Category: #Wake Up, Neo

Research Quotes

“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”

Albert Einstein

“The element of chance in basic research is overrated.

Chance is a lady who smiles only upon those few who know how to make her smile.”

Hans Selye

“Oersted would never have made his great discovery of the action of galvanic currents on magnets had he stopped in his researches to consider in what manner they could possibly be turned to practical account; and so we would not now be able to boast of the wonders done by the electric telegraphs.

Indeed, no great law in Natural Philosophy has ever been discovered for its practical implications, but the instances are innumerable of investigations apparently quite useless in this narrow sense of the word which have led to the most valuable results.”

Lord Kelvin

“The way to do research is to attack the facts at the point of greatest astonishment.”

Celia Green

“The library is not, as some would have it, a place for the retiring of disposition or faint of heart.

It is not an ivory tower or a quiet room in a sanitarium facing away from the afternoon sun.

It is, rather, a command center, a power base.

A board room, a war room.

An Oval Office for all who preside over their own destinies.

One does not retreat from the world here; one prepares to join it at an advantage.”

Eric Burns, “The Joy of Books”

“I think that the thing I most want you to remember is that research is a ceremony.

And so is life.

Everything that we do shares in the ongoing creation of our universe.”

Shawn Wilson

“Like most arts, the link between the mind and the pen can chain you like an enslaved workaholic.

Even on an intended vacation you suddenly have this killer urge to record whatever the vacation may teach.”

Criss Jami, “Healology”

“What we find changes who we become.”

Peter Morville

The time will come when diligent research over long periods will bring to light things which now lie hidden.

A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the investigation of so vast a subject…

And so this knowledge will be unfolded only through long successive ages.

There will come a time when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them…

Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come, when memory of us will have been effaced.”

Seneca, “Natural Questions”

Nothing can illustrate these observations more forcibly, than a recollection of the happy conjuncture of times and circumstances, under which our Republic assumed its rank among the Nations;

The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an Epoch when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period, the researches of the human mind, after social happiness, have been carried to a great extent, the Treasures of knowledge, acquired by the labours of Philosophers, Sages and Legislatures, through a long succession of years, are laid open for our use, and their collected wisdom may be happily applied in the Establishment of our forms of Government; the free cultivation of Letters, the unbounded extension of Commerce, the progressive refinement of Manners, the growing liberality of sentiment… have had a meliorating influence on mankind and increased the blessings of Society.

At this auspicious period, the United States came into existence as a Nation, and if their Citizens should not be completely free and happy, the fault will be entirely their own.

[Circular to the States, 8 June 1783 –
Writings 26:484–89]
George Washington, “Writings”

“The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.”

Steven Weinberg

“Do research.

Feed your talent.

Research not only wins the war on cliche, it’s the key to victory over fear and it’s cousin, depression.”

Robert McKee

“Science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.”

Thomas Huxley

“Cutting off fundamental, curiosity-driven science is like eating the seed corn.

We may have a little more to eat next winter but what will we plant so we and our children will have enough to get through the winters to come?”

Carl Sagan, “The Demon-Haunted World:
Science as a Candle in the Dark”

“Science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy          in logic.”

Thomas Huxley

“The measure of greatness in a scientific idea is the extent to which it stimulates thought and opens up new lines of research.”

Paul Dirac

“An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.”

Nicholas Butler

“Whoโ€™s to say what a โ€˜literary lifeโ€™ is?

As long as you are writing often, and writing well, you donโ€™t need to be hanging-out in libraries all the time.

Nightclubs are great literary research centers.

So is Ibiza!”

Roman Payne, “Cities & Countries”

Introspection is a form of self-management.

You reflect.

You decide.

You change.

You allow yourself to grow.”

Raoul Davis Jr.,
“Firestarters: How Innovators, Instigators, and Initiators Can Inspire You to Ignite Your Own Life”

“Shall we educate ourselves in what is known, and then casting away all we have acquired, turn to ignorance for aid to guide us among the unknown?”

Michael Faraday

“People who “go by the book“, need to research who wrote it.:

Carlos Wallace

“A good researcher is the one who reduces the distance between Imagination and Reality.”

P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar

“Part of research is testing the final product.”

Steven Magee

“Research is about making many connections that lead to discovery.”

Steven Magee

“RESEARCH IS NOT ABOUT WHAT YOU CAN PROVE, RESEARCH IS ALL ABOUT WHAT OTHERS FAILED TO PROVE, THE LAW OF RESEARCH.”

P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar

“Research always has a price.”

Silvia Moreno-Garcia

“Every seeker of truth is a progressive person.”

Aniekee Tochukwu Ezekiel

“In academia, the model that we are taught; that we are told in most fields – not the arts, and not the experimental sciences either – but many, many fields, [the model] is:

– You have an idea,

– You accumulate everything that anyone has ever written about that idea,

– You become familiar with what everyone has already said about it,

– And from there, you cobble together the pieces: the evidence either for or against your [idea], or you just review what they’ve done and you create something that’s a little bit new.

Over in science space I call this “Brick in the Wall Science”.

It’s valuable that some people are doing Brick in the Wall Science but you will always have the same foundation of the house that you started with with Brick in the Wall Science, and it’s possible the foundation of the house you started with is not the foundation that you want or that is true. […]

[With Brick in the Wall Science] you can’t have revolutionary ideas.

You can’t have paradigm shifts.”

“Research is formalized curiosity.

It is poking and prying with a purpose.”

Zora Neale Hurston

Research must continue to be the centerpiece of intellectual life, and our commitment to research must grow, because our problems are growing.

Ernest L. Boyer

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”

Carl Sagan

The time will come when diligent research over long periods will bring to light things which now lie hidden. A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the investigation of so vast a subject… And so this knowledge will be unfolded only through long successive ages. There will come a time when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them… Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come, when memory of us will have been effaced.

Seneca, “Natural Questions”

With ๐Ÿ’š

CBDC’s Tyranny Is Coming

How & Why You should Prepare

Or Not !!!
For the Future Generation‘s sake…

Here are just a few examples of what that sort of total control may look like:

Government in total control

The government could not only withhold money whenever they deemed fit but they could also devalue the currency.

Lack of privacy

The government will be aware of all of your financial information, what you owe and to whom, what you are spending money on, and what assets you have.

The end of personal security

No longer can you โ€œhideโ€ savings under your mattress. The government will always know how much you have and will have access to it.

Tracking of purchases

The government will be able to track everything you purchaseโ€”and potentially stop you from buying it. Letโ€™s say it is something the political party in charge disagrees with, such as legalized marijuana. They can track you and prevent you from purchasing it again.

Tracking pornography purchases, abortion payments, tax evasion, and more…

While you may not think this is a bad idea, what if it goes a step further? What if they think you need to eat less red meat?

Hacking and data breaches

My head spins just thinking of all the ways a CBDC could be attacked by hackers or cyber terrorists.

Educate Yourselves folks :

https://news.bitcoin.com/why-the-rise-of-the-cbdc-is-bad-for-your-privacy

https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/cbdcs

https://www.themainewire.com/2022/11/cbdc-bitcoin

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/2022/11/06/a-central-bank-cryptocurrency-the-us-should-reject-it

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/bitcoin-policy-institute-calls-on-u.s.-to-reject-its-central-bank-digital-currency

https://fee.org/articles/why-a-digital-dollar-is-a-really-bad-idea

https://theconversation.com/central-bank-digital-currencies-could-mean-the-end-of-democracy-187505

https://www.adamseconomics.com/post/the-potential-orwellian-horror-of-central-bank-digital-currencies

https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/10/14/against-cbdcs-and-the-politicization-of-money

https://mises.org/wire/digital-currency-fed-moves-toward-monetary-totalitarianism

https://www.cato.org/blog/update-two-thirds-commenters-concerned-about-cbdc

https://www.coincenter.org/without-privacy-do-we-really-want-a-digital-dollar

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/digital-dollar-threat-civil-liberties

https://www.newsweek.com/cbdcs-will-end-american-freedom-opinion-1673676

https://beincrypto.com/problem-cbdcs-surrendering-total-surveillance-control

https://www.cato.org/working-paper/central-bank-digital-currency-assessing-risks-dispelling-myths

https://www.cato.org/briefing-paper/central-bank-digital-currency

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/2022/11/06/a-central-bank-cryptocurrency-the-us-should-reject-it

https://www.theepochtimes.com/central-bank-digital-currency-tyranny-is-coming-how-to-prepare_5054210.html

https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-senator-ted-cruz-tries-again-with-new-bill-to-block-cbdc

https://tokenhell.com/congressmen-voice-concerns-over-the-features-of-the-us-cbdc

https://www.forbes.com/sites/norbertmichel/2022/04/12/central-bank-digital-currencies-are-about-control–they-should-be-stopped

https://www.forbes.com/sites/norbertmichel/2022/12/15/the-federal-reserve-should-drop-fednow-and-any-plans-to-launch-a-cbdc

https://pomp.substack.com/p/central-bank-digital-currencies-will

https://hackernoon.com/cbdcs-the-folly-of-digital-fiat

https://www.btcpolicy.org/articles/why-the-u-s-should-reject-central-bank-digital-currencies

Cbdc Initiatives

Running bitcoin – Hal Finney

Wonder In Peace Bright Mind

Join Honorary Chair Fran Finney and the Running Bitcoin Challenge Committee as we honor legendary cypher punk, Hal Finney.

This is THE EVENT that combines Hal Finney’s love of running and Bitcoin and is raising funds and awareness to help defeat ALS, which ultimately claimed his life in 2014.

You are challenged to run (or walk, roll, or hike) the equivalent of a half marathon — cumulatively or all at once — by the end of January 10, 2023.

From wherever you are, spread the word about Bitcoin, participate in a healthy activity, feel good about doing your part to defeat ALS, and start the year off right

Hal Finney, one of the earliest bitcoin contributors, died eight years ago from complications of nervous system disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

His spouse, Fran Finney, is now organizing a half marathon to raise funds for ALS research via bitcoin.

The โ€œRunning Bitcoin Challengeโ€ is set to take place between Jan. 1 and Jan. 10. The timing of the occasion leads up to the anniversary of Hal Finneyโ€™s โ€œRunning bitcoinโ€ tweet, in which Finney famously disclosed he was deploying a Bitcoin node.

There is no set location โ€” participants can choose to join anywhere they wish. Players are encouraged to either run, walk, roll or hike the equivalent of a half marathon (Halโ€™s favorite distance) either in one go or over the entire 10-day period.

Donors contributing at least $100 will receive an official shirt with the half marathonโ€™s logo, while the eventโ€™s top 25 fundraisers will get a Hal Finney collectible signed by his wife.

As of Wednesday morning, the event has already managed to secure nearly $10,000 in bitcoin donations.

An advocate of cryptography and digital privacy, Finney was the recipient of the first-ever bitcoin transfer from the networkโ€™s pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto.

The bitcoin community often suspected Finney was Nakamoto, a claim he consistently denied. He reportedly found out about his condition in 2009 and decided to move away from the project.

Halโ€™s name is high in the Bitcoin pantheon as one of the first people to voice support for Satoshi Nakamotoโ€™s invention and for being the first person to receive a Bitcoin transaction from Satoshi.

He was, for a time, considered one of the top contenders on the list of potential Satoshis himself (many in blockchain who reject Dr. Craig Wrightโ€™s statements still falsely believe Finney to be Bitcoinโ€™s real creator).

Hal, who referred to himself as a โ€œcypherpunk,โ€ was a cryptographic activist who went from developing video games to working on the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) project in the 1990s. He described his PGP work as โ€œdedicated to the goal of making Big Brother obsolete.โ€

PGP creator Phil Zimmerman hired Hal as his first employee when PGP became PGP Corporation in the early 2000s. He described Hal as a โ€œgregarious manโ€ who loved skiing and long-distance running.

Despite gradual paralysis that eventually forced him to stop working, Hal continued to code software and follow the Bitcoin project.

Almost as famous as his 2009 tweet is his โ€œBitcoin and meโ€ post on BitcoinTalk.org in March 2013, the last heโ€™d ever make.

Itโ€™s a long post, and Hal was โ€œessentially paralyzedโ€ at the time, using an eye tracker to type. Forum stats show the post has been read over 278,000 times.

โ€œWhen Satoshi announced the first release of the software, I grabbed it right away,โ€ he wrote. โ€œI think I was the first person besides Satoshi to run bitcoin. I mined block 70-something, and I was the recipient of the first bitcoin transaction when Satoshi sent ten coins to me as a test.

I carried on an email conversation with Satoshi over the next few days, mostly me reporting bugs and him fixing them.โ€

Hal himself always denied being Satoshi Nakamoto, adding later that heโ€™d sold most of the Bitcoins he mined (at pre-2014 prices) to pay for his treatments. He also mentioned putting some in a safe deposit box for his children.

โ€œAnd, of course, the price gyrations of bitcoins are entertaining to me.

I have skin in the game.

But I came by my bitcoins through luck, with little credit to me.

I lived through the crash of 2011.

So Iโ€™ve seen it before.

Easy come, easy go.โ€

Hal Finney
www.runningbitcoin.us
Admiration and great Respect
With ๐Ÿงก

Happy New Year 2023

Only One Wish for 2023

Controlled Supply

Bitcoin

“A fixed money supply, or a supply altered only in accord with objective and calculable criteria, is a necessary condition to a meaningful just price of money.”

Fr. Bernard W. Dempsey, S.J. (1903-1960)

In a centralized economy, currency is issued by a central bank at a rate that is supposed to match the growth of the amount of goods that are exchanged so that these goods can be traded with stable prices. The monetary base is controlled by a central bank. In the United States, the Fed increases the monetary base by issuing currency, increasing the amount banks have on reserve or by a process called Quantitative Easing.

In a fully decentralized monetary system, there is no central authority that regulates the monetary base. Instead, currency is created by the nodes of a peer-to-peer network.

The Bitcoin generation algorithm defines, in advance, how currency will be created and at what rate. Any currency that is generated by a malicious user that does not follow the rules will be rejected by the network and thus is worthless.

Currency with Finite Supply

Block reward halving
Controlled supply

Bitcoins are created each time a user discovers a new block. The rate of block creation is adjusted every 2016 blocks to aim for a constant two week adjustment period (equivalent to 6 per hour.)

The number of bitcoins generated per block is set to decrease geometrically, with a 50% reduction every 210,000 blocks, or approximately four years. The result is that the number of bitcoins in existence will not exceed slightly less than 21 million.

Speculated justifications for the unintuitive value “21 million” are that it matches a 4-year reward halving schedule; or the ultimate total number of Satoshis that will be mined is close to the maximum capacity of a 64-bit floating point number. Satoshi has never really justified or explained many of these constants.

Cumulated bitcoin supply

This decreasing-supply algorithm was chosen because it approximates the rate at which commodities like gold are mined. Users who use their computers to perform calculations to try and discover a block are thus called Miners.

Motivation Formula

Motivation = (Expectancy X Value) / (Impulsiveness X Delay)
  • Expectancyย : How likely you feel you’ll succeed
  • Valueย : What you’ll gain from succeeding
  • Impulsivenessย : Your natural inclination to put things off
  • Delayย : How much time you have to complete the task

Add it up, and the result is your current level of motivation.ย 

The less confident you are, the less exciting the outcome, the longer you have to get it done … the more likely you are to put it off.

Truth Quotes

In Roman mythology, Veritas, meaning Truth, is the goddess of Truth, a daughter of Chronos, the God of Time.

For my dearest copฤƒcel Emily,

Wish that you’ll find a drop of wisdom in an ocean of words!

Because never forget Papi, the ocean was formed drop by drop ๐Ÿ™‚๐Ÿฅฐ๐Ÿ™ƒ

“Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage.

Tutelage is man’s inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another.

Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another.

Sapere aude!

‘Have courage to use your own reason!’- that is the motto of enlightenment.”

Immanuel Kant, “An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?”

“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.”

Thomas Jefferson

“I’m for truth, no matter who tells it.

I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against.

I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.”

Malcolm X

“The reason I talk to myself is because Iโ€™m the only one whose answers I accept.”

George Carlin

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”

Oscar Wilde, “The Importance of Being Earnest”

“I believe in everything until it’s disproved.

So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind.

Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?”

John Lennon

“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

George Orwell

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”

Aldous Huxley

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Socrates

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.

Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”

Oscar Wilde

“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed.

If people all over the world…would do this, it would change the earth.”

William Faulkner

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”

Henry David Thoreau, “Walden”

“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are.

You trade in your reality for a role.

You trade in your sense for an act.

You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask.

There can’t be any large-scale revolution until there’s a personal revolution, on an individual level.

It’s got to happen inside first.”

Jim MORRISON

“There are three types of lies — lies, damn lies, and statistics.”

Benjamin Disraeli

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact.

Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”

Marcus Aurelius , “Meditations”

“Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States.

Ask any Indian.”

Robert Orben

“A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions–as attempts to find out something.

Success and failure are for him answers above all.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

“Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.”

Leo Tolstoy, “A Confession”

“Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?”

Carl Sagan

“It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.”

George Washington

“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”

Carl Sagan

“There are two ways to be fooled.

One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”

Soren Kierkegaard

“1492.

As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America.

Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that.

1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them.”

Kurt Vonnegut

“Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad.

There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”

George Orwell, “1984”

“If the road is easy, you’re likely going the wrong way.”

Terry Goodkind

“If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed.

It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.”

Marcus Aurelius, “Meditations”

“Believe those who are seeking the truth.

Doubt those who find it.”

Andre Gide

“You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.”

C.S. Lewis

“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true.

I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.”

Abraham Lincoln

“Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.”

Henry David Thoreau

“The truth is always an abyss.

One must โ€” as in a swimming pool โ€” dare to dive from the quivering springboard of trivial everyday experience and sink into the depths, in order to later rise again โ€” laughing and fighting for breath โ€” to the now doubly illuminated surface of things.”

Franz Kafka

“The truth is not always beautiful, nor beautiful words the truth.”

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions–as attempts to find out something.

Success and failure are for him answers above all.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

“Belief can be manipulated.

Only knowledge is dangerous.”

Frank Herbert

“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”

Carl Sagan

“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.”

C.S. Lewis

“Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.”

Leo Tolstoy, “A Confession”

“The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.”

George Orwell

“Man is always prey to his truths. Once he has admitted them, he cannot free himself from them.”

Albert Camus

Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.”

Voltaire

“The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.”

Niels Bohr

“Youโ€™re not obligated to win. Youโ€™re obligated to keep trying. To the best you can do everyday.”

Jason Mraz

“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.”

Renรฉ Descartes

“The truth knocks on the door and you say, “Go away, I’m looking for the truth,” and so it goes away. Puzzling.”

Robert M. Pirsig, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values” (Phaedrus, #1)

“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.

But itโ€™s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

Steve Jobs

“Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.”

Niels Bohr

“It is truth that liberates, not your effort to be free.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti, “The First and Last Freedom”

“Like all dreamers I confuse disenchantment with truth.”

Jean Paul Sarte

“I will no longer mutilate and destroy myself in order to find a secret behind the ruins.”

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.

It is the source of all true art and all science.

He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”

Albert Einstein

“Truth is not something outside to be discovered, it is something inside to be realized.”

Osho

“Religious doctrines โ€ฆ are all illusions, they do not admit of proof, and no one can be compelled to consider them as true or to believe in them.”

Sigmund Freud, “The Future of an Illusion”

“You should not honor men more than truth.”

Plato

“Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines that everybody else is saying,… [o]r else you say something which in fact is true, and it will sound like it’s from Neptune.”

Noam Chomsky, “Propaganda and the Public Mind”

“The truth may be puzzling.

It may take some work to grapple with.

It may be counterintuitive.

It may contradict deeply held prejudices.

It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true.

But our preferences do not determine what’s true.”

Carl Sagan

“Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.”

Arthur Conan Doyle

“We all know that Art is not truth.

Art is a lie that makes us realize truth at least the truth that is given us to understand.

The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies.”

Pablo Picasso

“Honest is how I want to look.

The truth doesn’t glitter and shine.”

Chuck Palahniuk, “Survivor”

“Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time.”

Benjamin Disraeli

“Above all, do not lie to yourself.

A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others.

Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete beastiality, and it all comes form lying continually to others and himself.

A man who lies to himself is often the first to take offense. it sometimes feels very good to take offense, doesn’t it?

And surely he knows that no one has offended him, and that he himself has invented the offense and told lies just for the beauty of it, that he has exaggerated for the sake of effect, that he has picked up on a word and made a mountain out of a pea–he knows all of that, and still he is the first to take offense, he likes feeling offended, it gives him great pleasure, and thus he reaches the point of real hostility…”

Fyodor Dostoevsky, “The Brothers Karamazov”

“Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.”

Nietzsche

“It is not easy to keep silent when silence is a lie.”

Victor Hugo

“I always tell the truth.

Even when I lie.”

Al Pacino

“Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives.”

John Lennon

“Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.”

Blaise Pascal

“Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.”

Isaac Newton

“When everything gets answered, it’s fake.”

Sean Penn

“We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.”

John Locke

“Beware:
Ignorance
Protects itself.
Ignorance
Promotes suspicion.
Suspicion
Engenders fear.
Fear quails,
Irrational and blind,
Or fear looms,
Defiant and closed.
Blind, closed,
Suspicious, afraid,
Ignorance
Protects itself,
And protected,
Ignorance grows.”

Octavia E. Butler, “Parable of the Talents”

“The seeker after truth should be humbler than the dust.

The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after truth should so humble himself that even the dust could crush him.

Only then, and not till then, will he have a glimpse of truth.”

Mahatma Gandhi

“I believe that Gandhiโ€™s views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time.

We should strive to do things in his spirit: not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by non-participation in anything you believe is evil.”

Albert Einstein

“Knowledge is a destination.

Truth, the journey.”

Terry Goodkind

“But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue?

It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.

Those who know what virtuous liberty is, cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of their having high-sounding words in their mouths.”

Edmund Burke

“Love speaks in flowers.

Truth requires thorns.”

Leigh Bardugo, “The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic”

“We are what we believe we are!”

C.S. Lewis

“If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change.

I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one’s own self-deception and ignorance.”

Marcus Aurelius, “Meditations”

“People who fit donโ€™t seek.

The seekers are those that donโ€™t fit.”

Shannon L. Alder

“It is man’s natural sickness to believe that he possesses the truth.”

Blaise Pascal

“Errors do not cease to be errors simply because theyโ€™re ratified into law.”

E.A. Bucchianeri, “Brushstrokes of a Gadfly”

“Every beginning has an end and every end is a new beginning.”

Santosh Kalwar

Science, my boy, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.”

Jules Verne, “Journey to the Center of the Earth”

“At times to be silent is to lie.

You will win because you have enough brute force.

But you will not convince.

For to convince you need to persuade.

And in order to persuade you would need what you lack: Reason and Right.”

Miguel de Unamuno
…something to strive for.
…leave a trail.
Sapere Aude

First Time/Small Miner

First time/Small miner reference
for getting started.

If you want to start mining here is what you need… and what you need to know.

This is written for home miners/small farms, but can be used as a guideline for most operations. Use this as a reference for what you need to research, or what questions you need to ask before jumping in.

What you need to mine can be broken down into the following categories:

  • Hardware
  • Electricity
  • Location
  • Internet connection
  • Information

Mining BITCOIN is done exclusively with dedicated BITCOIN mining hardware based on ASICs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application-specific_integrated_circuit .

You CAN NOT meaningfully mine bitcoin today with CPU, GPU or even FPGAs. Bitcoin difficulty adapts to match the amount of mining done on the network and has reached levels trillions of times too high to mine meaningfully with PCs, laptops, tablets, phones, webpages, javascript, GPUs, and even generalised SHA hardware.

Even if you combined all the computers in the world, including all known supercomputer, you would not even approach 0.1% of the bitcoin hashrate today.

There isn’t any point attempting to mine bitcoin with CPU or GPU even in the interests of learning as it shares almost nothing with how bitcoin is mined with ASICs and will not teach you anything.

Hardware

Asic Miner:

Here is a list of the companies currently manufacturing Miners for public purchase.

Each one has their Pro’s and Con’s it is up to you to do your research and decide what is best for you.

A few points to consider while researching are :

  • efficiency
  • reliability
  • warranty period/policy
  • power draw

Each company has a different way of handling warranty repairs, depending on your situation and the policy repairs can become cost prohibitive. I will touch more on efficiency and power draw in the electricity section.

โ€ข Current list of competitive hardware

Power supply: You will need to purchase a power supply to run your miners. You will find ATX and Server grade PSU’s, the latter being preferred for mining BTC. 

When it comes to selecting a PSU purchase something with a capacity 25% higher than your miner is rated to draw. This will have you operating within the 80% rule.(explained further in the electricity section)

EX. Miner draws 1000 PSU should be able to provide 1250W.

** Many current generation miners are now being manufactured with Integrated PSU. Again do your research to see if your unit comes with or without. Generally you will still need to source a power cable.**

Auxilliaries – Avalon miners require an external controller, 1 per 20 miners. You may have to run additional fans for intake and exhaust depending on your location.

PSU’s can be purchased large enough to run 2 Miners; or the opposite 1 Miner fed by 2 PSU’s. Ensure the PSU you have selected will have the correct amount of PCI-E connectors required to operate your miner(s)

You can also find a large supply of used miners and PSU’s. Again it’s up to you to do your research as these often are a no return transaction.

Electricity

Follow all local codes and regulations

This is the number 1 factor in whether mining is right for you. As discussed with Miners being a 24/7 machine drawing power those costs will make it cost prohibitive for some people to mine. You need to be aware of what your costs/kWh are and run the numbers.

This will be done in a profitability calculator. This is just an example of 1 there are many out there.

( Miner usage in kW ) * ( Hours run per day ) 24 * ( Cost/kWh ) = Cost per Day to Operate

( Ideally less than the FIAT value of BTC mined )

The second part to the electrical requirements of mining is the available service; written for North America.

You will need to figure out the amperage you can spare, what circuits and receptacles you have in place, are you setting up on 220V or 110V. You will need to make sure that you have the right cord end for your PSU to match the receptacle, picking the wrong one can cost you a few days of mining if it has to be shipped.

If you can try and set up on a 220V circuit for 2 reasons :

– You will pull half the amps, and it is more efficient.

– Doing so requires 2 breaker spaces in your panel. Breaker sizing will depend on how many miners you plan to run. Here is the formula for calculating amps.

Watts / Voltage = Amps

Here is where you will bring the 80% rule back into play by sizing the continuous miner load to 80% of the breaker rating. 12 Amps on a 15 Amp breaker, 16 Amps max on a 20 Amp breaker, 24 Amps on a 30 amp breaker.

If/when you increase the amount of miners you are running you may want to look into PDU’s, as opposed to more receptacles. 

Location

This is something that is often overlooked to the headache and frustration of many would be miners. These machines are loud and hot .
You essentially have an electric heater that also uses an industrial fan to keep it from melting itself. This space will need to have the electrical requirements as discussed previously.

So make sure you have a space that is well ventilated with a plan to exhaust heat, and bring in fresh dust free air. I say this as using AC to cool the room will eat into your profits and may even make mining unprofitable.

The noise issue is a consideration you can sort out depending on whats available. (garage, basement, remote building)

Both of these issues can be handled with hosting, which is further explained in the information section.

Internet connection

Some miner setups have the option to use wifi. It is advisable to use a wired connection where available. This will provide a more stable connection and ensure you are submitting the expected amount of shares which is directly related to your payouts.

Please note that mining uses a negligible amount of bandwidth, and will not affect your other internet usage.

Information

You can use this information in this post as a good baseline to get you going. In addition to this you will want to research network difficulty; this readjusts every 2016 blocks to maintain a 10 minute block time on average. While this can go down it generally increases.

Solo or Pool?

You can solo mine but this is essentially a lottery even as a large scale miner. Should you chose this you can check this out as a starting point.

solo.ckpool.org 1% fee solo mining USA/DE 250 blocks solved!

Odds are most of you will join a pool. I will only say that it is in your best interest to mine at a pool that pays transaction fees (miner rewards). Then you will want to consider the fees associated with the pool.

When it comes to these pools you want them to be large enough that they are getting at least 1 block every Difficulty adjustment period. Larger pools will offer smaller rewards paid out more frequently, and vice versa.