DragonSidedD

First, ASIC investment disincentivized network updates and crushed innovation.

Then VenmoCashAppApplePayZelle became instant person to person virtual debit cards superior to most crypto for most purchases

Then USDT/Tether showed what a bad idea stablecoins are (like, just use Venmo or w/e)

Then NFTs made crypto synonymous with scammy

Then the Trump administration made stablecoins and grift synonymous with public policy

I hadn't heard of "Proof of Useful Work". From the the name alone, it sounded like stuff hyc and others were looking at a few years ago, just before it was realized that the only way to really ASIC-proof the algo was a fully random-yet-deterministic state machine (Tevador's RandomX)

But then I did a quick search and read what appears to be the most up-to-date and authoritative paper on the subject, and it's based on the idea that fast matrix multiplication is an inherently good and relevant computation.

Ummm... yeah. No, afaict their paper isn't concerned with the issue that this is an inherently GPU-friendly algo and so favors centralization. The paper focuses of course on making a prover and verifier out of FFM operations.

Which is cool and you can get an ArXiv paper out of it, but not relevant for the real-world at-scale adversary-rich environment that is Internet Currency.

(Edit: 1. No I didn't watch the video; someone please LMK if it discusses a different PoUW 2. I did check and no, Cabanas is not one of the paper authors fwiw.)

I cry for the world that could have been, if Tor and Monero gained widespread adoption

This Week in Virology has been shocked aghast and brutal about how mind-numbingly stupid RFKJr is and surrounds himself with the same. They talk about Thimerosal what what insane policy is going down here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvjItbi_6sQ&t=450s

Be safe, kids -- don't buy drugs on the clearnet!

Kind of OT but as a James Joyce enjoyer I like the name, it evokes this paper which always stuck with me

Dawn: A study of the present age and Finnegans wake through a close look at FW page 594, one page sufficient for our time

Literally 250+ pages unpacking one single page of the original ~700 page book, much of which reads like it was encrypted/compressed.

How shitty would you feel, as a hotshot AI researcher who just delivered a model architecture getting way better scores than Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI in all kinds of industry-standard benchmarks ...

... and then learn Musk was high some night and just fucked with the system prompt, not knowing really what he's doing, ham-fistedly trying to make his egostistical conspiracy-deluded self the arbiter of truth and ethics for Humanity

Those other labs are offering pay packages just as attractive as Musk's

Will it be a tails spin? That might make a lot of sense

Well... it means I was (and fyi still am) the kind of rube that is on fixed salary but works way more than 9-5 M-F

But at least I do it in my PJ's at home

I delete all my social media periodically for similar reasons.

Even communities of people who are really level headed and supportive, like academics and engineers. Eventually there is groupthink, tribalism, and generally people who I am over (and I'm sure it's mutual)

Worse than Slack...

Now that is saying something