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The Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in every copy of macOS

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Re: The Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in every copy of macOS

#251

Post by alex_sf »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #194
alex_sf wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had DHTs, we had blockchains, and double spending was solved at least 2 years before the bitcoin white paper. Satoshi combined them together in a novel form, for sure, but it’s still largely useless.

We had linked lists of hashes which themselves referenced hash-tables, and we had a solution to the Byzantine Generals problem, but the bitcoin whitepaper combined them, and the combination of those two properties (not even tied to the consensus mechanism) is the thing people are talking about when they use the word "blockchain" now

> Satoshi combined them together in a novel form, for sure, but it’s still largely useless.

Re: The Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in every copy of macOS

#252

Post by alex_sf »

olalonde wrote: post #239
alex_sf wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had DHTs, we had blockchains, and double spending was solved at least 2 years before the bitcoin white paper. Satoshi combined them together in a novel form, for sure, but it’s still largely useless.

No.

Wow, that's a great point. I hadn't even thought to approach it like that.

Re: The Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in every copy of macOS

#254

Post by culi »

mehlmao wrote: post #176
crazygringo wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. I can't even think of any other "famous PDF". If you asked me for a famous modern formatted document generally, I might say the screenplay for The Godfather would be a good candidate. But there's no canonical PDF for that. :P Plus, copyright would prevent that.

I've used the sheet music for 'Still Alive' from Portal whenever I need a test PDF. The original blog post linking to it is gone, but Valve has kept it up on their CDN: https://steamstore-a.akamaihd.net/public/images/whatsnew/Sti...

This is fun. I needed a test with many different sized PDFs. Originally I tried project gutenberg but it didn't have the variety I wanted. I ended up going to the Anarchist Library which checked all the boxes w.r.t. file size variety and ease of download (as well as minimizing fear of downloading copyrighted material on a work computer)

Re: The Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in every copy of macOS

#256

Post by 3np »

walrus01 wrote: post #167
paxys wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> freely distributable Is it though? The whitepaper wasn't released with any license. The original author still holds the copyright. I'm going to guess someone from Apple's legal team is pretty pissed right about now.

As the identity of "Satoshi Nakamoto" is extremely unclear, the only way that the real satoshi could identify themselves now is by moving a bitcoin out of one of the very early wallets, which nobody has been able to do. The australian guy named Craig Wright claiming to be Satoshi was clearly a fraud. How would a person showing up claiming to be Satoshi enforce copyright on this if they can't prove they're the origina…

A signed message would be enough, no need to love coins.

(Whatever past "proof" signatures from faketoshis have been verifiable false)

Anyway as it's already released under MIT license, this is moot.

Re: The Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in every copy of macOS

#257

Post by culi »

eddyg wrote: post #170
crazygringo wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. I can't even think of any other "famous PDF". If you asked me for a famous modern formatted document generally, I might say the screenplay for The Godfather would be a good candidate. But there's no canonical PDF for that. :P Plus, copyright would prevent that.

I would’ve went with Steve Jobs’ “Thoughts on Flash” (converted to PDF via a faithful rendition of the original open letter, assuming it wasn’t available as a PDF originally.)

How about "GOTO Statement Considered Harmful"

http://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/agbkb/lehre/programmiers...

Re: The Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in every copy of macOS

#258

Post by dragonwriter »

EamonnMR wrote: post #188
ryandrake wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Racy picture? Wait, what photo are we talking about? Is this still about the one in andrewfromx's article that shows a woman's face and shoulder?

It's cropped from an explicit photograph published in Playboy.

The original is a nude, but calling it “explicit” is…quite a stretch. [0]

[0] a scan of the full centerfold is included in this piece (NSFW, obviously): https://kevinrye.net/index_files/1972_playboy_magazine_the_l...

Re: The Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in every copy of macOS

#259

Post by alex_sf »

olalonde wrote: post #245
vb6sp6 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1945.txt the thing that lets us communicate like this :)

That's not quite right. If I recall correctly, HTTP predates the HTTP RFC by a few years. I agree that HTTP was more impactful than Bitcoin but I'm not sure about the RFC itself. Maybe.

That's the norm for an RFC. It rarely defines something new; it's a formalization of what's starting to occur to ensure interoperability.

And really, the RFC comment is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. The idea that the bitcoin whitepaper is some holy document, or even anywhere near the "top 100 non-literary" documents created by humans is profoundly stupid.

If someone genuinely believes that, I need to talk with them synchronously to try and figure out where, exactly, it ranks. Obviously ahead of the Rosetta Stone and the Treaty of Versailles, but does it beat out the Magna Carta?

Re: The Bitcoin whitepaper is hidden in every copy of macOS

#260

Post by dagmx »

varenc wrote: post #174
blauditore wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was almost certainly added around the hype in 2019.

On my Mojave machine the files modtime is “ Mon Aug 20 2018”! (Which seems to be straight from macOS, not the date of my install, since the modtime on other macOS system files varies widely)

That’s roughly the date they’d have done the full world build for the first non-beta release of Mojave based on its actual release date. It’s unlikely it was actually the date of creation
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