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[TheFascistMind]

Perception defines reality.

Did the tree fall in the forest if I never saw it and it decomposed before I got there? In my reality it never existed.

[TheFascistMind]

As for "weighing in on Zoid," I fail to see what that has to do with anything. They are free to comment on anything or anyone they like, as are you or me.

Was a design decision not made to not adopt BBR's compression.

Humans gain confidence by herding, especially when subjective decisions are involved. The decision was likely made so no one would have to admit BBR did something innovative first (note I realize the utility of that innovation is arguable). Then all of your herded together to reaffirm it to yourselves.

Of course you will spin it in your mind as not being so. And I am prone to seeing it another way.

[TheFascistMind]

As for "weighing in on Zoid," I fail to see what that has to do with anything. They are free to comment on anything or anyone they like, as are you or me.

Was a design decision not made to not adopt BBR's compression.

Humans gain confidence by herding, especially when subjective decisions are involved. The decision was likely made so no one would have to admit BBR did something innovative first (note I realize the utility of that innovation is arguable). Then all of your herded together to reaffirm it to yourselves.

Of course you will spin it in your mind as not being so. And I am prone to seeing it another way.

What I mean is that when you have a large volume of investment saying "yeah we support that design decision", it is reaffirms what was somewhat dubious and subjective.

Groupthink has an inertia once it gains momentum.

[black_jesus]

So with out further a do here is your leaders grand Monero wisdom..

If you are referring to reptilia he has no leadership role with Monero. He runs the MEW group he started and is essentially a user group, but other than that he is just a user like anyone else (though certainly a vocal and opinionated one, for better or worse).

Seriously, ROFL

rpietila IS heavily invested in Monero and as a result is influential.


~BCX~

Sometimes you have to edit what this clown writes, I gave it a shot.  Either he has problems thinking things through first, or he's deliberately vague to appear more intelligent (as in he tricked you).  Either can explain why he always seems to need to point out an alternate way to interpret something he wrote before.  

No you retard there was nothing missing from my post.

Your editing did nothing but change intended meaning.

What I originally posted still stands.


~BCX~

Seriously, ROFL

rpietila IS Monero


~BCX~

Oh, then you're just wrong.  Or deliberately vague.  Which one this time?

[smooth]

As for "weighing in on Zoid," I fail to see what that has to do with anything. They are free to comment on anything or anyone they like, as are you or me.

Was a design decision not made to not adopt BBR's compression.

Wow, that is about the worst example you could come up with. You know as well as I do that rpteilla couldn't explain that feature good or bad if his life depended on it.

We have added patches from BBR when it has made sense to do so. On multiple occasions, and will do so in the future. Some user-visible features from BBR will likely be adopted in the future. Though probably not that one because we don't buy into the tiny constant factor benefit as important enough to give up verifabilty, and also, as i've explained before, we know how to do much more effective pruning (for when it matters, if that ever happens).

The decision was likely made so no one would have to admit BBR did something innovative first

Wrong again, and again, if you want to discuss something you are certainly ignorant about, you should ask questions instead of assuming you know something you are actually entirely ignorant about.

What actually happened is that I suggested we consider adopting that feature. Tacotime was strongly opposed to it because of the change to the trust model. We hashed things over quite a bit, I considered his points, as well as the extremely limited benefit (as you now acknowledge), and decided that he was right and I was wrong. No one was unwilling to admit that BBR did something innovative. We considered it, evaluated the technical merits (and also the effort to actually merge the code and adequately test, which is somewhat non-trivial), and decided against it.

"yeah we support that design decision"

You obviously have no real experience in this area. For one thing, they don't say that because they don't understand or pay attention to design issues closely enough to do so, if at all, and for another, if they did, we would still dismiss such comment from "investors" as not interesting. By contrast, we do pay attention when you or Zoidberg or other knowledgable people offer technical feedback. See how this works?

[BitcoinEXpress]

Oh, then you're just wrong.  Or deliberately vague.  Which one this time?

Neither just posting above your comprehension level.


~BCX~

[TheFascistMind]

limited by the dynamic headroom of the initial innovation.

i do agree with this.  however it is much more normal for genuis inventions to be ruined by lack of adoption, maintenance, and improvement than it is for inventions to be limited by technological factors they did not originally take into consideration.

in fact often it is the improvements that raise the ceiling beyond what the original invention had.  

in a specific case there are examples - but the majority of failures rest on those three things IMO

The headroom is not knowable in advance. TFM frequently contradicts himself on this. He ignores the true wisdom of the bazaar.

robinwilliams, the Taleb distribution argues that the long-tails are more valuable. The internet was a long-tail. AOL and other networks were refined but the internet was zillions times more valuable in the end.

smooth, you missed my point which is that headroom is limited by the initial design decisions that can no longer be discarded. Whether it is estimable or not is irrelevant to my point about declining headroom each time a design decision is ratified and locked in stone due to political forces.

I have never stated I didn't want XMR to improve and even been actively trying to help it happen! What I called BS on, is this delusion about reality.

i feel the entire cryptocurrency world is majorly screwed and nobody is for sure what will work because it's unprecedented (except for tulip bulbs & beenie babies).   So sometimes we reference technology & sometimes we reference currencies and just pull stuff out of our ass that sounds good to us at the time.  

but none of us really have a fucking clue (or that's what i feel like sometimes)

From my perspective based on what I know (some has been shared publicly and some not), we might be screwed because we are moving too slow towards the major paradigm shifts needed.

For example, no one has solved the mining centralization dilemma yet.

And more importantly, the fiat world is rapidly moving to offer the 7 billion electronic payments, thus our potential market is being pulled from us.

[TheFascistMind]

As for "weighing in on Zoid," I fail to see what that has to do with anything. They are free to comment on anything or anyone they like, as are you or me.

Was a design decision not made to not adopt BBR's compression.

Wow, that is about the worst example you could come up with. You know as well as I do that rpteilla couldn't explain that feature good or bad if his life depended on it.

We have added patches from BBR when it has made sense to do so. On multiple occasions, and will do so in the future. Some user-visible features from BBR will likely be adopted in the future. Though probably not that one because we don't buy into the tiny constant factor benefit as important enough to give up verifabilty, and also, as i've explained before, we know how to do much more effective pruning.

"yeah we support that design decision"

You obviously have no real experience in this area. For one thing, they don't say that because they don't understand or pay attention to design issues closely enough to do so, if at all, and for another, if they did, we would still dismiss such comment from "investors" as not interesting. By contrast, we do pay attention when you or Zoidberg or other knowledgable people offer technical feedback. See how that works?

One truth about the inertia of groupthink, is that the participants can't even admit they are subject to it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink

Your mistake is you think rpietila has to be involved in the design of a feature or decision to have influence on affirming that decision. In fact if developers are aware of the basic principles of key members of the community, those members can implicitly influence design decisions.

[nioc]

Oh, then you're just wrong.  Or deliberately vague.  Which one this time?

Neither just posting above your comprehension level.


~BCX~

How come there are no fortunes in fortune cookies?

[Spoetnik]

Oh, then you're just wrong.  Or deliberately vague.  Which one this time?

Neither just posting above your comprehension level.


~BCX~

How come there are no fortunes in fortune cookies?

shouldn't you be asking TheFascistMind and Smooth ?

[TheFascistMind]

I want to stop arguing this.

I feel there is too much inertia in XMR for it to quickly morph into the currency for the masses which is not fiat and doesn't have a centralized mining future.

Too much investment and political discussions, not enough geeky technology discussions.

I went on the XMR developer channel, and I didn't see any interest in discussing deep theoretical issues. All I saw was fluffypony and others going over nitty details about code.

I understand you've got to work on those details. I think that is where your focus is now and also on managing the  investment and political side.

Looks like that should keep you guys occupied for a while.

Paradigm shifts require focus. Yeah code has to be written and tested. Life is a bitch.

Over and out.

[nioc]

How come there are no fortunes in fortune cookies?

There is if you have the vision to see it.


~BCX~

An 11 year old pointed out to me that what is in fortune cookies are actually statements.

[smooth]

One truth about the inertia of groupthink, is that the participants can't even admit they are subject to it:

How convenient!

What about non-participants with zero access to the relevant facts, experiences, and decision making process?

Hey, I have a cool idea. Let's trade pop-psych wikipeida links. Here's one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overconfidence_effect

and a bonus!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

The mistake you make is thinking (and with extreme misplaced confidence) that you understand the actual dynamics, when you don't.

[NewLiberty]

The distributed checkpointing allows for the ability to get all the honest nodes back to work even if there is a novel form of attack based on any type of chain forking attack, not just the TW, and further allows for self service of the solution.

I don't understand how decentralized checkpointing can work because if you don't put them on the block chain, then there is no decentralized record, and nodes don't know if they are part of the majority otherwise. If you put them on the block chain, they can be unwound by an attack.

Do you mean centrally issued checkpoints?

This novel attack was contemplated when searching for any way a TW attack could have any effect at all.
It was considered in the solution offered within the 72 hour "first threat window".

Kudos. My understanding of TW was too immature back then. I am catching up.

Thank you, I played a small role in that.

The checkpoints may be issued centrally or not.  Checkpoints are not put on the block chain.  The decentralized record exists in the same systems that the block chain exists, on the miner systems, but not in the block chain.  To say that makes it not a decentralized record, strikes me as strange.

If they are issued centrally, then it means the coin is not autonomously decentralized. It is antithetical to TacoTime's upthread paranoia about BBR's compression by discarding ring proofs, wherein the only known vulnerability if is the developers can't be trusted and would plant bugs in the open source.

If they are issued by each miner taking a snapshot independently, then as I wrote before, no miner knows if it is part of the majority thus the only way to find out is to attempt to publish a block and see if it stays in the longest fork. Thus independently captured checkpoints works if all clients independently reorganize (rewind) a fork and then vote using PoW. But that is not what you are talking about here. You are talking about the centralized developers issuing an instruction to rewind to a checkpoint and all miners following the instruction because they have copy of the checkpoint. Thus this is really paragraph #1 above.

Essentially, both.  They can be issued by anyone, or by no one but the miner implementing it.  Historically always before they have been by the dev teams and compiled into the code.  This change allow them to be more easily implemented by the miners without going into the source, editing, recompiling (which truthfully many miners are not likely to do).  If someone has a good checkpoint, they can implement it themself, and if others need, it can be easily shared.

In a case of a PoW based attack such as TW, it is less important that a miner know whether it is part of the majority (which as you point out, they can't know).  It IS important that they be on a chain of which they approve.  The miners are in control of the block chain.  Keep in mind that checkpoints become useful when the majority may not even be the preferred/approved chain.  It is an unusual case, and we hope never needed.  

Adding checkpoints is a human intervention, and always has been.

Exactly, thus they are paragraph #1 above.

It is really a blend of the 2.  Miners could always implement them themself.  They just never did because it was hard.  This makes it easier.

And remember my point was that if the transaction activity gets too mixed into a Gordian knot on the attacker's fork, then there might be considerable human political resistance to unwinding that bad fork.

Thus although checkpoints could aid a centralized recovery, we must note they may not always work in every scenario.

Given Monero's very low tx rate, the Gordian knot is unlikely.

There may be automations added to further reduce the efforts, and I am aware of some that have been discussed by the XMR dev team, but thanks to the BCX threat, Monero remains the current leader in defenses against this sort of attack.

The unpublished thing I mentioned to smooth is where I have worked through that logic about automation and I can assure you that reorganizing from longish forks (whether an attack or naturally induced) can not be automated. The only decision you can make is to let the longest fork win and destroy instantly all the conflicting value in the shorter fork, or you can put a maximum fork length rule so that the two forks live on simultaneously and the market decides how to value them.

The TX rate may not always be low, but the more TX there are, and the more secure the network becomes, the less likely there is a PoW attack successful.

The point of automation is that it reduces the length of the fork one needs to unwind.  The quicker the effort is accomplished, the shorter the fork.

[TheFascistMind]

Hey, I have a cool idea. Let's trade pop-psych wikipeida links.

You can apply this one to me too if you wish.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

Smooth btw, I feel no animosity towards you at all. Cheers bro.

[smooth]

Smooth btw, I feel no animosity towards you at all. Cheers bro.

Likewise. I'm always happy to discuss interesting technical topics with you.

[smooth]

Keep in mind that checkpoints become useful when the majority may not even be the preferred/approved chain.  It is an unusual case, and we hope never needed.  

There is a very good reason for this. The longest chain rule only creates a consensus of miners. But cryptocurrency is actually a consensus of all participants as discussed, somewhat, here: http://hackingdistributed.com/2014/06/19/bitcoin-and-voting-power/

In addition to addressing some technical issues of efficiency, checkpoints are also a way for the non-mining participants to exercise some of their voting power as economic participants. Usually this is done by proxy through the developers, but as NewLiberty explains, that is not necessary or inevitable.

[black_jesus]

Oh, then you're just wrong.  Or deliberately vague.  Which one this time?

Neither just posting above your comprehension level.


~BCX~

You can apply this one to me too if you wish.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

Smooth btw, I feel no animosity towards you at all. Cheers bro.

That one goes here.

[Spoetnik]

One truth about the inertia of groupthink, is that the participants can't even admit they are subject to it:

How convenient!

What about non-participants with zero access to the relevant facts, experiences, and decision making process?

Hey, I have a cool idea. Let's trade pop-psych wikipeida links. Here's one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overconfidence_effect

and a bonus!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

The mistake you make is thinking (and with extreme misplaced confidence) that you understand the actual dynamics, when you don't.

i found more information at the following two links than i did in the last 100 pages if you two guys babbling on..

www.ratemypoo.com
http://meatspin.com

oh and didn't you hear ?
Wikipedia is not 100% accurate at all times there for using it as a reference is not possible..
The same argument is commonly applied to Coindesk.. they are biased so all their news is....

[TheFascistMind]

Keep in mind that checkpoints become useful when the majority may not even be the preferred/approved chain.  It is an unusual case, and we hope never needed.  

There is a very good reason for this. The longest chain rule only creates a consensus of miners. But cryptocurrency is actually a consensus of all participants as discussed, somewhat, here: http://hackingdistributed.com/2014/06/19/bitcoin-and-voting-power/

In addition to addressing some technical issues of efficiency, checkpoints are also a way for the non-mining participants to exercise some of their voting power as economic participants. Usually this is done by proxy through the developers, but as NewLiberty explains, that is not necessary or inevitable.

Thanks for teaching me why I now hate checkpoints. They could be an insidious vulnerability for the fiat politics to take over the PoW decentralization!