepts are explained above:


(This was almost-but-not-quite touched by bitperson.)

There is no “puzzle” for any individual transaction.  As aforesaid, miners choose transactions and fit them together into a block.  There is a “puzzle” of sorts for that block.  The correct term for the “puzzle” is proof-of-work (POW).

The difficulty of work required for the proof-of-work is set based on a target such that on average, it should take 10 minutes for somebody, somewhere to find the correct solution to the proof-of-work.  The actual time will be shorter or longer than that:  Sometimes a miner may get lucky, and find a solution sooner; other times all miners may be unlucky, and it will take longer for anybody to find a solution.  Moreover, global hashrate (the collective power of all miners) fluctuates; this also affects the actual time for solving a block.

If a miner chooses your transaction as one of many transactions in a block, and then finds the correct solution, then the time required for your transaction is the same as for everybody else’s transaction in that block.  The solution (technically, a nonce) is found for the whole block, as a unit which includes your transaction and many others.

Most people haven’t even heard about it.  This plays into much of the “big blocker” anti-Bitcoin FUD.  People still talk about the 1MB blocksize limit, when that has not existed since Segwit activated at Block #481824 on 24 August 2017.


In brief, since this is diverging OT from this thread (and getting way too technical for this forum):  A mempool simply consists of transactions which a node knows about, usually either through receiving the tx from other nodes, or generating the tx itself.  Each node’s mempool tends to be a little bit different from the others, since different transactions reach different nodes at different times (and may not reach some nodes at all) as new transactions work their way through the P2P network.  The one and only purpose of mining is to make everybody agree on a single set of transactions in certain order as “confirmed” transactions—without need for any central authority.  The technical term you want to look up (or I could explain to you later) is “Byzantine fault tolerance”.

Excellent answers from Alia!

I wish to add a few more things thereto.  With apologies for the relatively high technical level—it would be infeasible to explain all this at a beginner level in a single post; so I mostly want to drop keywords for people to look up, or ask more about if they’re interested.


I want to highlight that.  This is one of the most common misconceptions amongst new users.  USD and other “fiat currency” calculations simply do not exist in Bitcoin, insofar as Bitcoin itself is concerned.  Some (not all) wallet interfaces quote USD amounts based on exchange rate data.  That is not part of Bitcoin.


Nits/clarifications:  Most relevant are the total fee in BTC for the transaction, and the transaction weight in weight units (WU).  The correct unit ratio is sat/WU.  Since Segwit activated, transactions bytes are weighted using the equation set forth in BIP 141.  Bitcoin no longer has a maximum blocksize; instead, it has a maximum block weight of 4000000 bytes (4MB).  Segwit “witness” bytes have only 25% the weight of other bytes; and “witness” data (mostly signatures and public keys) are some of the largest parts of a typical transaction.  That is why Segwit transactions have much lower fees.

The “fee” is simply an amount of inputs which exceeds the amount in outputs.  This can be spent by the miner as coinbase.

Miners can choose whatever transactions they want to put in a block.  Usually, of course, they would want to select a set of transactions from their mempool⁰ which will provide the most profit.  A precise solution to the problem of transaction selection is actually NP-COMPLETE; but a “good enough” solution can be found quickly and efficiently with a simple knapsack algorithm.

(0. Common misconception alert:  There is no such thing as “the mempool”.  Every node has its own mempool, a mempool.)


I take it that your implication pertains to the transaction size—or as aforesaid, transaction weight.  All other things being equal, a transaction with more inputs will have larger weight than a transaction with fewer inputs.  Thus of course, a big transaction with many inputs will require more fees than a small transaction with few inputs.  Similar considerations apply as for outputs; however, most individual users do not send transactions with multiple outputs other than change.  (Exchanges and many other businesses frequently send transactions with large numbers of outputs.)

A transaction with only one input and one output can be tiny.

Alia also replied to poGium shortly before I managed to make my thread transplant post.  I here reply to her, again omitting nothing from the quoted post.  To make clear the context, I have here fixed attribution of her quotes of poGium.


I noticed that about him.


Well, Alia, since I don’t cheat, I hope you are amenable to what I said above about monogyny. ;-)


(I already covered this, unbeknownst to Alia, whilst she was replying unbeknownst to me.  I would ordinary snip this.  Since this is a thread transplant, I quote for context.)


Actually, in this case, I was being slightly ironic.  It is generally true that a negative cannot be proved, in the sense of the example you just gave.  But in certain particular situations, a negative can be proved to an adequate standard of evidence.  That is why the propositions of nullius = Lauda, nullius = Satoshi, nullius = alia are all absurd to the point of comedy!

For the proposition that nullius = alia to hold true, then someone who is /r/GirlsGoneBitcoin verified by theymos to look like this:



...would need to have and be capable of all the characteristics of my persona, and all the characteristics of your persona—and must be capable of an almost superhuman task of switching writing styles and personalities on the fly.

The proper Internet terminology is, “LOL”.


Well said.  Though your proposition that I am sexy could also use some proofs between us, here omitted because I decided to edit out the [NSFW] subject marker I’d edited in.  Do you wish for me to make an object demonstration on you in private, or later publicly on in our “Ciphersex 101 [NSFW]” thread?  Perhaps both!

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Well, I can’t stop the argument; so I myself will make somewhere else to take it:

poGium argues with nullius

This is not a high-priority argument to me; I’ve already spent too much time on it, so please be advised that I don’t intend to spend much more.  At least it will not be dropping the S/N ratio in this thread.

Transplanted from here, where it was continuing and escalating an off-topic argument wherein I’d said I’d avoid further reply.  I can’t stop the argument from escalating, since others are involved; so I will transplant it instead.

This thread is self-moderated, because there are too many trolls on this forum; in the interest of fairness, for this particular thread, I will not censor replies by poGium, or censor other replies simply on the basis of disagreement.  [Edit again:  Undid a thread subject edit which was not necessary after all.]


Can you tell me where either Alia or I said you did?  Your initial complaint vaguely alleged that we were “very suspicious”.  Another poster raised the alt-account issue in the sense of “obviously not”.  I’ve recently been accused of being both Lauda and Satoshi.  Alia and I have now been making fun of the idea.  Laugh.  It’s funny.


I posited a grudge, because you had materially misrepresented her as if seeking to by drugs online:


Any reasonable reader would infer from that that she was buying drugs online, which she was not doing in any way, shape, or form.  This misstatement by you was either careless to the point of negligence, or malicious.  I lean toward the latter, because you snipped from your reply to me the part of the quote with a link to the pertinent thread, so as to prevent readers to assessing the situation for themselves.

You quoted as such:


...whilst omitting this important context (boldface here supplied):


N.b., I myself snip quotes hard—but I am always careful to do so fairly.  (I do not trim down quotes here, because it’s a thread transplant; and I want for readers to see everything poGium wrote.)


You have evidently never heard the aphorism that “the prostitute⁰ protects the virtue of the wife”.  That’s ok.  It is usually only known to leaders, moral/political philosophers, and others who must grapple with the bare fact that the vast majority of men will never be satisfied with only one woman.  In a society which purports to be monogynous (not a typo—look it up), some sort of hypocritical pressure release valve is necessary; otherwise, many men would pursue the nearest available “other woman”, such as the neighbour’s wife.  This is one of several reasons why prostitution has been formally discouraged, but tacitly tolerated throughout history in many (if not most) civilized societies which purported monogyny.

Whatever you might be told at church, I suspect you’d much prefer for your neighbour to ogle Alia online—rather than getting wound up to the point of trying to scheme to seduce your wife.  Yes, that’s dichotomy; but those who understand human nature will know, it is not a false dichotomy.

(0. Alia’s not what many people consider a prostitute, since she only does this online.  I myself will avoid the hairsplitting.  Anyway, I prefer calling her my lovely meretrix.  Advantage to me:  I don’t expect that she would ever be in the least bit interested in my even pretending monogyny.  That’s important to me, because I am Mr. Principled:  I don’t lie or cheat.  That’s right, I’ve never cheated on a woman in the sense of going promising one thing and doing another.  I simply have never promised a woman that I’d be monogynous.  If a woman dislikes that, she is more than encouraged to seek elsewhere from the get-go.)


First of all, you’re mixing different issues.  Deliberately, it seems.

You started this by formally accusing Alia (curiously, not me) of merit abuse,¹ in a thread where DT members are actively red-tagging merit abusers.  To my knowledge, no DT member has ever red-tagged a user for (mis)using the merit system as a “Like” button.  Given the inherent subjectivity involved in a merit award, such a thing would be impossible to enforce!  Then to support your argument, you quote theymos saying what he would “encourage”—right after he said, “we will not be directly moderating this”.

(1. I mean “formally” in a standard format, replete with a section titled “PROOF”.  The standard-form part of your accusation only listed Alia’s profile and merit summary.  Later, obiter dicta, you said, “I think you should watch them” (thus including me).)

On the one side:  DT members (not moderators), enforcing one standards.  On the other:  theymos encouraging a different standard, but not moderating or enforcing it.

Second of all—well, as I said and you quoted:


I did before, because I felt like it.  Now, I won’t bother; for you have not displayed even the slightest comprehension of any of the posts whereby you’ve questioned my judgment.  Readers can make up their own minds.

Third of all, I myself don’t buy into the pretense of total objectivity in merit awards.  It is neither desirable, nor humanly possible; and although objective factors should weight heavily, there will always be some level of subjectivity in such a thing.

By way of analogy:  It is possible for an educated reader for an objective reader to discern the fundamental distinction between good and bad poetry.  But even the most intelligent, discerning readers will not choose the same poems as their favourites.

sMerit supply is limited.  Favourites must be chosen.  I myself look for posts which have a baseline objective level of meritoriousness, then perforce choose my “favourites” between them based on a mix of subjective and objective factors.  Whereas I am more capable of objectivity than most people are, I think I do fairly well with that.


(Red-quoted word addressed below.)

There’s no double-standard.  People who post junk and pump their merit score by trades with friends get red-tagged.  Friends and otherwise-related people who make generally high-quality posts are not red-tagged for finding each others’ posts meritorious.

The part you leave out in your allegation of a double standard is that the people who get red-tagged are posting garbage, and/or awarding merit for their friends’ garbage.  The omission is typical of people who whine about DT actions.  Usually, they whine for a reason—cui bono?  Quoting you:  “That is very suspicious...  I think [DT] should watch [you].”


Many people would find it reprehensible if she were trying to buy drugs online.  (That includes me, by the way.)  You misrepresented her with an insinuation that she was doing that—that she was doing something which many, many people (including me) would find reprehensible.

You also misrepresented her as doing something illegal.  Actually, you misrepresented her as doing something which would be a death-penalty crime in her country—as she has openly disclosed in the drug-related thread you omitted linking.  (There, she made it profusely clear that she would never possess drugs in her home country, ever—Amsterdam OK, at home not.)  I myself don’t give a damn about “law”; but misrepresenting her as doing illegal activity would make her look very bad to most people.

I find it interesting that you’re so outraged that a virtual meretrix does camshows for men who are cheating, yet you seem to think that drug use is none of anybody’s business (you said it’s “her decision”; so I suppose it must be a so-called “victimless crime”, ja?).  I find that morally backwards, insofar as drug use is both individual and social poison—whereas what Alia does is really quite harmless.

Given the attitude about sex, I’d ask if you were American; but your inadvertent use of the word “tolleriert” (quoted above in red) indicates a native speaker of the German language.  Interesting.

Thanks.

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Indeed.  That duck-on-a-balance-scale is a suitable ordeal for assessing the guilt of the witch Lauda; for Monty Python’s standards of evidence exceed Quickseller’s non-standards of non-evidence.

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For my part, my favourite colour is red.  Well—maybe.  I won’t actually tell you, because I’m pseudonymous and that’s too personal—AAAAARRRGH!

In terms of both magnitude and quality, this is the single worst case of merit abuse anywhere on the forum.  Not only does he add no substance to the forum whatsoever:  #1076869 “pitipawn” has somehow become the current #4 on the list of “Top-merited users, all-time” by performing the “pump” part of ICOs (and you-know-what follows...).

Thank you, Betfair, for reporting this—and most of all (+5), for translating the Turkish for a sufficient proof.  I’ve had my eye on pitiprawn for awhile.  It was obvious that he was doing something questionable, at best; just the post titles alone show(ed) that he was openly soliciting merit in some fashion, even without being able to read Turkish.  But it would have been difficult to get the evidence, or even understand what his ploy was, whereas Turkish is not one of the languages in which I have sufficient facility to at least do what I call “human-guided machine translation”.

It is fitting that this was reported by someone who can read Turkish.

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Thanks.

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(Directed at Lauda:)

Of course, we will; and of course, Lauda will.

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Damn straight—and no, I don’t care if they starve.

What’s more, people susceptible to this non-argument conveniently forget that this money is drawn from the zero-sum game of pump-and-dump scamming.  All that ICO spam payola money comes from somewhere:  Bilked investors, many of whom are too naïve to really be blamed for taking the bait.  Maybe your grandmother.  Maybe some uneducated, honest working-class individual who is just trying get a little bump up on his hard-earned wages; he sees a glitzy spam ad filled with techno-babble he cannot possibly hope to understand—then winds up having food stolen out of the mouth of his children, when “pump” is inevitably followed by “dump”.

Why do the bleeding hearts never remember this?  Ah, yes:  Because they are not motivated by helping people, but only by a perverse desire to fawn with dripping empathy over trash.

Spam is spam, abuse is abuse, and that’s already more than sufficient reason to kick-ban pitiprawn and many of his spamming followers.  But it is wise to keep in the back of one’s mind the zero-sum nature of all spams and scams.  Every spammer’s and scammer’s gain is somebody else’s loss.

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Of course.  saulzaents refers to the lunatic who gave you +50 for red-tagging him, and gave me +50 for insulting him.  Either an insane masochist, or someone with a very guilty conscience—or a persecuted genius, whose actions are predicated on cosmic designs beyond the comprehension of mere mortals! /s

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I’ll chime in afterwards:  Without yeoman’s service done by you and a few others, the merit system would be totally corrupted overnight.  Since theymos said that signature campaigns will be banned if the merit system fails, that means we would lose many good posters who essentially get paid to spend all day helping people and answering technical questions on an Internet forum.  Many other good posters don’t have a paid signature—but those would also leave, because the spam problem would not be solved.  (Signature spamming is not the only type of spamming!)

If the merit system fails, the forum will implode.

So—thank you.

What is your source?  Please be advised, plagiarism is a bannable offense.  If you don’t promptly edit your post to add links to whatever source(s) you “merged” this from, then I will report you as a plagiarist so your account can be nuked.

This thread has been archived for reference.

As for the rest, it is not a matter of “opinion”.  In point of fact:  ranochigo is right, you are wrong—and if you copied that from a “trusted site”, then you trusted the wrong site.

(ranochigo didn’t even cover all the problems with your post, but I think that’s because it’s not even worthwhile.  Now I see HeRetiK hitting other points...  Not worthwhile until we see a source!)

Dang it, LoyceV, you’re too sharp!  I came to this thread to report exactly this:

[Edit:  Reported to mod for deletion, since other users are replying to it.  Archived.]

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More to the point, it shouldn’t be spam.

(I began slowly writing this earlier.  Part is made redundant by achow101’s excellent response; part is not.)


In addition to what others have said:  Believe it or not, some people do things for ideological reasons.  There are Core developers and others who have devoted huge chunks of their lives to Bitcoin, and have much less to show for it in material terms than they properly deserve.  There are people on this forum who make excellent quality posts, and receive in return via sig ads only a minute fraction of what they’d make if they were to spend the same time on commercial ventures—or receive nothing at all; some of the best posters don’t have sig ads.  (Here in this thread:  What do you think achow101’s time as spent here would be worth on the commercial market?)  And for my part, though I haven’t (yet) done much of anything for Bitcoin, I myself am much less rich than you’d guess due to my innate propensity to act for principles instead of money.

Bitcoin would not exist without people who believe in Bitcoin.  Its ancestry rose from the cypherpunk dreams of people who are ideologically driven.  It was conceived and borne forth into this world by an anonymous individual who acted only for principles, and to this day has (for whatever reason) not touched coins now worth billions of dollars.  It has been carried forward, improved, and maintained to this day by people who are primarily driven by ideology.  Some of them also make good money—some don’t, but do it anyway.

If you want to see what a “coin” looks like when its development and maintenance is driven solely by material “incentives”, look to Btrash.  That’s a good example—except that it’s a cheap knockoff which would never have existed at all, if it hadn’t been able to fork off the labours of love by people who believe in Bitcoin.


This popular testnet faucet (one of many) has a current available supply of 29436.93 testnet coins.  You get coins from the faucet, you use them to test software, and then you send leftover coins back to the faucet’s return address.

Testnet coins can be destroyed at any time.  They can be destroyed by accident, via a software bug—or the whole testnet can be destroyed intentionally.  This was the reason why we’re on Testnet3, as cannycassiopeia said.  Testnet2 was intentionally destroyed because some idiots were using testnet coins as money.

Testnet coins are mined by volunteers.  It has lower difficulty than mainnet, and a little quirk which drops the difficulty to minimum for the next block if no block is found for too long.


No, it does not act “exactly like BTC”.  The whole network can be destoyed at any time, by accident or intention.  Also, it is unlike BTC insofar as people who use BTC as money are smart, and people who use testnet coins as money are imbecilic scammers.


No.  The monetary value of testnet coins is zero.


Well, people can.  Developers can also respond to such a moronic thing by trashing the entire testnet anytime.  Then, we’d have Testnet4.


That is a scam.  Call it out as such.

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Bitcoin Core also has a regtest (regression test) mode, in which blocks can be mined instantly.  This is not a network; it is for testing and debugging code on your local machine, with a local instant-mine blockchain.  Install Core, and have fun with godlike powers creating as many disposable blockchains as you want!  Just don’t try selling any coins from them.  That would also be a scam.

Alia is /r/GirlsGoneBitcoin verified by theymos.  This is noted by theymos on her trust page; it means that theymos has verified that the person posting photos and videos is the person appearing in them.  This is her body (NSFW); so if we’re alts, then I have more elliptic curves than I hereto realized.

(Since I have also been accused of being both Lauda and Satoshi, does this mean transitively that Lauda and Satoshi are the girl in that photo?)


Well, Alia, were I your alt, then I’d be so much prettier.  Also, I would get paid to gratify myself.  Also, I would be able to gratify myself whilst receiving lessons from me in “the techy crypto stuff”.

By the way, congratulations on having invented Bitcoin!  (satoshi = nullius = alia)

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Go ahead.  We do so enjoy being watched.

(For the record, I think that you have a grudge against Alia, me, or both of us.  You grossly misrepresented Alia’s posts in another thread (discussion is halfway through the linked post).)

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I am not obligated to justify my merit award judgments; but I take pride in mine, so I will spell this out:

The first one was a reply to a post wherein somebody asked Alia for an outright sex-for-merits video deal.  Alia doesn’t do that—not with me, and not with anybody else.  She accepts money for sex videos.  She respects the merit system:  “I’d much rather you give me merit because you like my post.”  I deemed that a meritorious attitude—and I liked that post!

As Lauda noted, the latter two are from a thread titled “Ciphersex 101 [NSFW]” (soon to be continued).  There, we mix public cybersex with my lesson to her in applied cryptography.  In-context, the quoted statements are witty and sexy—thus, meritorious.

N.b. that contra the beliefs of many spammers, length of a post does not determine merit.  I once awarded actmyname +5 for a post which simply said, “ok”.⁰  Do you want to suggest that actmyname and I were abusing the merit system?  Perhaps that we are alts?

(0. In-context, that +5 “ok” post was a meritorious action:  Contemptuous dismissal of whining by a moron who got red-tagged for merit abuse.)

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It is also clear from Alia’s statements on that thread that if I were seeking a video of her for my own gratification, I could obtain that quite easily.  I’m trying to push her into making forum history, as I said in my first-contact open letter to her.  When I hit Legendary status a few years hence, I want to be able to chat with other old-timers about how Alia from /r/GirlsGoneBitcoin lost that famous merit bet against herself.  Per what you say, I do think that’s good for the forum.

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Now, this frivolous complaint by poGium has generated noise across two pages in a very important thread.  Unless someone says something which reasonably necessitates response in the same thread (defamatory, etc.), I will not be continuing this conversation here.  Take it up with me elsewhere if you want.

Lauda taught me evil incantations for summoning daemons.  I use these daemons as servants for my computing.  Here is a daemon I call “Beastie”, who currently manages much computing machinery for me:

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I do intend to someday “monetize” my account—because I like to eat, too.  My ideal plan is to build a reputation for technical prowess, then offer paid privacy and security services to complement my open-source offerings.  If that doesn’t work out, then I may someday get a signature ad from one of the more reputable campaigns which only allow high ranks, kick back, and spend time answering technical questions.

My nefarious plan is revealed!  What a “long con”.


I often do 24–36 hour posting marathons, for the purpose of helping conceal my time zone.  Otherwise, I just shift around and jet-lag my sleep schedule.

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Well, my long con does involve daemons.

Now, could we please stop talking about me?  The important issue is that Lauda is a witch!

Do you really think that “sucking up” would work with Lauda?  You’d wind up with dripping-red distrust from her instead.  Either that, or she will turn you into a newt.  No, you won’t get better.

Let’s see, what else:  A sharp wit is meritorious, yes.  It adds to the forum.  It is also true, I seem to be adept at inducing smart, interesting people to like me.  Some people might call that “earning respect and making friends”.  Awesome “forum trolling skills” I’ve got there.

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Thanks, Tyrantt.  I’m not sure; but I think that until recently, excluding the famous +50 insult post, my most highly-merited post was Bitcoin’s Public-Key Security Level.  It is now handily beaten by a few others, such as segvan: Segwit vanity address & bulk address generator; I’ve actually found that high-quality coding of open-source software which people want is the very best “merit-farming” activity.  That’s what my involvement in forum controversy is distracting me from—and my merit score would probably be at least 100 higher, if I weren’t spending time speaking out against outrageous smear campaigns.  I think three other good examples are three successive posts I made in a thread pertaining to random number generation (0, 1, 2).

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So, why are you here in this thread?


Agreed that the S/N ratio can be bad; but in Dev & Tech, it’s recently become much better.  I blame the merit system for the improvement.  As for big-blocker nonsense FUD, by the way, it is meritorious to rip apart anti-Segwit disinformation of the type promulgated by Btrashers, sometimes unfortunately repeated by people who just don’t understand the technical bits.  Vide:  Currently, “Merited by Foxpup (7), gmaxwell (3), achow101 (3), AGD (2), HeRetiK (1), CASlO (1), Manfred Macx (1)”.


I am indeed proud of that historic forum moment, whereby I became the first and only forum member to get +50 for an insult, as a shriek from the target of the insult.  But if you think that’s my “most ‘notaeble [sic]’” post, then you haven’t read much of anything that I’ve written.  Try it sometime.

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That’s some lovely trust I’m farming here:



I can attest that you are not Lauda, because you are neither me nor Satoshi, who are both Lauda.

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Now, are we talking about me, or about how Lauda is a witch who must be burnt at the stake?

Ah, yes.  Here’s the witch!


No, my friend of a friend reliable unidentified source told me that you turned him into a newt.  Whereas I myself am personally testifying that you cast a magic spell on me, enthralling me and compelling my behaviour in supporting your persecution of the poor, innocent Mr. Quickseller.

BURN THE WITCH!

Edit:  Apologies for the apparent double-post.  (There was another post here, by OgNasty, which seems to have disappeared.)


Forcing somebody into a position to deny baseless accusations is a classic smear tactic.  Quickseller’s seeks to destroy Lauda’s reputation with rumours; and his rapidfire promulgation of such smears creates a witchcraft trial atmosphere.  For Lauda to answer to him in the face of no evidence whatsoever would be an error which plays right into his hands.  By way of a subtle analogy, consider that to be like trying to use the “unsubscribe” link in a spam e-mail.

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Exactly.

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This is a not insignificant problem, as a practical matter.  Newbies and casual readers can be easily misled.  Few people are savvy enough to recognize smear tactics on the face of things; and fewer still will take the time to dig a bit through forum archives (as I did) before passing judgment, and worse, repeating rumours as hearsay.

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By the way, this thread is chock-full of cheap smear tactics.  For an instructive example of a smear directed not at Lauda, but rather at an uninvolved person just because of her being (more than) friendly with me, namely Alia:


Listing “she wants to buy drugs” between online transactions is a gross misrepresentation:  It insinuates that she wanted to buy drugs online.  A link to the pertinent thread is conveniently omitted, such that readers can’t easily assess for themselves.

In the thread where she asked about drugs, the second sentence of Alia’s OP starts, “Never tried them” (drugs).  She said that she intends to travel somewhere that the drugs in question are legal, so as to try them for the first time (and planning to try only once) for the “experience”.  There is explicit discussion between her and others of “tourist destinations”; Amsterdam is mentioned.

So, on the face of the matter, we’re talking about a 19-year-old who has never tried drugs and is curious about them.  That’s it.  (How many 19-year-olds have never tried drugs, including marijuana?)

I myself am strictly against drugs.  I’d never have anything to do with an addict or regular user.  I popped into her thread, and explained in brief why I think it’s a bad idea—even if the intention is to try only once.  She seems open-minded and thoughtful about the matter.  I guess she’ll think it over and decide what she wants.

Strictly speaking, this is off-topic; I therefore will not bother to dissect several other material misrepresentations in the same post.  But it is necessary that a really horrible smear be debunked:  How many people read that, and inferred that Alia was buying drugs online?  I would have, if I had not already known what that thread actually said.  This also serves as a neatly illustrative example of how smears can work; and smears are not only on-topic, but the whole topic of this thread.

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Thus spake the Master Ethical Mature Expert who believes that a signature containing a sarcasm tag, a forum rules link, and a scam notice can be somehow paid in a roundabout way.  You have no credibility for intellect, let alone for integrity; you don’t even get three “blahs” from me.  Shoo.

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I admit, I am being paid under the table by the popcorn cartel—and so must be Quickseller.  Wait a minute.  Does that mean I may be a Quickseller alt?  Please excuse me whilst I bathe in bleach.

Thanks.  Excellent.  Meritorious, even (will do later).

I’m glad you uploaded a large version.  It is better to have source material which can be resized.

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Well, we already have a self-nominated tribunal for trying Lauda on charges for what seems like almost every crime which has ever been invented.  The tribunal’s name is Quickseller, plus alts and fellow scammers for a quorum.  I think that this tribunal is fully competent to pass judgment and punishment on my charge that Lauda has committed witchcraft.

I think a more urgent question is what type of “ordeal” (i.e. torture) to use to extract a confession.  I suggest the ordeal of the smear:  Lauda shall be subjected to nonstop bombardment with baseless smear accusations, until she confesses to witchcraft.  (Conveniently, this soaks up much of the time she would otherwise use to crack down on spammers and scammers.  Cui bono?)

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Well, I see I hit the mark insofar as my OP said a humble bit about Lauda, and much more about you.

By the way, whenever have I suffered daily accusations of being a liar?  Unless you are still claiming that I am Lauda; which is it today?

If you want to start subjecting me to the Lauda treatment, go right ahead.  I’ve got no reason to even respond, unless I find it sufficiently amusing to do so.  Take your best shot.  If today I stand accused that my vocal opposition to a despicable smear campaign has distracted for the past few days from Dev & Tech and my Github projects, well—I’ll admit to that one.  You got me there!  Let’s see what you come up with tomorrow.