tansly @tansly@qoto.org

"Bitcoin is a disaster." [by Ray Dillinger, one pioneer of Bitcoin]

In December 2020, Ray Dilinger wrote this. He is one of Bitcoin pioneers : He got to review the code before it was released.

"[...] It doesn't scale, except by becoming the very thing it was
supposed to replace. The more scalable the network becomes, the more centralized it becomes,
until ultimately a "scalable" cryptocurrency would be doing things exactly the same way as a credit card processor."

https://www.metzdowd.com/pipermail/cryptography/2020-December/036510.html

So. Apparently the NFT bros have developed a convention to assign an id to each individual Satoshi (indivisible part of Bitcoin) and they hijack the bitcoin protocol to attach big block of data (aka crappy art and memes) and turn them into collectible.

Bitcoin maxis are mad it may fill bitcoin blocks (limited to 4mb) with garbage and prevent to send actual transactions.

They are currently fighting with each other on social media. That's awesome.

🍿🍿🍿

https://ordinals.com/

"Policies that made cities more walkable and public transit better and more accessible could lower lithium demand between 18% and 66%, while simply limiting the size of EV batteries could cut demand by up to 42%."

https://gizmodo.com/how-to-reduce-lithium-demand-electric-vehicles-1850030800

If I have to prove I'm not a computer by identifying traffic lights and busses, perhaps we're not quite ready for self-driving cars.

New tagline for the podcast just dropped.

#thewaroncars #podcast

Full Responsibility

"Sharrows do, however, accomplish something pernicious which I did not anticipate. They allow officials to take credit for doing something for bicycle safety without impacting car traffic, even though that something is next to nothing. It’s just pretending, and it’s worse than being honest about priorities. It’s insulting to the public to encourage bicycling by painting bike symbols on the street but doing nothing to actually make riding a bike any safer. "

https://www.peopleforbikes.org/news/we-were-wrong-about-sharrows

#cycling

You ain’t seen me, right

What is something you learned in math that made you loose a sense of innocence-- knowledge that you can never unlearn that changes the world forever?

Are you happy with #Mastodon or the #fediverse since you quit the #bluebird ?

#twittermigration

"...cities should not just build green transport systems but actively dismantle the old car infrastructure at the same time; narrowing roads, replacing car lanes with bus and bike routes, removing car parking spaces from streets, implementing Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, and continuously reducing the amount of land dedicated to cars wherever congestion is too low."

https://www.dezeen.com/2023/01/11/congestion-roads-cities-traffic-sustainable-transport-phineas-harper/

#cities #climate #transportation

Who wants a Kit Kat? #cats

Now that the holiday shopping season is over, 'tis the season for customer feedback surveys. A comic from a few months ago:

#latecapitalism #consumer #surveys #shopping

It’s like when Prometheus gave fire to humanity.

Very very frightening

Just remembering the time I made a flag in Google's rpc service named something like "--rpc_the_security_team_told_me_this_was_a_bad_idea_but_I_did_it_anyway"

It is *amazing* the number of security/privacy/abuse problems you can prevent by getting people to say something unusual enough that they really *think* about what they're saying.

I mentioned this in a private message to someone recently about why a small handful of servers block qoto. I wanted to reiterate it here for the new comers on QOTO who dont know the history:

So there are some servers out there that demand every server int he network block every instance they do, and if a server doesnt block an instance they block then they block you in rettatliation.

Their reason for this is quite flawed but it goes like this.. If we federate with a bad actor instance and we boost one of their posts then their users will see it and defeat the purpose of the block. The problem is, this isnt how it actually works. If they block a server and we boost it, they wont see the boost, thats how blocks work.

The issue becomes even more complicated when you consider the fact that these servers, by virtue of their policy, have huge block lists where they block tons of major servers. So in order to satisfy them we too would have to block a huge number of servers.

This means you have a choice, you either join a server that isnt blocked, but has a huge block list themselves, or, you join a server that doesnt block and be blocked by a small handful of servers. Obviously that means on QOTO you will have bigger view of the world than you would on any of these others servers. In fact QOTO has onne of the largest federation footprints of any server in the network.

I want to also explain why we choose the decision we did. Years ago when this controversy started and servers across the fediverse started blocking there was a divide of people taking sides. WOTO was one of the few servers that didnt take sides and allowed people read content from any server (but with strict hate speech rules). This caused a huge influx of people,s pecifically from the LGBTQ community, onto our server. It turns out many people relied on us not-blocking for their physical safety. There were big name biggots (like milo yanappolus) who were on the network. They used their accounts here to watch his account for doxing so they could warn themselves and their community and protect themselves accordingly. In fact we added a feature just for them called subscriptions which allowed them to monitor accounts without following them so they could do so anonymously.

In tthe end for the safety of the LGBTQ community here we refused to engage in mass server blocking and instead encouraged our users to block servers on an individual basis and provided access to block lists for them to do so. But some really misguided servers blocked us anyway.

Thankfully the servers blocking us are few and far between and are limited to only the most excessive and aggressive block lists. As I said, QOTO has one of the largest federation footprints on the fediverse,

#mastoadmin

Tetris is capable of Universal Computation

https://meatfighter.com/tetromino-computer/

Any IT system, blockchains included, require user interfaces for the average person to use: Centralized exchange platforms, apps, physical keys.

All these are *extremely* vulnerable and the target of many hackers who have a field day.

The worst thing is that, unlike banks, none of these systems are insured. With each hack, users loses everything, permanently.

Blockchains would be extremely secure if they had no users. This is not the case.