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 “Running Bitcoin Challenge” is set to take place between Jan. 1 and Jan. 10. The timing of the occasion leads up to the anniversary of Hal Finney’s “Running bitcoin” tweet, in which Finney famously disclosed he was deploying a Bitcoin node.
There is no set location — participants can choose to join anywhere they wish. Players are encouraged to either run, walk, roll or hike the equivalent of a half marathon (Hal’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 marathon’s logo, while the event’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 network’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.
Hal’s name is high in the Bitcoin pantheon as one of the first people to voice support for Satoshi Nakamoto’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 Wright’s statements still falsely believe Finney to be Bitcoin’s real creator).
Hal, who referred to himself as a “cypherpunk,” 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 “dedicated to the goal of making Big Brother obsolete.”
PGP creator Phil Zimmerman hired Hal as his first employee when PGP became PGP Corporation in the early 2000s. He described Hal as a “gregarious man” 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 “Bitcoin and me” post on BitcoinTalk.org in March 2013, the last he’d ever make.
It’s a long post, and Hal was “essentially paralyzed” at the time, using an eye tracker to type. Forum stats show the post has been read over 278,000 times.
“When Satoshi announced the first release of the software, I grabbed it right away,” he wrote. “I 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.”
Hal himself always denied being Satoshi Nakamoto, adding later that he’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.
“And, 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.
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 … Continue reading Running bitcoin – Hal Finney→
It’s been 4 years already and it seems I haven’t done nothing at all… With the little time I could spare to work on this blog, I hope I bought a tiny seed … Continue reading 4th Year WordPress Anniversary→
January 3rd 2023 – Bitcoin 14th Anniversary Happy Genesis Block Day! January 3 is the 14th anniversary of Bitcoin’s Block Zero, its anchor in time. The first sentence of the email has become … Continue reading Happy Genesis Block Day→
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It’s been 4 years already and it seems I haven’t done nothing at all… With the little time I could spare to work on this blog, I hope I bought a tiny seed of knowledge into your 🧠zz my dear readers 😁🙂😉😋
I will try the best of my abilities to continue the work on the blog !
Untill then dear readers never forget :
Let’s find the courage and strenght, if not for us then for Them… the Future Generations that are to come after us and Go…
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 … Continue reading Running bitcoin – Hal Finney→
It’s been 4 years already and it seems I haven’t done nothing at all… With the little time I could spare to work on this blog, I hope I bought a tiny seed … Continue reading 4th Year WordPress Anniversary→
January 3rd 2023 – Bitcoin 14th Anniversary Happy Genesis Block Day! January 3 is the 14th anniversary of Bitcoin’s Block Zero, its anchor in time. The first sentence of the email has become … Continue reading Happy Genesis Block Day→
So – You want to be a Computer Dude? The word / expression “Dude” is not a reference to being male, female, or whatever, it is a designation of “Skill Level.” When we … Continue reading Computer Dude Inc.→
Happy Genesis Block Day! January 3 is the 14th anniversary of Bitcoin’s Block Zero, its anchor in time.
The first sentence of the email has become iconic among the Bitcoin community:
“I’ve been working on a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.”
On January 3, 2009, the genesis block of the Bitcoin blockchain was mined by its pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto, marking the first time in history that a completely digital and decentralized currency went online.
In the 14 years and three halvings since, Bitcoin has grown to become one of the most important financial instruments, clearly demonstrating that a non-central bank-controlled currency is capable of challenging the established monetary order.
That time, in 2009, was one of economic turmoil—and the aftershocks from that turmoil are still rocking our world in 2023.
The Genesis Block was never “mined” like every other Bitcoin block. That started with Block #1 when Satoshi Nakamoto released the software on SourceForge.
The hash from Block #0 was done with different software and hard-coded into the original Bitcoin protocol.
“Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks” was the Times headline. Satoshi hid in the first block’s coinbase hash as a timestamp to prove there had been no mining on the Bitcoin network before he released the software to the public.
The Times – January 3 2009
“The Chancellor will decide within weeks whether to pump billions more into the economy,” the original article in the Times said. In 2009 these seemed like desperate measures, and they were. Since 2009, though, governments across the Western world have indeed pumped billions, even trillions more, into their economies.
Satoshi was making a statement on irresponsible government interventions in the economy and their eventual erosion on markets.
“They actively sought to incentivise bad behaviour and push in typical Keynesian style the problem down the road. It would be a bigger problem, but it would be someone else’s problem.”
Just like the economy at large, Bitcoin is a long-term struggle against the worse aspects of human nature.
In the 14 years and three halvings since, Bitcoin has grown to become one of the most important financial instruments, clearly demonstrating that a non-central bank-controlled currency is capable of challenging the established monetary order.
10 most important Bitcoin Milestones
Bitcoin has reached numerous major milestones and faced several considerable obstacles over its nearly decade-and-a-half-long history.
Here are 10 events that had the biggest impact on Bitcoin so far:
November 28, 2012: First Bitcoin halving
February 28, 2014: Mt. Gox, the biggest Bitcoin exchange at the time, files for bankruptcy
July 9, 2016: Second Bitcoin halving
August 1, 2017: Bitcoin Cash hard fork
May 11, 2020: Third Bitcoin halving
February 8, 2021: Tesla invests in Bitcoin
February 20, 2021: Bitcoin reaches $1 trillion market cap for the first time
September 7, 2021: El Salvador makes Bitcoin legal tender
November 14, 2021 – Taproot upgrade is activated
November 11, 2022: Major crypto exchange FTX files for bankruptcy
Bitcoin has never closed in the red zone 2 years in a row: Will the trend continue?
Bitcoin price decreased by over -60% over the span of the last 12 months. However, there is a strong bullish precedent in play that could spell a major trend reversal in the coming months.
For starters, Bitcoin has never closed in the negative two years in a row. Granted, there is a relatively short set of historical price data to work with.
However, roughly speaking, Bitcoin has operated on 3 years of growth followed by 1 year of market retracement periods, at least so far
Bitcoin Change Year-over-Year
For world-renowned charities such as Save the Children, the White aper and the subsequent creation of Bitcoin have benefited the organization.
Antonia Roupell, Web3 lead at Save the Children, told Cointelegraph that the organization recognizes “Bitcoin’s potential to be a force for good and a force for financial inclusion,” adding:
“On Bitcoin’s 14th anniversary, and at a time of increasingly global financial inequality, the phrase ‘bitcoin is for anyone’ really resonates.”
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 … Continue reading Running bitcoin – Hal Finney→
It’s been 4 years already and it seems I haven’t done nothing at all… With the little time I could spare to work on this blog, I hope I bought a tiny seed … Continue reading 4th Year WordPress Anniversary→
January 3rd 2023 – Bitcoin 14th Anniversary Happy Genesis Block Day! January 3 is the 14th anniversary of Bitcoin’s Block Zero, its anchor in time. The first sentence of the email has become … Continue reading Happy Genesis Block Day→
So – You want to be a Computer Dude? The word / expression “Dude” is not a reference to being male, female, or whatever, it is a designation of “Skill Level.” When we … Continue reading Computer Dude Inc.→
Just as the crypto industry is expanding and getting local adoption from individuals, co-operations, organisations and few countries the same rate at which we have crypto enthusiast increasing in number which i see so worrisome and also a call for major concern.
Reason been that as more people get involved in the crypto business the more scammers are likely to increase their technique and the more scammers get recruited.
To avoid walking on scammers path, requires to be well informed of every new technique they can ever deploy against their potential victim.
To stay off scammers path users must:
Avoid phishing links.
Make sure to pay attention to the spelling of the website, as well as their URL as this can reveal whether it is a phishing site or not.
Never invest in a project without a well structured community
Pay close attention to the engagement within the community for suspicious activities
Ensure you assets are off CEX
Be more smart and less greedy
Don’t jump into a project/coin only based on the hype from advertisers (especially twitter)
Avoid any “too good to be true” investment
Avoid send me 1$ and I’ll send back 2$ scams, no matter how reputable is the account calling for that
Protect your coins (keep your coins on your wallet, use hardware wallet where possible, never give out wallet’s seed, keep backup seed offline)
Don’t be greedy and/or illiterate.
Be sure to feed yourself with necessary knowledge, if you want to invest.
Knowledge from experience is good but you can also take legitimate one from other people.
Not everything that is being offered to you is true. Do not be deceived.
Be careful who you are trusting.
Always be skeptical !!!
Enable Two-factor authentication for all your accounts.
Using of firewalls.
Installing an up to date anti virus software.
Use strong passwords and yet easily accessible ones for your convenience.
Stay away from malicious links or attachments you come across on the web.
Make sure your private keys are well stored and in hard wallet
Make sure your passwords are not vulnerable online to attacks i.e don’t store passwords online or any website
Whenever a stranger message you first for a business or an investment, it is a Red flag.
Someone who doesn’t know you would want you to make big money, another Red flag.
Whenever they introduce a” business opportunity” to you and then hasten you in order make you take a hasty decision it’s not genuine, they are trying their best to make you take a fast decision without telling your loved ones and friends who will discourage you.
It is safer to assume anyone you don’t know, communicating with you is a scammer until it is proven otherwise.
Read the whitepaper and research well of the company where you are going to invest because many scams are done by this method.
Check whether it is genuine or fake.
Scammers are constantly upgrading their scam methods and anyone can be the next target.
Loss doesn’t just happen due to an internal or intentional mistake, and when it does happen everyone has a similar sense of remorse and risks that are absolute consequences.
You’ll be fooled many times by those scammers that have maintained a well structured fake community.
They can hire those PRs and people talking inside their community to make it look like they’re a legit community.
As for their workers, they’ll just tell that they need engagement but the purpose of it, they’re not talking about it because that’s what the main purpose it.
And that’s to make it look genuine that they have real people inside the community. But in reality, it’s all fake people that they’ve hired just to make discussions all over their place.
It’s safe to say as well that it’s not just the crypto industry that is not safe for newbies, everything that talks about money is not safe for everyone.
Crypto is the latest thing and in the last 5 years it become so successful that scammers make this as their paradise as there are a lot of naive investors in the market.
Do your investigations, and don’t listen to influencers and believe them.
Think that this is your hard earn money so you need to be careful where you are going to invest it.
Don’t be Greedy.
Don’t jump on it like a hungry cow.
Don’t trust the sweet words they offer you. Most of them are too good to be true but they will always sound inviting to invest with.
Make a wall to not fully support them unless they have proven themselves worthy of that kind of respect.
Always be in doubt. That will be the shield that will protect you from being scammed.
Must simply assume that our coins are never really safe despite our best efforts, so it is important to always be on alert and protect our coins to the best of our ability.
Improve the security of your coins by an important margin by buying a hardware wallet, since they are very secure devices and they are relatively cheap, instead of risking storing our coins in our computers or at an exchange.
Always good to know how to make technical and fundamental analysis so that you can get specific information what is the situation of the projects you want to invest
Many projects are delivering a good testament, but they always ended into a scam , so we need to be smart enough and have a lot of preparation before investing or trading
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 … Continue reading Running bitcoin – Hal Finney→
It’s been 4 years already and it seems I haven’t done nothing at all… With the little time I could spare to work on this blog, I hope I bought a tiny seed … Continue reading 4th Year WordPress Anniversary→
January 3rd 2023 – Bitcoin 14th Anniversary Happy Genesis Block Day! January 3 is the 14th anniversary of Bitcoin’s Block Zero, its anchor in time. The first sentence of the email has become … Continue reading Happy Genesis Block Day→
So – You want to be a Computer Dude? The word / expression “Dude” is not a reference to being male, female, or whatever, it is a designation of “Skill Level.” When we … Continue reading Computer Dude Inc.→
“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 halvingControlled 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.
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 … Continue reading Running bitcoin – Hal Finney→
It’s been 4 years already and it seems I haven’t done nothing at all… With the little time I could spare to work on this blog, I hope I bought a tiny seed … Continue reading 4th Year WordPress Anniversary→
January 3rd 2023 – Bitcoin 14th Anniversary Happy Genesis Block Day! January 3 is the 14th anniversary of Bitcoin’s Block Zero, its anchor in time. The first sentence of the email has become … Continue reading Happy Genesis Block Day→
So – You want to be a Computer Dude? The word / expression “Dude” is not a reference to being male, female, or whatever, it is a designation of “Skill Level.” When we … Continue reading Computer Dude Inc.→
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Buckminster Fuller
Strenght in NumbersDare to knowBitcoin / bitcoin / blockchainDYOR – Do Your Own Research LandArise…Bitcoin – People’s MoneyCypherPunks Write CodeBitcoin Genesis BlockCode Is LawA new day…Bitcoin – The Peaceful RevolutionVeritas Non Auctoritas Facit Legem🔵 or 🟠 The Choice is Yours…
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 … Continue reading Running bitcoin – Hal Finney→
It’s been 4 years already and it seems I haven’t done nothing at all… With the little time I could spare to work on this blog, I hope I bought a tiny seed … Continue reading 4th Year WordPress Anniversary→
January 3rd 2023 – Bitcoin 14th Anniversary Happy Genesis Block Day! January 3 is the 14th anniversary of Bitcoin’s Block Zero, its anchor in time. The first sentence of the email has become … Continue reading Happy Genesis Block Day→
So – You want to be a Computer Dude? The word / expression “Dude” is not a reference to being male, female, or whatever, it is a designation of “Skill Level.” When we … Continue reading Computer Dude Inc.→
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:
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.
• 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.
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 … Continue reading Running bitcoin – Hal Finney→
It’s been 4 years already and it seems I haven’t done nothing at all… With the little time I could spare to work on this blog, I hope I bought a tiny seed … Continue reading 4th Year WordPress Anniversary→
January 3rd 2023 – Bitcoin 14th Anniversary Happy Genesis Block Day! January 3 is the 14th anniversary of Bitcoin’s Block Zero, its anchor in time. The first sentence of the email has become … Continue reading Happy Genesis Block Day→
So – You want to be a Computer Dude? The word / expression “Dude” is not a reference to being male, female, or whatever, it is a designation of “Skill Level.” When we … Continue reading Computer Dude Inc.→
Hy there to all of you out there, white, black, yellow and avatar 😋🤣 people around the WordPress world !
Hope you are all well and safe in these troubled times we live on this beautiful planet of ours !
I come before you, to ask for your opinion and what you would like to see explained in my posts !?! Just let me know and I will try my best to accomodate your requests !
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 … Continue reading Running bitcoin – Hal Finney→
It’s been 4 years already and it seems I haven’t done nothing at all… With the little time I could spare to work on this blog, I hope I bought a tiny seed … Continue reading 4th Year WordPress Anniversary→
January 3rd 2023 – Bitcoin 14th Anniversary Happy Genesis Block Day! January 3 is the 14th anniversary of Bitcoin’s Block Zero, its anchor in time. The first sentence of the email has become … Continue reading Happy Genesis Block Day→
So – You want to be a Computer Dude? The word / expression “Dude” is not a reference to being male, female, or whatever, it is a designation of “Skill Level.” When we … Continue reading Computer Dude Inc.→
My aim is for any brand new miner to be able to determine just how unlikely any run of bad luck is, and so reduce the overall level of panic amongst miners.
Mining panic has been exacerbated by reports of accidental block withholding attacks, and a stratum vulnerability.
Wouldn’t you prefer to know if your panic was actually warranted?
• 1. Gambler’s fallacy
For miners who have been around for more than a year or two seen good and bad luck (unless they mine at a “Pay per share” pool, in which case they are not subject to luck at all) and know that it will even out in the long term.
However, every new miner striking a run of bad luck will flail around, looking to escape to another pool that is not having bad luck. This sort of response to random events can be thought of as a type of gambler’s fallacy.
• 2. Bad Luck lasts longer
Another reason that makes us mis-judge mining luck is that when we mine, we mostly experience bad luck.
In fact if you go to the trouble of working it out, your hours of mining will be about one-quarter good luck and three quarters bad luck. Why? Bad luck takes longer, good luck rounds take much less time.
• 3. Assessing luck over time instead of blocks
Another mistake made by novice miners is to assume that the extremes of luck will be the same for all pool over any time frame. This is wrong for two related reasons:
The more blocks are solved the closer luck approaches 100%
Because the timeframe for luck to to approach 100% varies depending on number of blocks solved, comparing various pools’ luck over the same time period is invalid. Instead we need to compare luck over similar number of blocks.
• 4. The luck statistic, the Erlang distribution, PDFs and CDFs
I’ll try to avoid terms like “variance” and “median” and “maths” in order to not scare away too many readers, but we do need a definition:
Luck = Mean (expected shares per round / actual shares per round)
Luck statistic = mean (actual shares per round / expected shares per round)
i.e. Luck = 1/Luck statistic
I would much rather just refer to the ‘Luck statistic’ as luck, but due to our psychological preference to assign luck a scale where bigger is better, we need both measures – “Luck” as a shorthand for “How much am I earning as a percent of what I expect to earn”, and the “Luck” statistic. Just keep in mind the larger the ‘luck’ statistic, the worse the ‘luck’.
The luck statistic is negative binomially distributed, but can be very closely approximated by a known and well understood distribution ( Erlang distribution ) which makes calculating probabilities simpler.
The approximation becomes more accurate as difficulty increases – think of Euler’s (1 + 1/n)^n approximation to e as the comparison of an exponentially distributed random variable (Erlang distribution shape parameter = 1) and a geometrically distributed random variable (Negative binomial distribution, size parameter = 1, probability = 1/n).
In case you’re worried about the approximation leading to significant error, at current difficulty you’ll won’t see a probability error greater than 0.0000000001.
Visualising the Erlang distribution:
The PDF is the probability density function, which indicates how probable it is that the luck statistic will be some arbitrary value.
The CDF is the cumulative distribution function, which indicates how probable it is that the luck statistic will be greater than or equal to arbitrary value.
Both plots illustrate:
The luck statistic tends closer to 1.0 as the number of blocks over which the statistic is averaged increases
Extremes of luck are more likely when the luck statistic is averaged over fewer blocks.
• 5. Managing Income Variance
Luck averaged over more blocks means fewer extremes, so more blocks in less time means as a miner you will experience less variation in payout – but also means that you’ll be increasing the size of pools that are already large.
You can avoid this by adjusting your timescale expectations – try to focus on weekly income, or income per retarget and you’ll be less affected by income variations. Wait about one hundred blocks and income will be around +/- 20% of expected.
Your other option is to mine at a pool that has a pay per share (PPS) reward method, but this has a couple of downsides. The first is that since the pool is smoothing out the income variations for you, if they don’t manage that risk properly they could bankrupt themselves, and leaving you with lost income. The other problem is that since PPS is risky not many pools want to provide it so you won’t have many options about where you can mine.
• 6. How can you calculate the CDF probability yourself?
If you want to manage your expectations without using a PPS pool you need to know what to expect. Not just the reward per share but the typical range of values you might encounter in some time frame. So, how can you calculate the CDF probability yourself? If you have some experience with statistics or coding knowledge can use R or mathematica or even python, but you can also use the Wolfram Alpha website. By entering the luck statistic and the number of blocks over which the statistic was averaged, you get the lower tail probability of that statistic occurring.
For example, if the luck statistic was 1.1 over one hundred blocks is that quite unlucky or just a little unlucky? Enter:
CDF [ErlangDistribution[100, 100], 1.1] The result is 0.84, so for 84 times out of one hundred re-runs of one blocks, we’d see luckier blocks. Not that unlucky – 1 in every six re-runs would be unluckier.
• 6. How can you calculate the probable luck outcomes yourself?
Rather than assess how lucky or unlucky your pool has been, planning requires you to estimate how unlucky is could be in future. Let’s say you plan to be able to manage a monthly worst case of 0.999 (one one in a thousand re-runs of the months blocks would be worse), and your expect your pool to solve around 50 blocks in that time.
quantile(ErlangDistribution[50, 50], 0.999) This results in a luck statistic of ~1.495, or a luck of 1/1.495 = 66.9%
• 7. I need something easier. Or less statisticky, anyway.
OK, I hear you. My fun != your fun. This chart gives you the expected luck percentage (and it’s all bad luck) for bad luck with a 1/3 chance of that luck or worse occurring (not very unlucky) to bad luck with a 1/10000 chance of that luck or worse occurring (really quite unlucky). Use it to either plan for the future or get an idea of how lucky you’ve been.
For example, my pool solves ten blocks at a luck of 80%, is that really bad? Not really. It’ll happen around 20% of the time (1/5 chance of that luck or worse occurring). Maybe I just want to make sure I can cope with a 1/thousand bad luck run of five hundred blocks (~67.5%).
8. Summary
Variance in income reduces as a function of number of blocks solved.
Variance in income is not a function of time.
Learn how to plan for bad luck, and to check that your pool’s luck is not impossibly bad.
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1b) Any pool that does NOT share transaction fees should be rejected from consideration (which, unfortunately, is most, if not all, Chinese based pools)
2) Reasonable variance – You need to get paid often enough to be happy. This is a tough one.
Variance is the close cousin to “Luck”.
The luckier a pool is, the more blocks it finds relative to its hashing speed, and the less variance it will have. But its not a real thing! “Luck” could change any microsecond. “Luck” is just mathematical statistics – over a long enough time period, all pools will average out to 100% luck.
Luck Statistik for 14 Blocks
You need to understand Variance:
A big pool finds more blocks, but distributes the earnings out to more miners.
A small pool is just the reverse: it finds fewer blocks, but pays those earnings to fewer people. Over the long run, Rule #1, well, rules.
3) Wind-up/Wind-down time – Most pools use some leveling algorithm.
4) User Interface – That doesn’t matter much if you have a few miners. If you have hundreds, the difference can be thousands of dollars a Year.
Notes:
A)In the long run #2 & #3 really don’t matter much. Both pools show your hashing rate in minutes, payouts just lag on Kano compared to Slushpool, but would continue longer if you changed in the future
B) Bigger is not better. Sure Antpool is #1 in size, in no small part to Bitmain using their own pool (no fees for them!). Your profit will be determined mostly by rule #1 – lower fees mean more profit.
C) More, smaller, pools is healthier for the blockchain. If you can live with the variance, support the pool with the longest average payout you are happy with.
D) For pools with long ramp up times that are relatively small, like Kano, you MIGHT suffer due to difficulty changes while you ramp up.
For smaller pools, make sure you understand what happens to your efforts (based on their scoring system) when a difficulty change occurs.
As we’ve seen over the many years that this rag has been written (and beyond) companies who are able to fund whole teams dedicated to data security have been wholly ineffective at storing that data safely.
With the passage of this new law EU officials are actively putting citizens in harm’s way by irresponsibly trying to force bitcoin users to collect and store each other’s data. This is if you believe that is the actual intention behind this move.
In reality, this move likely serves as a pure intimidation tactic to coerce people to use trusted third parties when transacting with bitcoin.
A heavy handed shove into easily controlled vectors. If too many users are in control of their own private keys, run their own nodes, and are up to date on best privacy practices when transacting it is much harder to stop bitcoin.
And make no mistake, these people want to stop bitcoin at all costs.
They do not want you to be free.
They are quickly losing their grasp of control on the populace and they are moving as quickly as possible to clamp down in an attempt to retain control.
You are not meant to have privacy in their eyes. You are inherently a criminal in their eyes. These people think you are disgusting cattle who needs to be led at every turn.
It does not have to be this way. You do not have to succumb to the madness of these people. All it takes are a few decisions.
Speak up!
Act!
Disobey!
There is a silent majority out there who knows this type of attempted control is inherently wrong.
It is anti-human!
It is evil!
This silent majority needs to begin developing the courage to speak up.
Call out the abject insanity of allowing unelected institutions like the Financial Action Task Force write freedom restricting guidelines that get adopted by governments like the EU.
Learn how to run your own node, how to produce your own private/public key pairs, and how to destroy chain analysis heuristics with privacy best practices.
Make the tyrant’s job as hard as possible!
Disobey!
Stand up and defend freedom in the Digital Age by actively defying their unjust laws.
“If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he obligated to do so.”
It is your duty as an individual to disobey these incredibly invasive and tyrannical “laws”.
If you don’t disobey your progeny may not have the opportunity to. The time to counter punch is right now. Get on it.
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Bitcoin is a monetary good — a new form of money. As Bitcoin is a money, it must be compared to other monies to consider the comparative advantages of Bitcoin and from that consider further the probabilities of Bitcoin winning ground or not in the competition between monies.
Brief summarization of the monetary properties
Summarization of the monetary properties of Bitcoin compared to precious metals and fiat currencies
As the exhibit above showcases, Bitcoin offers many different distinct and compelling competitive advantages to the alternatives.
These include, but are not limited to:
1. Bitcoin is the first asset in the human history to provide any holder a very sure case of unseizability and censorship- and judgment-resistance for their funds.
◦ Unseizability: With precious metals and fiat currencies, the custodianship is mostly in the hands of trusted custodians that is subject to any intervention by a government or authority.
Bitcoin, with self-custody being orders of magnitude easier than with precious metals and fiat currencies, and access to the corresponding private key of funds being the sole way to access and move funds, no one can seize your bitcoins.
◦ Censorship- and judgment resistance: With precious metals and fiat currencies, the payment clearing for small value transactions can with not much hassle be somewhat censorship resistant if the involved parties are willing to transact in the physical units of precious metals and fiat currencies and to self-custody the funds going forward.
However, with non-small value transactions it is exceedingly inconvenient and costly for transactions of precious metals and fiat currencies to happen in the offline, with physical units and self-custody going forward, leaving the centralized intermediaries as the only option and these are subject to any intervention by a government or authority.
Bitcoin, with the payment clearing involving no centralized intermediaries but instead a decentralized and distributed setup requiring no AML/KYC, the result is that of a the payment clearing process being permissionless, allowing anyone with cryptographic access to funds to move them at their will.
2. Bitcoin provides an inherently apolitical global monetary unit. It is truly border-less, with no recognition of any jurisdictional rules and laws, allowing the jurisdiction of a counterpart in any transaction to be of no relevance.
◦ Fiat currencies are highly political and precious metals are less political than fiat currencies, but still much more political than Bitcoin.
◦ Bitcoin is truly border-less: any bitcoin funds can be accessed anywhere on the planet by having access to information that can even be stored inside a human brain and reliably retrieved at small effort — and, crucially, with no intermediary and no permission required the bitcoin funds can be moved to anywhere in the world with final settlement in the next block.
3. Bitcoin provides scarcity and salability through time characteristics vastly superior to any other monetary options, including fiat currencies and precious metals.
◦ The non-discretionary monetary policy of the bitcoin networking allowing for the asymptotic money supply* of 21 million BTC is built into the literal definition of the protocol. This is a drastic contrast to the arbitrary scarcity of fiat currencies governed by politics.
The scarcity of precious metals is much better than fiat currencies, but Bitcoin with the strictly fixed money supply outperforms any precious metal.
Bitcoin provides any holder a reassurance stronger than any other asset in the world that their ownership stake in the total quantity of Bitcoin on the market will never diluted.
One BTC of 21 million will always be one BTC of 21 million.
◦ Bitcoins are infinitely durable, impossible to counterfeit or dilute, can be stored at no cost and at no degradation.
* By inventing Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto created the first example of a digital good (in this case, monetary good) that is impossible to reproduce ad infinitum, thereby creating the first instance of human history of digital scarcity.
Less talked about it, but perhaps more important, Satoshi Nakamoto with Bitcoin also created the first example of a good being absolute scarce.
Previously, any consideration of scarcity of a good was relative. Any physical good is never absolutely scarce, onlyrelatively scarce when compared to other goods — simply because any limit on a physical goods is a function of the time and human effort put towards producing the good.
Bitcoin, with the asymptotic monetary supply built into the protocol, is therefore the first example of absolute scarcity in a liquid commodity and good that cannot have its fixed quantity of supply increased.
People’s MoneyPower to the PeopleThe seed has been planted… Make it Thrive !!!ChooseVeritas non Auctoritas …Choose Wisely
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“Imagine there’s no countries It isn’t hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people Living life in peace
You may say that I’m a dreamer But I’m not the only one I hope someday you’ll join us And the world will be as one”
John Lennon, Imagine
“He who joyfully marches to music rank and file has already earned my contempt.
He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord
would surely suffice.
This disgrace to civilization
should be done away with at once.
Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is;
I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action!
It is my conviction that killing
under the cloak of war is nothing
but an act of murder.”
Albert Einstein
“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
George Orwell, “1984”
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
Albert Einstein
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
Plato
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
Sun Tzu, “The Art of War”
Today the most civilized countries of the world spend a maximum of their income on war and a minimum on education.
The twenty-first century will
reverse this order.
It will be more glorious to fight against ignorance than to die on the field of battle.
The discovery of a new scientific truth
will be more important thanthe
squabbles of diplomats.
Even the newspapers of our own
dayare beginning to treat scientific discoveries and the creation of freshphilosophical concepts as news.
The newspapers of the twenty-first century will give a mere ‘stick’ in the back pages to accounts of crime or political controversies, but will headline on the front pages the proclamation of a new scientific hypothesis.
Progress along such lines will be impossible while nations persist in the savage
practice of killing each other off.
I inherited from my father, an erudite
man who labored hard for peace,
an ineradicable hatred of war.
Nikola Tesla
“Older men declare war.
But it is youth that must fight and die.”
Herbert Hoover
“War does not determine who is right – only who is left.”
Anonymous
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,those who are
cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not
spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers,
the genius of its scientists,
the hopes of its children.
This is not a way of life at all
in any true sense.
Under the clouds of war,
it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower
“You can have peace.
Or you can have freedom.
Don’t ever count on having both at once.”
Robert A. Heinlein
“War is over … If you want it.”
John Lennon
“How is it possible to have a civil war?”
George Carlin
“It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.”
Aristotle
“They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.
But in modern war, there is nothing
sweet nor fitting in your dying.
You will die like a dog
for no good reason.”
Ernest Hemingway
“In times of war, the law falls silent.”
“Silent enim leges inter arma“
Marcus Tullius Cicero
“The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.”
Carl Sagan
“The human race is unimportant.
It is the self that must not be betrayed.”
“I suppose one could say that
Hitler didn’t betray his self.”
“You are right.
He did not.
But millions of Germans
did betray their selves.
That was the tragedy.
Not that one man had
the courage to be evil.
But that millions had not
the courage to be good.”
John Fowles, “The Magus”
“Fighting for peace, is like f***ing for chastity.”
Stephen King, “Hearts in Atlantis”
“I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.”
George McGovern
“Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist.
This is elementary common sense.
If you hamper the war effort of one side,
you automatically help out
that of the other.
Nor is there any real way
of remaining outside
such a war as the present one.
In practice, ‘he that is not with me
is against me’.”
George Orwell
“The essential act of war is destruction,
not necessarily of human lives,
but of the products of human labour.
War is a way of shattering to pieces,
or pouring into the stratosphere,
or sinking in the depths of the sea,
materials which might otherwise
be used to make the masses
too comfortable,and hence,
in the long run,too intelligent.”
George Orwell, “1984”
“Mankind must put an end to war – or war will put an end to mankind.”
[Address before the United Nations, September 25 1961]
John F. Kennedy
“Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.”
Henry Kissinger
“In War: Resolution, In Defeat: Defiance, In Victory: Magnanimity In Peace: Good Will.”
Winston S. Churchill, “The Second World War”
“this is the 21st century and we need
to redefine r/evolution.
this planet needs a people’s r/evolution.
a humanist r/evolution.
r/evolution is not about bloodshed or about going to the mountains and fighting.
we will fight if we are forced to
but the fundamental goal of
r/evolution must be peace.
we need a r/evolution of the mind.
we need a r/evolution of the heart.
we need a r/evolution of the spirit.
the power of the people is stronger
than any weapon.
a people’s r/evolution can’t be stopped.
we need to be weapons
of mass construction.
weapons of mass love.
it’s not enough just to change the system.
we need to change ourselves.
we have got to make this world
user friendly. user friendly.
are you ready to sacrifice
to end world hunger.
to sacrifice to end colonialism.
to end neo-colonialism.
to end racism.
to end sexism.
r/evolution means the end of exploitation.
r/evolution means respecting
people from other cultures.
r/evolution is creative.
r/evolution means treating your
mate as a friend and an equal.
r/evolution is sexy.
r/evolution means respecting and
learning from your children.
r/evolution is beautiful.
r/evolution means protecting
the people.
the plants. the animals. the air. the water.
r/evolution means saving this planet.
r/evolution is love.”
Assata Shakur
“After all, no one is stupid enough to prefer war to peace; in peace sons bury their fathers and in war fathers bury their sons.”
Herodotus
“Let my country die for me.”
James Joyce, “Ulysses”
“If we really saw war,
what war does to young minds and bodies, it would be impossible to embrace the myth of war.
If we had to stand over the mangled corpses of schoolchildren killed in Afghanistan and listen to the wails of their parents, we would not be able to repeat clichés we use to justify war.
This is why war is carefully sanitized.
This is why we are given war’s perverse and dark thrill but are spared from seeing war’s consequences.
The mythic visions of war keep it heroic and entertaining…
The wounded, the crippled, and the dead are, in this great charade, swiftly carted offstage.
They are war’s refuse.
We do not see them.
We do not hear them.
They are doomed, like wandering spirits, to float around the edges of our consciousness, ignored, even reviled.
The message they tell is too painful for us to hear.
We prefer to celebrate ourselves and our nation by imbibing the myths of glory, honor, patriotism, and heroism, words that in combat become empty and meaningless.“
Chris Hedges “Death of the Liberal Class”
“The ever more sophisticated weapons piling up in the arsenals of the wealthiest and the mightiest can kill the illiterate, the ill, the poor and the hungry, but they cannot kill ignorance, illness, poverty or hunger.”
Fidel Castro
“For the whole earth is the tomb
of famous men; not only are they commemorated by columns
and inscriptions in their own country,
but in foreign lands there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them,
graven not on stone
but in the hearts of men.
Make them your examples, and,
esteeming courage to be freedom and freedom to be happiness,
do not weigh too nicely
the perils of war.”
[Funeral Oration of Pericles]
Thucydides, “History of the Peloponnesian War”
“War and drink are the two things
man is never too poor to buy.”
William Faulkner
For me, the most ironic token of
[the first human moon landing] is the plaque signed by President Richard M. Nixon that Apollo 11 took to the moon.
It reads:
“We came in peace for all Mankind.”
As the United States wasdropping
7 ½ megatons of conventional
explosives on small nations
inSoutheast Asia,
we congratulated ourselves on
our humanity.
We would harm no one on a lifeless rock.”
Carl Sagan, “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”
“This topic brings me to that
worstoutcrop of herd life,
the military system, which I abhor…
This plague-spot of civilization ought
to be abolished with all possible speed.
Heroism on command,
senseless violence,
and all the loathsome nonsense that
goes by the name of patriotism —
how passionately I hate them!”
Albert Einstein
1. Bangladesh…. In 1971 … Kissinger overrode all advice in order to support
the Pakistani generals in both their
civilian massacre policy in East Bengal
and their armed attack on India
from West Pakistan….
This led to a moral and political catastrophe the effects of which are still sorely felt.
Kissinger’s undisclosed reason for the ‘tilt’ was the supposed but never materialised ‘brokerage’ offered by the dictator Yahya Khan in the course of secret diplomacy between Nixon and China….
Of the new state of Bangladesh,
Kissinger remarked coldly that it
was ‘a basket case’ before turning
his unsolicited expertise elsewhere.
2. Chile…. Kissinger had direct personal knowledge of the CIA’s plan to kidnap
and murder General René Schneider, the head of the Chilean Armed Forces … who refused to countenance military intervention in politics.
In his hatred for the Allende Government, Kissinger even outdid Richard Helms …
who warned him that a coup insuch
a stable democracy would
behard to procure.
The murder of Schneider nonetheless
went ahead, at Kissinger’s urging and
with American financing, just between Allende’s election and his confirmation….
This was one of the relatively few times
that Mr Kissinger (his success in getting people to call him ‘Doctor’ is greater
than that of most PhDs) involved himself
in the assassination of a single named individual rather than the slaughter
of anonymous thousands.
His jocular remark on this occasion—
‘I don’t see why we have to let a country
go Marxist just because its people
are irresponsible’—suggests he may
have been having the best of times….
3. Cyprus…. Kissinger approved of the preparations by Greek Cypriot fascists
for the murder of President Makarios,
and sanctioned the coup which tried
to extend the rule of the Athens junta
(a favoured client of his) to the island.
When despite great waste of life this coup failed in its objective, which was also Kissinger’s, of enforced partition, Kissinger promiscuously switched sides to support
an even bloodier intervention by Turkey.
Thomas Boyatt … went to Kissinger
in advance of the anti-Makarios
putschand warned him that it
could leadto a civil war.
‘Spare me the civics lecture,’ replied Kissinger, who as you can readily see had an aphorism for all occasions.
4. Kurdistan. Having endorsed the covert policy of supporting a Kurdish revolt
in northern Iraq between 1974 and 1975, with ‘deniable’ assistance also provided
by Israel and the Shah of Iran, Kissinger made it plain to his subordinates that
the Kurds were not to be allowed to win,
but were to be employed fortheir
nuisance value alone.
They were not to be told that this was
the case, but soon found out when
the Shah and Saddam Hussein composed their differences, and American
aid to Kurdistan was cut off.
Hardened CIA hands went to Kissinger …
for an aid programme for the many thousands of Kurdish refugees
who were thus abruptly created….
The apercu of the day was: ‘foreign policy should not he confused with missionary work.’ Saddam Hussein heartily concurred.
5. East Timor. The day after Kissinger left Djakarta in 1975, the Armed Forces
of Indonesia employed American weapons to invade and subjugate the independent former Portuguese colony of East Timor.
Isaacson gives a figure of 100,000 deaths resulting from the occupation, or one-seventh of the population, and there
are good judges who put this
estimateon the low side.
Kissinger was furious when news of
his own collusion was leaked, because
as well as breaking international law
the Indonesians were also violating
an agreement with the United States….
Monroe Leigh … pointed out this awkward latter fact. Kissinger snapped: ‘The Israelis when they go into Lebanon—when was the last time we protested that?‘
A good question, even if it did not and
does not lie especially well in his mouth.
It goes on and on and on until one
cannot eat enough to vomit enough.”
Christopher Hitchens
“At one time I had given much thought
to why men were so very rarely
capable of living for an ideal.
Now I saw that many, no,
all men were capable of dying for one.”
Hermann Hesse, “Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend”
“We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children.”
Howard Zinn
All wars are sacred,” he said.
“To those who have to fight them.
If the people who started wars
didn’t make them sacred,who would be
foolish enough to fight?
But, no matter what rallying cries
the orators give to the idiots who fight,
no matter what noble purposes they
assign to wars, there is neverbut
one reason for a war.
And that is money.
All wars are in reality money squabbles.
But so few people ever realize it.
Their ears are too full of bugles
anddrums and the fine words
from stay-at-home orators.
Sometimes the rallying cry is
’save the Tomb of Christ from the Heathen!’
Sometimes it’s ’down with Popery!’
andsometimes ‘Liberty!’
and sometimes
‘Cotton, Slavery and States’ Rights!”
Margaret Mitchell, “Gone with the Wind”
“The most dangerous people in the world are not the tiny minority instigating evil acts, but those who do the acts for them.
For example, when the British
invaded India, many Indians accepted
to work for the British to kill off
Indians who resisted their occupation.
So in other words, many Indians were
hired to kill other Indians on behalf
of the enemy for a paycheck.
Today, we have mercenaries in Africa, corporate armies from the western world, and unemployed men throughout the Middle East killing their own people – and people of other nations – for a paycheck.
To act without a conscience,
but for a paycheck,
makes anyone a dangerous animal.
The devil would be powerless
if he couldn’t entice people
to do his work.
So as long as money continuesto seduce
the hungry, the hopeless, the broken,
the greedy, and the needy,
there will always be
war between brothers.”
Suzy Kassem
“Peace is such hard work.
Harder than war.
It takes way more effort
to forgive than to kill.”
Rae Carson, “The Bitter Kingdom” (Fire and Thorns, #3)
“An unjust law is itself a species of violence.
Arrest for its breach is more so.
Now the law of nonviolence says that violence should be resisted not by counter-violence but by nonviolence.
This I do by breaking the law and by peacefully submitting to arrest and imprisonment.”
Mahatma Gandhi, “Non-violence in Peace and War” 1942-1949
“Civilized society is perpetually menaced with disintegration through this primary hostility of men towards one another.”
Sigmund Freud
“In war,
the strong make slaves of the weak,
and in peace,
the rich makes slaves of the poor.”
Oscar Wilde
“So it is the human condition that to wish for the greatness of one’s fatherland
is to wish evil to one’s neighbors.
The citizen of the universe would be
the man who wishes his countrynever to be either greater or smaller, richer or poorer.”
Voltaire, “Philosophical Dictionary”
“A democracy which makes or eveneffectively prepares for modern,
A weapon is a manifestation of a decision that has already been made.”
Steven Galloway, “The Cellist of Sarajevo”
“There has never been a just [war],
never an honorable one —
on the part of the instigator of the war.
I can see a million years ahead,
and this rule will never change
in so many as half a dozen instances.
The loud little handful— as usual —
willshout for the war.
The pulpit will–warily and cautiously–object–at first;
the great, big, dull bulk of the nation
will rub its sleepy eyes and tryto
make out why there should be a war,
and will say, earnestly and indignantly,
‘It is unjust and dishonorable,
and there is no necessity for it.
‘ Then the handful will shout louder.
A few fair men on the other side will
argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity.
Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform,
and free speech strangled by hordesof furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers–as earlier–but do not dare say so.
And now the whole nation–pulpit and all–will take up the war-cry, and shout
itself hoarse, and mob any honest man
who ventures to open his mouth;
and presently such mouths
will cease to open.
Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities,
and will diligently study them, and refuse
to examine any refutations of them;
and thus he will by and by convince
himself the war is just,
and will thank God
for the better sleep he enjoys
after this processof
grotesque self-deception.”
Mark Twain, “The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories”
“We often think of peace
as the absence of war,
that if powerful countries
would reduce their weapon arsenals,
we could have peace.
But if we look deeplyinto the weapons,
we see our own minds– our own
prejudices,fears and ignorance.
Even if we transport all the bombs
to the moon, the roots of war
and the roots of bombs are still there,
in our hearts and minds,
and sooner or later we will
make new bombs.
To work for peace is to uproot warfrom ourselves and from the hearts
of men and women.
To prepare for war,
to give millions of men and women
the opportunity to practice killing
day and night in their hearts,
is to plant millions of seeds of violence, anger, frustration, and fear that will be passed on for generations to come.”
Thich Nhat Hanh, “Living Buddha, Living Christ”
“There are seasons of our lives when nothing seems to be happening, when no smoke betrays a burned town or homestead and few tears are shed for the newly dead.
I have learned not to trust those times, because if the world is at peace then it means someone is planning war.”
Bernard Cornwell, “Death of Kings” (The Saxon Stories, #6)
“That there are men in all countries
who get their living by war,
and by keeping up the quarrels
of Nations is as shocking as it is true…”
Thomas Paine
“The real power in America is held by a fast-emerging new Oligarchy of pimps
and preachers who see no need for Democracy or fairness or even trees,
except maybe the ones in their own yards, and they don’t mind admitting it.
They worship money and power and death.
Their ideal solution to all the
nation’s problems would be
another 100 Year War.”
Hunter S. Thompson, “Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century”
“Once war becomes a clash of absolutes, there is no breathing room for mercy.
Absolute truth is blind truth.”
Deepak Chopra, “The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore”
“What is so often said about the solders
of the 20th century is thatthe
foughtto make us free.
Which is a wonderful sentiment and
one witch should evoke tremendous gratitude if in fact there was a shred
of truth in that statement but,
it’s not true.
It’s not even close to true
in fact it’s the opposite of truth.
There’s this myth around that people believe that the way to honor deaths of so many of millions of people; that the way to honor is to say that we achieved some tangible, positive, good, out of their death’s.
That’s how we are supposed to
honor their deaths.
We can try and rescue some positive
and forward momentum of human progress, of human virtue from these hundreds of millions of death’s but we
don’t do it by pretending that they’d died
to set us free because we are less free;
far less free now then we were
beforethese slaughters began.
These people did not die to set us free.
They did not die fighting any enemy
other than the ones that the
previous deaths created.
The beginning of wisdom is to call
things by their proper names.
Solders are paid killers, and I say this
with a great degree of sympathy to young men and women who are suckered into
a life of evil through propaganda and the labeling of heroic to a man in costume who kills for money and the life of honor is accepting ordered killings for money, prestige, and pensions.
We create the possibility of moral choice
by communicating truth
about ethics to people.
That to me is where real heroism
and real respect for the dead lies.
Real respect for the dead lies in exhuming the corpses and hearing what they would say if they could speak out; and they
would say: If any ask us why we died tell
it’s because our fathers lied, tell them it’s because we were told that charging up a hill and slaughtering our fellow man was heroic, noble, and honorable.
But these hundreds of millions of ghosts encircled the world in agony, remorse
will not be released from our collective unconscious until we lay the truth of
theirmurders on the table and look
at the horror that is the lie;
that murder for money can be moral, that murder for prestige can be moral.
These poor young men and woman propagandized into an undead ethical status lied to about what is noble,
virtuous, courageous, honorable, decent, and good to the point that they’re rolling hand grenades into children’s rooms and the illusion that, that is going to make the world a better place.
We have to stare this in the face if we want to remember why these people died. They did not die to set us free. They did not die to make the world a better place. They died because we are ruled by sociopaths. The only thing that can create a better world is the truth is the virtue is the honor and courage of standing up to the genocidal lies of mankind and calling them lies and ultimate corruptions.
The trauma and horrors of this century of staggering bloodshed of the brief respite of the 19th century. This addiction to blood and the idea that if we pour more bodies into the hole of the mass graves of the 20th century, if we pour more bodies and more blood we can build some sort of cathedral to a better place but it doesn’t happen. We can throw as many young men and woman as we want into this pit of slaughter and it will never be full. It will never do anything other than sink and recede further into the depths of hell. We can’t build a better world on bodies. We can’t build peace on blood. If we don’t look back and see the army of the dead of the 20th century calling out for us to see that they died to enslave us. That whenever there was a war the government grew and grew.
We are so addicted to this lie. What we need to do is remember that these bodies bury us. This ocean of blood that we create through the fantasy that violence brings virtue. It drowns us, drowns our children, our future, and the world. When we pour these endless young bodies into this pit of death; we follow it.”
Stefan Molyneux
“It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans
ofthe wounded who cry aloud for blood,
more vengeance, more desolation.
War is hell.”
William Tecumseh Sherman
Our enemies are Medes and Persians,
men who for centuries have lived
soft and luxurious lives;
we of Macedon for generations past
have been trained in the hard school
of danger and war.
Above all, we are free men,
and they are slaves.
There are Greek troops, to be sure, in Persian service — but how different
is their cause from ours!
They will be fighting for pay — and not much of at that; we, on the contrary,
shall fight for Greece, and our
heartswill be in it.
As for our foreign troops — Thracians, Paeonians, Illyrians, Agrianes — they
are the best and stoutest soldiers in Europe, and they will find as their opponents the slackest and softest of the tribes of Asia.
And what, finally, of the two men
in supreme command?
You have Alexander, they — Darius!”
Alexander the Great
“If I had known they were going to do this,
I would have become a shoemaker.”
Albert Einstein
“One question in my mind,
which I hardly dare mention in public,
is whether patriotism has, overall, been a force for good or evil in the world.
Patriotism is rampant in war and
there are some good things about it.
Just as self-respect and pride bring out the best in an individual, pride in family,
pride in teammates, pride in hometown bring out the best in groups of people.
War brings out the kind of pride in country that encourages its citizens in the direction of excellence and it encourages them
to be ready to die for it.
At no time do people work so well
together to achieve the same goal
as they do in wartime.
Maybe that’s enough to make patriotism eligible to be considered a virtue.
If only I could get out of my mind
the most patriotic people
who ever lived,
the Nazi Germans.”
Andy Rooney, “My War”
“My own concern is primarily the
terror and violence carried out by
my own state, for two reasons.
For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence.
But also for a much more important
reason than that; namely, I can
do something about it.
So even if the U.S. was responsible
for 2 percent of the violence in the
world instead of the majority of it,
it would bethat 2 percent I would
be primarily responsible for.
And that is a simple ethical judgment.
That is, the ethical value of one’s actions depends on their anticipated
and predictable consequences.
It is very easy to denounce the
atrocitiesof someone else.
That has about as much ethical value
as denouncing atrocities that
took place in the 18th century.”
Noam Chomsky
“We are in the hands of men whosepower and wealth have separatedthem
from the reality of daily life
and from the imagination.
We are right to be afraid.”
Grace Paley
“Wars of nations are fought
to change maps.
But wars of poverty are fought
to map change.”
Muhammad Ali
“What passing bells for these
who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifle’s rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them;
no prayers, nor bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells, And bugles calling for them from sad shires. What candles may be held
to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes, Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes. The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall, Their flowers the tenderness
of patient minds, And each, slow dusk a drawing
down of blinds.”
Wilfred Owen, The War Poems
Millions of fathers in rain Millions of mothers in pain Millions of brothers in woe
Millions of sisters nowhere to go
Millions of daughters walk in the mud Millions of children wash in the flood A million girls vomit and groan Millions of families hopeless alone”
Allen Ginsberg, “Poems”
“No honest journalist should be willing to describe himself or herself as ’embedded.’
To say, ‘I’m an embedded journalist’ is to say, ‘I’m a government Propagandist.”
Noam Chomsky, “Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post-9/11 World”
“Darwinism by itself did not produce the Holocaust, but without Darwinism…
neither Hitler nor his Nazi followers
would have had the necessary scientific underpinnings to convince themselves
and their collaborators that one
of the worlds greatest atrocities
was really morally praiseworthy.”
Richard Weikart, “From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany”
“War means fighting.
The business of the soldier is to fight.
Armies are not called out to dig trenches,
to throw up breastworks,to live in camps, but to find the enemy and strike him; to invade his country, and do him all possible damage in the shortest possible time.
This will involve great destruction of life and property while it lasts; but such a war will of necessity be of brief continuance,
and so would be an economy of life
and property in the end.”
Stonewall Jackson
“I have seen war.
I have seen war on land and sea.
I have seen blood running from
the wounded.
I have seen men coughing out their
gassed lungs.
I have seen the dead in the mud.
I have seen cities destroyed.
I have seen 200 limping, exhausted
men come out of line—the survivors
of a regiment of 1,000 that went
forward 48 hours before.
I have seen children starving.
I have seen the agony of mothers and wives.
I hate war.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
“How is the world ruled and led to war?
Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.”
Karl Kraus
“Each Javelin round costs $80,000, and
the idea that it’s fired by a guy who doesn’t make that in a year at a guy who doesn’t make that in a lifetime is somehow so outrageous it almost makes the
war seem winnable.”
Sebastian Junger, “War”
“But what are a hundred million deaths?
When one has served in a war, one hardly knows what a dead man is, after a while.
And since a dead man has no substance unless one has actually seen him dead,
a hundred million corpses broadcast through history are no more than a puff
of smoke in the imagination.”
Albert Camus
“I have never advocated war except
as means of peace, so seek peace,
but prepare for war.
Because war…
War never changes.
War is like winter and winter is coming.”
Ulysses S Grant
“I do not say that there is no glory
to be gained [in war];
but it is not personal glory.
In itself, no cause was ever more glorious than that of men who struggle, not to conquer territory, not to gather spoil,
not to gratify ambition, but for freedom,
for religion, for hearth and home, and to revenge the countless atrocities inflicted upon them by their oppressors.”
G. A. HENTY
“World War I was the most colossal, murderous, mismanaged butchery that
has ever taken place on earth.
Any writer who said otherwise lied,
So the writers either wrote propaganda, shut up, or fought.”
Ernest Hemingway
“In peace, children inter their parents;
war violates the order of natureand
causes parents to inter their children.”
Herodotus
“Perpetual peace is a futile dream.”
Gen. George S. Patton
“Such then is the human condition,
that to wish greatness for one’s country
is to wish harm to one’s neighbors.”
Voltaire
“It is precisely that requirement
ofshared worship that has been the principal source of suffering for individual manand the human race since
the beginning of history.
In their efforts to impose universal worship, men have unsheathed their swords
and killed one another.
They have invented gods and challenged each other:
“Discard your gods and worship mineor
I will destroy both your godsand you!”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “The Brothers Karamazov”
What a terrible thing war is,
what a terrible thing!”
Leo Tolstoy, “War and Peace”
“When you think about new-born babies being killed in our own lifetime,’ he said,
‘all the efforts of culture seem worthless.
What have people learned from all
our Goethes and Bachs?
To kill babies?”
Vasily Grossman, “Life and Fate”
“Those of us who are most genuinely repelled by war and violence are also
those who are most likely to decide
that some things, after all,
are worth fighting for.”
Christopher Hitchens, “The Quotable Hitchens from Alcohol to Zionism: The Very Best of Christopher Hitchens”
“I have never advocated war
except as a means of peace.”
Ulysses S. Grant
“It is of the greatest important in this world that a man should know himself, and the measure of his own strength and means; and he who knows that he has not a genius for fighting must learn how to govern
by the arts of peace.”
Machiavelli, Niccolo
“War has no longer the justification that
it makes for the survival of the fittest;
it involves the survival of the less fit.
The idea that the struggle between nations is a part of the evolutionary law of man’s advance involves a profound misreading
of the biological analogy.
The warlike nations do not inherit the earth; they represent
the decaying human element.”
Norman Angell, “The Great Illusion”
“Homo sapiens!
The name itself was an irony.
They had not been wise at all,
but incredibly stupid.
Lords of the Earth with their great gray brains, their thinking minds had placed them above all other forms of life.
Yet it had not been thought that compelled them to act, but emotion.
From the dawn of their evolution they had killed, and conquered, and subdued.
They had committed atrocities on others
of their kind, ravaged the land, polluted
and destroyed, left millions to starve
in Third World countries, and finished
it all with a nuclear holocaust.
The mutants were right.
Intelligent creatures did not commit genocide, or murder the environment
on which they were dependent.”
Louise Lawrence, “Children of the Dust”
“War: first, one hopes to win;
then one expects the enemy to lose;
then, one is satisfied that he too is suffering;
in the end, one is surprised that
everyone has lost.”
Karl Kraus
“War is unlike life.
It’s a denial of everything you learn life is.
And that’s why when you get finished with it, you see that if offers no lessons that can’t be bettered learned in civilian life.
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