Art Updated 2025-07-16
Stuff that is beautiful but useless because it does not make food or houses cheaper.
Or from Ciro Santilli's best random thoughts:
Without technology, one cannot survive. Without art, one cannot live.
But that sure enough has a Jesus semi-precursor, and likely many others: man shall not live by bread alone.
There is some art however that lives in the fine intersection between beauty and usefulness:
Ionic bond Updated 2025-07-16
Waring's problem Updated 2025-07-16
And when it can't, attempt to classify which subset of the integers can be reached. E.g. Legendre's three-square theorem.
Carl Zeiss SMT Updated 2025-07-16
Subsidiary of Carl Zeiss AG and also part owned by ASML, sole optics vendor of ASML as of 2020.
d-orbital Updated 2025-07-16
Fermentation Updated 2025-07-16
f-orbital Updated 2025-07-16
p-orbital Updated 2025-07-16
ASCII art Updated 2025-07-16
It should be a crime to automatically generate ASCII art from images.
For some ASCII art in the Bitcoin blockchain see: ASCII art.
        z

        ^
        |    *------*
        |   /|      /
        |  / |     /|
top -------*------* |
        |  | *----|-*
        |  |/     | /
        |  |      |/
bottom ----*------*
        |  |      |
        +--|------|-----> y
       /   |      |
      /    |      |
  x  /     |      |
    v
          left   right
Code 1.
3D cube plot ASCII art by Ciro Santilli (2021)
bbchallenge.org/story#what-is-known-about-bb lists some (all?) cool examples,
wiki.bbchallenge.org/wiki/Cryptids contains a larger list. In June 2024 it was discovered that BB(6) is hard.
These can be viewed at bitcoinstrings.com/blk00052.txt and are mostly commented on the "Wikileaks cablegate data" section of Hidden surprises in the Bitcoin blockchain by Ken Shirriff (2014).
Soon after block 229991 uploaded the Satoshi uploader, several interesting files were added to the blockchain using the uploader, and notably some containing content that might be illegal in certain countries, as a test to see if this type of content would make the Bitcoin blockchain illegal or not:
So basically, this was the first obviously illegal block attempt.
None of this content is particularly eye-popping for Ciro Santilli's slightly crazy freedom of speech standards, and as of 2021, the Bitcoin blockchain likely hasn't become illegal anywhere yet due to freedom of speech concerns.
Furthermore, it is likely much easier to find much worse illegal content by browsing any uncensored Onion service search engine for 2 minutes.
Ciro Santilli estimates that perhaps the uploader didn't upload child pornography, which is basically the apex of illegality of this era, because they were afraid that their identities would one day be found.
Bibliography:

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