3 ms·

I think you are overstating the complexity for someone who basically understands signing, or even just hashes. Yes, it is rather clever and takes some time to w

I think you are overstating the complexity for someone who basically understands signing, or even just hashes. Yes, it is rather clever and takes some time to wrap you head around, but the core structure of Bitcoin is certainly not beyond reach for an average software engineer. Some of the more esoteric pieces like the runtime machine.. etc not withstanding. I haven't seen the recent crop of materials, but I grocked it watching a 60 minute or so video presentation which I think was from someone at Mozilla. Oh, here it is: https://vimeo.com/27177893 https://vimeo.com/27177893

aerovistae 10y ago
I never said it was out of reach, I'm saying the community that already understands it isn't doing a very good job making it so that others can reach it without standing on a chair. I'll check out the video when I have time tonight.
- miscellaneous 10y ago
  > The community that already understands it isn't doing a very good job making it so that others can reach it Where I disagree is that I don't believe that all ideas/concepts can be made "easy to understand" to a general audience. Many concepts - especially those technical in nature - simply require a large amount of background knowledge to understand. You can be the best mathematics teacher in the world, but you won't be able to (and no one expects you to) make the Riemann hypothesis widely understood to the general public. It's just not feasible. And I posit that Bitcoin (whilst maybe not as technical as the Riemann hypothesis) similarly requires a large amount of background knowledge and is not an "easy" concept to understand in 30 minutes. The good news is that there are millions of things that people use every day that they don't understand - cars, computers, TVs - in fact, due to the specialization of knowledge, most things people encounter they do not fully understand. I don't think this is a big deal.
Raticide 10y ago
Interesting video, but the resolution is awful, is there a better version out there somewhere?
- nicpottier 10y ago
  I believe this is the slide deck: http://www.lothar.com/presentations/bitcoin-brownbag/slides.html#1 http://www.lothar.com/presentations/bitcoin-brownbag/slides....

aerovistae 10y ago

I never said it was out of reach, I'm saying the community that already understands it isn't doing a very good job making it so that others can reach it without standing on a chair. I'll check out the video when I have time tonight.

miscellaneous 10y ago
> The community that already understands it isn't doing a very good job making it so that others can reach it Where I disagree is that I don't believe that all ideas/concepts can be made "easy to understand" to a general audience. Many concepts - especially those technical in nature - simply require a large amount of background knowledge to understand. You can be the best mathematics teacher in the world, but you won't be able to (and no one expects you to) make the Riemann hypothesis widely understood to the general public. It's just not feasible. And I posit that Bitcoin (whilst maybe not as technical as the Riemann hypothesis) similarly requires a large amount of background knowledge and is not an "easy" concept to understand in 30 minutes. The good news is that there are millions of things that people use every day that they don't understand - cars, computers, TVs - in fact, due to the specialization of knowledge, most things people encounter they do not fully understand. I don't think this is a big deal.

Raticide 10y ago

Interesting video, but the resolution is awful, is there a better version out there somewhere?

nicpottier 10y ago
I believe this is the slide deck: http://www.lothar.com/presentations/bitcoin-brownbag/slides.html#1 http://www.lothar.com/presentations/bitcoin-brownbag/slides....