Topic: wtf is ethereum? - page 2. (Read 3067 times)
This question will never really be ansvered in an easy to understand way. Same with Ripple. They get repect though...
Background:
Bitcoin transactions are "programmable" in that they support a basic scripting language. This allows for things like multi-signature transactions and timelocks. That is, the existence of this scripting language allows transactions to be formed which say: "for this bitcoin to be spendable in the future, the following TWO signatures are necessary"... Or: "This bitcoin is not spendable under AFTER this date."
Bitcoin supports a number of basic operations which allow things like that. Stacking these operations on top of each other can possibly yield some pretty complex and interesting behavior. But there is no looping construct. If you're a programmer, you'll understand that immediately (if not, probably need to look it up). Essentially, without looping, many types of things are not possible.
It's critical to understand that Satoshi omitted looping (and various basic operations themselves) very intentionally. Satoshi was concerned with simplicity, robustness, and security, and adding complexity to the transaction scripting rapidly introduces all sorts of very difficult issues. Here's an interesting quote on this from Ray Dillinger, one of the cryptographers who worked on the code with Satoshi before the genesis block: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.9171295
Ethereum:
Seeks to create a "Turing-Complete" transactions language; ie, one that allows for all the complexity which Bitcoin intentionally omits. It's unknown whether this is feasible without introducing potentially severe or fatal security issues. Gavin Andresen has noted these concerns, as well as the value-tradeoff in the first place: http://gavintech.blogspot.com/2014/06/bit-thereum.html
My own assumption is even if Ethereum *eventually* works, it's going to be very hard to trust it with any real value for quite a long time. It's troublesome, because it won't get battle-tested until there's significant value to attack, and I for one, sure don't want *my* value to be the guinea pig. Bitcoin is experimental enough...
My other issue with Ethereum is that it tries to "fix" non-problems in bitcoin, like coin distribution and mining algs. It comes with it's creator's built-in notions of economic "fairness". It's partly possible to level that same criticism at bitcoin, except that bitcoin is very simple and largely takes a "the distribution will work itself out in the end" approach, whereas Vitalik has specifically tried to engineer ideas of fairness into it (an ultimately futile and counter-productive reflex often characteristic of youth).
tldr: Ethereum is technically interesting, but I wouldn't trust its security for many years after launch (many more years than it took for me to become confident in bitcoin).
Bitcoin transactions are "programmable" in that they support a basic scripting language. This allows for things like multi-signature transactions and timelocks. That is, the existence of this scripting language allows transactions to be formed which say: "for this bitcoin to be spendable in the future, the following TWO signatures are necessary"... Or: "This bitcoin is not spendable under AFTER this date."
Bitcoin supports a number of basic operations which allow things like that. Stacking these operations on top of each other can possibly yield some pretty complex and interesting behavior. But there is no looping construct. If you're a programmer, you'll understand that immediately (if not, probably need to look it up). Essentially, without looping, many types of things are not possible.
It's critical to understand that Satoshi omitted looping (and various basic operations themselves) very intentionally. Satoshi was concerned with simplicity, robustness, and security, and adding complexity to the transaction scripting rapidly introduces all sorts of very difficult issues. Here's an interesting quote on this from Ray Dillinger, one of the cryptographers who worked on the code with Satoshi before the genesis block: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.9171295
Ethereum:
Seeks to create a "Turing-Complete" transactions language; ie, one that allows for all the complexity which Bitcoin intentionally omits. It's unknown whether this is feasible without introducing potentially severe or fatal security issues. Gavin Andresen has noted these concerns, as well as the value-tradeoff in the first place: http://gavintech.blogspot.com/2014/06/bit-thereum.html
My own assumption is even if Ethereum *eventually* works, it's going to be very hard to trust it with any real value for quite a long time. It's troublesome, because it won't get battle-tested until there's significant value to attack, and I for one, sure don't want *my* value to be the guinea pig. Bitcoin is experimental enough...
My other issue with Ethereum is that it tries to "fix" non-problems in bitcoin, like coin distribution and mining algs. It comes with it's creator's built-in notions of economic "fairness". It's partly possible to level that same criticism at bitcoin, except that bitcoin is very simple and largely takes a "the distribution will work itself out in the end" approach, whereas Vitalik has specifically tried to engineer ideas of fairness into it (an ultimately futile and counter-productive reflex often characteristic of youth).
tldr: Ethereum is technically interesting, but I wouldn't trust its security for many years after launch (many more years than it took for me to become confident in bitcoin).
Thanks a lot for the explanation Kludge.
Question 2:
wtf is blending?
Question 2:
wtf is blending?
Will it Blend? - iPhone 6 Plus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBUJcD6Ws6s
Enjoy.
Thanks a lot for the explanation Kludge.
Question 2:
wtf is blending?
Question 2:
wtf is blending?
Well now I'm completely baffled.
I of course am familiar with Blender, the 3D Modeling/Rendering app from the FOSS world. Is this s thinly disguised riff on the the return of GPU mining?
Not sure if serious. me. on me. srsly.
I of course am familiar with Blender, the 3D Modeling/Rendering app from the FOSS world. Is this s thinly disguised riff on the the return of GPU mining?
Not sure if serious. me. on me. srsly.
Yes. But will it blend?
A good, but challenging, question. I would say it is unlikely, unless smartphones end up making up many of the nodes, where older smartphones were shown to be blendable. -But, if you were to only blend certain critical components, then absolutely. Any CAT/coax cable could be blended, and obviously a telephone wire can.... I'm not sure about the newer fiber cabling, though.... probably.I mean... You could blend a GPU and knock out its active cooling capability, but I doubt a Blendtec could truly disable a GPU in 30s of blending. A rack-mounted server wouldn't even fit, but a RPi would be annihilated. ... So it depends.... I think at least a significant percentage of the network would blend, but Ethereum would ultimately survive the attack.
An overhyped project which raised a lot of funds using buzzwords and smart marketing.
Yes. But will it blend?
Craigslist + escrow + Bitcoin + Namecoin + integrated Namecoin web hosting. Basically, it's Bitcoin with much more functionality baked in (allowing nodes to host much more content than current [already-overworked] BTC nodes do), but uses Ether as the currency with horribly-named, arbitrary sub-units.
Don't think too hard about it (its blockchain will be quite different than BTC's -- they don't expect everyone to download "the Internet," so it necessarily becomes a much more complex system) -- it allows the network to host, basically, the Internet, but tries making this a much less burdensome process for regular users by baking in certain features the devs find to be critical in a trustless web society. They're basically trying to "facilitate" a new decentralized Internet with the coin by aligning incentives so moving away from the current centralized model is profitable for most involved. It'll be interesting to see if it can actually scale.
(... basically)
Don't think too hard about it (its blockchain will be quite different than BTC's -- they don't expect everyone to download "the Internet," so it necessarily becomes a much more complex system) -- it allows the network to host, basically, the Internet, but tries making this a much less burdensome process for regular users by baking in certain features the devs find to be critical in a trustless web society. They're basically trying to "facilitate" a new decentralized Internet with the coin by aligning incentives so moving away from the current centralized model is profitable for most involved. It'll be interesting to see if it can actually scale.
(... basically)
I've done a lot of rookie research and can't seem to understand what it is.
I've heard that it's turing complete, the html to bitcoin's http, an extra layer, NOT an alt etc.
Is it just 'BML?' (bitcoin markup language?)
How does it use and relate to the blockchain to do whatever it's doing that bitcoin isn't?
What does it all mean??
I've heard that it's turing complete, the html to bitcoin's http, an extra layer, NOT an alt etc.
Is it just 'BML?' (bitcoin markup language?)
How does it use and relate to the blockchain to do whatever it's doing that bitcoin isn't?
What does it all mean??
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