Fdora upgrade

I have version 28 with kernel 19

4.19.5-200.fc28.x86_64

It was 3500 packages make the distribuion, includes almost all of GNU utilities and languages of which I use about a quarter. Bloat, meaning if I look at a system library I see the 1/4 that I use and 3/4 sitting unused in the file system causing confusion. The user is driven to seek help amid the complexity when it would be nicer if only the stuff the user actually used was there. We have the unnecessary complexity of bloat.

Voters discover they are required to pay for their governmen crap

'This is the start of a revolution': Paris rioters steal police assault rifle, torch dozens of cars and vow to 'stay in the streets until Christmas' as fuel protests continue into the night and spread across France - and even to Holland

 

This is inevitable. French politicians claim everything is easy to pay for, it is not as we see.

Giving up on the Atom text editor

They have not worked out a very good install procedure for Red Hat, and I find it is hackable, meaning full of bloat and complexity.  I stick with Geany.

The linux load package process still confuses.  Hopefully the five different methods for install will converge to one protocol, perhaps snap.If one is developing, get a resonable, unchanging text editor designed for the project and leave it at that.  Adding flexibility to test editors does  little good since, in the end, we are all still dealing with ascii strings.

So long Michelson–Morley

According to Science Alert, every year, scientists make adjustments that improve the precision of these devices. Now, they’ve achieved new performance records, making two atomic clocks so precise they could detect gravitational waves, those faint ripples in the fabric of space-time.
Both of the new record-breaking clocks are based on ytterbium atoms. In each clock, an optical lattice made of lasers holds a thousand of these atoms immobile. These lasers excite the electrons of the atoms, which then oscillate, switching with incredible regularity between two energy states.
Like the ticking of an analog clock, this energy switching can be used to keep time – but with much greater precision than any analog or even digital clock. The most recent record-breaker, released last year, was so precise it would keep time without losing or gaining a second for 15 billion years.

Let me see, measure clock ticks  along the north/south axis. Then measure the ticks in the East/West.No difference? Evidently yes there is difference, if they are measuring gravity waves.  The 'fabric of space/time' is the ether, it is the quants of vacuum squished together with no empty space. No one is messing with space or time, they never existed except in the heads of brilliant engineers. Fake, invented variables. With no empty space, you have no clear Euclidean grid.

No pats on the butt

Al Franken takes first steps back into public arena...

f...orcibly kissing her during a USO tour in the Middle East in 2006, and circulated a photo in which he can be seen pretending to grope her breasts. That was followed by allegations from several women that he groped them while posing for photos.Several female Democratic senators led by New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand responded to the allegations by calling on Franken to step down, and he announced his resignation in December, even as he maintained that some of the accusations were untrue and disputed details in others.

Al was a bit of a butt man.  He really hit bottom when women complained about pats on the butt.   Note to self, when I run for Senator out here in California, no butt patting.

Improving botnets

Over the past few weeks, cryptocurrency proponents have been discussing a new messaging and collaboration platform called Chat.Chat. The application offers an all-in-one system with secure messaging, a multi-currency wallet and native communication with decentralized apps like Memo.

Skip the user interface, our banker bots do not do need GUI.

On strike!

Actually, I am refusing to implement all the c features in my c interpreter, I am leaving lots of call stubs to fill in later as I use more advanced features, like subroutine calls and structures or floating point.  Thus, my approach makes sense, do the partial parse and leave the interpretation to a sub system routine, which I mostly leave blank.  Yet I still get the things I need, while loops, simple integer increment and decrement, automatic use of variables via the symbol table. and line terminations allowing multiple sequence scripts.

Xi Ping Pong going nuts for blockchain

For a couple of years now it has appeared as if the Chinese government is seeking to “have its cake and eat it too” when it comes to crypto assets and blockchain technology. The simple phrase “Blockchain not Bitcoin” has become the country’s defining strategy when it comes to the space, and the difference in approaches that the government has taken regarding open v. closed ledgers and assets is a study in contrast.

Let me construct a different use case fo consensus algorithms.  Let us assume we have some large connection of SQLite databases, and we want them all updated identically.  Can we derive a consensus algorithm using block chain?

Sure we can, if we understand that block chain is an access lock process.  Many user issue requests to update the collective databases.  The queue handler at each database receives the unorded arrivals of write request and forms a queue structure, with checksums.  Then the queue structure is broadcast, and all other databases will accept the largest queue structure it receives.  Eventually one block emerges as the longest queue and that portion of the access queue is accepted by all parties, since they cannot make a larger queue except by appending to the current longest. Proof of work, I think, though I have missed the critical details.

However, once the longest queue is proved, the first entry can be processed, there is no race condition all databases select the first access write which would be identical everywhere.  Then add in new incoming requests to the queue and re-broadcast until the next stable queue of access request is arrived at.

So, you see, though I use multi-access SQL with identical databases, I still use a form of 'block chain' for multi-access resolution.  In other words, block chain is simply the multi-access, multi-site distributed queueing system.  It belongs in the category of access resolution algorithms, in fact it forms the proof of existence, using block chain queue control multi-site data bases can remain consistent.

Where is the new block chain industry?  It is there, but it is not a 102 trillion industry.  All of fintech is only a 60 trillion dollar industry.  Multi-access queueing is a big part of it.

The same analysis holds for crypto. Crypto is a digital watermarking technology, a good way to put it.  There are no crypto coins, per se.  There are a number of, almost all, instances where digital watermarking is a critical tech for power of attorney, not just digital cash, but digital certificates of all kinds. Fintech relies on public key issued by the user thumbprint.

Much of what we hear is marketing hype, but not too far off the marks.  Consensus algorithms are big deal, digital watermarking are a big deal.  It is just that marketing is grabbing some key words and using them out of sequence.

Norghaus mis identified the singularity

In a 2015 paper, Nordhaus reasoned that the Singularity would be necessarily preceded by ever greater technological progress that would accelerate the replacement of human labor by automation. More work would be accomplished with less labor, so the level of productivity would rise. But in actual fact, he noted, productivity has been in the doldrums for a long time, and there seems to be no systematic rise in unemployment.

There will be less unemployment with the singularity, the singularity keeps folks busy.  The singularity will not be about walking humanoids, the singularity doesn't simulate humans, it has about 8 billion people to employ.  Bots like people, they are self generating bio-robots with mobility and opposing thumbs for grasping.

Productivity will be slow for a while as the singularity learns more about our wants and desires.

One pays for the government crap one buys

French police clash with 'yellow vest' protesters in Paris, 169 arrested

The French middle class is revolting against energy taxes.  In France politicians forget to tell the voters that all that government crap causes taxes. Then soon the government has a hard time with interest charges, so it raises taxes on the very folks who voted for all that government crap.