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Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy: Earth - a small planet in the outer reaches of spiral galaxy M7529, so far the only planet on record that the semi-intelligent

Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy: Earth - a small planet in the outer reaches of spiral galaxy M7529, so far the only planet on record that the semi-intelligent biped inhabitants managed to overheat so badly that they became extinct. Overheating has happened before, of course, however the method of overheating is unique - the inhabitants invented a method of identifying uniqueness by making large calculations and attaching small drawings to the calculations, they then proceeded to trade these tokens as something of value, using more and more energy and creating a runaway green house effect. This has been used as an example to disprove the existence of god.

anonymoushn 6y ago
I'm hoping we can do our NFT trading on non-PoW chains within the next couple years. This should reduce the environmental impact to that of baseball cards.
- detaro 6y ago
  I've seen a bunch of artists jump on https://www.hicetnunc.xyz https://www.hicetnunc.xyz (which uses Tezos, which apparently is a Proof-of-Stake chain?) after the "wait, ETH uses how much energy?!" shock.
  - ddeyar 6y ago
    It is LPoS. It means you're able to delegate your validation rights. So you don't need to run a node to participate in the staking process, you just delegate to a baker. And It's self amending. Every 3-4 months a proposal with upgrades will undergo a voting phase. All bakers are able to vote on this to accept or reject the proposal. The source code is written in a purely functional language on which formal verification is applied.
- fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
  One random idea I had was to use cryptomining to “soak up” excess power: so, for example, you could build nuclear out to meet peak load and then set up mining rigs to use the difference between peak and the current load, subsidizing the cost of power production. It’s probably a bad idea for other reasons, but it’s one way to reduce the environmental impact of PoW
  - onion2k 6y ago
    You can reduce the energy output of a nuclear reactor both through the moderation of the fission reaction (via control rods, coolant temperature variation, neutron poisoning, etc), and through moderation of the electrical generator turbine (slowing down the turbine speed, venting steam, etc). There is no such thing as "excess power" for crytomining. Even if there was then that energy could just be stored using batteries or gravity storage or something, or it could be sold to neighbouring energy users, or it could be used in the grid and other more polluting sources could be scaled down instead.
    - nandhinianand 6y ago
      > There is no such thing as "excess power" for crytomining. I was thinking the idea seemed to have some validity.. For ex: storage of solar/wind-powered is critical and the current inefficiencies and batteries rely on lithium and alternatives are still in research.(http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/#moving-storage http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/#moving-storage) .. so in theory there's a system that can be built around the excess energy(of renewable systems) + crypto mining as a incentive for taking up renewable energy setups.(Of course this cannot convert the mined stuff back to energy so it's a one-way stuff at best and has it's own cons and pros).
    - fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
      What I’ve generally heard about nuclear and the grid in general is that it’s cost-ineffective to build out generation capacity to meet peak demand and that nuclear power is relatively bad at meeting fluctuations in demand. Sure, you could use batteries or whatever to store/use the power that the grid currently doesn’t need. You could also build aluminum processing plants or arc furnaces or whatever. Cryptocurrencies would be interesting because the mined cryptocurrency could used to reduce rates to consumers.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    Or just stop the proof of work stuff. Just an idea.
  - root_axis 6y ago
- andreskytt 6y ago
  Or, there’s an idea, just generate a random string, bundle it with the artwork and sign the whole damn thing using good old RSA. Achieves the exact same goal, uses a fraction of energy and no fancy tech.
  - anonymoushn 6y ago
    Yeah, you could plausibly just transfer these things by having each owner sign an attestation of the new owner's public key. But since it looks like this junk will happen on a publicly accessible slow computer/database, I'm just hoping it happens on e.g. Solana instead of Ethereum.
    - kolinko 6y ago
      Signing attestation by itself wouldn’t work because of double spending. You would need either a centralised database of who owns what or a blockchain.
  - anonporridge 6y ago
    Uh...no? These can trivially be copied (double spent), which means they're just as scarce as any digital data. Valueless without some significant proof of violence and hyper censorship ability enforcing copyright protection. The primary revolution of bitcoin was the invention of self enforcing digital scarcity.
    - quickthrower2 6y ago
      Some company can run a DB to record spends. Why trust a third party? Well with any crypto linked to real world outcomes you need it trust a third party. Be that tether or some NFT hustler.
      - anonporridge 6y ago
        Because if I'm a rich person wanting to spend stupid amounts of money on some 'original' work of digital art, I don't want to trust a third party store the ownership records that could easily be corrupted. The ownership record in a public blockchain can't be corrupted.
JPKab 6y ago
This was hilarious and well-written. I've become extremely alarmed at the number of completely non-technical people who don't know anything about how cryptocurrency works getting extremely into it via YouTube click holes. It's obvious that these NFTs are capitalizing on it. A guy I ran into at the hardware store today was talking to me and he didn't understand the concept of a cryptocurrency that has a stable value so that it can be used as a means of exchange. He's an airline pilot and he just has tens of thousands of dollars invested in various crypto things that he heard about on YouTube and he's made a ton of money on it.. It was eerily reminiscent of conversations I had with people flipping houses in 2006.
- chadcmulligan 6y ago
  Thanks for the compliment - I'd like to think he would agree.
- nicbou 6y ago
  Every single male friend of mine is talking about crypto. I am so tired of this topic. That and Tesla.
  - epx 6y ago
    I avoid the subject since a friend insisted on taking about Bitcoin with me during the funeral of HIS mother.
- secabeen 6y ago
  > He's an airline pilot and he just has tens of thousands of dollars invested in various crypto things that he heard about on YouTube and he's made a ton of money on it. "made a ton of money on it." Until he has sold those assets and turned them into a major, stable currently like USD in his bank account or a diversified collection of other assets, they are as reliable a store of value as Enron stock was in July of 2000.
- Puts 6y ago
  Isn't it interesting though that the people who don't have the technical understanding of why most cryptocurrencies at the core are unsustainable, just as the housing market was in 2006 are still the ones making money on it? When betting in any market understanding people and psychology seems to be more important than understanding the product.
nandhinianand 6y ago
Loved it .... I've been craving a replacement for Douglas Adams for a while now.. Terry Pratchett was quite close.. but now he too is gone.. perhaps it's time for me to find other writers or write stuff myself..
flimflamm 6y ago
Sounds like bitcoin predictions coming true.
nutanc 6y ago
How much for an NFT for this comment :)
roywiggins 6y ago
I am reminded of the Shoe Event Horizon. https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Shoe_Event_Horizon https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Shoe_Event_Horizon
ozim 6y ago
I would be a bit more optimistic, here is my take on it. Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy: Earth - a small planet in the outer reaches of spiral galaxy M7529. Inhabitants with watery brains came up with technology to use their star energy directly for complex mathematical calculations. Our space archeologists still don't understand why the calculations were producing random outputs so they never managed to get out of their star system and used all their star energy for that. Their Dyson sphere is interesting place to visit because as of now, it is the only civilization that achieved building it and never managed to go any further.
jugg1es 6y ago
DON'T PANIC

anonymoushn 6y ago

I'm hoping we can do our NFT trading on non-PoW chains within the next couple years. This should reduce the environmental impact to that of baseball cards.

detaro 6y ago
I've seen a bunch of artists jump on https://www.hicetnunc.xyz https://www.hicetnunc.xyz (which uses Tezos, which apparently is a Proof-of-Stake chain?) after the "wait, ETH uses how much energy?!" shock.
- ddeyar 6y ago
  It is LPoS. It means you're able to delegate your validation rights. So you don't need to run a node to participate in the staking process, you just delegate to a baker. And It's self amending. Every 3-4 months a proposal with upgrades will undergo a voting phase. All bakers are able to vote on this to accept or reject the proposal. The source code is written in a purely functional language on which formal verification is applied.
fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
One random idea I had was to use cryptomining to “soak up” excess power: so, for example, you could build nuclear out to meet peak load and then set up mining rigs to use the difference between peak and the current load, subsidizing the cost of power production. It’s probably a bad idea for other reasons, but it’s one way to reduce the environmental impact of PoW
- onion2k 6y ago
  You can reduce the energy output of a nuclear reactor both through the moderation of the fission reaction (via control rods, coolant temperature variation, neutron poisoning, etc), and through moderation of the electrical generator turbine (slowing down the turbine speed, venting steam, etc). There is no such thing as "excess power" for crytomining. Even if there was then that energy could just be stored using batteries or gravity storage or something, or it could be sold to neighbouring energy users, or it could be used in the grid and other more polluting sources could be scaled down instead.
  - nandhinianand 6y ago
    > There is no such thing as "excess power" for crytomining. I was thinking the idea seemed to have some validity.. For ex: storage of solar/wind-powered is critical and the current inefficiencies and batteries rely on lithium and alternatives are still in research.(http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/#moving-storage http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/#moving-storage) .. so in theory there's a system that can be built around the excess energy(of renewable systems) + crypto mining as a incentive for taking up renewable energy setups.(Of course this cannot convert the mined stuff back to energy so it's a one-way stuff at best and has it's own cons and pros).
  - fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
    What I’ve generally heard about nuclear and the grid in general is that it’s cost-ineffective to build out generation capacity to meet peak demand and that nuclear power is relatively bad at meeting fluctuations in demand. Sure, you could use batteries or whatever to store/use the power that the grid currently doesn’t need. You could also build aluminum processing plants or arc furnaces or whatever. Cryptocurrencies would be interesting because the mined cryptocurrency could used to reduce rates to consumers.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Or just stop the proof of work stuff. Just an idea.
- root_axis 6y ago
andreskytt 6y ago
Or, there’s an idea, just generate a random string, bundle it with the artwork and sign the whole damn thing using good old RSA. Achieves the exact same goal, uses a fraction of energy and no fancy tech.
- anonymoushn 6y ago
  Yeah, you could plausibly just transfer these things by having each owner sign an attestation of the new owner's public key. But since it looks like this junk will happen on a publicly accessible slow computer/database, I'm just hoping it happens on e.g. Solana instead of Ethereum.
  - kolinko 6y ago
    Signing attestation by itself wouldn’t work because of double spending. You would need either a centralised database of who owns what or a blockchain.
- anonporridge 6y ago
  Uh...no? These can trivially be copied (double spent), which means they're just as scarce as any digital data. Valueless without some significant proof of violence and hyper censorship ability enforcing copyright protection. The primary revolution of bitcoin was the invention of self enforcing digital scarcity.
  - quickthrower2 6y ago
    Some company can run a DB to record spends. Why trust a third party? Well with any crypto linked to real world outcomes you need it trust a third party. Be that tether or some NFT hustler.
    - anonporridge 6y ago
      Because if I'm a rich person wanting to spend stupid amounts of money on some 'original' work of digital art, I don't want to trust a third party store the ownership records that could easily be corrupted. The ownership record in a public blockchain can't be corrupted.

JPKab 6y ago

This was hilarious and well-written. I've become extremely alarmed at the number of completely non-technical people who don't know anything about how cryptocurrency works getting extremely into it via YouTube click holes. It's obvious that these NFTs are capitalizing on it. A guy I ran into at the hardware store today was talking to me and he didn't understand the concept of a cryptocurrency that has a stable value so that it can be used as a means of exchange. He's an airline pilot and he just has tens of thousands of dollars invested in various crypto things that he heard about on YouTube and he's made a ton of money on it.. It was eerily reminiscent of conversations I had with people flipping houses in 2006.

chadcmulligan 6y ago
Thanks for the compliment - I'd like to think he would agree.
nicbou 6y ago
Every single male friend of mine is talking about crypto. I am so tired of this topic. That and Tesla.
- epx 6y ago
  I avoid the subject since a friend insisted on taking about Bitcoin with me during the funeral of HIS mother.
secabeen 6y ago
> He's an airline pilot and he just has tens of thousands of dollars invested in various crypto things that he heard about on YouTube and he's made a ton of money on it. "made a ton of money on it." Until he has sold those assets and turned them into a major, stable currently like USD in his bank account or a diversified collection of other assets, they are as reliable a store of value as Enron stock was in July of 2000.
Puts 6y ago
Isn't it interesting though that the people who don't have the technical understanding of why most cryptocurrencies at the core are unsustainable, just as the housing market was in 2006 are still the ones making money on it? When betting in any market understanding people and psychology seems to be more important than understanding the product.

nandhinianand 6y ago

Loved it .... I've been craving a replacement for Douglas Adams for a while now.. Terry Pratchett was quite close.. but now he too is gone.. perhaps it's time for me to find other writers or write stuff myself..

flimflamm 6y ago

Sounds like bitcoin predictions coming true.

nutanc 6y ago

How much for an NFT for this comment :)

roywiggins 6y ago

I am reminded of the Shoe Event Horizon. https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Shoe_Event_Horizon https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Shoe_Event_Horizon

ozim 6y ago

I would be a bit more optimistic, here is my take on it. Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy: Earth - a small planet in the outer reaches of spiral galaxy M7529. Inhabitants with watery brains came up with technology to use their star energy directly for complex mathematical calculations. Our space archeologists still don't understand why the calculations were producing random outputs so they never managed to get out of their star system and used all their star energy for that. Their Dyson sphere is interesting place to visit because as of now, it is the only civilization that achieved building it and never managed to go any further.

jugg1es 6y ago

DON'T PANIC