mircea_popescu: if the russians invade alaska the us citizenry would flock there mostly to tweet about it
decimation: in a duel, you can be certain about the death of the enemy; not so much against the nuclear triad
mircea_popescu: the ukrainians called a general mobilisation, nobody showed.
decimation: like in what respect would the us free of cities be valuable?
mircea_popescu: extracts the jokes
mircea_popescu: that's the chief value of retrospect
asciilifeform: the folks who originally built these things weren't hoping to conquer anything. they were satisfied with the idea of: glass parking lots, free of untermenschen.
decimation: well, the other point is that if the goal of your war is to capture the enemy's resources, destroying those brains in the cities is the way to defeat your own purpose
asciilifeform: primary was shaped in such a way that it needed 1) the explosive compression and, 2) a certain blast from neutron generator tube - to pop - and (2) would vary in strength based on background
mircea_popescu: and the thing with megalopolis-oi. cairo yes, cause it's shit. but most modern people live spaced out.
asciilifeform: neutrons from neighbouring blasts would prematurely pop the fissile initiator of a given piece
asciilifeform: why boil the sea. so wasteful. let's do 'great lakes.'
decimation: this article has a pretty good map http://theaviationist.com/2014/03/22/satellite-china-new-debris/
mircea_popescu: and this if you roughly know the direction. if you don't....
mircea_popescu: like the problem of finding that plane : it only flew what, 500 miles ?
mircea_popescu: but fundamentally : every mile you walk adds more than a square mile to the area you've covered.
asciilifeform: not the napalm per se
asciilifeform: the fuel in a 'fire job' (as curtis lemay called it) is the kindling you blast the buildings into during the prelude
mircea_popescu: the problem is surface, for both of you.
decimation: carpet bombing with napalm would probably be far worse for the average citizen than a nuke going off
mircea_popescu: and as the countries spending billions on them like the people to continue to believe.
mircea_popescu: as long as nobody uses them it's "those incredibly, exceedingly, unrepresentably powerful weapons". after a dozen or so pop it's like... those very expensive, inaccurate things.
mircea_popescu: this works across the board, currently the biggest deterrent to nuclear detonation isn't a bunch of fucktarded chicks that drink tea and blather like sheep. it's simply the desire on all parties that invested billions in these things to avoid proving to the general public that... big fucking deal.
mircea_popescu: if you've never been punched in the face your reptillian brain builds this thing into an endless colossus. if you have, whatever. maybe you lose a tooth, your lip gets swollen. so what of it ?
mircea_popescu: it doesn't even have to be all that present, but human beings need experiences, and a balanced diet thereof.
mircea_popescu: experience, direct experience, remains the best cure for mental dysfunction.
mircea_popescu: apparently you can't get a fetish going if you get to see the actual object, in all its nude glory.
mircea_popescu: kid regularly beaten is not affraid of the world.
decimation: somehow the risk aversion circuit has gone haywire?
mircea_popescu: kids would love them
mircea_popescu: meanwhile they play dice for a 2% house edge. that's okay.
decimation: it does seem that paranoia is the mood of our age
mircea_popescu: i mean, even in the middle of an armed rebellion/invasion your chances to be plugged are what, 1% ?
asciilifeform: in their guarded enclaves?
mircea_popescu: i wonder how they manage to brush teeth.
mircea_popescu: there's this generation of nuts that fears its own shadow. cops ? hoprrible. the sec ? omaigawd. black kids ? HALP HALP
mircea_popescu: i dunno why this fear of other people seriously.
asciilifeform: a common criticism of mr moldy (whose every published word, to my shame, i read) is that his entire philosophy seems to reduce to 'the crown exists to guard my suburban house against evil ape men'
mircea_popescu: even if you don't make either your life calling.
asciilifeform: but re: society and 'hormesis' of theft
decimation: if it is a switching supply and your generator puts out crap AC, you might ruin the dc supply
decimation: The goal of formalism is to avoid this unpleasant little detour. Formalism says: let's figure out exactly who has what, now, and give them a little fancy certificate. Let's not get into who should have what. Because, like it or not, this is simply a recipe for more violence. It is very hard to come up with a rule that explains why the Palestinians should get Haifa back, and doesn't explain why the Welsh should get London back
decimation: <<mircea_popescu: "underserved" and "unearned" income are exactly the cornerstone of productive economic activity. >> moldbug's solution: formalism http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.ca/2007/04/formalist-manifesto-originally-posted.html
mircea_popescu: dub forget that part, that's easy. ever tried to talk to the beast after she's been rubbed raw on marble for half hour ?
Diablo-D3: but I thought the point of a pool table was to throw a woman on it and fuck her
dub: its to get away from the woman
mircea_popescu: "o ya, you're really living it large dude. the whole point of a pool table is to keep it in a cellar."
mircea_popescu: my mind boggles when i visit someone and they have shit like a pool table in the basement
ninjashogun: pretty interesting link - http://blogmaverick.com/2009/02/09/the-mark-cuban-stimulus-plan-open-source-funding/ --- but the interesting part is the comments! scroll down.
decimation: even worse; finished with mold-gathering carpet
asciilifeform: my mind always boggles when i visit somebody's gigantic house and there's no heavy, oily strange in the basement
asciilifeform: that's actually pretty close to the traditional recipe:
decimation: dump a concrete block in the ground, build a building around it, isolated with air gap
asciilifeform: 1 of these days i too will purchase an enormous stone plinth. always wanted one, holography table
mircea_popescu: yeah well, what do they know.
mircea_popescu: actually all the good boards i've seen are stone
asciilifeform: all i personally have is a very thoroughly weathered (from abuse as a student) magnetic board.
asciilifeform: (the stones, traditionally, are glass and very slippery. so surface gotta be level.)
decimation: there is much art to drying wood without warping
asciilifeform: it's surprisingly hard to find a breed of wood that comes in the requisite monolithic piece and never - ever - warps.
decimation: the trick is drying and finishing
asciilifeform: my brother. he didn't pay 100k though
diametric: they just started accepting bitcoin
asciilifeform: (i once took a great interest in the subject of head-mounted displays)
asciilifeform: the 'hard part' of this kind of display is - driving it
mircea_popescu: so how are they made, just packed tighter ?
diametric: mircea_popescu: oppo has the only phone on the market currently running cyanogen that's been certified by google as well
hdbuck: im really trying to grasp what happened with the massive PUT orders in early feb. MP's feb report mentioned his ability to stand for the sake of bitcoin, and being well connected, etc... But who was on the other side? Why such orders in bulk at this given period? :/
diametric: possibly, it also reminds me of when someone wins at something, people immediately assume they cheated somehow because they themselves didn't win.
cazalla: If you put ones ego aside for a moment, there is a lot you can learn, at least that has been my experience to date
cazalla: diametric: I think the dislike might come from feeling inferior due to the conversations here
CheckDavid: You are away being them :)
mircea_popescu: the more likely explanation is probably that they're not actually as smart as they see themsekves.
mircea_popescu: the convenient explanation being that they're exposed scammers/shills with a bone for pr.
cazalla: I'm your average person, can't keep up with some of the conversation here, need to go and google words for definitions and so forth but I'm here (got started in Bitcoin nov 2012) so I would expect others who are average to start turning up as I have
diametric: and by association they've linked this channel to scammers
diametric: there is a surprisingly amount of people that really dislike mircea_popescu. I've encountered a few that proclaim he's a scammer, but when questioned on what scam specifically they fail to give details.
cazalla: given it takes a year to go through the /r/bitcoin and bitcointalk wringer, i am thinking most end up here after some time and not straight off thet bat
mircea_popescu: curious which is the first hip hop artist to make it here.
hdbuck: a joke taht had kept you busy for the last couple of years
mircea_popescu: that aside, bitcoin will outlive the dollar, in which sense any arbitrary price point will be reached eventually.
hdbuck: i saw your first post on the btcforum was: "I'm pretty convinced we will see 1mn$ / BTC at some future point" havent changed your mind so far? ^^
mircea_popescu: my cock really doesn't taste as bad as people tell themselves.
mircea_popescu: it's starting to drive the girl nuts, for one.
mircea_popescu: rather than this current "pick bugs off the floor put them, in the bucket whence they run back out" thing we've been doing for the past three years
mircea_popescu: who knows, maybe the sec finally decides to stop dicking around and we get some scams actually blown open properly,
mircea_popescu: well who knows the future eh ?
hdbuck: mircea_popescu, could you please enlighten me regarding what is actually going to happen in bitcoinland? i mean, all that junk going on with the BTCFoundation, the heists, the banks, the whole damn world? what to expect if not some shitstorm lies and persecutions?
mircea_popescu: <mpoe-pr> there's a thread there for movie recommendations. forum people. recommending movies to each other. can you imagine the horror? cause it's worse than you imagine.
mircea_popescu: <mpoe-pr> you're aware that there's this bitcoin forum that i work on every day. and on this forum, there are sub-forums. and one of these is off-topic.
hdbuck: what?! they havent had add Karpeles to that list yet? ^^
mircea_popescu: "The sooner this community gets rid of these stains/schemes currently tainting the innovative and revolutionary world of bitcoin which they are piggybacking, the sooner we will make progress."
hdbuck: the scammer
mircea_popescu: you don't read the forum much i take it.
benkay: i was under the impression that 2% was an outrageous return in btc.
mircea_popescu: speaking of which, the berkshire bitbet is something else
mircea_popescu: i'd take two years there
benkay: i've been looking for fb puts on the same scale.
benkay: i start to understand the furor over QE ca 2007
ninjashogun: mircea_popescu, madoff chose a return that was set not to be "too good to be true" while working more on giving the appearance of very low baked-in risk. He did not give out returns that made anyone wealthy - he was just very consistent about it.
mircea_popescu: (the 25 year graph makes it quite plain)
mircea_popescu: i thought i was the only cool one.
mircea_popescu: Mats_cd03 the ^OEX, ie standard and poor 100, is the index of us stocks. which supposedly have been moving like it's animated by the gosplan
benkay: nice steady rate of inflation in the usd?
mircea_popescu: its the ^OEX chart, 5 years, weekly
mircea_popescu: so the city is responsible huh ?
mircea_popescu: pretty much the only way kids and senile old people have of causing serious trouble
Mats_cd03: is this something you can only experience in the dreaded lubyanka
ozbot: The risk compensation theory and bicycle helmets -- Adams and Hillman 7 (2): 89 -- Injury Prevention
asciilifeform: this is quite like the one i saw.
ozbot: Forbidden Hillcrest, The Sewer Robots of Pulaski County
asciilifeform: http://forbiddenhillcrest.tumblr.com/post/4322296903/the-sewer-robots-of-pulaski-county
ninjashogun: benkay - I think you miss the point. Valuation literally, bydefinition, is value.
asciilifeform: your heart, liver, corneas have a valuation. ask the chinese. anybody paid yet/
benkay: you miss the point again.
ninjashogun: It's the difference between "How can I help you get from a $500K nominal valuation - your last round - to $10M" and "Wait, you're not taking a salary? Why don't you just go on welfare?" -- this channel above :)
mircea_popescu: decimation and if there's a gas explosion everyone gets unfriended ?
mircea_popescu: i wonder if real rats ever tried to mate with them
asciilifeform looks for and fails to find the old article on robotic rats used to run wire through sewer pipes
decimation: spam the shortwave spectrum for a few megabits
mircea_popescu: "send emails over your farts! it's great for the environment and ok for your wallpaper"
asciilifeform: i had a dream as a kid where me modem (old at&t 'paragon' fished from a skip) was a gas modem, and i forgot to turn off the gas
ninjashogun: Mats_cd03, very humbly, perhaps people here may benefit from a bit more experience with them.
Mats_cd03: i think youve spent too much time drinking the silicon valley koolaid
ninjashogun: Mats_cd03, honestly I clearly have given this channel way too much access to what I'm doing already. There's a reason stealth mode startups operate in that way.
ninjashogun: Mats_cd03, it was called "don't feed the trolls" and we sold custom consulting services that consisted of "Don't feed the trolls". Hope this answers your question.
Mats_cd03: thats cool, what was the service or good being sold
Mats_cd03: your knowledge of how other startups work is impressive
ninjashogun: decimation, as I mentioned before we are at the pre-financing stage - the startup is not raising money right now. I know a lot of stories of people who built great things with burn rates near $0. Airbnb is now closing a round at $10B. They sold cereal to launch.
mircea_popescu: in other news
asciilifeform: in safety engineering, there is a concept where precautions that annoy people and get in the way of work tend to make construction workers, oil prospectors, etc. worse off
benkay: you're incapable of even convincing the government to pay your welfare.
benkay: i think there's a good reason society's locked you up in a 100/mo shithole, sir.
benkay: seems as though you're the only one.
ninjashogun: benkay, and I understand the Risk Compensation argument deeply and with nuance.
ninjashogun: benkay, a variation on one of the known methods.
ninjashogun: benkay - through the methods other people have alreayd suggested (or something similar) to asciilifeform.
ninjashogun: benkay, that's not true. Some trolls are happy to troll and tell you they're trolling.
benkay: mircea_popescu: tib's my thesis here.
benkay: ninjashogun: how would you make the key less accesible to an attacker?
mircea_popescu: o the shogun guy. ya well...
asciilifeform: decimation: that's the most charitable explanation.
ninjashogun: Apocalyptic, I am trying to understand the architectural trade-offs in the Cardano, and, specifically, why the private key MUST be stored in the plain with no mitigation against loss. (Except key revocation, if the user is aware of it). Why it has to be "fail-dangerous" and not "fail-90% dangeorus"
decimation: he's a high-functioning troll, as best as anyone can gather
ninjashogun: asciilifeform, if only one tenth of thefts actually resulted in the key becoming known to the thief - would there be exactly ten times as many thefts as a result?
ninjashogun: asciilifeform, for example if you introduced an architectural change that, as a direct result, meant half of thefts did not result in key becoming accessible to thief - would there be instantly twice as many thefts as a result?
decimation: can you propose such a technology? a spike in the steering wheel is not such a precaution.
ninjashogun: So, if we know, for sure, that in some cases Cardanos will be lost or stolen - is it possible that an architectural change MAY make the Cardano more secure oerall by reducing the immediate fallout from these cases?
ozbot: Shall be Delivered | The Whet
ninjashogun: (asciilifeform had an example of how soviet submarines did not self-regulate their nuclear reactors but always had a person in the loop, who therefore understood the gravity of his situatoin.)
ninjashogun: asciilifeform, it is a good question because in the case of the Soviety Submarines, it is possible that none will ever melt down due to user error, ever.
mircea_popescu: they did
asciilifeform: so the effort would be wasted.
asciilifeform: likewise, if i applied some magical seal (assume one exists) the buyer is unable to dissect his unit without losing it
asciilifeform: the only seal that is worth anything at all is a custom, preferably invisible one (e.g. perfume, specks of dust) applied by the owner.
benkay: if you can't guarantee physical security, the device is useless.
benkay: ninjashogun: that's the whole point of "you guarantee physical security, cardano guarantees electrical security."
benkay: sign the cardano key with your master key, and revoke it when you lose it.
ninjashogun: So under the current Cardano architecture, there is 0 mitigation for even accidental loss, or theft. There is no pass phrase that is possible without rewriting the firmware yourself.
benkay: don't you understand the importance of capturing markets with shoddy products asciilifeform?!
asciilifeform: in my earlier conversation with ninjashogun, i tried to explain the concept of only solving technical problems that can be solved -well-.
benkay: if the users of the cardano need the key printed on the outside to incentivize them to treat it carefully, those are the wrong customers for NSA.
ninjashogun: even though it would cause people to treat their Cardano's in a slightly more coveted manner.
ninjashogun: benkay, yes it's just a thought experiment. Clearly to SOME extent people would treat their cardano's slightly more securely physically if the printed key were on it.
benkay: or are you proposing abandoning the fry operation, ninjashogun?
ninjashogun: asciilifeform, so, how do we determine the difference between Steering Wheel Spike - print the private key on the Cardano for anyone to see - and genuinely sound decisions added for gravity?
benkay: how does this printed key work with the "fry" switch?
ninjashogun: "or there is no way not to do this"*
ninjashogun: asciilifeform, in this hypothesis, clearly it would make the Cardano MUCH safer to physically print the private key on it (ascii-padded) on a piece of paper that is folded a single time and taped to the Cardano. If users MUST do this or there is no way to do this, they will treat the Cardano much more safely.
mircea_popescu: yet versace purse makers intimately understand why cheap chinese knockoffs are their problem
ninjashogun: asciilifeform - let's change the approach slightly. Suppose that the "risk compensation effect" were 500x, and the SLIGHTEST reduction in risk will be compensated 500x by risky behavior.
gribble: Project Eldest Son - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Eldest_Son>; Project Eldest Son – The U.S. Scheme to Sabotage Charlie's Rifles |: <http://militaryhistorynow.com/2013/11/15/project-eldest-son-the-secret-u-s-scheme-to-sabotage-charlies-ammo/>; Project Eldest Son: Covert Ammo Sabotage in Vietnam | Field ...: (1 more message)
asciilifeform: before you laugh, the americans actually did this to the vietnamese on a few occasions
ninjashogun: Both map to STD's. Both reducing the threat vector back to the PC, and reducing the immediate loss without any effort on the part of the enemy, will increase risky behavior.
ninjashogun: decimation, i.e. if it has been in adversary's hands, the result is obviously 0% integrity. What else is the result? I identified a couple of results to asciilifeform (including threat verctor back to PC should it be replaced without the Owner's knowledge)
ninjashogun: decimation, the example is actually not about integrity. :)
decimation: well, then how does checking for std's map to this?
ninjashogun: Integrity is, obviously, right out the window.
decimation: there's no method to gaurantee the integrity of any device that could have been in the enemy's hands
asciilifeform: in the event of loss
asciilifeform: it is absolutely crucial that a cardano owner fully understand the gravity of his situation
ninjashogun: decimation, so this relates to an architectural discussion I had with asciilifeform on it. Specifically, a very GOOD reason not to include ANY second factor, not even the most trivial one (such as not writing your name and bitcoin address on the Cardano) is because any second factor will INCREASE the risky behavior in its users.
ninjashogun: he said that the only thing is that it's a bad, cheap laptoop
decimation: ninjashogun are you saying that if the enemy possesses your cardano, then it is suspect?
ninjashogun: by deep check I mean you can get to know them deeply, even run medical tests, as well as trust their behavior on a deep level, as you do with your brothers and sisters for example.
ninjashogun: (I mean, for example, in theory you can do a deep check on all of your partners and KNOW they have no STD's and also don't sleep with anyone else othre than you. Condom use lets you have some protection in cases where this isn't done.)
ninjashogun: But I don't think the Risk Compensation argument is effective against condom use.
ninjashogun: For example, it is doubtless true that people who use condoms will have sex in some situations (with unknown partners they're not really sure of) that they wouldn't otherwise.
ninjashogun: I thought about some of the architectural things you point out re cardano. As a practical question, how do we determine the limits of risk compensation arguments?
asciilifeform: always neglected is the question of wtf means 'earned.' i.e. the fellow who faithfully sits through traffic and warms a chair for 8hr/day moving paper from one pile to another, in the popular imagination, 'earns' something.
mircea_popescu: they are as much a part of life as hot water and kitchen appliances, and moreover prerequisite to both.
mircea_popescu: "underserved" and "unearned" income are exactly the cornerstone of productive economic activity.
mircea_popescu: benkay incidentally, this approach also illustrates what exactly the current "privilege" discussion spearheaded by the socialists is, and why exactly it is braindamaged.
ninjashogun: the main reason is that when it takes a minute or to do something, you take more time with it. Same if thre's a physical good. It's why moleskine notebooks contain better diagrams and sketches than legal pads do.
decimation: the fact that she might spider through electronic rather than physical files changes nothing
gribble: The operation succeeded.
mircea_popescu: anyway, let's do the world a favor here
mircea_popescu: not she who can take out the pancreas, make a liver out of it and pluck it back in.
mircea_popescu: to this day the most respected woman on a hospital floor is she who knows where the binder goes.
mircea_popescu: the reason is that do you have any idea what a spider monkey capable of navigating those filing cabinets is worth ?
mircea_popescu: the one affront an old lion could never forget, let alone forgive, would be hiring his secretary away.
mircea_popescu: you clearly haven't been in business in the old days.
decimation: and why are they "too rich" to simply rely on secretaries and file cabinets? fiat loans, fiat bills, fiat life
decimation: understand and model their own processes but too rich to simply
decimation: ?SAP is the best thing that ever happened to
mircea_popescu: but provided you're any good the end result is so far out of proportion to the original that your net negative becomes a rounding error.
benkay: mistresses i get, mircea_popescu but the business? does it not take ongoing tweaking and leadership?
decimation: what's the difference between the gentleman sitting on a porch waiting for a welfare check and a professor sitting in a committee waiting for a tenure check?
benkay: wait how does the business tend to you?
mircea_popescu: they should tend to you.
mircea_popescu: you'd have to be an idiot to structure your business (and especially mistress!) so that you tend to them.
benkay: mircea_popescu: regarding weirdos and cruft - is not everyone else busy running their businesses, tending to their mistresses etc?
mircea_popescu: ng committee meetings. Why would he agree to do it? Why wouldn't he rather be playing squash, riding a horse, flying an aircraft, walking his dog, etc.?" The distressing possibility that the oldster agreed to be on the committee so that he would have a venue in which people would listen to him does not occur to the youngster.
mircea_popescu: Part of the answer may be that young people fail to appreciate the risk that they will become more like old people when they are old. The young person sees the old tenured academic, ignored by his younger colleagues in a culture that values hot new ideas, sign up to be on committees. The youngster never asks "This oldster has tenure. He draws the same salary regardless of whether he sits through those interminable bori
mircea_popescu: i've had it up to here with in-their-mind slick fucks trying to turn bitcoin into some sort of corporate sales management device.
jurov: i see surprisingly large part of intellingent people (in sense they can get easily over-average salary) trapped in conspirational mindset
jurov: cannot say anything about the cruft group
mircea_popescu: "This article explores this fourth possible explanation for the dearth of women in science: They found better jobs."
mircea_popescu: now you telling me there's no difference you see here ?
mircea_popescu: and he loiters there for a while, not as disturbed.
mircea_popescu: suppose there's a guy with no profession. he loiters a while in new york but eventually all the beat cops know him so he goes to oregon