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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

#331

Post by ralfd »

sinoue wrote: post #151

I still remember the Paula Abdul office background poster and the whole fiasco of BHA Carl Sagan code names. Easter eggs and codenames were supposed to be fun, not lawsuit material.

> I still remember the Paula Abdul office background poster

I don't understand this reference and Google leaves me totally blank here. I could ask you to clarify, but there is the chance you don't see it or dont reply so … ChatGPT to the rescue?

-----------

Prompt: What was the Paula Abdul office background poster controversy?

ChatCPT: The Paula Abdul office background poster controversy refers to a incident that occurred during a live episode of "American Idol" in 2009, when fans noticed a poster hanging on the wall behind Paula Abdul's desk during her pre-taped video segments. The poster, which appeared to be of a semi-nude woman, caused a stir among viewers and led to accusations that Abdul was promoting sexual objectification.

Abdul and the show's producers initially denied that the poster existed, but later issued a statement acknowledging its presence and stating that it was not intentionally visible during the broadcast. They also apologized to viewers who may have been offended by the poster.

-----------

This does sound plausible … But wait! Is this truly true or just hallucinated?

Googling "Paula Abdul American Idol" just finds countless gossip posts about an alleged affaire with ex-contestant Corey Clark, but nothing about a poster.

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

#332

Post by sunshinerag »

humanistbot wrote: post #140
yreg wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those are famous PDFs .

OK fine, except for IRS Tax Form 1040. Each year's form is probably the most intentionally distributed PDF on the planet (so excluding PDFs bundled with software like this story). I don't think there is a country larger than the US that requires its citizens (or their tax agents/software) to download a form and submit it each year.

>> ... on the planet Bzzz ... Reminder US is not the only country on this planet. IRS can keep its arms inside.

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

#333

Post by MagicMoonlight »

jxf wrote: post #308
monero-xmr wrote: post #22

The Bitcoin white paper is probably one of the top 100 impactful non-literary documents of all time. Makes sense to be used

Of all time? This almost certainly isn't true. Many treaties, laws, RFCs, and so on would be more impactful than Bitcoin. Do we really think the Bitcoin white paper is more impactful than, say, the Magna Carta or Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses? I think you might be inadvertently succumbing to recency bias.

Most of the significant laws like “don’t stab people” were never written down because they’re so obviously the law. So I reckon there is space in the top 100.

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

#334

Post by pyrale »

s1gnp0st wrote: post #198
EamonnMR wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if Bitcoin ends up being one mankind’s most important inventions That seems unlikely.

It's really disheartening how much unjustified disdain is heaped upon Bitcoin the technology by commenters here. You're going to claim you're certain that a solution to the Byzantine generals problem will have no useful consequences?

It seems that some people really build their world around one element, and become obsessed about it that they make outlandish claims about its utility.

Based on the simple reality that bitcoin wouldn't exist without them, we can find a couple seminal papers of cryptography that had way more impact than this white paper. To name a few :

Claude Shannon's A Mathematical Theory of Communication: https://people.math.harvard.edu/~ctm/home/text/others/shanno...

Rivest, Shamir and Adelman's Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-Key Cryptosystems: https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/Rsapaper.pdf

Diffie and Hellman's New Direction in Cryptography: https://ee.stanford.edu/~hellman/publications/24.pdf

And that's the first three that come to my mind.

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

#335

Post by blatant303 »

krsdcbl wrote: post #84

Honestly If i had to guess, I'd say the answer is as simple as: a freely distributable, easily verifiable document was needed for testing purposes, and some engineer thought it'd be a cheeky little easter egg to use that file as bitcoin was starting to gain back traction in 2019 after it's first big surge and fall the years prior.

I've been telling myself I missed the opportunity window in 2012

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

#336

Post by brabel »

RestlessMind wrote: post #76
neilv wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And facilitating organized crime, terrorism, and investment scams.

And also to fight oppressive governments. Compiled some examples here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32406095 Though those governments would love people like you who paint all the use cases as "organized crime, terrorism" etc

From your linked article on Russian opposition:

"We use bitcoin because it’s a good legal means of payment. The fact that we have bitcoin payments as an alternative helps to defend us from the Russian authorities. They see if they close down other more traditional channels, we will still have bitcoin. It’s like insurance."

They even use Paypal and card transfers for donations... Bitcoin is just another payment they accept in the hope it will be hard for the government to block funds... but they don't say it anywhere that's been the only way, or the best way to do that, it's just one of the ways they're looking and so far has not been shown to be more government-resilient as I am sure getting the money out from the blockchain is not going to be easy if the Government doesn't like the idea... you make it look like Bitcoin is their saviour or something which is a gross misrepresentation.

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

#337

Post by drjasonharrison »

paulmd wrote: post #235
bbertelsen wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't think of a PDF but there are images like this. "Lenna". There are also really famous datasets that are used for examples in similar ways (iris).

Lenna is copyright-encumbered (despite its widespread use, Apple is a commercial operator and can't do that sort of thing) and it's not very inclusive to use a playboy centerfold image (even cropped) and it's taking some heat on the sexism front these days.

The "Lenna" is also low dynamic range, low resolution (512x512), low chromatic range, does not have a color profile, etc.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna

"In today’s age of high-resolution digital image technology, it seems difficult to argue that a 512 × 512 image produced with a 1970s-era analog scanner is the best we have to offer as an image quality test standard".[2]

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

#338

Post by CGamesPlay »

> A little bird tells me that someone internally filed it as an issue nearly a year ago, assigned to the same engineer who put the PDF there in the first place, and that person hasn’t taken action or commented on the issue since.

What an absolutely foolish way to broadcast to your employer that you’re willing to leak information.

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

#339

Post by ant6n »

jdiez17 wrote: post #312
grimgrin wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can think of nothing more important and famous than chicken.pdf https://isotropic.org/papers/chicken.pdf

Well, that was hilarious. Thank you for starting my day with a chuckle.

You mean a cluckle.

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

#340

Post by tinus_hn »

krsdcbl wrote: post #84

Honestly If i had to guess, I'd say the answer is as simple as: a freely distributable, easily verifiable document was needed for testing purposes, and some engineer thought it'd be a cheeky little easter egg to use that file as bitcoin was starting to gain back traction in 2019 after it's first big surge and fall the years prior.

I would have expected a pdf showing the ‘Here’s to the crazy ones’ poem that’s also in the old TextEdit icon.
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