excitingburp

@excitingburp@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Please Stop⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m Bitcoin there is a built-in reward to keep things moving forward even if there are no transactions. Different coins do different things.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Please Stop⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The cryptography has much simpler algebraic analogues - what we are looking for is a “one-way function”. This means a mathematical symbol that only works on the left side of the equals. The simplest one is the remainder of a division. For example if I told you that I had a remainder of 5 after dividing by 20, you wouldn’t know if the original numerator was 25, 45, 65, 85, and so on. This operator is called mod (modulus). Even if you don’t know what value I started with, It’s not hard to guess what possible numerators could be with modulus. That’s where the cryptography comes into play: a cryptographic hash is designed so that it’s practically impossible to guess the original numerator. We’ll stick with the modulus for explanatory purposes, but imagine that you can’t list off possible numerators like I did.

  Now we can invent a puzzle for a computer to solve. We’ll start off with the same values as before, but - again - we are disallowing easy guesses. This forces us to check 1 mod 20, 2 mod 20, 3 mod 20, 4 mod 20, 5 mod 20 and so on. Eventually we’ll hit 25 mod 20 giving us the solution to X mod 20 = 25. Now you can go back to the person that gave you the puzzle and prove that you’ve done 25 steps of work to arrive at a solution (or have made a lucky 1/25 guess). This is called “proof of work”. A cryptographic has consists of a certain number of bits, such as 256 bits - this means a series of 1’ s and 0’s 256 long. The puzzle presented to the computer is “find the numerator that results in the first 50 bits being zero” (the more bits are required to be zero, the longer it will take to find the answer). Because of the incredibly slim chance of guessing the correct numerator, it doesn’t really matter if the computer counts up (like we did with modulus) or guesses. So, in practice, everybody trying to find the solution starts at a random number and starts counting, or trying other random numbers, until someone wins the jackpot. It’s basically a lottery, but the correct numbers have to be discovered instead of being dropped out of a glass ball at the end of the week. Once a computer finds a solution, everybody else playing the game can check their numerator.

  Now we can use this lottery to create a blockchain. We start with 5 things: a globally agreed on solution we are looking for (789), an initial block (which is just a number - lets say 12345), Bob’s account #5 of $100, and Sally’s account #6 of $200, and a huge amount of players of the above game. Sally wants to transfer $20 to Bob, so she says to all the players: “I’m #6 and want to give #5 $20. There’s a $1 prize for finding a new block for me.” All the players make a new denominator, by placing the numbers next to eachother - so 12345 6 200 5 100 20 1 - or just 1234562005100201. All the players start trying to find the number that will result in 789. Eventually someone finds 1234562005100990 after a lot of work/guesses. Everybody checks their work 1234562005100990 mod 1234562005100201 = 789. The winning player receives their prize, and now everybody has a new block to start from: 1234562005100201 1234562005100990. Next time someone wants to send some money they will use 12345620051002011234562005100990 as the initial block instead of 12345. Hence, we have set up a chain starting with:

  12345 -> 12345620051002011234562005100990 -> …

  There’s your block…chain.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Steamworks Development - AI Content on Steam⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I can think of one legitimate use: character portraits in RPGs. I strongly doubt that there are more.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It wasn’t ever about productivity, it was about control.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is alcohol measured in percentages?⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If you throw gasoline out on to the pavement it will evaporate away. If you keep it in a gasoline can it will not. In a gasoline can the liquid and gas will reach equilibrium, though you’ll certainly have slightly less liquid than what you started with. If the can isn’t sealed then, yes, all the gasoline will eventually evaporate away - even at STP.

  And, again, this is all trivial to test at home by using some hand sanitizer. Another example is your skin does not remain wet with water forever, despite human skin temperature not being 100°C. It’s an everyday phenomena, I’m not sure what you’re trying to argue against here. It’s not my “line of thinking,” it’s objectively reality.

  As for your distillation problem, the issue isn’t that some alcohol remains in the water - it’s that some water evaporates alongside the alcohol during the distillation process at the boiling point of alcohol - due to, guess what, vapor pressure. That’s called an azeotrope - clicking through to that Wikipedia page might have helped.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is alcohol measured in percentages?⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It was what the GP was, though.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is alcohol measured in percentages?⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  it would not turn into a gas at normal conditions.

  It does: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vapor_pressure. In an airtight container you would have an equilibrium of alcohol vapor and liquid. In open-atmosphere, the atmosphere basically behaves like an infinitely large volume for the vapor - so the alcohol will completely vaporize (and cool the surface it is on in order to do so).

  It’s also trivial to demonstrate by pouring alcohol onto a surface, it disappears in seconds. Same with gasoline and numerous other liquids you’ve surely seen do this (another example is hand sanitizer, which is basically pure alcohol).

  Being diluted doesn’t really help with any of this though. Also alcohol is kept in bottles, which are usually airtight until they are first opened.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Downfall of Amazon: Dangerous Products, Fake Reviews & Vanishing Brands - Louis Rossman⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes, correct, that’s a summary of what #1 said.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Downfall of Amazon: Dangerous Products, Fake Reviews & Vanishing Brands - Louis Rossman⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Succeeding at buying from Amazon is easy:

  1. Make sure that the local brick-and-mortar doesn’t have the thing you want first.
  2. Avoid products that have SEO titles (“fish bowl for fish container fish aquarium for fish”), or nonsensical manufacturer names (FDRTNHY).
  3. Weep quietly because it’s page 50 and there still aren’t any listings that don’t violate #2.
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Windows Updated and is Pushing More Stuff⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Pro-tip for dual booting Linux: make it the primary OS. Humans are inherently resistant to change, so you need to set yourself up for overcoming that.