Today's post will be incredibly exciting and worth every second of your time! Or, at least, that's what I'd probably say if I actually knew where this post is going! But so far all I've done is pull random thoughts out of my ass then added exclamation marks at the end for good measure! Let's hope this gets better!
Random Thoughts
Now to actually think of something. Hmm...
So I saw a post on that fancy-schmancy trending page published by that dude they call Dan. Unfortunately, like most things these days, a Twitter account seems to be a requirement and I don't use Twitter so I feel kinda left out.
Now I know how that one kid in the early 90's felt when everyone bugged him at school because he didn't have a Nintendo.
I'm over it though.
It's probably better if everyone else writes something cool about what decentralization means to them, then shows the world. I'd just end up writing a shit post with dumb jokes and images that contain blood and guts for no reason, then end it with, "Have a nice day."
I'm the last guy you'd want to hire as a spokesperson. You couldn't pay me enough and even if you did, I'd still try to find a way to get fired.
Of course, since this world of ours here is intended to be decentralized by design, combined with what I know now — after watching you people for the past couple of weeks — I assume it would take at least three weeks for you folks to decide just what the hell to do with me, since nobody is in charge and everyone has a say but isn't really sure what to do with it.
To me, it seems the term 'decentralized' is often misconstrued around here. The meaning was often quite simplistic, in my mind, when compared to how I see others defining it around here. All it meant to me was, no single point of failure.
Having twenty real witnesses all representing their own personal interests in the top twenty meant the chain was 'decentralized' and as secure as could be. The blockchain would continue to run flawlessly if one of those members wanted to quit or went loony in the head then decided to rob us blind with malicious code and an evil thought or two.
Nobody has to agree they just all have to be on the same page and if one decides to step down, they can do so without halting the chain because they're easily replaced by the next one in line.
Having twenty bogus accounts controlled by one entity in the top twenty means the blockchain has a single point of failure and is no longer secure. I didn't need to be an armchair politician to know a centralized chain is absurd.
If the one entity suddenly loses the ability to run those witness nodes, we can't even fix a minor bug in the code. Worse case scenario that one entity might get drunk again, write up a fuckity fuck post, then freeze all our funds until it wakes up and realizes what it did the night before.
If five real witnesses go out and get drunk, we don't have to deal with their hangover the next day.
To me, 'decentralization' was never about hippies and rainbows. I was always so damn confused when a vote buying shit poster would scream, "I thought this place was decentralized!" after receiving a downvote for being scandalous.
It's like, "Dayum, son! That's not the hire a dictator button so calm down and learn you some blockchain."
But now you see why I shouldn't write these posts.
I don't even know if I know what I'm talking about.
Which brings me to my next point, if I have one.
If there's one entity running the top twenty, and I say something they don't like — such as, I fucked your mom — that one entity with a few lines of code could silence me permanently, even if it was the truth.
I don't want that. I was joking and would prefer to have a place where I can explore the arts freely without the fear of petty differences cultivating nonsensical consequences. Take that freedom away; I go away. Like I said earlier: It would not take me long to get fired.
Enough of that though.
It's time to talk about something more serious.
Toilet paper.
Us humans look ridiculous right now. I always wondered what the end of the world would look like — and apparently when shit hits the fan, people will want to wipe their ass.
I signed in to Facebook last night for my monthly appearance, scrolled through my feed. All I saw was an endless supply of memes about stores being out of toilet paper. Everyone is laughing at this. On the surface, we look like idiots.
Deep down, I know the dirty truth.
When I was young, I used to be the punk filling those shelves. The real reason why toilet paper sold out fast is because of its size. Retail stores have limited shelf space. When the product is massive and you can only fit two units on a four foot wide shelf, it's gone in no time.
I remember we'd have big stupid sales that would actually make me work hard. An entire semi load of those shit tickets would be gone in one afternoon.
It's far too bulky to be able to keep a steady supply in the back. Even going further down the supply chain all the way to the distribution center. It takes up too much room in a warehouse to be able to store an emergency supply.
That's logistics for you so maybe invest in a pair of scissors and cut up those fancy drapes if you have to. Socks work well too, which is why you'll always find one in the forest seemingly for no reason.
Anyway.
I don't know why but I made this:
Have a nice day.
There'll be a shortage of socks now...
LOL!
oops
Ha ... that logic on the bulky TP makes a lot if sense :)
I know it does, because it's true! LOL!
Ummm... I have been wearing free "forest socks" for years....
Isn't it strange how, for the entire time you were walking around to buy supplies, you were already wearing it, and didn't even know...
When I was a kid i would watch a show called "the Bush tucker man" that would give survival tips. It was great.
You could have your own show.
I already have my own show.
But, do you drink your own pee...
Yeah but I distill it first with sunlight.
That Stocker creeps me the heck out. Crazy looking eyes and tongue.
Yeah he's freaky for sure. Spent a long while working on him. Thanks for noticing! This was an oddball post, you're the first to mention the art, and it's the art that took the most time. I do the eyes last so I don't have to have a staring competition with these freaks I make.
Well, if I ever read a to the point publication about the use of decentralization, then it is yours.
And thanks for the take on the logistics of toiletpaper, makes sense. No real shortage just not enough shelf space and room in the back.
Yeah I thought I'd keep it simple, because to me it is quite simple. I don't think I'll try to get Dan's attention with this post though. It's just whatever, I was rambling thoughts and I doubt it's what they're looking for. An official post about it would have been too short.
And yeah I'm actually surprised most folks didn't account for the real reason why shit tickets are so rare. I spent a few years in retail and plenty more in logistics so to me it's just common sense.
Do not know what Dan's looking for, but he might give it a read. 😎👌
The package something is wrapped in makes half of the present, or something like that.
Now when I go to the store it will be in my mind like: "Too big to have lots on the shelf, nope, none in the back of that either."
I didn't use the tags I'm supposed to use. I did nothing right. LOL!
Hahaha, well I think you deserve bonus points for that. 😄
Maybe someone else will twit this for you because it was freaking hilarious XD
The stocker looks like he needs to go on holiday :O
I wrote long ago how this platform has a severe shortage of link sharing content consumers. It would be cool though to publish something and have it shared all over social media, since that's what happens to the rest of the content on the internet, when people like it. The Stocker even agrees.
Okay first...the stocker is NOT the creepy face I wanted to see right before I go to sleep at .......... Crap! how did it get to be 8:45 AM............
so I will thank you for the nightmares I will have between the red dude and the bottom dude.
Thank You though for making me laugh about the TP.
Have a wonderful Sunday!!
Nightmares? But he's smiling! He just wants to be friends.
This Sunday shall be a lazy Sunday. Enjoy yours as well.
I so hope it was a lazy Sunday for you and filled with smiles!!
Do you have any motioned one of these art? May be you can add some motion to your art with Pixaloop. Like a flowing face. This style that you make your art always remind me a flowing smoke.
No dude. I produce this all by hand, much like one would with a paint brush or spray paint can. The moment I use a push button filter or special effect is the moment the work is no longer my own creation. Those effects look cool, I agree, but those effects aren't for me. Not on this stage anyway. If I was working with a team, I'm sure the end result would be different, for I'd only be playing one pivotal role in the creation process. This one here already took over eight hours to produce. That's enough work for one day.
I can show you some for some upvotes? =P
Do you only speak to me because you want votes?
Not exactly. I was trying to ask it in some kind of way. May be you don't want that kind of acts or you won't like the results. May be it will settle a friendship. =) So there must be some kind of return. =)
Or just bored for now, chatting and trying to entertain myself.
My work is sacred to me, man. I apologize if I sounded snotty. I'm just having a bad day.
=)
You could have been a teacher, might in fact be a missed calling for you. The best teachers can explain complicated concepts to kindergarteners and grandma and that's your style which is a gift. Just thought I'd let you know 😁
Those kindergartners would go home saying "I fucked your mom...."
And when that happens, you know you've done a good job.
All kidding aside, when I was young I had a fear of speaking in front of large groups so I knew I'd never want to be a teacher. Later that fear went away when I had to run a large staff. Had I known at a young age its not really that bad, I might have taken the teacher route. My kids even said I should have been a teacher.
I liked the very start of the post, I mean I liked it all, but the very start was something I need to learn to use. I don't use those exclamation marks very often, I don't know why, I just don't. They do add a little bit of feel to lines, add a bit of emphasis to a point, and it is one of the nicer looking punctuation marks there are, or I think so. Like an i standing on it's head saying look at me, see what i can do, but you need to use the small i to get the effect, capital I just does not cut it, a plain ordinary stiffness to the capital I, it could never stand on it's head and be something different, not like the little i and the ! mark. But they don't really look to much alike, but they both grab attention.
Any ways, I know not much of a good comment, but making it as I listen to the long long MSP waves town hall meeting. "umm, umm" = let me think how to make this lie palatable.
I adore that exclamation point! Some writers fear using it. Did you know you can even use it as a question mark!
Is there a meeting going on right now? If there is I'll probably just catch a recording later.
I'm listening to the recording that was made about 12 hours ago, I guess the meeting was yesterday; Here is the link to the recording:https://steempeak.com/hive-100421/@r0nd0n/zcwrjmba Almost 2 hours and 10 minutes long, so reading and commenting a bit while listening.
I already heard that one. The new guy sounds likes he's reading from another corporate script but at least seems reasonable.
I laugh quite a few times in these not many minutes :D
It's good you get my sense of humor. Imagine taking all this seriously... ?
I just watched one of your episodes. You seem naturally happy anyway.
Who would want to watch sad asian eats... jajaja
Demented caucasians with odd porn fetishes.
bwahahaha
bwahahaha
I'm decentralising! It's so exciting!!!
And I'm out of toilet paper
No! I'm decentralizing!
I also have some socks for sale, with holes!
I'm DECENTRAHOLEISING!!!
With socks...
No! That's DESOCKULATING! Justin needs to DESOCKULATE!
I thought he had to DEPUPULATE??
Why isn't he DEPUPULATING!??!!
No no no no no! You gotta desockulate the discompopulator before anything!
OH no!!!!! Too late. I DECOMPOPULATED?!
Now I'm spent...
Good write up, I'm glad you aren't jumping through hoops to please the vvips.
But you are treating decentralization as a state of being and not a process. I think decentralized is a desired condition.
So if we assume Steem is decentralized our work here is done and we just gotta keep things that way. Decentralization on the other band is dynamic and a continual struggle. Once it has been achieved, if possible, governance should be safe. Therefore Justin never centralized Steem, steem just wasn't decentralized.
I'm probably not making any sense above. And I probably misunderstood your points. I'll give it another read after some coffee. I'll be jumping through some of these hoops later today and like you maybe I'll skip some hoops (directions of the whales).
It was completely centralized, for a moment. In that moment, if he had been arrested or died or anything, say those witness were confiscated... and with enough stake imbalance, that would have screwed STEEM permanently. Even now, with a few in the way, we don't have our governance... and that's all due to one single point of failure. The real witnesses could have all quit on the same day and would have instantly been replaced with elected governance.
Yeah, there was a single point of failure when he had a consensus majority in the top 20.
The system has this weakness and in theory, it was always possible to end up in this scenario. Although he played dirty by using Steemit stake to vote witnesses and getting exchanges on his side, he played by the rules. The exchanges also played dirty and maybe even broke their rules and others.
I don't think we can call a system truly decentralized if there is a scenario with a possible point of failure like this (the ability to centralize under 1).
I think this is why people were allowed to vote for more than 20 witnesses (there is talk about 1SP 1Vote, but it could lead to other problems). It would be fairly easy to get the 4 required to stop anything from happening. This would be an annoying block to development and create a situation much like real-world politics and what we are seeing right now. It's not a point of failure, but instead a stumbling block on progress. Do you want to change one thing? When now you gotta consider something completely unrelated or these people will block it.
Like I just said in another response, *there was only one chance to take over this blockchain, due to that Steemit stake existing, and someone pounced on the opportunity. It can't happen again the same way, unless Justin sells the same way he bought and hands over the reigns. The exchanges should be denied voting rights. Very simple and they'll all agree after seeing what happened here.
It all boils down to the cost of taking over. You can change it a million different ways. As long as it's out of reach to purchase those slots off the market, it won't happen again. That's just my opinion though.
Right now we are in a situation of gridlock. There are not enough witnesses on either side of the argument (proxy.token is causing this) to have a hard fork and change the rules.
Some people are trying to argue for a hard fork that will change the voting so it is very difficult to take over the chain entirely and do as you want with it. However, it will make gridlock easier where you can stop all changes until you get your way (this is what proxy.token is doing).
For example, right now you need 17/20 witnesses to have yourself a hard fork and 4/20 to get gridlock (prevent a hard fork). Each account gets 30 witness votes per 1 SP (you can do 30 witness votes and all have the same vote which is your total SP).
To attack the chain you would need to gather 51% of the votes to set up a guaranteed 20 witnesses. There is no way to stop an attack when this happens.
However, if we changed it to 1SP 1 vote, you would need 85% of the tokens to get 17 witness and have yourself a hard fork (less in theory because people don't always vote to stop it quick enough).
But you would only need 20% of SP to cause gridlock (4 witnesses to block any hard fork from happening).
As mentioned right now you need 51% to cause a hardfork or gridlock.
Bottom line dealing with gridlock (especially when everyone is excited about SMTs and communities changing Steem for the better), will be awful. Now we have to deal with dumb crap like removing downvotes and lowering power down time. Basically stuff unrelated to development. I'm worried this is going to become more common.
I'm very worried that this is where the current conversation between Jusin and the witnesses is headed. I'll try to explain it more clearly when I write my post on this issue of decentralization.
Soap has been selling out now.
Yeah because the public was reminded you don't need hand sanitizer to actually clean your hands.
Figure i might stock up on oxycontin. bypass the toilet paper issue if it arises
Yeah but don't say that too loudly or you'll just end up on the streets looking for the big H.
You are funny! I am still trying to find the relation between toilet paper and the Coronavirus. But then, I am not the brightest light on the harbour. 😊
I don't know if they're related but this marriage still seems a little fishy.
👍 😊
That's brilliant. It's because of the size. Those stupid toilet paper jokes. So very x 10 stupid. Maybe I've just seen too many of them. Typically I don't do much Facebook browsing, but it's the best place to hear what my local people think and so I've been perusing because of all this virus stuff, and what I've discovered is...toilet paper. They only think about toilet paper. So disappointed.
I even told my clan the reason. Many 'liked' and enough commented. They understood.
I go back today and they're still sharing more toilet paper memes...
What's really going on?
You remember how kids think fart jokes are really funny, but then around age ten its like 75 percent of them mature and stop laughing at that stuff? I think this whole toilet paper issue is evidence - it was a front. They didn't mature.
Want to know what it really is? Are you ready for this?
It's nervous laughter. People are hiding their true feelings, with humor, but they suck at humor.
That sounds right. Although as of today the vast majority of my city seemed to have no care for social distancing, as though they didn't have a care in the world. Downtown was slammed. Maybe its a combo - nervous chatter for all the folks nervously socially distancing themselves, and humor for the not very smart people that think going to a bar packed full of 100 other tourists is a good idea right now :)
After 4 years of the STEEM social blockchain experiment, a theoretical limitation of the DPOS protocol has turned into a sucesfull attack.
A fork of STEEM blockchain escaping from Justin Sun wont avoid future attacks from other malevolent actors.
Im in my opinion a NEWSTEEM should run on an evolved protocol, that I defined as REDPOS
The current reputation was easily manipulated with paid votes and that could easily happen with your plan, and it wouldn't even be expensive.
@nonameslefttouse the implementation of a REDPOS protocol would indeed need a very well thought REP system (account age should be a parameter, of course). I am aware that the current REP on STEEM was programmed as a bandaid because @blocktrades explained that point, he is also working on a better REP system.
On the other hand, a simple hardfork using the same DPOS protocol is a very short term meassure. The need to evolve into a REDPOS surges because the DPOS flaws are already exposed. But REDPOS is just a philosophy, a guideline. The actual implementation requires good development.
I'm not focused on development, just focused on trying to explain why a STEEM hard-fork on the same DPOS philosophy is not a long term solution for a social blockchain.
There was only one chance for this chain to see a hostile takeover and now that's done. The cost would be so far out of reach for the next one that they wouldn't achieve anything by doing it. The main thing in my mind is cost. The expense of purchasing the top slots needs to be so far out of reach that it becomes pointless to even bother. Any changes will have to factor in 'cost' as the main deterrent. Even now, if Justin takes his stake and slowly backs away, selling as he goes, I don't think anyone else would try, because they'd have to buy from the market and that would only get more and more expensive as they go. DPoS is fine, when the cost to take over is extreme. Keep in mind though, I'm just a writer/artist/entertainer here. The technical stuff isn't my forte. I just have a basic understanding and nearly four years of observational experience. Business savvy and qualified to lead. That's about it.
It think DPoS suits Bitshares better, but BTS wasn't designed as a "social blockchain". STEEM as a social blockchain created human agreements that were not formally coded. (The ninjamined stake is not supoused to vote, it's just for chain development financing, exchanges are not supoused to vote).
Also it is evident that no 4 years old human community wants to be ruled by 0 experience fake "witnesses" (sockpuppet accounts of 1 entity).
So, nope, I don't agree DPoS is fine for a social blockchain. Needs to evolve.
I agree a few tweaks could lead to a more productive future.
Congratulations @nonameslefttouse!
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