Thermodynamics
Brute-force attacks against 256-bit keys will be infeasible until computers are built from something other than matter and occupy something other than space.
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Our inability to understand the Exponential function
I was reminded of this quote, due to the discussions triggered by the Bitcoin private key database troll website about the feasibility of brute-force searching for the private key of a Bitcoin address.
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.
A reddit user made some calculations:
So, if you could use the entire planet as a hard drive, storing 1 byte per atom, using stars as fuel, and cycling through 1 trillion keys per second, you’d need 37 octillion Earths to store it, and 237 billion suns to power the device capable of doing it, all of which would take you 3.6717 octodecillion years.
– PSBlake (reddit)
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The state of sending money to a friend in 2013
Basically, in 2013, it is still exceptionally difficult to send money to a friend and this is leading to a customer revolution.
– Jaron Lukasiewicz, Coinsetter CEO at Inside Bitcoins NYC (via)
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Bitcoin for Small Payments
Everyone should walk around with 1-2 bitcoins that they can use for small transactions only. If enough people are doing that, then the volality of currency goes down and the value of the currency increases.
– Vinny Lingham, CEO of gyft (via)
BitPay employees pay each other back when someone makes a food run, by pointing their phones at each other and scanning QR codes.
– Jeff Garzik, Bitcoin Core-Developer (recently snatched by BitPay) (via)
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Now You Have Two Problems
Some people, when confronted with a problem, think “I know, I’ll use regular expressions.” Now they have two problems.
However, if you really have to, use Grant Skinner‘s very useful RegExr tool.
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We don’t have the technology
One thing humans don’t know how to do is shut down peer to peer networks. We don’t have the technology.
– Peter Vessenes, founder and CEO of Bitcoin exchange CoinLab (via)
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Neither is Ice Cream
“Nobody thought it was a good idea. And I distinctly remember my colleague Evan Williams saying, ‘Well, neither is ice cream. Should we ban ice cream and all joy or can we have something that’s just fun? What’s wrong with that?’”
– Biz Stone, co-founder and Creative Director of Twitter (via)
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Divine
To iterate is human; to recurse divine.
– L. Peter Deutsch, the creator of Ghostscript
Check out The Recursive Group on Facebook while you’re at it (a group for people who are members of the group).
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PDLBKBR
PDLBKBR: People Don’t Like Being Killed by Robots
– Brad Templeton, Singularity University Networks & Computing Chair and Chairman of the board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, speaking about the Google driverless car at the “GarageGeeks and Yossi Vardi hosting Singularity University” event.
Edit: Listen as Brad explains how society can adapt to a new method of transportation at “Driving Innovation: A Speaker Series Powered by Nissan Motor Company“.
Innerlogics 
Written
on December 22, 2013