feedbot: http://verisimilitudes.net/2020-09-24 << A Syndication of Verisimilitudes -- Disillusionment with History
asciilifeform: !w poll
watchglass: Polling 16 nodes...
watchglass: 205.134.172.6:8333 : Could not connect!
watchglass: 205.134.172.4:8333 : (172-4.core.ai.net) Alive: (0.083s) V=70001 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.7.0.1/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=649944
watchglass: 205.134.172.27:8333 : Alive: (0.085s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=649944 (Operator: asciilifeform)
watchglass: 205.134.172.26:8333 : Alive: (0.142s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=649944
watchglass: 108.31.170.3:8333 : (pool-108-31-170-3.washdc.fios.verizon.net) Alive: (0.157s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=649944 (Operator: asciilifeform)
watchglass: 54.39.156.171:8333 : (ns562940.ip-54-39-156.net) Alive: (0.177s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=649944
watchglass: 192.151.158.26:8333 : Alive: (0.172s) V=70001 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.7.0.1/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=649944
watchglass: 208.94.240.42:8333 : Alive: (0.175s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=649944
watchglass: 143.202.160.10:8333 : Alive: (0.237s) V=70001 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.7.0.1/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=649944
watchglass: 176.9.59.199:8333 : (static.199.59.9.176.clients.your-server.de) Alive: (0.325s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=391650 (Operator: jurov)
watchglass: 213.109.238.156:8333 : Alive: (0.271s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=649807
watchglass: 84.16.46.130:8333 : (182518.pk.3pp.slovanet.sk) Alive: (0.346s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=414200
watchglass: 185.85.38.54:8333 : (tlapnet-38-54.cust.tlapnet.cz) Alive: (0.322s) V=99999 (/therealbitcoin.org:0.9.99.99/) Jumpers=0x1 (TRB-Compat.) Blocks=649944
watchglass: 205.134.172.28:8333 : Violated BTC Protocol: Bad header length! (Operator: whaack)
asciilifeform: $vwap
BusyBot: The 24-Hour VWAP for BTC is $ 10628.55 USD
watchglass: 185.163.46.29:8333 : Could not connect!
whaack: asciilifeform: is "Violated BTC Protocol: Bad header length!" something that needs investigating?
whaack: seems like my node is still marching forward
asciilifeform: whaack: prolly simply timeout mid-handshake
snsabot: Logged on 2020-09-10 14:04:52 asciilifeform: ( lol, jurov's actually got hung up mid-timeout )
asciilifeform: !w probe 205.134.172.28
watchglass: 205.134.172.28:8333 : Violated BTC Protocol: Bad header length!
asciilifeform: whaack: this happens on account of the asinine pseudo-multithreading in trb. i.e. noad accepts connection, but does not answer commands, when verifying a block
asciilifeform: ( and, evidently, verification nao routinely takes >2min , on decent box w/ samsung ssd etc )
asciilifeform: wb gregorynyssa
asciilifeform: http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/asciilifeform/2020-09-25#1022133 << imho quite good piece, verisimilitude . the description of state of software rot is entirely correct. would be interesting tho to consider in detail the causes.
snsabot: Logged on 2020-09-25 00:12:36 feedbot: http://verisimilitudes.net/2020-09-24 << A Syndication of Verisimilitudes -- Disillusionment with History
verisimilitude: I appreciate the praise, asciilifeform; I could've elaborated more, but chose instead to maintain a more narrow focus and leave related thoughts for later.
asciilifeform: asciilifeform, for instance, at one point blamed strictly the commercial softs world for e.g. 'automation is unnecessarily difficult to achieve'. whereas today is patently laughable, the opensores folx followed exactly same trajectory w/out any appreciable 'top-down' pressure
verisimilitude: There's good money in thwarting automation, yes, which I elided there.
asciilifeform: verisimilitude: interestingly, not only money. piles o'shit attract 'fixers'. working systems -- not so much.
snsabot: (agriculturalsupremacy) 2020-06-05 asciilifeform: shinohai: imho naggum's argument where prog. lang. popularity is ~directly~ proportional to certain kinds of dysfunction, was solid
verisimilitude: Applying quick fixes is easier than thinking how to design a better system, yes.
asciilifeform: verisimilitude: that's only half the story. does not explain why simplified/corrected/orthogonalized variants of $item are rejected by 'community', while pile of shit -- eagerly eaten up, in typical practice
asciilifeform: verisimilitude: part of the underlying disaster, i suspect, was the 'gold rush' that pulled 1e8 mediocrities into pretending to 'program'. sadly aint even over.
verisimilitude: I agree.
asciilifeform: verisimilitude: it's vaguely similar to what happened in re medicine at various times ( 1400s, 1600s, 1800s ) -- some small breakthroughs (often rediscovered from past) and suddenly erry mountebank puts on costume and goes 'doctoring', leaving trail of gangrenous devastation as he goes
asciilifeform: sadly no one knows how to insulate a field ( even a very gnarly niche ) from prestige-seekers . observe, physics succumbed, in less than half century to this type of degeneration.
snsabot: (trilema) 2017-05-18 asciilifeform: and the reason why asciilifeform has low opinion of ligo et al is that physics has been growing like winblowz api, like prb, like tumour, and not like growing child ( or 1600-1950 physics, for that matter )
asciilifeform: ( see also. )
snsabot: (trilema) 2016-07-11 asciilifeform: the 'cernification' of physics is encouraged at every level.
thimbronion: asciilifeform: ban women
asciilifeform: thimbronion: i'm not aware of any mass involvement of women (in any of given examples) until ~decades~ after corpse was cold
thimbronion: asciilifeform: ban women of all sexes then
asciilifeform: thimbronion: elaborate ?
thimbronion: asciilifeform: I don't know if I can other than to say not enough people die in wars these days.
asciilifeform: thimbronion: elementarily true. catastrophically overdue for a mass cleansing.
asciilifeform: there's exactly 1 known antidote for -- not only 'too many walkers' -- but 'oh, tech dun ~really~ need to work...', 'ounce of image is worth pound of performance..', etc
thimbronion: We may be embarking on some good old fashioned relgious wars soon, however.
asciilifeform: these do 0 good if they take place on reddit etc. tho.
thimbronion: They seem to be taking on more and more physicality. See this mural behind my ancient apartment: http://thimbron.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/sacramento9.jpeg-small.jpg
asciilifeform: thimbronion: what of it ? i recall similar from 20+y ago
thimbronion: New to me!
asciilifeform: that's the thing. in e.g. 1950s colombia, folx were not painting murals, they were busy setting up mines on city buses
asciilifeform: 'modern man' -- paints murals.
asciilifeform: or spams forums. result, same
thimbronion: Yesterday here in Sac several fires were started in a coordinated fashion.
thimbronion: Recycling facility set ablaze, and a literal dumpster fire billowing suddenly a block from where I stood.
asciilifeform: thimbronion: where i live, dumpsters etc were routinely torched simply as part of sports-match revelry. nao, if $1m+ ~houses~ coordinatedly torched, ~then~...
asciilifeform: so far exactly 0 of the usa 'uprisings' pose any threat to the ~actual~ power vertical there. exactly, in fact, the opposite.
thimbronion: asciilifeform: true. they are controlled burns.
asciilifeform: exactly
snsabot: (trilema) 2014-03-05 asciilifeform: mircea_popescu, others: if you think that the enemy is foolish, and has no plan, this is a dangerous mistake: he is clever and knows the ancient chinese formula 'Yi yi zhi yi' (以夷治夷 ?) - 'control the barbarians using barbarians.'
thimbronion: asciilifeform: The Enemy should of course also be aware that the frankenstine he creates may turn on him Taliban style.
thimbronion: s/Taliban/Al Qaeda
thimbronion: lol Frankenstein
mats: pakistan has been successful grasping the tail of the afghan taliban to date
mats: i think AQ has learned its lesson, on its role as a competitor to (rather than client) states, from its experiences in the sudan and then more recent history
mats: zawahiri emphasises their independence in his 9/11 address
thimbronion: mats: are you saying AQ has learned the lesson that it should not attempt to be a competitor to states?
mats: ah, that was badly written, i mean it has realized its precarious to be a client to states
mats: they were hosted in sudan for a few years and then expelled after a failed assassination on mubarak
thimbronion: Nonetheless, I would say AQ struck a fatal blow to the US. Likewise whichever Germans funded Lenin's return to Russia surely regretted it later.
mats: sure
mats: a usg representative declared almost-victory against AQ for the second time since john brennan in another recent 9/11 address
mats: meanwhile they and their affiliates are live in at least a dozen countries, including places like afghan where both the taliban and dod strenuously emphasize they are not (perhaps a face saving measure related to talks in doha)
mats: for whatever reason this representative decided to say that zawahiri (who has successfully been on the run for 20 years) might die of natural causes, which is decidedly not face saving
Aerthean: Can speak a little about physics, having spent some amount of time in those salt mines. It has thoroughly damaged much of my respect for both that field and most other "scientific" fields. Not saying that from a perspective of having done good work mind, my work at best sorta-ok. As a field it still has competent people, but for the most part the beauracracy has grown into something that
Aerthean: prevents any interesting work from getting done.
Aerthean: The saddest thing to me, has come from watching very technically (bench-wise) good people get forced into management tracks in order to further their career.
trinque: Aerthean: what do you think of what Wolfram's up to currently?
trinque: this "nothing ever happens" meme seems a great excuse to do nothing
trinque: notably he's doing it outside the university machine.
snsabot: (trilema) 2015-04-09 ascii_field: 'The real problem with this result, however, is that it is not Wolfram's. He didn't invent cyclic tag systems, and he didn't come up with the incredibly intricate construction needed to implement them in Rule 110. This was done rather by one Matthew Cook, while working in Wolfram's employ under a contract with some truly remarkable provisions about intellectual property. In short, Wolfram got to control not only when and
asciilifeform: d00d's was 'raised to be prodigy' and fixated on 'acclaim of genius' for four decades now. motivated him to carry out all kinds of scam biz, and sometimes even successfully -- simply to fund this effort.
asciilifeform: ( e.g. founded own tame journal, simply so that 'i get printed! in journals!!' etc )
asciilifeform: http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/asciilifeform/2020-09-25#1022215 << not only physics. for ~2decade nao, a 'doctor of sciences' is someone who (1) was good at solving trivial problems quickly in grade school (2) wanted to continue in this pony circus for N moar yrs (3) in usa in particular -- coolie from asia & post-sovok for whom $30k/y is 'megabux' and happy to wash glass (4) has no concept of plagiarism and why anyone would th
snsabot: Logged on 2020-09-25 16:15:20 Aerthean: Can speak a little about physics, having spent some amount of time in those salt mines. It has thoroughly damaged much of my respect for both that field and most other "scientific" fields. Not saying that from a perspective of having done good work mind, my work at best sorta-ok. As a field it still has competent people, but for the most part the beauracracy has grown into something that
asciilifeform: ink it to be a sin
trinque: I don't have the standing to vet the guy, which is why I asked.
trinque: but, it's a little weird to both fault the university machine and the guy *for* avoiding it
asciilifeform: trinque: i was at one pt a naive fan. and a five-figure customer, of his. bought the '01 b00k even.
asciilifeform: trinque: thing is, he did not actually avoid it, in the sense of fully setting bozo bit. used his biz profits to try & build a miniature, tame copy of the thing.
feedbot: http://mvdstandard.net/2020/09/argentine-legislator-suspended-for-kissing-tits-during-session/ << The Montevideo Standard -- Argentine Legislator Suspended For Kissing Tits During Session
gregorynyssa: asciilifeform: verisimilitude: I still think the 1990s was the decade when programming went horribly wrong.
gregorynyssa: of course the seeds of destruction could be found beforehand, but the mid 1990s gave rise to a particular milestone.
gregorynyssa: that was the relegation of files, formats, and drivers to the status of niche-pursuits, outside of the purview of the ordinary programmer.
gregorynyssa: this was accompanied by the emergence of "library programmers" as a distinct caste.
gregorynyssa: I think John Carmack represents the last wave of programmers who matured before this change in landscape.
asciilifeform: gregorynyssa: not simply mid-90s, but specifically end of msdos era.
Aerthean: trinque: I found some of the ideas he puts forward interesting, and enjoyed his work when younger. I haven't really kept up with him much, and aside from Mathematica no one usually mentions him or his work in my physics community.
asciilifeform: Aerthean: btw mathematica was 'his' work in approx. same sense as msdos -- gates's. see also.
snsabot: (trilema) 2015-04-09 ascii_field: what he did was, essentially, steal a usg mega-product - macsyma, the first really universal computer algebra system, thousands of man-years of
Aerthean: gregorynyssa, asciilifeform: As a poor hypothesis, I think that the more software practitioners abstract away from hardware the worse things become.
asciilifeform: Aerthean: not only 'from hardware'. in general.
snsabot: (trilema) 2018-10-25 asciilifeform: when you add compatibility spackle, serious reader is not saved from reading the thing you spackled over -- on the contrary nao he has to read the ~original~ rubbish ~plus~ your spackle, however much it weighs.
asciilifeform: accretion as default behaviour is simply evil.
asciilifeform: revisiting wolfram -- it aint clear to me that he had ever, in whole life, had an idea (in the claimed sense.) specifically 'automata physics' aint his idea. belongs to von neumann & co. likewise 'rule 110' -- m. cook.
Aerthean: asciilifeform: Populizer of an idea then? Sorta like a member of a higher-level grifter class
asciilifeform: fella aint entirely talentless -- rather a kind of little-league t. edison, notbad at making some dough selling ideas stolen from others. or at least, at one point was.
asciilifeform: Aerthean: not clear to me that w. is successful popularizer of e.g. 'cellular physics.' if anyffin, has made the notion into a kind of laughingstock.
asciilifeform: i recall mindblowing hype when he started taking pre-orders for 'NKS' b00k. (i bought -- like idiot..)
asciilifeform: promised, iirc, 'in coupla years, physics undergrads will no longer study diff. eqns., from lack of continued relevance'
asciilifeform: in ratio of 'promised to delivered goods' , wolfram managed to approach pons&fleischmann...
asciilifeform: ... twice ! 2nd time, when 'wolfram alpha' hype-demo circus.
asciilifeform was invited into the 'closed beta' , turned out -- mega-downer
Aerthean: asciilifeform: Hah! I missed much of the hype around NKS, read it years later. I do remember the Alpha hype. I also remember having a cynical attitude about it, but was cynical about most things those days.
asciilifeform: Aerthean: i was using, at the time, mathematica for industrial work. had 'own' sales rep, support contract, etc
asciilifeform: in the time when 'alpha' was being pushed, that is
asciilifeform: ( when nks -- was in school )
shinohai: BingoBoingo: I almost find it hard to believe she had tit implants 10 days and the guy hadn't motorboated 'em yet. xD
asciilifeform: shinohai: motorboated ?
Aerthean: asciilifeform: I work with a guy who uses Mathematica for a lot of stuff, and tried to sell me on it a year or two ago. He has the whole 9 yards, support contract, rapid updates, etc etc. Not my cup of tea.
shinohai: asciilifeform: "motorboat" v. int. The act of pushing one's face in between two ample breasts, and rocking one's head side to side very rapidly while making a vigorous, lip-vibrating "brrr" sound.
asciilifeform: lol!
asciilifeform: Aerthean: generally if one finds that it is possible to solve $problem with ~anything~ other than mathematica -- oughta do so. ( and if cannot -- consider switching problem, and even profession... )
asciilifeform: and not simply because of cost, vendor-lock, etc. wolfram's support & bug handling makes microshit's look responsive and sane in comparison.
asciilifeform: at least this was the case 10y ago when asciilifeform last suffered the misfortune of dealing with said vendor.
Aerthean: In this case I think the guy either met or knew people close to Wolfram, so unlikely to change. I'm not sure he even has to pay for his copy.
asciilifeform: Aerthean: i dun think i've ever met anyone who actually paid for the thing, outside of corporate/usg context. and don't expect to.
asciilifeform: http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/asciilifeform/2020-09-25#1022262 << possibly admitted this before, but asciilifeform is blind to the supposed beauty of the tit implants etc. in fact is 1 of them mutants who finds ~bottom~ half of a chix moar interesting..
snsabot: Logged on 2020-09-25 19:51:18 shinohai: asciilifeform: "motorboat" v. int. The act of pushing one's face in between two ample breasts, and rocking one's head side to side very rapidly while making a vigorous, lip-vibrating "brrr" sound.
shinohai: asciilifeform: despite being former tits baron, I'm actually bottom guy myself.
shinohai: mp certainly didn't get to see THOSE goods. ^.^
trinque: asciilifeform: interesting, at any rate he's put together a cult to try to run the cellular physics over the line
trinque: which is my first exposure to the idea
asciilifeform: trinque: i developed allergy. (to wolfram, not cell-physics.) but if you get into subj and find sumthing that wasn't in nks -- plox to write in.
asciilifeform wonders whether rebrand from 'new kind of science'(tm)(r)(c) to 'wolfram's physics'(tm)(r)(c) is step up or down in degree of megalomania ...
verisimilitude: I also find the rear to be better.
verisimilitude: I still need to finish Konrad Zuse's ``Calculating Space''.
verisimilitude: On the topic of cellular automata, I implemented an old maze generation algorithm from an Atari VCS game, which was just a cellular automata with two five-bit tables and some non-detperminism:
verisimilitude: Well, just a cellular automaton, that is.
verisimilitude: I've not published it yet, because it's in CHIP-8, and a maze isn't a game alone.