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Say it aint so...<br>
<br>
Are you telling me that your don't believe that the blockchain is
the solution for everything from climate change to erectile
dysfunction.<br>
<br>
But seriously.<br>
<br>
There are some real uses for blockchain technologies but what we are
seeing is a repeat of the .com bubble.<br>
<br>
Where if you had a wacky idea and stuck the words "on the internet"
in it somewhere and did your pitch you could get millions in
funding.<br>
<br>
Hey. Have I told you of my plans to handle garbage disposal "on the
blockchain"..... The ICO is next week.<br>
<br>
People do this kind of thing constantly.<br>
Take a good idea and then push it till it is an amazingly bad idea.<br>
<br>
As for Siacoin and Storj I found that they used 100% of my available
internet bandwidth without using any storage.<br>
Luckily for me I opted for "unlimited bandwidth" but not so lucky
for Teksavvy.<br>
So doing something like sharing your few free TB could cost you big
time if you were a Bell or Rogers customer.<br>
<br>
I have access to large amounts of excess storage but I have yet to
be convinced that I could even pay for the power that it takes to
spin the drives.<br>
The concept is great but the economics does not seem to be there
yet.<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 8/26/20 1:59 PM, Mauro Souza via
talk wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAEZ_B6Pih7DufEyir=MH6ezcmiTAQ=jxZQ5zND5iLTP_5JWX8A@mail.gmail.com">
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<div dir="ltr">
<div>It's really funny. It's more the result of "lets use
blockchain!" on everything that creates those issues.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>And blockchain is hyper-overhyped... It can help in a few
specific problems, but not on every single problem without
exception. But everyone liked the concept and ran away
screaming blockchain all over the place. Blockchain on email.
Blockchain to rent a car. Blockchain-powered lettuce salad...
that's insanity. I like the technology, I study it and
sometimes I answer things on forums, but all the time when
people ask me if I believe blockchain would help them, I say
NO<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The "everybody must have everyone's data" is an issue. As
the solution grows, the ledger grows, increasing the storage
and processing requirements. With less people connected, you
need an intermediary to access the blockchain, and those
intermediaries can be attacked and take down the network. And
there's few solutions to that.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>One solution is the blockchain used by former Raiblocks
(now Nano). It's a DAG (directed acyclic graph), so any client
will have only his own transactions, and not the entire
ledger. That allows one to run a client on an ESP32, for
example. there will be special nodes that store the entire
ledger (like the Dash supernodes), but the clients don't need
that. Who/what would use it? No idea... crypto coins, and not
much else.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>And the smart contract solution... They aren't smart, they
aren't contracts, and they aren't solutions. One mistake and
everything crashes down instantly.The Ethereum DAO disaster,
the Parity multi-signature contract, and that new DeFi that
melted down in a day because people realized they made a
mistake on the code, and nobody would ever have enough tokens
to decide anything because of an arithmetic mistake. And many
more examples.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>If the "contract" can be changed after creation, you cannot
trust it because it can be useful now (like tokens on a web
game that you pay to play), but later the owner changes the
contract, pockets all tokens, and takes down the game. If it
cannot be changed, any error on the contract is set on stone
forever with deadly consequences. There are some
countermeasures to that, like proxy contracts: a main contract
references secondary contracts with the functions, but the
main contract holds the data and the tokens. if a secondary
contract is found to have an error, you deploy an amended
version, call a function on the main contract to reference the
next one, and done. The downside is that it is more expensive
to run this contract, and the owner can, you know, replace the
secondary contracts and steal everything. You can add
multi-signatures, quorum, external oracles, but those only
increase the cost and put a little protection against a rogue
owner.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<div>There are very few things that blockchain can be useful,
and one of them is distributed storage. Siacoin and Storj,
for example, let you rent the extra space on that 4tb disk
you already have for some coins. It is not profitable enough
to make you buy storage just for that purpose, but you
already have the space, right? And you can rent some space
on the network for backing up things when you will reformat
your computer, and want to store your data in case something
breaks. It's cheaper than anything else, even cheaper than
amazon glacier.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Those supply chain management things are useful too, if
you can integrate it correctly (and that's a BIG if). If you
own a bakery, for example, you scan all the ingredients you
have, store them all on your wallet (or have your purchasing
software do that automagically) and any time any of your
suppliers have any recall on something you got, you are
warned. And everything down the line gets warned that they
bought a recalled bread from you. Your customers don't even
need to get back to you so you reimburse them, the next time
they come to buy something they already have a credit for
that contaminated bread you sold to them last week. But to
integrate everyone is a nightmare, there are lots of privacy
issues, industrial secrets issues... on a limited scale, it
can work. Too limited and doesn't solve anything. Too broad
and all that privacy issues get into your face.<br>
</div>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The fact is that there are very few cases that blockchain
can be used that a database cannot. And databases are here
since a long time ago, everyone knows how to build them,
operate them, backup them, and extend them.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>But just wait for the AI-generated, solar-powered,
graphene-based multi-cloud stored 6G-capable IPv8-addressing
blockchain...<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"
data-smartmail="gmail_signature">Mauro<br>
<a href="http://mauro.limeiratem.com" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://mauro.limeiratem.com</a>
- registered Linux User: 294521<br>
Scripture is both history, and a love letter from God.</div>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">Em qua., 26 de ago. de 2020 às
13:29, Christopher Browne via talk <<a
href="mailto:talk@gtalug.org" moz-do-not-send="true">talk@gtalug.org</a>>
escreveu:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<div><a
href="https://thecorrespondent.com/655/blockchain-the-amazing-solution-for-almost-nothing/86714927310-8f431cae"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://thecorrespondent.com/655/blockchain-the-amazing-solution-for-almost-nothing/86714927310-8f431cae</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I found it particularly hilarious when the writer of
the article asked the maker of the childrens' aid app if
he had noticed that the app didn't actually need
blockchain at all.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>"That's right."<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>But the punch line was even better...</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Isn't it strange that you won all these awards despite
not really using blockchain?<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>"We keep trying to tell people, but it doesn’t seem to
stick. You’re calling me about it again now … ”</div>
-- <br>
<div dir="ltr">When confronted by a difficult problem, solve
it by reducing it to the<br>
question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?"<br>
</div>
</div>
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</blockquote>
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<br>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Alvin Starr || land: (647)478-6285
Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:alvin@netvel.net">alvin@netvel.net</a> ||
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