📅 Original date posted:2014-07-04
📝 Original message:On Friday, July 04, 2014 8:21:42 PM Jorge Timón wrote:
> On 7/4/14, kjj <bitcoin-devel at jerviss.org> wrote:
> > I suspect that there exist no algorithms which cannot be done better in
> > an application-specific device than in a general purpose computer. And
> > if there is such a thing, then it must necessarily perform best on one
> > specific platform, making that platform the de facto application
> > specific device.
> >
> > I'm not sure how one would go about proving or disproving that, but it
> > seems very likely to be true.
>
> I assumed this was obvious and self-evident for anyone who knows what
> a Turing machine is, but judging from the number of smart people
> wasting their time on the pursue of the "anti-ASIC" myth (also known
> as pow wankery) it seems I was wrong.
> Anything you can do with software you can do with hardware and
> viceversa (you can even do it with ropes and fire in Minecraft!!)
> Does this really need any proof?
> I think it's the hard-pow cultists who have to provide a counterexample.
Really, if people want to pursue a goal anything like this, they should be
looking for "ASIC already widely owned" as the property rather than "anti-
ASIC". Thus, a sufficiently memory-hard PoW would really be "RAM is the ASIC".
Whether it's possible to make this or not, is another question. And then we
get back to "is is really a desirable property to have people capable of
mining who have not given any indication of interest?"
Luke Dashjr [ARCHIVE] /
npub1tf…rfq0n
2023-06-07 15:23:37
in reply to nevent1q…lrnr
Author Public Key
npub1tfk373zg9dnmtvxnpnq7s2dkdgj37rwfj3yrwld7830qltmv8qps8rfq0nSeen on
wss://relay.noswhere.comPublished at
2023-06-07 15:23:37Event JSON
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"content": "📅 Original date posted:2014-07-04\n📝 Original message:On Friday, July 04, 2014 8:21:42 PM Jorge Timón wrote:\n\u003e On 7/4/14, kjj \u003cbitcoin-devel at jerviss.org\u003e wrote:\n\u003e \u003e I suspect that there exist no algorithms which cannot be done better in\n\u003e \u003e an application-specific device than in a general purpose computer. And\n\u003e \u003e if there is such a thing, then it must necessarily perform best on one\n\u003e \u003e specific platform, making that platform the de facto application\n\u003e \u003e specific device.\n\u003e \u003e \n\u003e \u003e I'm not sure how one would go about proving or disproving that, but it\n\u003e \u003e seems very likely to be true.\n\u003e \n\u003e I assumed this was obvious and self-evident for anyone who knows what\n\u003e a Turing machine is, but judging from the number of smart people\n\u003e wasting their time on the pursue of the \"anti-ASIC\" myth (also known\n\u003e as pow wankery) it seems I was wrong.\n\u003e Anything you can do with software you can do with hardware and\n\u003e viceversa (you can even do it with ropes and fire in Minecraft!!)\n\u003e Does this really need any proof?\n\u003e I think it's the hard-pow cultists who have to provide a counterexample.\n\nReally, if people want to pursue a goal anything like this, they should be \nlooking for \"ASIC already widely owned\" as the property rather than \"anti-\nASIC\". Thus, a sufficiently memory-hard PoW would really be \"RAM is the ASIC\". \nWhether it's possible to make this or not, is another question. And then we \nget back to \"is is really a desirable property to have people capable of \nmining who have not given any indication of interest?\"",
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