The Funny/Stupid Pics Thread

[Vypernight]

Sweet dreams!

[Katsuro]

[Distind]

According to people far more vested in bitcoins than myself, it's supposedly nearly impossible to counterfeit: it uses a blockchain that holds a record of all transactions, so you can't just create new data and shove it in. The system is so decentralized that in order to counterfeit it, you'd need to actually edit the blockchain itself, which they estimate as taking most of the world's supercomputers to do.

This is the only reason bitcoin has lasted so long. You know that if it was possible to easily counterfeit bitcoins, it would have collapsed before the value ever came close to triple digits. A better solution is to con your way into stealing them.

Sure, it takes that much power now. Just what are they going to do in a decade or two when someone's phone has as much power as my desktop does? We haven't quite stomped down on the power curve, it's still growing fast enough that any thing that can be broken probably will be in far less than their intended life cycle. Plus if someone on the inside decided to do it I can assure you they know exactly how to do it, get away with it, and could probably do so from a smart phone.

Though it does blow my mind this is being done by people who don't even bother with proper server farms and leave their systems out to dust like that... I'm sure that'll all end well.

[The Right Honourable Mlle Antéchrist]

As I understand it (and I'll be the first to admit that I'm hardly an expert on this stuff), it's set up in such a way that there really aren't any "inside" guys. The whole thing is too complicated to explain (or, rather, try to explain without going insane and throwing myself out a window), so have a couple links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3543334 -- Pretty good summary of the whole thing, with plenty of snark.

[chitoryu12]

According to people far more vested in bitcoins than myself, it's supposedly nearly impossible to counterfeit: it uses a blockchain that holds a record of all transactions, so you can't just create new data and shove it in. The system is so decentralized that in order to counterfeit it, you'd need to actually edit the blockchain itself, which they estimate as taking most of the world's supercomputers to do.

This is the only reason bitcoin has lasted so long. You know that if it was possible to easily counterfeit bitcoins, it would have collapsed before the value ever came close to triple digits. A better solution is to con your way into stealing them.

Sure, it takes that much power now. Just what are they going to do in a decade or two when someone's phone has as much power as my desktop does? We haven't quite stomped down on the power curve, it's still growing fast enough that any thing that can be broken probably will be in far less than their intended life cycle. Plus if someone on the inside decided to do it I can assure you they know exactly how to do it, get away with it, and could probably do so from a smart phone.

Though it does blow my mind this is being done by people who don't even bother with proper server farms and leave their systems out to dust like that... I'm sure that'll all end well.

As Antechrist said, there ARE no "inside guys". The block chain works because in order to edit the chain to insert fake bitcoins, you'd need to edit every single block that comes after what you're editing. Imagine trying to add fake money to your bank account by creating a fake history for the money that dates back decades, including editing every single record of the money in every single account it was ever in and every single transaction it was ever in so it actually looks correct to anyone looking at the paper trail.....simultaneously. And every bank involved in the currency you're using has all of the complete records, so you need to modify it for all.

And said hacking gets harder as time goes on, because bitcoin works on a sort of "majority rules" system where it follows the longest block chain for determining verification. And as you add more computing power to a mining system, it increases the cryptography difficulty so it always remains at a consistent "One block processed every 10 minutes". So you're constantly needing more computing power because the editing you need your computer farm to do is increasing as you're in the middle of hacking it.

[Hoplite]

How very odd, Nyarlathotep's human form is supposed to be a tall man with black skin.

Really? Huh.


*link NSFW due to language.

I believe in that story where he was a tall man with black skin, it was described as not with Negroid features. But anyway it is as someone said earlier. Nyarlathotep assumes thousands of forms. As to Lovecraft having racist tendencies. it is pretty much documented. He was a product of his time, anyhow.

That said. stop reading Lovecraft stories. everybody! You'll lose your sanity

In Lovecraft's partial defense, he WAS very much a product of his time and place, growing up in northern New England. His journals reveal that, after living in New York, his views toward other races became more enlightened.

Nobody escapes their upbringing. No matter what we do, we will always be influenced by it. The most we can do is recognize and account for that influence in our thoughts and actions.

Product of his time, sure. But his antisemitism was just insane. Especially considering that his wife was jewish.

Apparently he also hated the French, and The Shadow Over Innsmouth was intended as a cautionary tale against "race-mixing" inspired by Lovecraft's discovery that an ancestor of his was Welsh. The horror.

ETA: He also wrote this lovely poem:

(click to show/hide)

On the Creation of Niggers (1912)
by H. P. Lovecraft

When, long ago, the gods created Earth
In Jove’s fair image Man was shaped at birth.
The beasts for lesser parts were next designed;
Yet were they too remote from humankind.
To fill the gap, and join the rest to Man,
Th’Olympian host conceiv’d a clever plan.
A beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,
Filled it with vice, and called the thing a Nigger.

Not poem, but something similar that I always liked for its prose.

(click to show/hide)

Azathoth
By H. P. Lovecraft

------=-O-=------

 When age fell upon the world, and wonder went out of the minds of men; when grey cities reared to smoky skies tall towers grim and ugly, in whose shadow none might dream of the sun or of spring’s flowering meads; when learning stripped earth of her mantle of beauty, and poets sang no more save of twisted phantoms seen with bleared and inward-looking eyes; when these things had come to pass, and childish hopes had gone away forever, there was a man who travelled out of life on a quest into the spaces whither the world’s dreams had fled.
       Of the name and abode of this man but little is written, for they were of the waking world only; yet it is said that both were obscure. It is enough to know that he dwelt in a city of high walls where sterile twilight reigned, and that he toiled all day among shadow and turmoil, coming home at evening to a room whose one window opened not on the fields and groves but on a dim court where other windows stared in dull despair. From that casement one might see only walls and windows, except sometimes when one leaned far out and peered aloft at the small stars that passed. And because mere walls and windows must soon drive to madness a man who dreams and reads much, the dweller in that room used night after night to lean out and peer aloft to glimpse some fragment of things beyond the waking world and the greyness of tall cities. After years he began to call the slow-sailing stars by name, and to follow them in fancy when they glided regretfully out of sight; till at length his vision opened to many secret vistas whose existence no common eye suspects. And one night a mighty gulf was bridged, and the dream-haunted skies swelled down to the lonely watcher’s window to merge with the close air of his room and make him a part of their fabulous wonder.
       There came to that room wild streams of violet midnight glittering with dust of gold; vortices of dust and fire, swirling out of the ultimate spaces and heavy with perfumes from beyond the worlds. Opiate oceans poured there, litten by suns that the eye may never behold and having in their whirlpools strange dolphins and sea-nymphs of unrememberable deeps. Noiseless infinity eddied around the dreamer and wafted him away without even touching the body that leaned stiffly from the lonely window; and for days not counted in men’s calendars the tides of far spheres bare him gently to join the dreams for which he longed; the dreams that men have lost. And in the course of many cycles they tenderly left him sleeping on a green sunrise shore; a green shore fragrant with lotus-blossoms and starred by red camalotes.
 

[Hoplite]

Lovecraft describes him as looking like an Egyptian pharoah.

A friend of friend who makes movies now and then shows him that way here

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWijkeEzCb8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWijkeEzCb8</a>

[The Right Honourable Mlle Antéchrist]

[Askold]

Harry Potter + Arrested development:







(next one is my favourite)

[chitoryu12]

So Benedict Cumberbatch was just on Top Gear.

[Distind]

As Antechrist said, there ARE no "inside guys". The block chain works because in order to edit the chain to insert fake bitcoins, you'd need to edit every single block that comes after what you're editing. Imagine trying to add fake money to your bank account by creating a fake history for the money that dates back decades, including editing every single record of the money in every single account it was ever in and every single transaction it was ever in so it actually looks correct to anyone looking at the paper trail.....simultaneously. And every bank involved in the currency you're using has all of the complete records, so you need to modify it for all.

And said hacking gets harder as time goes on, because bitcoin works on a sort of "majority rules" system where it follows the longest block chain for determining verification. And as you add more computing power to a mining system, it increases the cryptography difficulty so it always remains at a consistent "One block processed every 10 minutes". So you're constantly needing more computing power because the editing you need your computer farm to do is increasing as you're in the middle of hacking it.

You guys keep saying it like this would be particularly hard. Simply put, it's not that secure, it's just not worth the outlay and time it'd take to blow it open. Largely because no electronic security is that secure unless you've pulled the network cord. Give it one guy who decides to turn his botnet against them, the power can easily dwarf any supercomputer out there and would be entirely capable of the needed operations. I'm sure they're very proud of what they have, I'm also rather sure that they're well aware that reaching any significant level of public interest would probably spell disaster for them in any number of ways that the currency could be faked, subverted or simply killed off.

Electronic security isn't about perfection, it's about making it take long enough no one's willing to waste their time to break it. There is a hole, and if someone else finds it first you're hosed. If you're using a bunch of hacked together contraptions you've got enough holes for an army to march through if needed. I'm saying this as someone who's spent months removing holes from various supposedly secure structures.

Just be thankful most of the bot net idiots point their efforts at spamming people.

[Shane for Wax]

[Art Vandelay]

[Shane for Wax]

Answering the age old question: does water have a taste?

[mellenORL]

Answering the age old question: does water have a taste?

It tastes terrible and thankfully, too expensive...for Japanese water connoisseurs, who buy 30,000 year old glacier ice bottled water for thousands of dollars a case.