BitMEX Research has published what can be called the first history book on Bitcoin (not all of its history, but just the Blocksize War). It’s written by Jonathan Bier, who surprisingly, has no official online presence that I can find. It could as well be a pseudonym, for all I know. Either way, this book seems like it was written just for me – as in – it’s written for someone who knows Bitcoin well enough from a high level technical, historical, financial, and social context – but does not know the historical details on specifics like how the P2SH war was won[1]Pete Rizzo and Aaron van Wirdum have a nice history-essay about the P2SH war., or how covert ASICBoost works[2]BitMEX Research themselves have written about it in detail., and such. If you are such a clued-in-now, but clueless-about-the-past Bitcoin enthusiast[3]For Ethereum enthusiasts, there is a chapter on the DAO as well., this book is definitely for you. ...

The nature of Bitcoin is such that once version 0.1 was released, the core design was set in stone for the rest of its lifetime – Satoshi Nakamoto, creator of Bitcoin This goes against the more well understood motto of technology startups: “move fast and break things.” Unlike a startup, or even a big company, Bitcoin doesn’t move fast, or break things. Of course, I am not talking about its price as measured in USD or INR. I am talking about the entire Bitcoin system, or Bitcoin, the protocol. Bitcoin is stagnant, ossified, set-in-stone, resistant-to-change, and any number of such synonyms you can look up in a thesaurus. There are a few obvious questions that come out of this: ...

IPA beka? IPA, Russian Imperial Stout, Blonde, Hefeweizen, Maibock, Pumpkin Ale, Belgian Tripel, Classic Pilsner, and such: all on tap. Moving back from the US in 2012, one worrying thought at the back of my head was — where do I get good beer in Bangalore? Back in the late 90’s, I often drank unnamed beers on tap at Purple Haze, Guzzlers’ Inn, Pecos, Tavern at the Inn, and similar places. But now, where do I find the fresh hoppy lip-smacking taste of a good IPA? Or a thick syrupy malty Imperial Stout? ...

It’s hard to find what Indian mutual funds charge their customers to manage their money for them. The so called “expense ratio.” Try to find it on, say, the UTI website, or SBI’s MF website. Also, since January 2013, SEBI (the market regulator) made it mandatory for all mutual fund houses (AMCs) to offer what is called a direct plan. Every fund offered by every AMC will have a direct plan where the AMC will charge you a lower expense ratio. This is the money saved by the AMC because you went directly to them, and not through your neighborhood bank branch manager or ShareKhan. This lower expense ratio is also hard to find. ...

And so much time to do it. Scott Aaronson’s “rant” on naysayers of complexity theory got me pondering. Over the last few months, my general scientific pondering has suffered at the hands of real work, startup life routine, system building, and a general state of being occupied by the trite. It’s fascinating, but not inspiring. The days are exciting, but not ecstatic. The nights are cathartic, but not liberating. I miss my aimless pondering days. ...

For a while now, I have observed this disturbing trend of using the words Porn and Masturbation (P&M) as suffixes in hyphen-separated-phrases to convey that the prefix is inferior, waste of time, pathetic, something to aspire against, etc. Cases in question: intellectual-masturbation, achievement-porn, etc. I find two insulting underlying reasoning schools at work were. One: Just because something is perceivably akin to P&M, it sucks. Two: P&M implicitly suck. Well, that’s it. ...

The Feynman Method Richard Feynman was fond of giving the following advice on how to be a genius. You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, “How did he do it? He must be a genius!” ...

Color, Pathos, Neon, Blood, Helplessness, Orgasmic, Irredeemability, Red, Anguish, Nods, Honesty, As-is, Succumbing, Delirium, Insecurity, Psychedelia, Skin, Sigh, Bitter-as-coffee, Physical catharsis, Uncontrollable-lust, Random, Wanton, Appreciation-hierarchy, Feeling, Denim, Masochism, Yellow, Numb, Lonely, Cold, Vivid, Very vivid color. I am happy. Archived Comments (1) viked — 2009-02-11 16:39:40 and how bout the songs?trance, pop, rock, folk, classical, rap and emosanal atyachaar … me too happy

Do not influence others. Especially subliminally. Especially with ideals which you have internalized after prolong profound pondering. That’s what Nath Devlalikar does. He makes his life an experiment in ideology, and lives to live the tragic consequences. Walking out of Prithvi Theater, I felt an almost biological urge to wail out the anguish I felt for the fallen hero. Vijay Tendulkar’s Kanyadaan is the most hard-hitting play I have seen. Tragedy and irony have never come together so well. The motif of victim morphing to victimizer is brought in a brilliant fractal like way. Son-in-law torturing the daughter to victimize the ‘other’ society. Daughter comparing her ideological upbringing to a kind of crippling that she can never revert out of. The former acknowledged, the latter acted out brilliantly. ...

If you have been waiting for a film for a while, watching it alone in a theater is probably most satisfying. For various reasons, but the most important being – I don’t have to justify why the film is worth someone else’s time. It would have been a very tough sell in There Will Be Blood’s case. I am not sure if it was Raja Sen’s review on Rediff that tipped it for me, or the bulging veins on Daniel Day-Lewis’s forehead in some best actor award nomination preview – I had to watch this one. ...