Eulora second event - Sunday, June 14th
Like the previous event, this one will also happen between 19:00 and 23:00 GMT. Unlike the previous event, this one will consist of me blessing Tool type items.
Each player may bring me one tool item of their choice, that bears their crafter mark (ie, it says "Crafted by X" where X is the player in question). I will then alter its name (to "X's Blessed Y", whatever Y may be) and change its quality to equal however many seconds the player had spent in game so far. So this is an excellent opportunity to get very high quality items for whatever purpose you prefer.
Along with this event, the loot system will be cranked to its mature phase. /explore will no longer be nearly guaranteed to produce a findi, and consequently the finds will be significantly larger. This incarnation of the loot system is designed to produce a minimal result of ~90% for players, with rare results of 400% or above occurring roughly a half dozen times per ten thousand assays (the system is not capped, so in principle very large finds are possible if unlikely).
It is possible that this system will be cranked up to a ~75% minimal result for players, with rare results over 2`000% occurring about a dozen times per ten thousand assays and even rarer results over 10`000% occurring about a dozen time every quarter million assays (still not capped, but obviously slightly higher probability of very large finds). Whether to implement this or not hasn't actually been decided yet, the model exists as a possibility in case the relative safety of "always 90% or more" turns out boring in practice. Feel free to contribute your cents on the matter.
Extant claims that are older than June 7thii will be deleted at some point during the week after the event. Generally speaking after this point claims will survive on the map an interval of time related to their value, so while it is generally safe to assume they will still be there for a while after you find them, it is not safe to assume they will be there forever.
That'd be all for now, see you all Sunday!
PS. Attendance over the 12 days, 9 hours during which the game has been available totals 1`655`069 seconds, which comes to an average of ~1.7 seconds/second (which is to say that on average over the entire interval, ~1.7 people were logged on). This I dare say is not bad for yet!
———Currently, most every explore attempt will yield a tiny claim, which costs 11 coins (in the shape of a Little Bit O' Nothing) to develop and always yields at least one basic harvestable for which the merchant pays, depending on quality, 50-100 coins.
Obviously this is a seeder mode for the economy and won't reasonably last for very long. [↩]At which point a number of fixes for the claims were introduced, among them one to allow the sweeper to much more neatly clean them out. [↩]
« Butterfield 8
The Birdcage »
Category: S.MG
Saturday, 13 June, Year 7 d.Tr.
Eulora Resurgent
Isn't that a great title ? Anyway, the issues having required more time as announced recently were quashed, or to quote
CE Well I found the problem, a pointer was not properly initializing and the function had garbage data. Slight variance between the 2 compilers I guess. I went on a war path looking for other places this might potentially happen and added a number of safety checks. The new code is on the server and ready to go at your command.
Me Just what I wanted to hear chetty! So how did the servers end up divergent ? Ie, error just on test server.
CE Well they are different os, and this different compilers
Me Ahhhh
Eulora is back online. The new loot system is live. Enjoy the game!
PS. We're on for Sunday.
« Slutennis
The problem of the state. »
Category: S.MG
Wednesday, 17 June, Year 7 d.Tr.
Eulora News Bulletin of today.
Remember how I said a few days ago that "Eulora had a foramen ovale" bla bla bla ? Well, there's one less now.
You see, previously every activity, be it exploring terrain to set up a claim, crafting, building up a claim to exploit the resources there etc took a little time. Two seconds, to be precise. Obviously, this is not sustainable : if a crafter can make any item, no matter how complex or intricate, in all of two seconds then there's scarcely need for more than one crafter on the entire server, is there ?
Consequently, starting today, all activities take some time proportional to their complexity (measured, of course, in copper value). Skills play a part here too : the higher the skill, the somewhati faster the job is done. It currently takes me a little under six seconds to braid together some Dry Clumps of Grass in order to make one Coarse Frangible Thread, a little over six seconds to explore with a common tool and about seven to explore with an improved one, and something between five and six seconds to build up a Small claim. On the other end of the spectrum, it takes about half a minute to braid together seven Braided Coarse Threads to make one Coarse Cordage, and a little less than that to make Base Metal Studs. A clear prize winner is trying to explore with the Chetty Stick, which clocks right around the ten minute mark.
In other news, much to my delight Eulora sports a thriving economy, I know I average between half a million and a full millionii worth of trade each day - buying miners' Basic Harvestables, supplying them with tools and thread, crafting the occasional item to order or buying the occasional desperately requisite precursor.iii. There are of course a number of questions still open before the players. In no particular order :
What is the correct price function by quality, call it f(x,q) where x = item type and q = quality ? Suppose I have eleven Shiny Rocks at quality 60 and some other fellow has six Shiny Rocks at quality 110. What would be the fair proportion of gold to be awarded us ? 6 * 1.1 / 11 * .6 = even money, on the grounds that that's what the NPC merchant offers ? More to the guy with more rocks, notwithstanding their lower quality, on the grounds that they can nevertheless be used to make more itemsiv ? More to the guy with the better rocks, notwithstanding their scarcer count, on the grounds that they can be used to make recipes and other goodies ?v This is a problem that requires some sort of resolution, eventually.
Perhaps related to the previous, what is the best approach to crafting ? Obviously, if one makes his own precursors he will always craft with precursors just as good or slightly worse than the things he produces, quality-wise. This means he's never getting much in the way of recipes. If one were to use the services of an apprentice crafter, giving him high quality precursors in exchange for the resultant loot, one could certainly get some recipes, but would also end up saddled with low quality products. Which perhaps can in turn be recouped by being further crafted, but if the apprentice has a low skill, how badly does this ruin his loot ? And if he doesn't have a low skill, how badly does this ruin his loot the other way (ie, through a lower quality differential) ?
What is the correct usage of Small claims ? For one thing, they allow the builder to put between one and seven threads in there. Is it better to use one ? Seven ? Something in between ? For another thing, they allow the builder to use any arbitrary quality threads. Is higher quality better ? Absolutely, relatively, never ?
How does one go about controlling which kinds of resources he harvests ? There appears to be at least some area specificity, at least for some of the resources. Would a map be useful ?vi
Since the Chetty Stick is so drastically expensive, what is the best way to use it ? What does it do, exactly ? Rumour has it that MP himself indicated the things should be used in places where one fails to find stuff through other means, but how does this work exactly ?
As you can see, plenty of open questions, both for crafters and for miners. They do kinda require at least some sort of an approximation of an answer, so my dear players : Break out the Rs!
———The impact of higher skill decays rapidly, so while you absolutely wish to get as close as possible to an averageish value, going much higher than that isn't as imperative. [↩]One million coppers is still worth one Satoshi or 0.01 Bitcoin as far as I know. [↩]Holy shit I need Wooly Mushrooms! Get me Wooly Mushrooms! Paying 1k each no quality questions asked!
To not even get into the discussion of Slithy Tove, the last one I got was 50k for crying out loud. That's a 1000% base price! [↩]Since a crafter's output seems largely invariant in relation to his inputs, using low quality items looks like practically free money. [↩]On the other hand, a crafter that uses high quality inputs seems to sprout all sorts of side loot. [↩]I hear Mod Six's workin' on one. [↩]
« The situation of Greece
Female Trouble »
Category: S.MG
Thursday, 09 July, Year 7 d.Tr.
Eulora mini update, July 1st
A few things have changed overnight. Among them :
New recipes have been added to all the craft lines you already know. Included : a new, very powerful, single use mining tooli ; slightly more powerful but more efficient variants of the current mining tools ; various support items for other craft lines.
A number of new skills have been added, and the relation between crafts and particular skills has become more complex.
Three craft lines have been added. Two of these are just improved versions of preexisting lines (Gumbo and McGuyver) while two are entirely novel : Lapidary and Bouquinism.
Bouquinism is of particular importance because it is not only the line that allows the crafting of skill increasing booksii, but overloading the Bouquinism craft is also the only way to get starter books for the various skills. This is particularly easy to do through the shredding recipe (which also happens to be the only source of LBN in game).
The random spawns of starter skill items on the map has been discontinued, with the exception of a few books on Bouquinism which spawn occasionally. Get them while they're hot as it won't last.
Various fixes to the graphics, including of the PC animations etc, which you can't however see until we do a client update package. As discussed in the item in lieu of a roadmap document, should be a week or two.
Enjoy the game!
———This one should help you finding rarer materials, as well as improve the size of finds. [↩]Announced earlier on #eulora :
mircea_popescu diana_coman btw, let me know when you hit 200 crafting, there's a suprise for you >D
diana_coman He he mircea_popescu I'm very close. Should I search for cover when that surprise hits? lol
mircea_popescu Whether one faces surprises nude or covered is a matter of personal preference :D
diana_coman Ha ha, all right, lemme drink my tea first then. Eulorian tea that is. I think I might develop a taste for that spicy moss with wooly mushroom flavour :) ) )
mod6 How are you leveling so fast?! Weren't you just on like 130 yesterday or something!?
diana_coman mod6 it's not that fast, but in any case: on one hand some levels require less work to complete (level up). And moreover, the more complex (read expensive) things you do, the more experience you get essentially. So if you want to level fast, throw expensive staff at whatever it is you need to do.
mod6 Ah, but how does one do that with things other than crafting? Like building? Just need to build bigger mines, like ordinarys instead of tiny?
mircea_popescu I did a huge run and was at like 85 feeling all great and sucking my own cock, top of the world, best on server etc. Then she comes along and she's all like "oh btw, im 135". So I click like a maniac and lo! I'm 160! But too late, for meanwhile she's 1059865867456.
mod6 Lol. Ok cool. Ima keep clickin' I'm like 70-something crafting... But still only 26 or something on building
mircea_popescu diana_coman : the surprise is, that the game has a mechanism whereby players can learn skills up to half the highest player's skill. This works through a craftable tome which gives +1, and can only be crafted by people satisfying the skill requierement. It will be called Foxy's Dismal Scribblings on Tinkering, and you get to provide a description. Let me know what it is!
diana_coman Wow, coolness :) I am getting closer to 200, but as usual, Eulora is not exactly euclidian space so well, "close" is relative, lol. I'm 198, almost at 199, lol. And yaaaaay, 200 tinkering. Wooo hooo
mircea_popescu Wd.
diana_coman Now I can drink my expensive eulorian tea : ) ) )
mircea_popescu Lol. That's going to get effects later on, obviously. Anyway : description ?
diana_coman So, Foxy's Dismal Scribblings on Tinkering, mfff, how long? And what does it look like? Is it a book?
mircea_popescu Well, more like a book a dinosaur digested but yes. And how long, you've played this game before I take it!
diana_coman A piece of skin, a nail and a tooth? Ahaha, lol.
mircea_popescu An' this goes for the rest of ya : whoever first gets a skill that's a multiple of 200 gets his name put on the book and may supply a description which we'll consider. And since I'm feeling generous, also at his option either one of the book or one of the recipe making the book.
chetty A book digested by a dinosaur, well at least that shouldn't be too hard to model, one turd coming up :P
mircea_popescu Lol
diana_coman "It's a scribble-scrabble of a dibble dabble." There. Would that be fine?
mircea_popescu Possibly the worst description I've ever heard. But hey, it's your book.
diana_coman Good. It's meant to be bad. Or at least I don't like what dinosaurs digest
jurov How did you resolve the wolly mushroom issue? I still don't see them at merchant.
diana_coman I just bought the stock for tea. Sorry.
jurov And when can we expect the scammer to replenish them?
diana_coman Alternatively mircea_popescu and if it is NOT something that a dinosaur digested, I might prefer this one: "The partially lost art of tinkering, now partially found." More like something that a dinosaur wanted for tea
chetty Oo I like that one.
diana_coman Glad to hear that chetty :)
mircea_popescu jurov basically never. Go dig.
diana_coman If it's all right, it can also be dedicated to Lady Voyna. Or Chettery, as she prefers.
mircea_popescu I'm not changing the original, I opt instead to exact my vengeance on you in the form of the consume text.
* mircea_popescu cackles
[↩]
« The Chicken Scribblin' Kronicles - A Look Under Eulora's Short and Knee-Length Future
MiniGame (S.MG), June 2015 Statement »
Category: S.MG
Wednesday, 01 July, Year 7 d.Tr.
Eulora continuat
First off, trade has reached new record highs :
That's a set of plates for making 50 bum stoves aka Multifunctional Samovars. Eleven million comes to about thirty bucks, give or take, which I hear is above the World Bank poverty line for a whole month.
We're making huge strides in all directions really, back this Summer such an immense stash of Shaped Slag was unthinkable, I don't think even a fifth that ever existed at any given time. I recall the early days when going out with a couple of Chetty Sticks was a great adventure - but I just did a 100 stick run yesterday, and I will do another 50 or so run today just as soon as I'm done shredding all this Maculature (because yes, the table is made - the second one, at that, as the first one was noob-crafted by Chetty, resulting in a fabulous drop of 33 blueprints). For that matter, I have 70 Improved Cruddy Hoes ready to... go, so to speak, which is why I needed the table in the first place - making a decent stash of 50k or so LBN to be able to feed Foxy's bot.i
It looks like maybe we'll even hit the first Remarkable claim on the map. Turns out that it probably won't be the long held DCG, which I've had in inventory for >4 months by now, but the newly discovered SB, which seems perhaps more approachable.ii
Second off,
That's a very nifty "resource map" as per Foxy's own explorations. She published the required scripts, and while I'm pretty sure I don't do nearly as much mining as heriii I'll use it to publish my own maps. Maybe other people hardcore into mining publish their own.
I'm having a ball over here, I can tell you that much.
———Which, by the way, Jurov just announced is compiled into the Windows client now, so all good! [↩]The DCG remarkable needs a shitton of Bandar Toolkit bundles, plus a large amount of TLC-expensive Grubsilk Thread. The SB one however mostly needs Wood Double Distillates, which I don't have, but I do have simple distillate recipes and Ima try to make some and see what happens. [↩]I recently found much to my shock, horror and narcissist wounded rage that her Gathering skill is way over 350, as compared to my paltry 130! [↩]
« You already had what you think you want and can't get.
Chez Cocus, or the Argentinian Chorus »
Category: S.MG
Tuesday, 13 October, Year 7 d.Tr.
Eulora client Freenode patch
Modify the 0.1 Eulora client so that
It connects to chat.freenode.net ;
It checks whether the player's name is registered. If it is not, it registers it, using a (fragment) of a salted hash of the user's password as a password. If it is, it logs in.
Joins #eulora ; displays chat in a special channel in the game chat interface ; conveys player's chat to #eulora (except for /commands).
Keep your patch contained, clean and easily readable. Clearly mark the hooks where it interfaces with extant code ; keep these at a minimum.
Compensation available, either in game loot or BTC.
« The Pawnbroker
Eulorean Crafting - The Pickaxe Illumination »
Category: Job Board
Monday, 08 June, Year 7 d.Tr.
Eulora as seen by Mircescu
Thanks to Diana's very useful awkatron, we now have maps of my own efforts, as found in a 10 Mb file worth of exploration logs. Behold :
To go with it, some selection of the better bits of today's other log :
diana_coman Hmm, so 1 level up in building seems to give me quite unfailingly 1q point in everything; on the other hand, 2 levels up in farming gave me nothing.
mircea_popescu Cwazy
diana_coman the only kind of hypothesis I have so far is that I'm kind of way top on building while farming is unimpressive, though that doesn't sound like much of a theory. I think you are next in building mircea_popescu, aren't you? What's your building level?
mircea_popescu Possibly. 371.
diana_coman Hm, doesn't sound like a huge diff to my 404. Although the levels around 400 were huge.
mircea_popescu Yeah they vary. What q farming do you get yet ? And mining or lumberjack and basics ?
diana_coman 135 on farming now. Need to check the rest.
mircea_popescu Please do.
diana_coman 116 mining. So 58 farming gives me... 21 q points lolz. 162 basics. 102 sortage gives me 48.
* diana_coman still thinks the most likely thing is that Foxy is simply an idiot
Birdman2 you keep saying that foxy, do you think your int. effects some of this?
chetty :P
mircea_popescu I'm at 105 non-lj, about 200 basics and 200 lj. So 37 lj gives me ~95, 282 sortage gives me... ~100 say. Clearly I'm talented at lj and you're talented at basics. I'm certainly doing worse in basics than you are. In fact, going with a simple linear model for a second here, 58/21 = 2.761904762 ; 102/48 = 2.125 ; 37 / 95 = 0.389473684 ; 282 / 100 = 2.82. So you're ever so slightly better at sortage than me, much better at farming, but I totally MURDER it with lj.
Birdman2 That would be cool game mechanics if your stats effected skills and all that.
mircea_popescu Ofcoursetheydo.
Birdman2 Well then, Eulora may just have potential to be the greatest RPG.
mircea_popescu I think so.
Birdman2 Mmm, I've always wanted to have a game that uses real money for the currency. Just wish I had started at the same time as you guys.
mircea_popescu Why do you think it makes a difference ?
Birdman2 I could have done some things differently for sure.
mircea_popescu like what ? [14:28]
Birdman2 Well I spent a week or two gathering at level one, and failed to realise I needed to train to progressi, which led me to think the game sucked and stopped playing it for a month or so. So in that time I just feel I might have missed opportunity or a full understanding of the game.
mircea_popescu Well ok, but unlike every other MMORPG out there, the limiting factor in Eulora isn't time. It's money. If you do things dumbly and waste a lot of ECUs, they're gone. If you don't... you can keep playing.
Birdman2 Yeah I like that.
mircea_popescu So in this sense, it's never really "oh if I started earlier". Like Diana says.
And so it goes.
———Hey, took one guy a whole day to figure out the recipes go in the mind slot :D
Eulora has curves to it. Learning curves. [↩]
« Etica Mircea
There's a one Bitcoin reward for the death of Pieter Wuille. Details below. »
Category: S.MG
Wednesday, 09 December, Year 7 d.Tr.
Eulora 2nd event, Crafting As A Business and other considerations
The "Bringeth Forth Ye Tooles For I Shall Bless Upon Them Everlasting Durability" event, originally announced for June 14th but then delayed because lols started a couple hours ago, and will still be ongoing for another coupla.
So far, Mod Seis and Grundin Goldskull got Bandar Toolkits of 254`914 and 316`922 quality respectively, whereas Foxy Foxster got a Multifunctional Samovar of 212`195 quality, Daniel Barron a 236`269 Stone Pickaxe and Korgan Stonekrusher a 17`798 Cruddy Hoe. There's still room for more so don't be shy now. (And yes, this means that since inception, Eulora has wasted no less than 288 player-hours, which is more than a mythical man-month!)
Also it was discovered that for the day of the event boulders have been raining from heavens, a total of about 5`000 or so having been dutifully collected and drug over to the merchant by the antful population of Eulorians for great coinage profits.
As an example of this, allow me to share with the group two crafting / mining runs I did a little earlier.
First Craft Run
IN
OUT
Item
Count
Quality
Price
Item
Count
Quality
Price
CoGi
30
359
7`562
Boulder
75
103
4`500
CFT bpii
10
100
240
RRiii
10
103
690
CFT
10
104
1`870
SRS bpiv
14
104
364
Total in : 7`802
Total out : 7`424
As you can see, this first craft run yielded a loss of 378 satoshi or 4.84%.
First Mining Run
IN
OUT
Item
Count
Quality
Price
Item
Count
Quality
Price
Decayv
525
Boulder
251vi
127
18`573
CFT
10
104
1`870
Total in : 2`395
Total out : 18`573
As you can see, this first mining run yielded a gain of 16`178 satoshi or a whopping 675.49%!
Second Craft Run
IN
OUT
Item
Count
Quality
Price
Item
Count
Quality
Price
CoG
300
595
10`7400
Boulder
1752
103
105`120
CFT bp
100
100
2400
CFT
100
104
18`700
Total in : 109`800
Total out : 123`820
As you can see, this second (and larger) craft run yielded a gain of 14`020 satoshi or 12.76%. It also allowed me to train three levels of tinkering for a combined cost of 8`413 satoshi.vii
Second Mining Run
IN
OUT
Item
Count
Quality
Price
Item
Count
Quality
Price
Decay
3`675
Boulder
2`356viii
129
179`056
CFT
100
104
18`700
Total in : 22`375
Total out : 179`056
This second mining run thus made me a profit of 156`681 satoshi, or 700%!!!ix
The moral of this story is that high skills kick ass! See you in game.
———Clump of Grass. [↩]Coarse Frangible Thread, blueprint. [↩]Rickety Reeds. [↩]Shiny Rock Shards blueprint. [↩]My pickaxe decays when exploring. [↩]Small Boulder Claim + 5 CFT = 15 Boulder
Small Boulder Claim + 3 CFT = 10 Boulder
Small Boulder Claim + 2 CFT = 226 Boulder [↩]Amusingly enough, the last level of the three cost about half what the first cost o.O. [↩]Small Boulder Claim + 7 CFT = 39 Boulder (q 127)
Small Boulder Claim + 7 CFT = 26 Boulder (q 127)
Small Boulder Claim + 7 CFT = 26 Boulder (q 127)
Small Boulder Claim + 7 CFT = 60 Boulder (q 127)
Small Boulder Claim + 7 CFT = 21 Boulder (q 127)
Small Boulder Claim + 7 CFT = 21 Boulder (q 129)
Small Boulder Claim + 7 CFT = 23 Boulder (q 129)
Small Boulder Claim + 7 CFT = 1`904 Boulder (q 129)
Small Boulder Claim + 7 CFT = 21 Boulder (q 129)
Small Boulder Claim + 7 CFT = 21 Boulder (q 129)
Small Boulder Claim + 7 CFT = 30 Boulder (q 129)
Small Boulder Claim + 7 CFT = 27 Boulder (q 129)
Small Boulder Claim + 1 CFT = 9 Boulder (q 129)
Small Boulder Claim + 1 CFT = 4 Boulder (q 129)
Small Boulder Claim + 1 CFT = 39 Boulder (q 129)
Small Boulder Claim + 1 CFT = 5 Boulder (q 129)
Small Boulder Claim + 1 CFT = 4 Boulder (q 129)
Small Boulder Claim + 1 CFT = 4 Boulder (q 129)
Small Boulder Claim + 1 CFT = 5 Boulder (q 129)
Small Boulder Claim + 4 CFT = 14 Boulder (q 129)
Small Boulder Claim + 5 CFT = 53 Boulder (q 129) [↩]Mostly due to that massive 1`904 Boulders find - were it just another 24 I would have made 143`086 less, which is to say still profitable, but only by a 60% margin. [↩]
« Changing the BitBet resolution process.
I made an art! »
Category: S.MG
Sunday, 21 June, Year 7 d.Tr.
Etica Mircea
Yeah, that's right, like Aristotle's - only better. Shorter, at any rate, I ain't got the time or the patience for ten fucking volumes. Or one.
Actually... let's pad things a little with history, make it seem like longer than it really is.
mircea_popescu 25iq.com/2015/03/28/a-dozen-things-ive-learned-from-startup-l-jackson-about-venture-capital-investing-and-startups/
Wednesday, 09 December, Year 7 d.Tr.
El Gran' Teatro Argentino
Excuse me for interrupting your momentary glimpse of the Garden of Even, but I have an article I want you to read. Yes, I'm serious, with words and everything. No, I know that's really a great idea, teens naked on a museum field trip. Yes, I agree that's really the only way they can truly take in the antiquity of Antiquity and the splendor of... Yes, I'm aware dressing them before they're thirty is a waste anyway. Yes that's actually an old theatre, yes, yes. Can we move on to my article now ?
Thanks!
So, Buenos Aires has a great many theatres. How many exactly I doubt anyone can say, there's many hundreds of actual dedicated places - generally shared like churches in the Orthodox tradition are shared by multiple troupes of priests, deacons, choruses etc (and yet they regard harems dimly, for some reason, while having no problems sharing Christ's bride). Plus who knows how many clandestine troupes more or less seriously pursuing the craft, renting out places on occasion and so forth.
In this charged atmosphere, corroborated with the fact that Argentines do not normally speak English (and if they do, they mostly use it to chat casually with tourists and maybe, once in a blue moon, read half a newspaper or something), you'd expect some very vigurous, fascinating, creative and overal worthwile theatrics to occur. In a sense they do, but as we'll see, not in the sense you would expect.
Testimony, here's a little conversation I just had, passing by one of the yet another facially unappealing advertisements for a yet another pointless production.
Me : If there's one of these ads for a show, and there's two names in the marquee of which the first name's a female, what is the 2nd going to be ?
OP : Male.
Me : Yet if there's three names, and the first two are female, what is the 3rd going to be ?
OP : Female.
Indubitably. Yet how does she know ?
I'll tell you how she knows. She knows, from bitter experience, unconsciously but certainly, that being an Argentine is being retarded just like being a loaf of bread is being full of air.
Consequently #1, theatre in here doesn't mean anything you'd expect, but simply "come pay to watch me hang out with my friends". That's all it is. There's no show per se, and not really much of a script, or indeed need for one. That's not where the impetuus lays, but moreover in the trivial, a sort of degeneratedly Latino "realism". Just like the soviet realism of yore, as contrived, as false, as sterile, but with more lazy and more filthy.
Consequently numero dos, they are very socially stunted, and so the options are a) the atomic couple, as stylisized by this inept society or b) the herd of friends. And b's always going to be same-gender, because in a country populated by adults that just recently surpassed the mental age of 11, that's what you get.
Now, in an actual country with an actual culture, theatre is in point of fact very much an embodiement of a script (which is why English theatre is Shakespeare, who was first and foremost a playwright, and not Nell Gwyn, who was first and foremost her friends), so much so that when the script calls for females, as the script does, as a script is wont to, the all male crew didn't look at the fact that it was nigh impossible to get a woman on the stage, and if you do it'll be a whore and she'll play a very fine soubrette and nothing else, be she distributed as the Queen Mother, but instead shaved and wore bustier and cap and struggled and strove to fill the role - perhaps with some success.
Meanwhile in a cattle herd inhabiting an endless plain, the strictures of speech as a regulator of human activity do not exist per se. Argentines do not speak like you and me, Argentines bleat and bark like your sheep and dogs. They appreciate the loudness, the sudden quality, the melodicity, the formal "propriety" of speech much like a parrot judges another parrot's noises. They do not however comprehend, nor do they have any expectation that words string together into anything other than a noisy flow, and in no case does any notion occur to bother them that perhaps words carry the future in any sense.
And so in Argentina you have endless multitudes more than happy to drop whatever they're doing and chat with you for half an hour - provided it's purposeless and objectless, mere gurgling of sounds. They can be cashiers with a lengthy line waiting or firemen on a fire truck on their way to a fire, they'll stop to bark at you a little just like any self-respecting dog stops to bark a little at any other passing dog. You similarly have, in Argentina, tons of people willing to "discuss" soccer. You have any idea what soccer is like ? What exactly is there to discuss ? Oh, yet they do. And you should hear the people on the radio, how carefully aware they are of the fact that the sound of their voice speaking is the entirety of their speaking act.
And also so, in Argentina you have a great many theatres. Where you can go watch a perfect stranger hang out with his friends. The last time they had an actual theatrical production in this country was sometime in 1924, by the looks of it, but no matter. Argentinian theatre continues undisturbed, in the manner the great airport at Tanna, Vanuatu still to this day has scheduled flights to John Frum Airport, Anytown, USA, where Tom Navy brings them fresh corned Gardeleef and borges.
PS. Do not even dare argue details with me. This article comes as the bitter fruit of hundreds of walkouts out of hundreds of miserable performances, and a few scarce stays through even more miserable performances for the pure comedic value of it. The country's not merely nil, as far as theatre is concenred. It ate the floor and is now chewing through the subsoil.
« So the broomstick fired.
I killed one, I'm publishing another, who the hell knows what's going on anymore. »
Category: La pas prin lume
Thursday, 20 August, Year 7 d.Tr.
El Defloreador tum tum tudum tum-tum!
Note : This post is to be read humming the Toreador chorus from Bizet's Carmen. Here it is :
Ready ? Thus we proceed!
Thereby the young master Mariusi from Bacauii proudly trumpets to the world his unlocked achievement of having had deflowered himself (hey, Romanian is reflexive like that!) as well as notifying the candid beauty therein that "he loves her (my chicklet), for having gifted him her most priceless possession, to wit that bit of vulvar skin". and on the second line, "I love you faiii and I miss your ass!"
I deeply appreciate the sentiment, being myself a sentimental soul, and I wish the young people involved (the measure of all things such as they are - because they are, right ? You actually believe this, that man is the measure of all things, do you not ?) all the fun in the world.
Also, congrats to the happy father!
———One of the better redneck names in Romanian. [↩]Easily the redneck capital of Romania, slightly ahead of Braila, Galati and other such Moldovian Detroits left behind by last century's Danubian grain trade. [↩]This is a gendered derrogative very close to my heart, the brusquely familiar vocative denoting a female in a traditional sexo-social and otherwise arrangement. Which, in Romanian, chiefly denotes that she's not to have her own money nor any say in when sex happens or how many children result. Basic stuff.
Oh, and barefoot & braless. And no pantyhose. And no smartphone. As they say in Romania, "capra nu te nasti ; capra te pui". [↩]
« Top Secret!
So... is it a virus ? »
Category: Meta psihoza
Sunday, 11 October, Year 7 d.Tr.
Determinations and proceedings of the Bitcoin Conference, 3rd edition, first day
In the town of BsAs (what a name eh ?) on this most auspicious occasion of Friday the 17th, the high priests, pontiffs, eveques &c of the most serene republic determined as follows :
That "sidechains" as a stand-alone consideration (a sort of meme, really) don't make a whole lot of sense nor merit a lot of attention, because inasmuch as the principle is concerned, they have always in fact existed, implemented by, for instance, MPEx ; whereas as much as the "trustless" blabla goes they're self-contradictory, in that on one hand they propose that the history of transactions of fractions of a Bitcoin is not worth the effort to secure through the extant Bitcoin methodology, but at the same time also propose that the same history of transactions is worth the effort to secure through a... copy of the extant Bitcoin methodology. So formulated, the cause appears quite plain, and has been long discussed (for instance, in Bitcoin prices, Bitcoin inflexibility) : the desire of they who lost the race for whatever reasons to cause it to be run again. This is obviously understandable from a personal standpoint, but it doesn't amount to much reason in the public sphere. Sorry folks : you should have been here back then. Not being here back then has a cost, and you will pay it.
That the ESP8266 is rather interesting.
That it seems likely there is some mathematical formalisation of "if one blockchain exists, exactly one blockchain ever exists", probably derived from but not identical to "Nash equilibrium"i and the entire thing should probably be dug up with a fine comb.
That the length of Puerto Madero can in fact be covered on foot.
That cows actually go "meuh" in French, a point of some previous dispute in obscure circles ; and that very raw Argentine beef is indeed very palatable.
Draft list, please add your additions below!
———A valuable idea with a lengthy history of incorrect / unrigurous application by lay fans taring it. [↩]
« The Fetlife Meatlist - Volume III
Views from a conference »
Category: Zsilnic
Saturday, 18 April, Year 7 d.Tr.
Curriculum Vitae
A CV is normally made by people aspiring to a better job, and generaly very badly written.i I don't actually contemplate ever taking a job in those termsii, but a memorialization of high water marks over the past decade may perhaps be interesting.
June 17th, 2009 : Sent a complaint to Romania's central anti-corruption unit, stemming from an ~$1.5 mn embezzlement by a Romanian Academy member. After a protracted battle he retired. The crime itself was never prosecuted. Amusingly enough, the "intellectual" press was in consensus before that date that "someone should do something", and after that date that "how is this possible!"
August 11th 2009 : Introduced a Romanian digg. Unlike the original version (or the stuff that overtook it meanwhile), fain actually worked. It was for a while and by very far the largest referrer in .ro, ahead of any "press" or anything else. It was for a while the only way Romanians could actually make money online (actually, as opposed to hopefully). It also was by very far the first source of Bitcoin for that particular cultural island - and in fact people taking their gains out in Bitcoin cca 2011-2012 made more than all the history of Romanian mining combined.iii
July 8th, 2011 The Romanian Education ministry is, among other things, required to publish the results of the national exams (they work in Romania like they work in France), for which purpose it had retained the services of a known government leech (Siveco). A week after the exam and days after the results had been published, the online version still did not work (like that obamacare site, exactly). A few of us banded together and published the whole archive. Somehow, magically, Trilema could deliver the pages to an immense audience, whereas a site made "by professionals" out of millions in public spending could not. This was followed by detailed statistical massaging of the raw data (for instance : by gender) leading to the very embarassing situation (never publicly admitted) where the minister was reading Trilema and wondering outloud as to why his employees can not deliver the same stuff for his own use.
August 2011 Started work on what was to become the only Bitcoin stock exchange. For a while this was denied under the guise of "alternatives" (all, meanwhile, dead), but currently this is unrecognized on the pretext that Bitcoin companies "don't exist" anyway. Because that is, as has always been, the way idiots deal with the splendour of this world.iv
September 2nd, 2011 : Forced the release of the Wikileaks unedited cable archive, through publishing without authorisation the subset of those cables relating to Bucharest. After a day of pretending, Wikileaks caved and (without mention) made the whole archive available on their site. Their original plan was to publish the usual Greenwaldized bowdlerization.
January 24th, 2012 : Published a report on a major loss of Romanian credit card information, affecting roughly half the population. As a direct result, a number of officers were dismissed or replaced on January the 28th. The story was at the time blackballed in the Romanian press, which never apologized or, for that matter, admitted.
October 6th, 2012 : Published the binding ruling on the subject of "regulation" of Bitcoin by impudent agents without a Serenissima commission. This is still the reference point on the subject today.
April 3rd, 2013 : Saved Bitcoin. Actually.
June 2013 : Felt like designing a game so started a game publisher. IPO collected ~10k BTC.
October 5th, 2013 : Published plain statements as to the true nature and actual function of the Tor network - dismissed at the time by the more naive members of the public as "unproven". Meanwhile, they've been proven.
March 6th, 2014 : Published a manual for interaction with alleged authorities of rogue states, which ran through the gamut of what should be required of them. The why became apparent later.
January 5th, 2015 Shot in the head CIA's principal asset in Bitcoin. It was not without warning. Next time, obey when I warn. If you do not, I will kill more of your own. No, you will not be "ready for it", like you weren't last time. See here.
March 17th 2015 : Lost a bet.
And that should do, I'm bored with it. Note that this is not an exhaustive list by any means - in fact, I doubt it even captures half the material. I'm also probably not going to bother with keeping it up to date at any sort of predictable intervals - I generally have better shit to do.
———No, there's no automatic insurance against bad writing, not as a piece of software, not as a piece of paper saying you "went to college", not as anything else.
Bad writing is not equal to bad spelling, just like "never saying nigger" is not equal to "the opposite of ignorant, racist or prejudiced". Just like saying Holy Mary a lot won't get you into heaven. Just saying. [↩]If you don't know why you'd want to work with me in any field you necessarily don't know enough about that field to work in it at all. [↩]Whenever you feel a pang of stupidity gnawing at the deference you owe your betters, think about this important historical happenstance : the main reason the country of Romania even has any Bitcoins is one particular individual. Not a government, not a corporation or association, not "crowdsourcing" nor anything else.
Exceptional individuals certainly can be more than whole countries. Whole countries generally don't amount to much. [↩]As a quick note : there are worse crimes than Holocaust denial. For one thing, most of the people who care about the Holocaust are either old or dead - the people who care about MPEx are the people you will have to beg jobs and indulgences off of in the coming years. [↩]
« Maripostas
Ok, ok, you had me :D »
Category: Oda Superbiei
Monday, 30 March, Year 7 d.Tr.
Corina Chiriac - Recital Mamaia'86
Corina Chiriac was a sort of Romanian Lady Gaga of the '80s, I guess - the entire preteen jailbait Britni bit was mostly Mihaela Radulescu, although obviously the mapping's approximative at best. Here's what she had to say, three years before the Communist dictator got shot for Christmasi :
As dori in numele tuturor colegilor mei sa va multumesc is mai ales sa va ofer citeva dintre multele melodii pe care as fi dorit sa vi le cint in aceasta seara, si pe care le meritati deoarece dumneavoastra le-ati ales din nenumaratele melodii pe care le-am cintat cu totii de-a lungul anilor, in cadrul festivalurilor, a slagarelor in devenire, a melodiilor, a tuturor spectacolelor si concertelor. Asa incit cu permisiunea dumneavoastra am ales doar o mica parte dintre aceste cintece - si am ales citeva dintre cintecele pe care cred ca in aceasta seara le cint pentru ultima oara - pentru citiva ani de-acum inainte, deoarece le cint deja de doi, trei, patru ani si cred ca dumneavoastra le-ati auzit deja destul dar sper ca le veti mai re-asculta inca o data cu aceeasi placere cu care vi le voi oferi eu.
In English, annotated :
I would like to thank you, in the name of all my colleaguesii and especiallyiii offer you a few of the many songs which I would have wanted to sing for you tonight, which you deserveiv because you've picked them out of the numerous songs that we've all sungv over the years, in the cadre ofvi festivals, of up and coming hits, of the songs, of all the shows and concerts. So with your permission I chose only a small part of these songs - and I chose some of the songs that I believe I will be singing tonight for the last time - for years to come, becausevii I've been singing them for two, three, four years and I think you've heard them enough but I hope you will re-listen once more with the same pleasure with which I will offer them to you.
Turns out - the more stupid changes, the more stupid stays the same.
———By the way, I had a very interesting conversation with a Peruan cab driver. He figured I'm not Argentine, wanted to know where I'm from, then wanted to know what's it like in Romania. He was a reasonably informed, inquisitive adult, had moved to Buenos Aires from Lima 35 years prior (and we shared a chuckle about the locally perceived "inseguridad". The conversation flew more or less as follows :
"So there was Ceausescu in Romania, if I remember"
"Right."
"And he was shot ?"
"Yep. On Christmas Eve."
"How come ?"
"Well, you see, Ceausescu was very much like a Romanian Peron - sorta populist, sorta leftist, sorta nationalist in an approximate concoction. The Romanians couldn't stand this and so they shot him."
Clearly the notion that being Peron-like is not only not good, but actually and outright bad, and not merely bad but bad to the degree you [ought to] get shot for it is shocking to the man, but he doesn't let on. He instead pursues his line.
"But they killed also his wife ?"
"Yep."
"How come ?"
"Well, you see, his wife was a lot like Evita. Very involved in politics - according to some even more involved than her husband. So they offed her too."
"But the children ?"
"Oh, not the children."
"But how old were they ? Because of course if they were small..."
"Nah, they were all adults. Thirties, forties."
"And Romania had capital punishment ?
"It did in the Communist era. It was taken out of the code, but people waited specifically to kill Ceausescu first."
"So what is the political situation like now ?"
"Well, there's some strong right parties, and some not as strong left parties. Of course what counts as left in Romania people in general would consider right nevertheless. In any case one can expect a beating in the street for purporting to be a communist or something. [This is actually true, I passed by some twerp here trying to give out flyers of some local thing identifying as a communist party and my principal impulse was to ask him how is he not ashamed of himself. Because yes, he should be.]
"So like in France."
"I guess."
"And how has the situation evolved, economically ?"
"Drastically. Romania increased a degree of magnitude, broadly speaking. It was definitely poorer than Argentina in the 80s [Hence a major influx of beggars in the 90s], it is amply richer today."
"Yeah, things here haven't really improved any in the past 20-30 years. Certainly Argentina was better before Peron than it is after. [See the discussion of Rhodesia to grasp what this actually means.]" [↩]This particular communist-ism is still fashionable today. [↩]"Mai ales" is a very typical Romanian 80ism, and wooden language pivot. [↩]The "which you deserve" thing is surprisingly contemporary. One of the most annoying slogans of the 90s advertising world was "Because you deserve it". Meanwhile in Argentina, some schmuck actually came up with the bizarre idea of making "Yes we can live better" his campaign slogan. Live better! Fancy that, these people are already living a degree of magnitude above their means, hallucinating 100's of k's real estate values and assorted pretense, in a world where they couldn't make fiddy bucks a month no matter what they did. They want to live... even better. Not in the cards. [↩]Again the sort of effacing bullshit. She didn't sing them, "we" sung them. Apparently we shot that idiot so the US could pick up his era or some shit. Nuts. [↩]Not my fault. Wooden language is woody. [↩]She was preparing to defect. Actually did it coupla years later. [↩]
« Introducing the Bitcoin ISP
The horror that is Ubuntu »
Category: Cocietate si Sultura
Saturday, 09 May, Year 7 d.Tr.
Continut platit no more.
Well over five years agoi, when Trilema introduced something not yet seen on the Internetsii, the very notion caused a splashiii. It was unthinkable! Impossible! Nonsensical! I must be crazy! And not understand how the world works! Etc!
A year later, The New York Times copied the modeliv. Before that, the survivors of the .ro media wars lined up to bid for my sales datav. Clearly, it was I that didn't understand etc.vi
It was a pretty decent ride - the widely known Bitcoin addressvii collected a rather reasonable 247.78241666 BTC, worth ~108`365.162102084 USD at today's open market rateviii which is, ironically, more than what anyone ever made out of selling content online in this intervalix, not to mention just about enough to buy a house pretty much anywhere in the world. A house pre furnished and with women included in most parts of the world, actually.
Nevertheless, both my circumstances and circumstances in general have changed significatly since that fateful 2010 Summer. For one thing, what's sensible for a tiny exotic market like Romania is not necessarily sensible for a large and fragmented market such as the billion or so English speakersx. For another thing, I'm worth a cool billion now, give or take, which is roughly speaking a billion more than I was worth in 2010. Not that I was ever poor, but millions and billions aren't really the same thing - the guy with a roll worth a grand is not as likely to pick up a nickle as the minimum wage waiter, which is how tipping works in the first place. This says nothing of the value of a penny, earned or saved, but it does say something about laziness and the human nature.
For yet another thing, the sort of content I publish has changed markedlyxi, and that means the marketing thereof ought to probably also change, whether one's stubborn or not. Lastly - for many years buying Trilema credits was the only economical activity in Bitcoinxii, but now that Eulora exists and it's doing so very well, that consideration significantly pales in importance.
Not exactly for these reasons, but for very good causes that lie at the root of them, Trilema will henceforth be freely accessible.xiii No more paid content.
The only losers in this move are, of course, the 2nd echelon of content producers - the people who aren't nearly good enough to pen their own Trilema, but nevertheless find themselves in the unenviable position where producing content is still the best relative use of their time. Apparently the universe really hates anyone coming second, because look how it works : the guy coming out first doesn't actually need to get paid, and nobody can rationally compete with free. This, incidentally, is how we get power laws, always and everywhere the enemies of quality of all kinds - from quality of product to quality of life.
I am sorry to contribute to that rampant problem. Nevertheless, weighing all considerations together it... well to be frank, it comes out second. What can you do ?
Enjoy, I guess.
A, ps : if you would like to donate, donate to The Most Serene Republic.
———Holy shit, I'm that old, am I ?! [↩]No, this wouldn't be the first time Trilema did something like that.
For instance, have you ever wondered why it was that wikileaks finally decided to publish the cables ? They were going to do the usual "sit on the goodies and work them over with the Guardian" routine they do, except an "unknown" Romanian blogger decided to publish a subsection. Sixteen hours later they caved and published.
Oh, you've never heard of this incident ? Too bad. What else have you never heard of ? [↩]The article in question clocks over 300 comments, for instance. [↩]Poorly.
The way Trilema's paid content implementation worked was that new users could read articles, up to five a week ; past that they had to pay. Literally, had to, the server delivered a notice and nothing else.
The way the NYT butchery worked was that you were served the content with a css overlay, that you were more than welcome to ignore. Technology is hard, especially for the sort of incompetent nitwits that find their life's work inside a corporation. [↩]The winner's still undisclosed, mind you. [↩]In fairness, these were very special times, the detailed characteristics of which might make the topic of paid consultancy work, except I'm not really in that market since Bitcoin. Suffice it to say that post dot-com bubble the actors were confronted with the uneasy choice of either doubling down on the "online advertising" scam ; or else trying to somehow patch up the "UGC is worth money" scam that had just blown up ; or come up with a genuine business model. They toyed briefly with answer c), discovered it's really not that easy (in the sense that MP can do it, but that doesn't help the mediocre horde one wit) so went all in a) with hysterical results (what's CTR by now, 0.000001% ? oh I know, you're on the third generation of falsified metrics, nice, well done, keep going) and are just about ready to pretend like 2001 was too long ago for anyone to still remember anything and therefore b) is ready for another spin. [↩]16crkmdoaK6Tq8NP3FVK7Uxq5Dwdicb3c3 [↩]Not that anyone's selling, nor would anyone sell on the open market - you really gotta suck a lot of cock to get the chance to buy a little coin these days. [↩]Oh, you don't think so ? Ask David Thorne. [↩]Hey, did you know most English speakers aren't white ? In fact, there's more people speaking English in China than there are in the United States. [↩]Trilema started off as the erudite work of a fellow deeply disinterested in the actual workings of the world. Today I'm anything but, Bitcoin's rekindled my passionate desire to kill people, something that had been laying dormant in silent peace since my youth. [↩]This is a fact.
Paying BTC to someone in exchange for some socks he bought with fiat, or paying BTC to someone in lieu of rent when that someone has to turn around and pay expenses of all sorts in fiat is no sort of "Bitcoin economy", not anymore than derping around on social media is some sort of "new economy". At the end of the day you still have to, have to find some way to convert those to fiat and pay your rent, which means you're dicking around.
Trilema credits on the other hand were the first, and for a long time the only, and for a slightly shorter time the most notable Bitcoin economic activity. Mind that if what you think is something along the lines of "this isn't much", all you're doing is commenting on how little Bitcoin had on its side early on, and no more. There isn't an avenue available through which you might talk fiat parasites on Bitcoin into some sort of relevancy, for the exact same reasons you can't parlay "companies" that outsource their economic activity abroad into economic agents. [↩]This measure does not in any way change my rights in the work (discussed, today as always, in the attached Copyright Notice). It has no legal effect whatsoever, but it does have the practical effect that you can read even if you're poor (and consequently shouldn't be reading). [↩]
« Procedural Dungeon Generation for Eulora
Tin Men »
Category: Meta psihoza
Wednesday, 23 December, Year 7 d.Tr.
Come see the retard chamber!
Trilema delivers.
Entirely unrelated to these considerations, coming at you loud and clear from Argentina "No Es Un Pais Pobre" Haymasfuturo, the Nuevo Mercado de Pulgasi flea market!
Lots of antiguedades from the 70s and a lot of cheaply made contemporaneous furniture with that inimitable air of etsy-worthy sophomoric ineptitude - the sort of thing idiots make who imagine that if it's badly made it just adds an air of authenticity and antique-cred. Because the past sucked, you know, because that was before all the progress and shit.
Goot times, too bad they're gone.
———It literally comes to "The New Flea Market". [↩]
« The Minuscule Crab of Doom and the Sympathetic Spool of Drool - an endlessly complex machine to shred your dreams to pixie dust!
In Desperation of Cause, or Eulora November 15th Auction »
Category: Zsilnic
Wednesday, 11 November, Year 7 d.Tr.
Chtulhu emerges!
For the longest time, the WoT needs of #bitcoin-assets were well served by gribble. After the January spliti, things were left in somewhat of a lurch because without a graphical interface the mind can not workii, and so until Mike came out with his splendid explorer, there was a four month interval in which needed changes accumulated without being really manifested in the WoT (some were, the more important ones - but clearly not all).
Yesterday I finally did a bit of house cleaning, and coincidentally also yesterday the 2015 Lordship List revision was implemented. Consequently when btcalpha recalculated the WoT last night, there were some changes.
Before :
After :
As you can see, Chtulhu emerges!
———Which - for the record and from the horse's mouth - was not driven by any sort of animosity. It was the simple and perfectly predictable result of uncaught exceptions IRL, which is to say : nanotube went travelling, as people are wont to do around the New Year. He was not wearing his Internet tether, as people are wont to do around the New Year. He didn't make specific arrangements with us, because what the shit already, just how far into a person's rectum are the constructive obligations of having done something for others going to extend ? Meanwhile and unrelatedly, gribble went down. It rarely does, but hey, that time it did. As the situation dragged on for day after day (which from what I recall was never seen before), eventually the call was made to have it replaced, and once that call was made... it was going to be replaced. So it has.
I don't believe the guy was kidnapped by Lizard Hitler and replaced with a how-do-you-call-those-scary-bad-things-in-that-movie. I don't believe there's anything wrong with using gribble today, even if I personally rarely do. There have been discussions on the topic of bridging the two, which I think would be a great step forward for Bitcoin generally, because it achieves decentralization in a practically useful manner (muchly reminiscent of the gossipd design). I have no doubt it will eventually be done. [↩]I really can't think about WoTs without looking at graphs and without clickable lists. Yes, I'm aware I'm the same guy who said
[Visually minded] which is another way of saying uneducated louts, in the hebrew tradition of symbolic representation, because only uneducated louts would be unable to process data "in their head" upon hearing it described and would require visual aids. The coincidence that this'd perforce include most women doesn't obviously bother the hebrew tradition in the least.
I won't say "so bite me!", I will just continue quoting instead :
And since we're on the topic, note the "he may be called" at the beginning of the paragraph, too. It is unintentional, of course.
So byte me! [↩]
« What amused me today
The sad story of me sniffing varnish »
Category: Bitcoin
Tuesday, 28 April, Year 7 d.Tr.
Chez Cocus, or the Argentinian Chorus
First off, something the French speaking readership will explain to you :
But moving on to the actual chorus in question :
From left to right in no particular order :
Putruele Malbec 2013, Nieto Sentenier "Benjamin" whatever that is, 2014, Esmeralds "Estiba I (Tempranillo Rosado)" 2013, Lopez Chateau Vieux 2007, Lopez Rincon Famoso 2013, Lopez Xero (Malbec), Maria Cordoniu Extra Brut (Chardonnay/Pinot Noir), Dante Robino Novecento Extra Brut, Esmeralds "Estiba I (Malbec)" 2014, Lopez Montchenot (Chenin) 2014, Nieto Sentenier "Benjamin" (Malbec), 2014. None of them ran me over 80 peso (approx 5 dollars), none was less than 30 or so.i
The Chateau Vieux thing tastes like a mix of everything, or rather half-Cabernet, half-whatever-ya-got. Very nicely red, very softly tanny, works for the purpose of sipping while typing one evening while it's pouring rain outside just fine.
Cheers.
———This was the "common" run ; the upmarket run mentioned before resulted in Catena Zapata Nature, Norberto Richardi Extra Brut, Flechas de los Andes Gran Malbec 2011, Lassia Cabernet Sauvignon/Malbec 2013, Alamos Moscatel de Alejandria (Best seller in USA!111), Catena Zapata Chardonnay en roble 2013 (Prized!!! In the US!!11) for a total cost about equal to what this dozen ran me - roughly ten bucks a bottle on average or somesuch. [↩]
« Eulora continuat
The lulz in "dating" »
Category: Zsilnic
Thursday, 15 October, Year 7 d.Tr.
Changing the BitBet resolution process.
Remember that anatomy of a disaster thing coupla years ago ? Well... it happened again.
nanashi_ Could I make an inquiry about BitBet's Freeseas Bet? The first three of the last four bets were "No" bets, so they should not be refunded (though it seems it's too late...).
mircea_popescu link ?
nanashi_ https://bitbet.us/bet/1155/freeseas-inc-nasdaq-free-will-trade-at-least-0-10/
BitBet - FreeSeas INC, NASDAQ:FREE, will trade at least 0.10 USD per share before 1st July 2015. :: 3.26 B (44%) on Yes, 4.19 B (56%) on No | closed 10 hours 21 minutes ago ... ( http://bit.ly/1J62PZ7 )
nanashi_ Should I speak at "mircea_popescu tab" (which is (I think) more private?)
mircea_popescu i do not know you. we can't talk privately for this reason.
nanashi_ ok.
nanashi_ Am I talking to a right person (about Freeseas bet inquiry), mircea_popescu?
mircea_popescu nanashi_ havin' it looked into, a sec.
nanashi_ I am "143Cz" better. I know I lost the bet, but I'm surprised the later three bets (which were all "No") were refunded (which they should not).
mircea_popescu myeah. mod dropped teh ball, an' as a result im out a coupla bitcoins now.
mircea_popescu nanashi_ thanks for pointing it out.
nanashi_ you're welcome...
It actually was 6.5 BTC, or roughly speaking seven times BitBet's income last month. Which sucks.
There are two major problems contributing here. One of them is that there can not in fact be such a thing as errorless process - and I regard a two year interval without this sort of problem a major achievement, rather than any sort of failure. The other is that in general you can not expect any activity to cost less than the maximum liability to which it exposes the practitioner. For instance, if a doctor runs a 1% risk of having to pay a million dollar malpractice settlement, there will be no doctor visits costing less than 10k no matter what.
Leaving aside that moderator error is in principle an unbounded liability, using the aforementioned rule of thumb would promise that the previous 24 months would see a moderation cost of no less than a quarter bitcoin, which would in a majority of them represent a significant portion of BitBet's net profit. This then implies that the current approach is not really sustainable, or perhaps is marginally sustainable - but in any case should be reviewed and revised.
In which spirit, the following changes will be introduced in the resolution process :
Bet closes, consequently coming up for resolution.
Moderator resolves the bet, indicating through this what sides will win and what sums.
The bet is held for two days, during which any interested party may make whatever protestations, in the usual venue.
The bet is paid out, after which no further complaints of any kind and for any reason will be entertained.
These changes have the disadvantage that they extend the interval a winning bettor has to wait for his winnings by two days, and also the disadvantage that bettors are held to review results of the bets they participate in during a fixed timeframe. While I can appreciate that disadvantages suck, I see at the present moment no alternative approach that'll offer the cost control benefits of this one.
Feel free to contribute your cents below. Otherwise this change is set to become actual BitBet policy by the end of the month (FAQ will be edited to reflect this once it is the case).
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Category: S.BBET
Saturday, 20 June, Year 7 d.Tr.
Causes and purposes
This is the English version of an older - and important - Romanian article : Cauze si scopuri.
"You're fat."
"How could you say that to me! Are you trying to make me feel bad about myself ?!"
"I don't want anything, it's a factual observation."
This exchange - whether imaginary or not matters little - exposes rather clearly a very significant difference. I have noticed, from my own experience, that any action results either from a certain cause, or towards some sort of purpose. These two are the two sources of any action, and there isn't a third.
Every time they confront a given action, people tend reflexively to seek to understand "to what purpose" it occurs. What is the hidden intent, wherefore is the agent aiming. What do you mean by this, why me, and especially "who set you up to this", like the Romanian politician would say.i
I however am firmly persuaded that acting towards a purpose is at the very least morally suspect (that much I can show, but I'm almost willing to say it's outright rotten) and technically inefficient. Let as look into the matter.
All causes being necessarily in the past, their collection is necessarily finite, and explicitly given. Acting from a cause you can of course err, either through not knowing the cause exactly in all its details, and thus acting inadequately, or through not knowing elements outside of the cause, context as it were, which one way or another fundamentally alter the response adequate to the situation. By example :
John gives Mary 20 dollars, because Mary lent him 20 dollars last Thursday. Inasmuch as John is not mistaken about either the cause or the context, his action is perfectly adequate.
If in fact it wasn't Mary, but her twin sister Mara that lent him the 20 dollars, or if the 20 dollars were not in fact being lent to John, but merely a repayment of an even older loan John had made to Mary, then the action is inadequate, through not having correctly understood the cause. The remedy is directly obvious and necessarily accessible : Mary could point out to him that she's not owed anything for whatever reason, and if that reason gives further cause for action (such as, redirecting the 20 dollars to Mara) that's that. If on the other hand Jane, John's wife, meeting Mary earlier had rendered her the 20 dollars herself, instead of John, John's later repayment is also inadequate, through not correctly understanding the context. Remedy, again, is equally obvious and equally accessible.
If on the other hand John spends 20 dollars to buy bonbons, in order to gift them to Mary in order to get her to pisi stai o tura, his action will be perfectly inadequate for a vast array of possible reasons John can not possibly ever know. For instance, Mary might be alergic to chocolate, inclined towards women, sworn to chastity or simply of the opinion that receiving sweets has absolutely nothing to do with getting laid.
In other words, the vastness of possible purposes, and of the many and varied contexts in which they could find themselves is lost in the darkness of the future, and as such they're not only infinite and uncountable, but even undefined! And necessarily undefined no less, as rightly established by the science of Physics. Both these unhappy considerations make activity with a view to a purpose, whatever it may be, sheer folly, or, if you prefer, windhunting.
So : don't go to school for the purpose of certification. Go, if you go, because you're interested in whatever they study there, and this on a daily basis. If you're not interested, don't go! No matter who gets upset. If it's not a good thing to steal a chicken, don't steal a chicken, no matter what noble purpose stealing the chicken may or might serve in the future. Don't lie, not as a function of what purpose the lie may or may not serve, but by virtue of the simple fact that it's not true. Examples could be had ad libitum, but... to what purpose ?
If you were to start today on the simple doctrine of acting absolutely, strictly and only for a cause, and never towards a purpose, no matter what that purpose may be or who might be proposing it you would gain some absolutely incredible advantages. Among them : no action or inaction further requires laborious evaluations. It's rather simple, and rather quick to come to a determination as to whether there's cause for any proposed action. It is comparatively impossible to establish if there's any purpose, or what kind of purpose would it likely be. The approaches to evaluating purposes are necessarily gross approximations, and through this perfectly open to mendacity and manipulation. Foregoing any purpose, you free yourself from the unwelcome influence of the little rape, which only exists to empty your pockets and keep you working in exchange for nothing in an appealing presentation.
Obviously acting towards poorly defined, barely verbalized and mostly unexamined purposes has the apparent advantage of allowing the stupid man the illusion of control over the future. The simple fact of the matter is that no entity has control over its own future, outside of the regular application of some simple rules that allow for its preservation and perpetuation.
These simple rules are exactly one, which goes like this : act from a cause, and never towards a purpose.
This is the policy that ensures the permanence of the Universe, the eternity of the stars, the apparition of lifeii, the evolution of mankind. How willing are you to go against the whole Universe, on the strength of the verbiage of some "guru" that nobody heard of a second ago, and nobody will hear of in another second ?
———Romanian public culture is rather primitive and unrefined (sort-of like the US is becoming these days). Politicians however are exactly the reptiles they're everywhere. The intersection of these results in particular fixations, such as this one. [↩]That's right : life didn't appear on Earth for a purpose, it appeared because reasons. The difference between the thinking man and the unthinking man is this fundamental. [↩]
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Category: Gandesc, deci gandesc
Wednesday, 18 February, Year 7 d.Tr.