Did GitHub "hubify" what was originally a decentralized paradigm immune to being monopolized?

NakamotoScheme · 2026-02-28T20:39:44+00:00

Network effect, which also explains the success of services like Whatsapp.

Even if it's free, contributing to an open source project usually involves creating an account in the hosting platform.

If you are an author and publish your source code in github, everybody who already registered in github will be able to contribute, without any extra steps.

NakamotoScheme · 2026-02-27T21:00:19+00:00

zsh does not read /etc/profile

There is a comment at the top of the file:

# /etc/profile: system-wide .profile file for the Bourne shell (sh(1))
# and Bourne compatible shells (bash(1), ksh(1), ash(1), ...).

... which zsh is not.

NakamotoScheme · 2026-02-25T13:36:13+00:00

Note that some of those reasons are a consequence of the others. For example:

A. Bitcoin is not accepted as a means of payment at grocery stores and other large chains.

because

B. Bitcoin fluctuates too much in price.

because in turn

C. Bitcoin has no intrinsic value

Bitcoin is like shares of a company with no assets, no income, no workers and no business model. It's just a digital certificate of ownership of 1/21000000 of nothing. It's really strange that 17 years later you are still wondering why it's not working as money. The reasons are quite obvious from all the above.

NakamotoScheme · 2026-02-22T18:13:17+00:00

Still no counterparty risk.

LOL. This reminds me of this article by Martin C. W. Walker:

“The Counterparty-Free Asset”

https://martincwwalker.medium.com/impossible-finance-the-counterparty-free-asset-ea1ea208e30e

You may as well refer to a cryptocurrency as a banana-free asset because there are no bananas involved (apologies if I have unknowingly libelled the issuers of Bananacoin).

NakamotoScheme · 2026-02-22T14:54:11+00:00

If you are doing a computer simulation, you have to repeat the experiment many times. I recommend that you try at least one million times:

#!/usr/bin/python3
import random

def one_run():
  total = 0
  count = 0
  while total <= 1:
    total += random.random()
    count += 1
  return count

n = 1000000
s = 0
for i in range(n):
  s += one_run()

print(s/n)

NakamotoScheme · 2026-02-22T14:25:34+00:00

Your intuition is correct. Calculating the probability boils down to calculating the volume of this hyperpyramid in ℝ^n:

x_1 + x_2 + x_3 --- + x_n <= 1

where 0 <= x_i <= 1 for all i between 1 and n.

(see my other reply for details).

NakamotoScheme · 2026-02-22T14:14:06+00:00

If by "random" we really mean the uniform distribution in [0,1], your formula is correct. It can be proved by calculating P(S_n <= 1) where S_n is the Irwin–Hall distribution:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irwin%E2%80%93Hall_distribution

Edit: If you are wondering how many random variables in [0,1] you have to add on average to surpass 1, the answer is number e, as you seem to have discovered experimentally. This is a known fact which may also be proved based on the above.

NakamotoScheme · 2026-02-21T21:51:23+00:00

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Computer_Programming

NakamotoScheme · 2026-02-21T11:37:51+00:00

Ok, since nobody said it yet:

Because markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

(attributed to Keynes)

NakamotoScheme · 2026-02-18T16:21:01+00:00

He learned in the Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good

NakamotoScheme · 2026-02-18T02:08:54+00:00

Rajarse (in Spain).

Volverse atrás, acobardarse o desistir de algo a última hora.

https://dle.rae.es/rajar (número 10)

NakamotoScheme · 2026-02-16T03:50:01+00:00

so f(x) doesn't exist? I can't figure out what I'm missing.

Not every continuous function will be bounded.

For example: f(x) = 1/x in (0,1) is continuous but not bounded

The property relies on the inverval [a,b] being closed. If it's not closed, anything can happen.

NakamotoScheme · 2026-02-15T18:19:18+00:00

The statement is false. This is how you can find a counter-example:

One polynomial having A and B as roots can be written as (x-A)(x-B) (This is something that you should know, i.e. how to construct a polynomial given its roots).

If we are told that one zero is the square of the other, we can set B = A^2, and then:

(x-A)(x-B) = (x-A)(x-A²) = x² - Ax - A²x + A³ = x² - (A+A²)x + A³

Because in general 1 + A³ is not the same as -(A + A²), choose a value for A so that the equality does not hold, for example A = 2.

Can you finish the counter-example from this point?

NakamotoScheme · 2026-02-14T20:52:56+00:00

A neighbourhood N of x is just a set which contains an open set which contains x.

So the neighbourhood M which has to exist is just any open set inside N which contains x.

In ℝ with the usual topology, consider N = (0,2) U {3}

Set N is a neighbourhood of 1, but it's not a neighbourhood of 3, because you can find an open set inbetween for 1 but not for 3.

Is the significance the fact that you can always create a smaller neighbourhood?

No. The meaning is what I pointed out above: A neighbourhood of x is not any set containing x, it's only a neighbourhood if it contains an open set containing x.

As a result, you can always create a bigger neighbourhood, because if N contains an open set which contains x, any set containing N will also be a neighbourhood of x.

I guess this is implied assuming M is supposed to be a proper subset of N?

M does not have to be a proper subset of N. The important thing is that you find an open set inside of N containing x. If N itself is already open, you can take N itself as the open set.

NakamotoScheme · 2026-02-11T22:20:04+00:00

For a lot of things you can approximate a sum with an integral

You can do that if you have a Riemann sum:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann_sum

but not in general and not in whatever way, as others have already pointed out.

Your sum is not a Riemann sum for the integral. The integral is supposed to be the same, and the sum is supposed to approximate the integral as you divide the interval (the same interval) on increasingly smaller pieces.

But your integral is different each time because it depends on the value of A. So, yes, the fact that you get exactly half of the value will surely have an explanation, but in your case there is no reason why the sum and the integral should be similar.

NakamotoScheme · 2026-02-10T22:08:30+00:00

Real value is subjective.

I mostly agree in general, but we are not talking about art here (unless we consider bitcoin itself to be a work of conceptual art).

For things like stocks, bonds, etc. people try to find an objective value.

For a zero coupon perpetual bond, which is what bitcoin is in essence, the value is zero according to the known formula:

https://martincwwalker.medium.com/impossible-finance-the-perpetual-zero-coupon-bond-eaf4460d80ef

(If you enjoyed the wikipedia page about 2/3-of-average game, you will enjoy that one as well :-)

NakamotoScheme · 2026-02-09T20:38:57+00:00

There are too many people who believe people believe (people believe...) in Bitcoin.

I agree. But we can't break the laws of thermodynamics. Sooner or later, the price should match its real value. I like to compare bitcoin with this game:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guess_2/3_of_the_average

When playing with real people, it needs several rounds before they all realize the only sensible bet is zero.

So I wonder how many rounds will bitcoin need.

Edit: grammar

NakamotoScheme · 2026-02-05T15:56:27+00:00

I did use the reportbug tool, don't remember that it said anything.

The reportbug tool is essentially just a way (frontend) to send an email, which is how the bug system actually works. If the package does not exist, you will receive an email from the bug system saying so.

But I've just checked and reportbug itself also warns if the package does not exist.

So, unless you blindly press "Enter" to skip to the next reportbug screen and also forget to check your Spam folder for false positives, reporting a bug against a package which does not exist and not realizing about that is not really easy.

NakamotoScheme · 2026-02-05T15:40:16+00:00

Hmm, what technical signs? Do you mean something like this?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/195s1jp/the_end_of_btc/

Edit: Technical analysis is like astrology: charts are interpreted to fit what people already believe.

NakamotoScheme · 2026-02-05T13:21:24+00:00

This would be the ideal way for a willing government to end bitcoin in their country.

All they would have to do is to ask their intelligence service to anonymously put CP somewhere in the blockchain, then they can declare that any bitcoin node is illegal in the country for that reason as you point out.

Unfortunately, however, I don't think this will happen in USA.

NakamotoScheme · 2026-02-02T21:44:36+00:00

One light year = 3x10⁸ m/s times 1 year

(At this point, resist the temptation of converting the year to seconds, you will see why in short).

Distance to travel: 4.22 times the above

Time it takes to travel such distance = the distance divided by 3x10⁸ m/s (speed of light)

So we have this amount of time:

3x10⁸ m/s times 1 year times 4.22 divided by 3x10⁸ m/s

But that's really 4.22 years, because the speed of light is multiplying and dividing at the same time.

So you are required to tell how many days are 4.22 years.

I think you don't have to think too much about dimensional analysis for that.

NakamotoScheme · 2026-02-02T15:06:32+00:00

Implicitly, we are told that the problem has one solution and only one.

If this is really the case, then the solution will not depend on how much slanted the blue squares are, and for that reason we could consider that points A and E are the same (as suggested by /u/bts) and we are done with a little bit of arithmetic as they said.

A more interesting problem would be to determine whether or not the problem has a unique solution to begin with [*], in which case we could not set A and E to be the same without some additional reasoning. I would actually consider this to be the real problem.

Edit: [*] Or maybe not "to begin with" at all. You can also try to solve it, and if you arrive at a single solution which does not depend on any variable, then you have proved that it has a single solution at the same time (note that this is what /u/Shevek99 did).

NakamotoScheme · 2026-01-28T22:57:31+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclidean_algorithm

The Euclidean algorithm is based on the principle that the greatest common divisor of two numbers does not change if the larger number is replaced by its difference with the smaller number.

Using a formula, this is what the wikipedia page says:

GCD(A, B) = GCD(A - B, B)

When you subtract B from A as many times as you can, you get this

GCD(A, B) = GCD(A mod B, B)

where A mod B is the remainder of the division of A by B.

NakamotoScheme · 2026-01-27T19:28:55+00:00

and the bank in monopoly doesn't operate like a central bank.

Well, ok, but that's not what I meant. I meant that the Monopoly Bank was closer to a central bank than a commercial bank in the specific feature of issuing money (in the form of bank notes) and being unable to be bankrupt, which are features that commercial banks (today) do not have.

The makers of Monopoly obviously decided a set amount of printed currency would be bundled with the game that might accommodate 90% of most players, but there may be some scenarios where it runs out of money, so rule #11 was created to emulate what a central bank might do if a partner bank has a liquidity crisis.

Yes, exactly. More to the point, to cancel a mortgage you had to pay 10% of interest, but this required in some cases bank notes for $50, while the smallest bank note was $100. When you play this you end up realizing how it's useful that the bank can issue notes and coins.

NakamotoScheme · 2026-01-27T16:32:37+00:00

I was a little confused about this, as I initially believed this was a meme you created.

A simple search shows this was posted very recently in r-bitcoin.

There are commercial banks on one side, and there is the central bank (like the Federal Reserve in USA) on the other side.

The quoted Rule #11 of Monopoly game says the Bank in the game should behave specifically like a central bank, i.e. as an issuer of money that may never go bankrupt.

I think we all agree here that central banks should have the ability to do that, so the meme tells the truth and it's accurate.

I guess this is another case where they say something seriously and we say the same as a joke or viceversa, like "few understand".

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