Dhruv Bansal Profile picture
Jul 10, 2018 6 tweets 2 min read Read on X
\1 I continue to struggle with @ParityTech's software design decisions. My #Parity node keeps dropping peers. The advice I get is "upgrade to the latest unstable version". Parity is even configured to auto-update itself by default. Why do I have to run at the edge just to work?
2\ Parity is either (a) consumer software or (b) bad software.

It's (sometimes) OK when consumer software forces you to upgrade b/c, as a consumer, you're dumb & insecure. Business (or prosumer) software achieves a higher level of security & control by sacrificing ease of use.
3\ Consider: if Parity upgrades itself automatically that means /usr/bin/parity can edit itself. I have to completely trust that the Parity code, DNS, &c. prevents any peer from causing my Parity to change to something unintended. I hate this "feature", so I turned it off.
\4 I want the config owned by root:wheel, chmod'd 640, with Parity running as its own user. This way, only I (root) can make changes. If Parity has a bug which allowed insecure updates, the OS would have my back and prevent it from changing itself. More manual, but more secure.
\5 Shipping Parity to auto-update itself is insecure and reveals a development culture which cannot commit to supporting a release cycle with long-term stable versions. (To say this is impossible implies Ethereum is "in beta". Is it?)

What is the most stable ETH node? #Geth?
\6 As a PS, I have an EC2 instance running bitcoind v. 0.99 from 2013 and it is *still* syncing and I never have issues. I've decided to let it run till it breaks, if it ever does. That is what stable, production software looks like!

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More from @dhruvbansal

Jul 22, 2018
1\ Do any other Bitcoiners like the book "The Once & Future King" by T. H. White?

It's one of my favorites and I've been revisiting it recently, thinking about cryptocurrency, political representation, & blockchains.
2\ It opens with Merlyn teaching a young King Arthur (Wart) about different forms of government, the fallacy of "might makes right", all through a series of adventuresome allegories.

Disney's "The Sword in the Stone", is a cute (if imperfect) adaptation of this part of the book.
3\ But "The Once & Future King" is ultimately a tragedy.

With the help of his storied Knights of the Round, Arthur builds Camelot, the fairest kingdom.

But Arthur is manipulated into self-conflict, his personal desires at odds with the principals he must uphold.

Camelot falls.
Read 10 tweets
Feb 8, 2018
1\ A thought experiment: The year is 2277. You're the bartender at a spaceport in a faraway Earth colony on a planet orbiting α-Centauri: a distance of ~4 light years. Guy walks into your bar, slams down a credit chit, and asks for a drink.

How do you know his money is any good?
2\ If the credit chit were guaranteed by a bank or a blockchain or something local to α-Centauri it'd be easy, just like it is here on Earth in 2018.

But say this guy is fresh-thawed after his long journey from Earth aboard a lighthugger. What kind of wealth could he even have?
3\ He's unlikely to be carrying base metals. Like natural resources, they'd still be valuable, but too heavy to transport from Earth. Physical fiat (bank notes) wouldn't be accepted either: too easy to 3D-print forgeries.

So what form of wealth survives interstellar voyages?
Read 17 tweets
Jan 28, 2018
1\ Have you heard this reasoning? "#Ethereum is better than #Bitcoin because it can do more." => "The EVM is Turing-complete and Bitcoin Script isn't, so Ethereum is a better cryptocurrency." => "Bitcoin's creators were too early/stupid/blind to make Bitcoin Turing-complete."
2\ This is a blatant misunderstanding! To a non-technical person, Turing-completeness and being able to compute anything is *obviously* better. But programmers know that Turing-completeness is Pandora's box: you don't know what it contains and you can't close it once opened...
3\ ...Turing-completeness is like a nuclear explosion. Once the threshold density/temperature is breached, fission fuel self-ignites and explodes. The hard part isn't blowing past the threshold, but staying as close to it as possible: energy => criticality => balance => control.
Read 10 tweets
Jan 22, 2018
1\ Physicists have a word "crank": a person who doesn't know physics but persists in promulgating their personal theory. Cranks pop in all fields of physics but especially in certain areas: quantum mechanics, field theories, relativity, cosmology, &c.
2\ Why these subjects? B/c they are abstract & esoteric. It's hard to crank in Newtonian mechanics because your bogus theory is easily disproved by direct human experience. It's easier to crank in quantum b/c few outside the tribe of physics really understand quantum mechanics.
3\ Bad cranks are just crazy people. But good cranks are interesting. Their work *looks like* physics (has math, equations, diagrams) and, because its engaging an abstract subject like quantum mechanics, can be mistaken for real physics by laypeople who can't tell the difference.
Read 9 tweets

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