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Stephen posted:My coworker goes on about these books and made them sound quite interesting, but he's also a bitcoiner, so I'm pretty torn. Are they pretty much bitcoin fantasy novels or something? snow crash: legitimately entertaining, if implausible, libertopia book with Second Life stuff thrown in diamond age: even more entertaining and implausible utopia about voluntary traditionalist nations rising out of libertopia. also, nanotech baroque cycle: incredibly cringey steampunk written in autistic imitation of victorian prose i didnt like cryptonomicon and anathem much so wont review them
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Feb 10, 2015 20:09
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Munkeymon posted:it's kind of a huge rounding error then one is the set of all used addresses with zero and nonzero balances the other is the set of all used addresses of nonzero balances
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Feb 10, 2015 20:10
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ayn rand hand job posted:one is the set of all used addresses with zero and nonzero balances and there's a 9% difference between the numbers but it says each represent 100% of wallets
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Feb 10, 2015 20:24
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Stephen posted:My coworker goes on about these books and made them sound quite interesting, but he's also a bitcoiner, so I'm pretty torn. Are they pretty much bitcoin fantasy novels or something? Diamond Age is a psuedo-sequel to Snow Crash and pretty good, but it's started to take itself seriously and you can tell, which drags the whole thing down because instead of the knowing ludicrousness of Snow Crash you have ludicrous poo poo that is supposed to be plausible and eeeeesh. Cryptonomicon is sorta two books crammed into one. The part of the book that's about World War 2 is excellent and makes the other half, which is a bunch of technolibertarian wanking, worth it. Baroque Cycle is overlong and doesn't have a point I could discern, and that's where I stopped. w/r/t coiner bullshit: Snow Crash takes place after all the governments have collapsed, which happened because the corporations grew so big and took over so much that basically life went right on as normal when everything became privately owned, the federal government still exists and is treated as an amusing anachronism that thinks it has any power, isn't that cute. But again, it's satire, and it has a lot of fun with all the ridiculous and terrible poo poo that privately owned everything would cause. Diamond Age is, like I said, Snow Crash but taking itself seriously, so it advances Snow Crash's society by two generations and tries to make it all actually work, but on the other hand that means that there are governments again. (In an actually funny bit early on, a character gets his day in court, is asked what group he's part of, and when he says he doesn't have one the judge basically laughs in his face and goes "wow, sucks to be you, enjoy your no rights whatsoever") Cryptonomicon is where the coiner-wank happens, the modern half is all about data havens and cryptocurrencies that no government can control, and will therefore cause the collapse of all the governments because if they can't control it how can they tax it???? Even as an impressionable teenager my reaction to that was "okay, even if I grant you a perfectly encrypted and untraceable currency -- and that's a hell of a gimme, mind you -- governments are still gonna want their taxes when you operate on their soil and I don't think 'oh we have no employees and made no sales here, haha, prove we didn't' is gonna fly, they're gonna either see your W2s or raid your dumb asses" Baroque Cycle is about magic gold and a dude with half a dick or something idk
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Feb 10, 2015 20:26
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Stephen posted:My coworker goes on about these books and made them sound quite interesting, but he's also a bitcoiner, so I'm pretty torn. Are they pretty much bitcoin fantasy novels or something? you can read snow crash, but before you do you should know that the main character is literally named "hiro protaganist" and he's amazing with his samurai sword and he rides a sweet rear end motorcycle it was published in '92 so it's probably the originator of a lot of horrible cliches but it doesn't really make them any more palatable 20 years later, apart from that it's not bad diamond age has some interesting worldbuilding but as mentioned he can't write endings for poo poo
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Feb 10, 2015 20:26
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Ursine Asylum posted:you can read snow crash, but before you do you should know that the main character is literally named "hiro protaganist" and he's amazing with his samurai sword and he rides a sweet rear end motorcycle it is basically "hey if you are the dude who leaves A Midsummer Night's Dream because you don't believe in fairies, here's your fair warning to get the gently caress out. Okay, is he gone? Sweet, everyone else who thought that this poo poo was a hoot, strap in because now I'm about to get really silly"
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Feb 10, 2015 20:31
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CapnAndy posted:(In an actually funny bit early on, a character gets his day in court, is asked what group he's part of, and when he says he doesn't have one the judge basically laughs in his face and goes "wow, sucks to be you, enjoy your no rights whatsoever") lol that part was great people will remember this stuff in 50 years the way we remember Heinlein
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Feb 10, 2015 20:39
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CapnAndy posted:Baroque Cycle is overlong and doesn't have a point I could discern, and that's where I stopped. it's about the philosophy behind early attempts at rigorous science and has some economic stuff thrown in there but he also mixes in a bunch of pirates and conspiracies and stuff to try to make it less boring worked on me but ymmv - I also loved anathem which is has lot of philosophical wanking but also was decent scifi
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Feb 10, 2015 20:41
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Munkeymon posted:and there's a 9% difference between the numbers but it says each represent 100% of wallets 100% of all bitcoins, there are no bitcoins in the used but empty wallets so you have 100% of the bitcoins with either group.
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Feb 10, 2015 20:41
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Since this is now a book club, I'll chime in and say that you should treat Snow Crash as a B movie - laugh at its wild and purposeful exaggerations and just be taken on the ride, and I agree that the most of the WW2-era section of cryptonomicon was good, I just couldn't bring myself to care at all about the present day video telegraphs company and stockholder lawsuit blabbering sections. Especially the fact that the ending was just finding a horde of gold, killing a bunch of random characters who happened to find it at exactly the same time, and the book ends abruptly when they just napalm the cache of gold to let it run out of the hidden area as a river.  It could also do without the paragraphs' worth of descriptions on the character's need to wank it (yes, really), so like I said, it's about 8x too long - a trimmed down novella wouldn't be too bad
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Feb 10, 2015 20:42
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why does nobody ever talk about the big u or zodiac when talking about stephenson
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Feb 10, 2015 20:42
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my favorite thing stephenson has written is actually the novel-length article he did for wired about the history and current (as of the mid-90s) state of trans-oceanic communications cables. real science, relevant real-world tech, cool tangents, minimal technolib wankery
haveblue fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Feb 10, 2015 |
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Feb 10, 2015 20:45
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https://bitcoinprivacy.net/index.php/distribution.htmlquote:Gini coefficient of non-dust addresses 0.98258008 wikipedia posted:A Gini coefficient of one (or 100%) expresses maximal inequality among values (for example, where only one person has all the income or consumption, and all others have none). [...] For larger groups, values close to or above 1 are very unlikely in practice.
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Feb 10, 2015 20:46
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CapnAndy posted:It's also why the picture to the left of your posts is called an avatar. Richard Garriott might want to have a word with you.
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Feb 10, 2015 20:48
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lol
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Feb 10, 2015 20:49
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evilweasel posted:100% of all bitcoins, there are no bitcoins in the used but empty wallets so you have 100% of the bitcoins with either group. oh derp
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Feb 10, 2015 20:50
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so what is left now of the original pro-bitcoin arguments? is it just "no chargebacks"?
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Feb 10, 2015 20:50
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shadok posted:some of them are hoping that satoshi nakamoto will appear like hari seldon and guide them in this moment of crisis. True leaders take Seldon Crises into their own hands.
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Feb 10, 2015 20:52
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anathem has a lot of really interesting ideas and is totally worth reading as hard sci-fi, although it does have a galt speech moment (not randian, i just mean a long and self-indulgent passage talking about something the author thinks is really important. you can skip it) the baroque cycle is a pretty good adventure story, it is very long but actually reads surprisingly quickly because it is pretty much just a silly adventure with a lot of interesting historical details tossed in about 17th century science / politics. also a duel with miniature cannons cryptonomicon has two really good ww2 stories wrapped up with a modern bit that mostly just pales in comparison, it also does not actually celebrate the techno libertarianism as much as people here are saying. the modern ending is a little weak diamond age has a lot of great setting potential but really under-delivers and the ending sucks
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Feb 10, 2015 20:53
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CapnAndy posted:Second Life in particular the second life creators frequently cited snow crash as their inspiration so i don't think you can count this one also, neil stephenson sucks, that's my review
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Feb 10, 2015 20:54
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you guys realize there's a sci fi thread, right
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Feb 10, 2015 20:54
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As a Millennial I posted:you guys realize there's a sci fi thread, right i've never realised anything
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Feb 10, 2015 20:55
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duTrieux. posted:Richard Garriott might want to have a word with you.
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Feb 10, 2015 20:56
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Feb 10, 2015 20:57
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rjmccall posted:it also does not actually celebrate the techno libertarianism as much as people here are saying. I read it a really long time ago but even aside from the present-day plot being an anti-state fever dream it has stuff like a major subplot about unbreakable encryption, long tangents about van eck phreaking and steganography, a server closet with an EMP self-destruct device, etc CapnAndy posted:Having a character, even the main character, named the Avatar isn't the same thing, Snow Crash is the reason why it's a synonym for "the representation of yourself you use to interact with other people in an online environment" and wikipedia says so too so there wikipedia uses the word "popularize" which is code for "we all know you're right but if we don't acknowledge this one earlier thing the spergs will never stop trying to rewrite the entire entry"
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Feb 10, 2015 20:59
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look at all these new posts talking about dumb idiot poo poo books
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Feb 10, 2015 21:02
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Happy Noodle Boy posted:look at all these new posts talking about dumb idiot poo poo books no dont
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Feb 10, 2015 21:03
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haveblue posted:wikipedia uses the word "popularize" which is code for "we all know you're right but if we don't acknowledge this one earlier thing the spergs will never stop trying to rewrite the entire entry" their citation is a dead link to an internet glossary. lol.
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Feb 10, 2015 21:03
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wasnt stephensons next big thing a kickstartered open sores 3d engine for specific weapon movements
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Feb 10, 2015 21:04
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graph posted:wasnt stephensons next big thing a kickstartered open sores 3d engine for specific weapon movements yep https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/260688528/clang/posts/989911
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Feb 10, 2015 21:05
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he looks like that guy from command & conquer
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Feb 10, 2015 21:09
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Mycelium Wallet was suspended from Google Play (self.Bitcoin) submitted 3 hours ago * by Rassah If you try to download Mycelium Wallet from Google Play, you will get a 403 error. We just received an email stating that Mycelium Wallet has been suspended due to policy violations, with REASON FOR SUSPENSION: Violation of the paid and free provision of the Content Policy and section 3.5 of the Developer Distribution Agreement. Please refer to the Third Party Payments help center article for more information. We are trying to get to the bottom of this. In the mean time, you can always download our wallet from our website directly at https://mycelium.com/bitcoinwallet Above is signed by 1Rassahgt3XSxKVJ62oSrQJxtH3wk4MKX HKD8ArfP9QCe9db157dKnGNeqkQnDsPQll+lKWSe5J1ucEIuoAtVQvEhXS8oDN8VdFqEN3BdnbjAtRfy2MScMkQ= P.S. Yes, my account is shadowbanned. I have been trying to resolve that for a while now.
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Feb 10, 2015 21:15
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Dude in Cryptonomicon wanted to use the Blockchain to make an eternal memorial to Holocaust victims and use it as a way to teach those dirty poors in third world countries how to stop ethnic cleansing themselves every now and again. Basically, "[xxxx] but with Bitcoin".
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Feb 10, 2015 21:15
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hey if you want GOOD computer fiction i have a book for you tommy p is like a jillion years old and absolutely all of this book is on point. he makes jokes about javascript and the microsoft LM hash thing that wouldn't be out of place here. here is a quote Thomas Pynchon posted:You know where it all comes from, this online paradise of yours? It started back during the Cold War, when the think tanks were full of geniuses plotting nuclear scenarios. Attache cases and horn-rims, every appearance of scholarly sanity, going in to work every day to imagine all the ways the world was going to end. Your Internet, back then the Defense Department called it DARPAnet, the real original purpose was to assure survival of U.S. command and control after a nuclear exchange with the Soviets. oh and he wrote it just *before* snowden which is nuts
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Feb 10, 2015 21:15
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Boxturret posted:i've never realised anything Much like Bitcoiners, except they don't even realize that.
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Feb 10, 2015 21:17
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Tiny Bug Child posted:here is a quote
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Feb 10, 2015 21:19
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Worst computer fiction is Dave Eggers's The Circle. I like Walter Jon Williams's books about MMORPGs. To talk about butts, the volumes on the USD exchanges are crazy low right now, and the price is dawdling between $215 and $220. Obviously this is good for Bitcoin because AlbieQuirky fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Feb 10, 2015 |
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Feb 10, 2015 21:27
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Shutting Down the Coinbase Tip Button now we just need to kill changetip
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Feb 10, 2015 21:29
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Real life experience paying with bitcoin (self.Bitcoin) submitted an hour ago by omnipoint Let me premise this by saying that I am a firm believer of bitcoin as a revolutionary technology. I whole-heatedly believe that bitcoin will gain traction in the future, but right now, it's a consumer's nightmare. Today for lunch, I went to the Mexicali Burrito in Cambridge expecting to pay with bitcoin. I was pretty excited, because this store was the latest to accept bitcoin in the area. I made my order and had my coinbase app fired up, ready to scan a qr code. However, the cashier wasn't ready. Okay... Not such a big deal. He spends a few seconds to pull out an iphone, and launches what looked like the bitpay app. A few more seconds pass and it still doesn't load. The line behind me is getting busy and the next customer is ready to pay...but this app still hasn't loaded. In the end, I paid with credit to speed up the process. When I finished paying, the bitpay app still had not loaded. I had a little chat with the clerk during this time and he said that they were planning to stop accepting bitcoin in the upcoming month. As it is now, bitcoin needs a face lift. It needs better PR and it needs better consumer/merchant interfaces. I still think that bitcoin is awesome, but there is still much that needs to be improved. tldr; tried to pay with bitcoin, merchant bitpay app never loaded currency of the future
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Feb 10, 2015 21:33
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graph posted:wasnt stephensons next big thing a kickstartered open sores 3d engine for specific weapon movements he was super hyped to make a videogame that accurately simulated real swordfighting missing the very obvious problem that simulating that is impossible without a sword that can somehow collide with game assets mid-swing Aleksei Vasiliev posted:Shutting Down the Coinbase Tip Button ChangeTip still literally has no business model whatsoever, right? it's just a plan to charge a percentage some time in the future?
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