Sooooo... I just looked at the first post and all, so sorry if I missed it...
But wouldn't someone with a spare data server layin around with 10+ TB of space have a huge advantage? Or other large data-storage entities, like Google for example?
This is an interesting idea for a coin, but it seems easy for someone with huge storage to manipulate this. Who needs an ASIC when you can buy several ginormous HDDs? LOL
Couple things though, you can resell HDDs if this coin falls apart, which is a big positive in my mind and more likely to lead to people mining. Also, related to this 'ASIC resistant' more means that you don't gain any extra advantage by mining using special hardware per unit hardware. You could also go and buy hundreds of computers or GPUs in Proof of Work systems.
And it's true that large companies would benefit if they decided to mine. But by the time Burst is big enough for them to care about it, it'll be hard for them to get a large enough percentage to attack... because other companies would also want a large chunk. Not to mention all the mining pools.
I still don't understand how the deadline is calculated.. the infographic in the first post seems to indicate how plots are made. I only vaguely understand how they are later utilized though to do the mining.
In this context, the details of the mining calculation themselves aren't that important, it's just that it takes substantial time to look up and process that many plots. Knowing that you almost certainly have the best deadline means that you can get a jump start on that process.
Thanks for the thoughts about where to go next. I may take a crack at writing an explanation about ASIC resistance at some point.
Is it possible to know whether or not someone had the right to mine within the last X blocks but passed up his turn? Given that your public key is required to make plots, seems to me like it may be possible.. may or may not require a slight re-write.
I'm curious because the way that Nxt's 90% protection works is that every time a forger submits a block to the network stating that they have the right to forge, all the other forgers look backward through their blockchain through the past 1440 blocks and check to see if this forger had a chance to forge but skipped taking it. If so, then the forger must wait another 1440 blocks before being allowed to submit a block. This means that you can't hold back forging and try to manipulate the order that your various accounts working together to attack the network forge in in order to get the overall chain with highest difficulty.