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Comment Re:Kick them out (Score 2) 25

The more decentralized mining is, the harder the 51% attack

Therefore, you want mining that is about as efficient on a current CPU as it is on a high end GPU or even ASIC. That way big server farm investments scale up with a low integer factor -- compared to a Bitcoin ASIC farm which can be (IIRC) dozens of millions of times more efficient per dollar than your PC CPU.

Various strategies were considered and tested. The end result was really clever: create a simple virtual machine with specific characteristics (such as non-halting totality, and a syntaxless bytecode). The one-way function is simply to run the random input program to completion, and provide the output. In other words, be a CPU.

The algo was specifically released as a separate standalone so others could pick it up. But there is only one crypto that uses it. It's the one that actually encrypts the data on the blockchain, has hundreds of .onion nodes run to this day independently by true believers (and yes I am one), so that actually it would be really hard for even a major government to shut down its untraceable transactions.

I just checked, for the first time in probably 2 years. Huh. It's not even in the top 25 market cap anymore. But it's the only coin that IMO for better or worse matches the original Tim May style cryptoanarchist vision that Satoshi was gesturing towards. And I don't need to say its name because you know which one it is.

Comment Root cause: just part of current lowgrade WWIII (Score 1) 17

Hackernews Aug 12 2025 on the Salesforce hack: Cybercrime Groups ShinyHunters, Scattered Spider Join Forces in Extortion Attacks on Businesses

I bet anything China, Russia, and Iran are those so-called cybercrime groups. Check this BlackHat talk about catching the (at the time) biggest ever card fraud guy. Russian oligarch son. Guess what, he was one of those returned to Russia in an exchange with the Trump admin as part of "peace negotiations".

Cyberattacks are part of the low level war they are also waging via dragging anchors to cut Internet cables, throwing drones and jets into NATO airspace, and ofc disinformation campaigns.

So yeah they are leveraging the cybercrime aspect to further weaken USA / NATO / The West / Tolerant Inclusive Democracy.

Comment the ugliness of the aztec (Score 1) 77

> Here 25 years later, the market is flooded with
>"compact SUVs" essentially the same as the
>Aztek, and just as ugly.

That's not fair.

The modern ones don't even *approach* the Aztec's level of ugliness! But they *are* painfully bland.

the first time I saw an Aztec, my immediate reaction was surprise that AMC was making cars again. It didn't occur to me that anyone else could make something so hideous!

Comment Re:Banking License (Score 0) 57

>A regular bank can't magic up $1M out of thin air,

uhmm . . . historically, this is *exactly* where paper money comes from, and why they are called "banknotes"!

Banks issued paper notes promising to pay the bearer a sum of money (i.e., an amount of gold or silver) upon presentation. This was a matter of convenience, the paper being easier to haul about. This led to the practice al matter that a bank could issue more paper than it held money, as long as it was careful enough not to issue so much that too much would come in to redeem.

This isn't fundamentally difference than the practice of lending deposits back out to other borrowers (which is generally how this new money created by the banking system was disbursed, anyway).

In time, government stepped in to regulate how much a bank cold lend in this manner (reserve requirement).

Until WWII, the majority of the paper money in the US was *not* issued by the government, but by banks and some other companies (e.g., Railroads printed $2.40 bills, as $2.40 was a common fare).

Even today, some cites print a local currency, generally (universally) backed 1:1 by federal money. It circulates and shows the effects of buying locally as these local bills start showing up in cash registers. (In the same vein, the US Navy used to deal with local discontent and calls for removing bases of rowdy sailors by paying in $2 bills. Once merchants noticed just how much of their registers were full of that uncommon note, attitudes changed quickly!)

The federal government has the exclusive power to coin money--but this means coining metal; it doesn't stop states or other entities from printing paper money.

doc hawk, displaced economics professor

Comment Re:Don't think you've ever used GOS (Score 1) 35

Interesting that instead of responding to their points, you move to attack the person. Makes it seem like maybe your points are weak and you have nothing left.

FWIW, I started using Graphene a while back and have found it largely perfectly usable as well. Nothing they said is wrong, nearly everything I could use on an "accepted" android version works. Banking apps, games that used play protect (and whatever Google uses now) still work. Wallet works though cries about the OS but I don't use NFC, so for me, it doesn't matter. If it matters for others, then I guess Graphene isn't for them. You know, choice. Imagine that. Graphene isn't a super easy to use walled garden like Samsung and others try to build, so it may not be palatable for the masses, but that can change over time too. Maybe whatever the FSF comes up with in their Librephone thing will manage it. Definitely interested in seeing how that works out because we need more choices that don't give root level access to paying corporations and refuse to let people do things on/with their phone that they own and should be able to do.

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