zacharyvoase

N.B.: This is a response to http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/bitcoin-is-evil/

I can't help but think that it's unproductive to classify things as ‘good’ or ‘evil’ if you can't ultimately control them. Bitcoin isn’t good or evil, it just is.

On the question of “backing”: what it’s backed up by is the fact that some people are willing to spend their own assets and labor to acquire BTC, in the belief that so will other people and thus that BTC is and will remain liquid and valuable. It’s a Keynesian Beauty Contest (KBC), a concept I would expect Krugman to be more than familiar with.

My beef with Bitcoin is that it has proven itself to be a shitty medium of exchange and a shitty store of value—neither of these hold ‘rapid, unpredictable changes in valuation’ as a desirable trait, yet the KBC nature of the technology ensures that this trait will hold for Bitcoin, because minor fluctuations in individuals’ confidence are magnified and become rapid swings in price.

The irony of Bitcoin is that it

zacharyvoase

>>> import requests
>>> requests.get('http://google.com/')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<console>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/requests/api.py", line 55, in get
    return request('get', url, **kwargs)
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/requests/api.py", line 44, in request
    return session.request(method=method, url=url, **kwargs)
  File "/app/.heroku/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/requests/sessions.py", line 354, in request
    resp = self.send(prep, **send_kwargs)

zacharyvoase

DataURI.py

Data URI manipulation made easy.

This isn't very robust, and will reject a number of valid data URIs. However, it meets the most useful case: a mimetype, a charset, and the base64 flag.

Parsing

zacharyvoase

from broker import Broker  # https://github.com/zacharyvoase/broker
from django.core import serializers  # https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/serialization/
from django.http import HttpResponse
from django.shortcuts import render

from myapp.models import Thing


# This is just a library I wrote once to help do content negotiation.
# We define a 'renderers' for each supported content type (HTML and JSON)

zacharyvoase

import sys
import subprocess
import tempfile
import urllib

text = sys.stdin.read()

chart_url_template = ('http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?'
                      'cht=qr&chs=300x300&chl={data}&chld=H|0')
chart_url = chart_url_template.format(data=urllib.quote(text))

zacharyvoase

int led_pin = 2;
#define PERIOD (100)

void setup() {
  pinMode(led_pin, OUTPUT);
  Serial.begin(9600);
}

void writeMorse(char *code) {
  int i = 0;

zacharyvoase

# Basic AVR Makefile
# Author: Zachary Voase
# License: Public Domain <http://unlicense.org/>
#
# Configured to work with the Arduino Uno R3, programmed from a Mac, using
# CrossPack (http://www.obdev.at/products/crosspack/index.html).

# This needs to be the TTY device on your Mac at which the Arduino is mounted.
# Mine is normally either 1421 or 1411.
PORT       = /dev/tty.usbmodem1421

zacharyvoase

import socket


def udp_socket():
    return socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM, socket.IPPROTO_UDP)


def receive():
    sock = udp_socket()
    sock.setsockopt(socket.SOL_SOCKET, socket.SO_BROADCAST, 1)

zacharyvoase

#define E 2.71828182846

// The ordered list of output pins, and the length thereof.
int pins[] = {3, 5, 6, 9, 10};
int pins_length = 5;
// This needs to be close to 30ms to be perceived as smooth (NTSC = 33.36ms)
int refresh_interval = 30;

// Intervals are useful for explicitly declaring the valid range for a value,
// and converting values between ranges (e.g. 0 - 1.0 => 0 - 255).

zacharyvoase

diff --git a/util/point.sh b/util/point.sh
index da39899..5ee728b 100755
--- a/util/point.sh
+++ b/util/point.sh
@@ -1,5 +1,21 @@
 #!/bin/sh
 
+inode () {
+  # Get the device:inode of a regular file (or the target of a symlink).
+  # These two pieces of information uniquely identify a file.