I don't agree with this assessment at all. I think the immense value of bitcoin and other technologically advanced, secure, decentralized networks comes from the detailed network communications which they enable. They allow global financial transactions through a powerful medium in a way that has never existed before. This has nothing to do with baseball cards. The fact that decentralized networks enable NFTs and collectibles is a small subset of the value and power of decentralized networks.
You're conflating the value of blockchains with the value of bitcoin. A bet on bitcoin is a bet that more people will want bitcoins, so the price goes up. This trades a lot like baseball cards that random drug dealers also accept. A bet on blockchain tech is that someone finds a use case for it that isn't a solution in search of a problem.
what if decentralized monetary network ends up having the same effect on communication and social relationship as internet did ? are we becoming degen gig economists ?
Exactly, cryptocurrency is a powerful human coordination tool that allows us to build networks that contain real monetary value on top of legacy infrastructure. I'm not surprised to see this on the front page, hacker news has taken misrepresenting Bitcoin to a professional level.
What people don't realize, is that we already have fantastic alternatives to Ethereum for low-energy, world-class decentralized networks with built in NFTs. My favorite is avalanche. This is all so new, but we CAN have a future that is feature-rich, fast, cheap, decentralized, and good for the environment.
(Error 81 due to a false positive filament jam -- occurs because the encoder wheel gets stuck and isn't turned by the moving filament)
The problem was indeed the encoder wheel getting stuck which triggered a false error.
Your instructions do discuss the encoder wheel here. They say to move the encoder wheel to the "back side." This was confusing to me for a few reasons:
- I didn't know which side was the back side
- I didn't know why this would help
- The wheel didn't seem to move when I nudged it anyway.
If this is indeed the right fix for some people, can I suggest that the instructions give a little more detail? Like:
- Check if the wheel groove is not aligned with the top plastic hole. If necessary to fix the alignment, use a flat head screwdriver or a similar tool to gently push the wheel closer to the back side of the Smart Extruder.
_The real problem_
For me, the real problem was that the wheel didn't turn because there was a combination of too much wheel axle friction (between the wheel and its axle) and/or not enough wheel groove friction (between the wheel groove and the plastic filament)
_Verifying this problem_
While the printing is in progress, shine a light through the top or right side of the 3D printer case. You can watch the encoder wheel. It should turn in sync with the filament passing through the wheel groove.
If there is an error, you can verify that the error happens because the encoder wheel stopped turning while the filament was flowing. This was happening for me in one particular sticky part of the encoder wheel's rotation.
_The solution_
1: I applied lubricant to the encoder wheel axle.
- I didn't even need to take the cartridge apart, I just used a needle to carefully apply some to the axle and manually turned the wheel while letting it drip down into the bearing.
2: I roughed the plastic of the encoder wheel groove.
- I used an exacto knife to make tiny scrapes all around both sides of the inside groove of the wheel.
3: Test that these steps are working by holding the (cooled down) extruder in your hand, and manually inserting a small length of plastic into the top hole. Move the filament in and out and ensure that the wheel is turning smoothly in sync with the filament passing through the wheel groove inside the cartridge.
I hope this helps others! I know it's a very old product now, but maybe there's still some people out there still having this problem. Good luck :thumbs-up:
So glad you asked! I wrote a blog post about exactly this. My answer is "The Network is the value." The price of a bitcoin reflects the value of the network using it.
https://blog.syllablehq.com/the-network-is-the-value/
Thanks to paroneayea and team for doing this! It's so important that we move this technology forward. I'm looking forward to digging in and maybe getting involved.
I hope this will be much easier for people to do when there are decentralized options. (other thread here discussing that.) And then the big players can't just buy the competitors and keep locking us into the same problem.
I CAN'T WAIT for decentralized infrastructure to finally become robust enough that clones of instagram and facebook can all share a network -- they'll all become portals to the same social graph data. When that happens, there will no longer be any reason to put up with this abuse of privacy garbage.
Never going to happen. Ever. Decentralized means it's inevitably more cumbersome to use. If you make it easier you're taking shortcuts somewhere, especially if you want a platform that's resistant to censorship and is supposed to provide anonymity. And if you actually do succeed in this you'll inevitably end up with a platform where highly immoral content is just a wrong click away.
It'll be this cycle of a new platform being fresh and trendy, then they become bigger, care about being taken seriously by traditional media, for getting ad deals with the big players, then a new platform pops up, cycle repeats.
> Decentralized means it's inevitably more cumbersome to use.
Which will lead to a lot of users being hosted on a single instance which provides convenient access, which completes the loop to centralized. See gmail.
> And if you actually do succeed in this you'll inevitably end up with a platform where highly immoral content is just a wrong click away.
I don't think that is necessarily a problem for most users.
> It'll be this cycle of a new platform being fresh and trendy, then they become bigger, care about being taken seriously by traditional media, for getting ad deals with the big players, then a new platform pops up, cycle repeats.
How many people (outside of the HN circle) actually use Gmail for personal email now? It's mostly been killed by Facebook, WhatsApp or their alternatives.
And most of these alternatives still need an E-Mail to sign up, which loops back to gmail. Statista puts the number of its users at 1.5 billion in 2018[0]. There are some alternatives, yes, but if you ever tried to run your own mailserver you'll quickly find out that gmail users not receiving your mail is very much a problem.
Fastmail? Protonmail? Others? It's not as though the only options are gmail and running your own mail server. They aren't free, but neither is your time to run a mail server and gmail is only gratis, not libre.
I've never said its the only option. I use a rather unknown hoster myself. But the majority of the users are with very few companies; for the US and EU gmail probably dominates the private user market.
Or, let's say it this way: If someone selfhosting his mail server doesn't receive your mail, it's his problem. If gmail users don't receive your mail, it's your problem. And that's not a sign of decentralisation.
I think that, given the change we expect to see in human-computer interaction over the next few decades, you can't say never. The majority of the obstacles you outlined are not fundamental but rather implementation problems that can be solved by motivated parties with time and effort. Of course, saying this doesn't mean someone will solve them, just that someone can.
As an example, the censorship and immoral content dilemma is easily solved by letting the user "censor" their own feeds of content they themselves find objectionable. This is already trivially done via block lists and word filters, in the future thanks to ML there can be a much more sophisticated level of control exposed including fuzzy sentiment metrics. I wouldn't be surprised if tools like this are already being built. The key idea here being that the control is with the user rather than with some 3rd-party whom may or may not be taking the users own preferences into account.
I would instead say that the problem is political (or marketing) rather than technical: Facebook and Google were set up by an undergrad in his bedroom and three PhD students respectively. Building alternatives is easy, getting people to use them will be extremely difficult.
Building alternatives that people will use is itself a technical problem, just not one that's as crisp as the algorithmic issues related to distributed computing.
Well, the Fediverse made a start and it is only at the beginning of its evolution. Not billions of users, no, but ever more interconnected apps with features similar to the big platform (but void of algorithmic feeds, ads and many of the dark patterns)
Just a general response to some of the skeptics here (I hear your points, I just think we're still early in the game). I do believe this will happen. I believe it's inevitable, it will just take time. The main advantage over current networks+apps is that it breaks the barrier to entry for new competitors. Mastodon etc are still early newcomers who still have to break that barrier. But once there are many of them playing in the same water, they can gradually build a competing network - slowly at first, then they'll win over the entire new generation. Whatever the next "tik-tok" is could be decentralized, and then the flood gates open. Advertising and privacy issues will still exist, but it will be competitive. There will no longer be a monopoly gate keeper who that sets the rules. Lots of details to be worked out for sure. We need user interfaces to improve and get simplified. I agree that right now federated platforms like mastodon are still too cumbersome for users. But I believe all of this will improve and this will work eventually. I think it's coming this decade.
Mastodon and Pixelfed already exist and are very functional, the issue is that all instances of the above are run with a hobby-grade SLA and mixed moderation policies and users that do not understand federated services. Even domains on emails get defaulted to gmail.com when in doubt now.
"We'll see?" This guy has been milking this since 1991. As Aaronson's article so sardonically points out, there's nothing there to debunk. Every claim that can be made about the "hydrino" can be made with equal weight about the "doofusino," so what's the point?
He's had three DECADES to set up any kind of publicity stunt or get the attention of any number of existing billionaires or just scrape together the resources he needs to build the no-shit this-changes-everything prototype. Or maybe Elon Musk and everyone who knows him is an idiot without vision who think they can make a buck on solar when this guy's world-changing technology is right around the corner this time for really real I promise.
The Wikipedia article has been policed by skeptics and is not a fair assessment of Mills. Doofusino theory article is just satire and offers no serious rebuttal.
Mills has made considerable progress over the decades overcoming engineering challenges in harnessing hydrino energy release. Recent advances of electromagnetically pumped liquid metal electrodes (to solve the problem of tungsten electrodes instantly melting), and a ceramic cell liner (solves the problem of the hydrinos melting a hole in the side of the reaction vessel) have got Mills close to a field prototype and he has prototypes that produce hundreds of kW continuously (hundred hour run) with water bath calorimetry. The skeptics will soon have scoffed their last.
Policed by skeptics? That's the POINT of Wikipedia! Are you saying that a communal resource based on accurately documenting actual reality should be run by credulous people who will accept any statement without applying one second's worth of critical thinking?
As I said, Doofusino doesn't NEED to be a rebuttal. THERE IS NOTHING HERE TO REBUT. The proof is in the pudding and Mills has no pudding whatsoever. All he has are his claims about all the magical fairytale things his wonderful technology can do.
I don't care if he says it can braid my hair and create free cheerios on demand because he finally found the right alloy to use in his psychogravitic negamatrix. It's not real until there's proof and he hasn't offered any in thirty years. See you in another thirty, I guess.
Wikipedia doesn't support debate - only authoritative sources are allowed - which means novel theories yet to be fully accepted get locked out and ridiculed by the skeptically correct.
There are many experimental papers that show hydrinos exist and have the properties predicted by Mills classical model of the hydrogen atom. https://brilliantlightpower.com/ has many videos of working prototypes producing excess energy. Dark matter exists and interacts gravitationally like baryonic matter but is electromagnetically inert like hydrinos are predicted to be. The expansion of the universe accelerates (Mills predicted in the 1990s). Etc.
Also fusion energy research has been consuming billions for decades with little if any real progress. Of course everyone believes in this because there were plenty of believable demos in the bombing of Japan and the nuclear tests.
The difference is that nuclear fusion has happened before. In fact, if you go outside and look up on a clear day or night, you can see it happening right now.
Nobody has ever created hydrinos. They are not real. If they were, he would be selling barrels of hydrinos. He will never sell one single hydrino. Because they are not real.
Well he has bottles of hydrinos and multiple experimental results (e.g. gas chromatography with passage faster than any known substance) that prove hydrinos exist and have exactly the properties his theory predicts.
The fact that you continue to think this is true after this guy has been selling this snake oil for thirty years makes me think you've given money to him. If so, I'm truly sorry he took you in like that, and I suggest cutting your losses if you can.
I wish - I admit I did look into buying shares but it was too expensive. The reason I believe in it is that I have read all his papers and his hydrogen atom model makes a lot more sense than the Shroedinger electron probability distribution does. Then there are all the predictions of the model that come out in precise agreement with experimental values.
The fact that you continue to sneer tells me you have not seriously examined his claims and merely rely on biased secondary sources. Yelling rubbish more loudly does not an argument make.
Reportedly BrLP did their last offering in 2016 at $40k/shr and I was offered 5-10 shares at $45k/shr in 2018. I should think with the recent engineering progress the price is well north of these figures now.
Here's the simplest quick answer I have regarding "is it worth it." This is just one example of independent research vetting that it is indeed promising. The math checks out.
That research is not independent but made by a bancrupt startup of gravity based energy storage.
And it still does not answer how the construction and running costs are calculated.
Only if those are as low as claimed (which I highly doubt) something like this might be feasible.
This tech just does not scale well.
Digging holes is stupid expensive. Moving giant masses is not trivial and to double the storage capacity you need twice the weight or twice the height.
The energy density is way too low.
The only thing run by weights have been those old grandfather clocks. And even there the weights got replaced by springs and in the end batteries.
My understanding is that Dr Oliver Schmidt was hired by Heindl to do this research independently. It explains everything on the link I sent, so I didn't mean to imply that he wasn't hired to do it, but he's a third party. There is other research like the 1984 U.S. PNNL that validates how underground storage is estimated to be cost effective.
Wow, I didn't know they went bankrupt! Sad, thank you Heindl for paving the way forward. Innovation is truly a collaborative effort.
https://heindl-energy.com/about-us/
The network is the value. To me, this is what bitcoin is. https://medium.com/the-capital/the-network-is-the-value-an-e...