Start with: Section "String polarization".
Then go to: Section "Polarization of light".
One may dream.
And if not, then they should fix it.
Notably, more people would try to "game" the system by quickly answering lots of small impact answers which could tilt things off a bit. Not to mention straight out fraud.
The following contributions where not immediately verified by others, but they were not reverted either and I think they are good.
| Date | Project | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-12 | plasticboy/vim-markdown | Review patch | Add tilde-fenced code blocks |
Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain Largest ordinal inscription Updated 2025-07-01 +Created 1970-01-01
We can get a list of the ordinals at: archive.org/details/bitcoin-ordinal-inscriptions.csv and then sort them by payload size with:
sort -k6 -n -t, ordinals.csv -o ordinals-sort-size.csvThis shows to us that as of block ~831k, there are 4 ordinals which are far far larger than any other between 3 MiB and 4 MiB, at about 10x larger than then 5th one d115a6e689086fd587e5032f24ba2a8c01f2f87cba758c9d5eb8cf7f6e9a816a
In those cases, a single inscription takes almost the entire block, and the inscribers must have had direct dealings with their mining pool:
- ordinals.com/inscription/4af9047d8b4b6ffffaa5c74ee36d0506a6741ba6fc6b39fe20e4e08df799cf99i0: 3,946,469 bytes (image/jpeg). Bitcoin Magazine cover showing the face of Julian Assange. tx 4af9047d8b4b6ffffaa5c74ee36d0506a6741ba6fc6b39fe20e4e08df799cf99 block 786501 (2023-04-22). Mined by Terra Pool.
- ordinals.com/inscription/0301e0480b374b32851a9462db29dc19fe830a7f7d7a88b81612b9d42099c0aei0: 3,915,537 bytes (image/jpeg). Taproot Wizards ad. This was apparently the largest block ever mined at the time: www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/10r6t1l/the_first_4_mb_block_in_bitcoin_history_mined_by/ and received some notice. tx 0301e0480b374b32851a9462db29dc19fe830a7f7d7a88b81612b9d42099c0ae block 774628 (2023-02-01). Mined by Luxor pool.
- ordinals.com/inscription/79b91e594c03c8f06d70c44a288a88a413c540abca007829ca119686a7f979dai0: 3,878,842 bytes (image/webp). "Bitcoin War Bonds". A spoof of something. No time to understand now. tx 79b91e594c03c8f06d70c44a288a88a413c540abca007829ca119686a7f979da block 777945 (2023-02-23). Mined by Terra Pool.
- ordinals.com/inscription/b5a7e05f28d00e4a791759ad7b6bd6799d856693293ceeaad9b0bb93c8851f7fi0: 3,379,682 bytes (video/mp4). Short looping video of a "purple frog drinking from a glass with a straw". Yes you heard that right. TODO context? tx b5a7e05f28d00e4a791759ad7b6bd6799d856693293ceeaad9b0bb93c8851f7f block 776884 (2023-02-16 ) Despite being huge, this received very little attention, the only Google mention is at An overview of recent non-standard Bitcoin transactions by 0xB10C. Mined by Terra Pool.
Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain Taproot Wizards Updated 2025-07-01 +Created 1970-01-01
www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/01/12/taproot-wizards-bitcoin-ordinals-project-that-raised-75m-to-sell-quantum-cats-collection/:OMG if only the worlds wouldn't invest in such useless crap... it would probably be a better and more boring world.
This film is an abomination and disgrace to the bilogy.
It is non-trivial to determine what is the smallest legal ELF file, or the smaller one that will do something trivial in Linux.
Some impressive attempts:
How to use an Oxford Nanopore MinION to extract DNA from river water and determine which bacteria live in it Qiagen DNeasy PowerWater Kit Updated 2025-07-01 +Created 1970-01-01
www.qiagen.com/gb/products/discovery-and-translational-research/dna-rna-purification/dna-purification/microbial-dna/dneasy-powerwater-kit (archive) Here is its documentation: www.qiagen.com/gb/resources/download.aspx?id=bb731482-874b-4241-8cf4-c15054e3a4bf&lang=en (archive).
Ciro Santilli has become slightly obsessed with this story, and the main mastermind Ross Ulbricht.
The best article available so far is: www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/29/how_i_caught_silk_road_mastermind (archive) which summarizes what one of the investigators said in a 2019 French computer security conference.
The key living posts are:
- stackoverflow.com/questions/15445285/how-can-i-connect-to-a-tor-hidden-service-using-curl-in-php (archive) which was originally asked under the real name, and then the username was changed to "Frosty", which matches one of the server's logins after the laptop was captured
- altoid early Silk Road mention: bitcointalk.org/?topic=175.70;wap2 (archive)
The big question is of course how libertarian free market ideologically motivated the website was, and how purely criminal greed it was.
The magnitude of the early operational security mistakes does make Ciro think that Ross did it "because he could" and "for the lolz" in a real world Breaking Bad way.
The entry in Ross' diary does resonate a lot with Ciro and any entrepreneur, full diary at: www.wired.com/2015/01/heres-secret-silk-road-journal-laptop-ross-ulbricht/ (archive).
[i]n 2011," [I believe I will be] "creating a year of prosperity and power beyond what I have ever experienced before,Silk Road is going to become a phenomenon and at least one person will tell me about it, unknowing that I was its creator."
Having this kind of feeling, is the greatest thing any human can have, and what motivates all great things.
Capitalizing in illegal things though is a cheat, big things take longer than a few years to reach, but reaching them is that much more satisfying as well.
Other interesting quotes:which Ciro also feels, see don't be a pussy, and:
Everyone knows I am working on a bitcoin exchange. I always thought honesty was the best policy and now I didn't know what to do. I should have just told everyone I am a freelance programmer or something, but I had to tell half truths. It felt wrong to lie completely so I tried to tell the truth without revealing the bad part, but now I am in a jam. Everyone knows too much. Dammit.
Also very worth reading is the San Francisco flat mate account: www.vice.com/en_us/article/ae3q8g/my-roommate-the-darknet-drug-lord (archive).
The murder for hire allegations are also interesting: mashable.com/2013/10/03/silk-road-hits, he paid 80k dollars to undercover DEA agents!
Except for the fact that Ross was an 80 million Dollar drug lord, those accounts sound exactly like what you would expect from any other nerdy startup founder! The:
- "just do it" strategy effectively going to a minimal viable product (manual transaction management!), while making many mistakes along the way, including hiring mistakes and successes when scaling is needed
- the hardship of self bootstrapping your own social network (here with some kilos of mushrooms)
- the variety of periods, from relatively calm, to hair pulling stress during big changes
It is also amusing to see very concretely the obvious fact that the FBI can get a subpoena for all accounts you ever had, e.g. they knew his laptop model from Amazon and brought a corresponding power cable to the arrest! If you are going to be a cyber criminal, don't use your real name, ever!
Should justice be blind? Maybe. But it does hurt for mere non-blind men to see it sometimes. Especially when drug liberalization is involved.
Running:outputs:
readelf -h hello_world.oMagic: 7f 45 4c 46 02 01 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
Class: ELF64
Data: 2's complement, little endian
Version: 1 (current)
OS/ABI: UNIX - System V
ABI Version: 0
Type: REL (Relocatable file)
Machine: Advanced Micro Devices X86-64
Version: 0x1
Entry point address: 0x0
Start of program headers: 0 (bytes into file)
Start of section headers: 64 (bytes into file)
Flags: 0x0
Size of this header: 64 (bytes)
Size of program headers: 0 (bytes)
Number of program headers: 0
Size of section headers: 64 (bytes)
Number of section headers: 7
Section header string table index: 3Running:outputs:
readelf -h hello_world.outMagic: 7f 45 4c 46 02 01 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
Class: ELF64
Data: 2's complement, little endian
Version: 1 (current)
OS/ABI: UNIX - System V
ABI Version: 0
Type: EXEC (Executable file)
Machine: Advanced Micro Devices X86-64
Version: 0x1
Entry point address: 0x4000b0
Start of program headers: 64 (bytes into file)
Start of section headers: 272 (bytes into file)
Flags: 0x0
Size of this header: 64 (bytes)
Size of program headers: 56 (bytes)
Number of program headers: 2
Size of section headers: 64 (bytes)
Number of section headers: 6
Section header string table index: 3Bytes in the object file:
00000000 7f 45 4c 46 02 01 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |.ELF............|
00000010 01 00 3e 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |..>.............|
00000020 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |........@.......|
00000030 00 00 00 00 40 00 00 00 00 00 40 00 07 00 03 00 |....@.....@.....|Executable:
00000000 7f 45 4c 46 02 01 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |.ELF............|
00000010 02 00 3e 00 01 00 00 00 b0 00 40 00 00 00 00 00 |..>.......@.....|
00000020 40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 |@...............|
00000030 00 00 00 00 40 00 38 00 02 00 40 00 06 00 03 00 |....@.8...@.....|Structure represented:
# define EI_NIDENT 16
typedef struct {
unsigned char e_ident[EI_NIDENT];
Elf64_Half e_type;
Elf64_Half e_machine;
Elf64_Word e_version;
Elf64_Addr e_entry;
Elf64_Off e_phoff;
Elf64_Off e_shoff;
Elf64_Word e_flags;
Elf64_Half e_ehsize;
Elf64_Half e_phentsize;
Elf64_Half e_phnum;
Elf64_Half e_shentsize;
Elf64_Half e_shnum;
Elf64_Half e_shstrndx;
} Elf64_Ehdr;Manual breakdown:
- 0 0:
EI_MAG=7f 45 4c 46=0x7f 'E', 'L', 'F': ELF magic number - 0 4:
EI_CLASS=02=ELFCLASS64: 64 bit elf - 0 5:
EI_DATA=01=ELFDATA2LSB: little endian data - 0 6:
EI_VERSION=01: format version - 0 7:
EI_OSABI(only in 2003 Update) =00=ELFOSABI_NONE: no extensions. - 0 8:
EI_PAD= 8x00: reserved bytes. Must be set to 0. - On the executable it is
02 00forET_EXEC.Another important possibility for the executable isET_DYNfor PIE executables and shared libraries.ET_DYNtells the Linux kernel that the code is position independent, and can loaded at a random memory location with ASLR. - 1 2:
e_machine=3e 00=62=EM_X86_64: AMD64 architecture - 1 4:
e_version=01 00 00 00: must be 1 - 1 8:
e_entry= 8x00: execution address entry point, or 0 if not applicable like for the object file since there is no entry point.On the executable, it isb0 00 40 00 00 00 00 00. The kernel puts the RIP directly on that value when executing. It can be configured by the linker script or-e. But it will segfault if you set it too low: stackoverflow.com/questions/2187484/why-is-the-elf-execution-entry-point-virtual-address-of-the-form-0x80xxxxx-and-n 40 00 00 00on the executable, i.e. it starts immediately after the ELF header.- 2 8:
e_shoff=407x00=0x40: section header table file offset, 0 if not present. The Intel386 architecture defines no flags; so this member contains zero.
- 3 4:
e_ehsize=40 00: size of this elf header. TODO why this field needed? Isn't the size fixed? 38 00on executable: it is 56 bytes long02 00on executable: there are 2 entries.- 3 A:
e_shentsizeande_shnum=40 00 07 00: section header size and number of entries - 3 E:
e_shstrndx(Section Header STRing iNDeX) =03 00: index of the.shstrtabsection.
Used for example:
- by Monero to hide the input of a transaction
- anonymous electronic voting
There are unlisted articles, also show them or only show them.