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Joining the guess crowd
Big kerfuffle today: A Dead Man’s Switch on the whole bitcoin crime. The sender claims to be dying, and claims to have monitored conversations between most of the Big Dudes in bitcoin. He mentions three types of crime: Rugpulls and similar scams, sexual stuff, and assassinations. Rugpulls, insider trading, etc, are the opposite of news.…
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Counterfeit is a feature
Over and over again, suckers are losing their money in the Ethereum branch of the bitcoin crime. Ethereum makes it possible to write ‘smart contracts’ which order the blockchain to do certain things. Scammers write ‘contracts’ that empty the bank, or pay them twice what they put in, or tell the bank to ignore the…
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California Dreaming
Here’s the dream. T-bird on a beach. The perfect definition of California. Posted by Curbside Classic this morning, here’s the reality. Ragged ’65 T-bird parked on a beach because the beach is public property. The driver is sleeping in his car. The perfect definition of California. = = = = = Closely related, a pairing…
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First thought, second thought
Via Molly White’s aggregator: Senators Lummis (R-WY) and Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced the “Responsible Financial Innovation Act”, the first major proposal for cryptocurrency regulation in the US. A press release from Lummis included statements of support from Kraken, Coinbase, FTX, crypto lobbyists, and various other major players in the cryptocurrency industry—unsurprising support for a bill that…
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Training
From a review of a new metaverse game: “Grit is going to be one of the very first [NFT-based] games on the Epic Games store,” Gala Games said at Galaverse. “This is the moment that it’s all gonna start to change, and everybody’s gonna figure out that…why would you play any game where you don’t…
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A smart attack on meritocracy
YongYea has been making gameplay videos daily for 10 years, gradually including more discussion of the overall scene, and more analysis of the economics of the scene. I don’t know ANY of the details he discusses. I’ve been working and playing right next to gaming, and some of my early Poser pythons and graphics were…
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Back to Kirn Kibbles
Back to quibbling mode. [I’m not proud of doing so many derivative ‘reactions’; this blog is meant to hold new animations and new thoughts. Shannon information, not mirrors. But I’m in a dull period now, and the reaction stuff keeps the routine going until the graphics juice returns.] Latest Kirn provocative thought: I remember the…
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Zen doesn’t cut it
Substack’s leader McKenzie tweeted: I’ve seen a bunch of writers on Substack become millionaires from subscriptions now. Lots of half-millionaires too. It’s thrilling to me. When we started this company, “Writers are getting rich” wasn’t a trend. Most respondents were unhappy with the vagueness. If you’re going to talk about money you need to be…
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No quibbles at all
Kirn hits the mark precisely this time. One clever way to fight the power is to get onboard in a totally inert way with absolutely everything it does, to comply unenthusiastically with every last little dictate, forcing the system to carry your dead weight in full, along with everyone else’s. This is the ONLY way…
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Great podcast on probability
Via MindMatters, an excellent podcast on probability and gambling. Not the usual math-only stuff. Sal Cordova knows the math, and has also spent considerable time in casinos. He discusses the names for various types of gamblers, and the history of cheating. According to Cordova, all of the physical and mathematical tricks have been eliminated by…
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NFTs are missing the best ‘use case’
Looking at the latest idiotic NFT failure. Idiot bought one of those awful pipe-smoking monkeys for $513k, probably not in real money but in jumped-up internal funny money. Later he tried to sell it. The record shows that he first refused an offer somewhat below what he paid. Greedy. The would-be buyers punished him for…
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Already done
UncommonDescent reviews some new CGI of dinosaurs. It’s impressive visually, but the audio is stuck in the Godzilla era. The dinos emit hoarse roars. Birds are little dinos. So the ancient huge birds would have the same type of vocal mechanism with a VASTLY longer resonant cavity. They would sing complex songs in the same…
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Was the old idea partly right?
John Tyndall was involved in the Trinity House research at Lizard Point, which I animated earlier. Today I was looking again at Tyndall’s 1880 textbook on sound, trying to find a new project to keep my graphics juices flowing. Tyndall’s description of the cochlea (p 325) shows that the pieces were fully known in 1880,…
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EXPonential EXPectation reprint
Inspired by NFT stupidity, here’s a reprint from 2018. = = = = = ABSTRACTION is the cause of EVERY SINGLE CRASH in business, government, and ordinary lives. Abstraction has three Ds: (1) Debt. (2) Delusions. (3) Drugs. All three are unsustainable departures from real value and real work and real measurements. Sooner or later…
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Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
An idiot paid THREE MILLION DOLLARS for an NFT of Jack’s first tweet a year ago. He tried to sell it this month. He was hoping to get FIFTY MILLION. The best offer was $277.
Polistra's Mill
Be your own beacon.
Polistra's Mill 