Google Docs by Ciro Santilli 34 Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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Knol by Ciro Santilli 34 Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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Very similar to OurBigBook.com!
People who worked on it:
Video 1.
How to use Google Knol by Hack Learning (2011)
Source. One of the last users of the website for sure! The owner of that YouTube channel is a Mark Barnes:
Video 2.
Jimmy Wales on Google's Knol (2008)
Source.
Replying to a listener phone-in question WNYC radio, mediated by Brian Lehrer.
It was about to launch it seems, and it was not clear at the time that anyone could write content, as opposed to only selected people.
Jimmy then corrects that misinformation. He then clearly states that since there can be multiple versions of each article, including opinion pieces, like OurBigBook.com, Knol would be very different to Wikipedia, more like blogging than encyclopedia.
Video 3.
Google Knol: the future of academic journals? by Doug Belshaw (2010)
Source.
Bibliography:
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Organise the world's information by Ciro Santilli 34 Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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E.g. about.google/ in 2022.
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SourceForge by Ciro Santilli 34 Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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Sallie (FutureAI) by Ciro Santilli 34 Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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Not having a manipulator claw is a major issue with this one.
But they also have a co-simulation focus, which is a bit of a win.
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Financial crisis of 2007-2008 by Ciro Santilli 34 Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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High-frequency trading by Ciro Santilli 34 Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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Video 1.
High Frequency Trading by WEED e.V. (2014)
Source.
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There are no known eukaryotes which never had mitochondria by Ciro Santilli 34 Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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As of 2020, there are no known eukaryotes which have never had mitochondria.
Known eukaryotes without mitochondria, which are very rare, have lost mitochondria they previously had.
Having mitochondria appears to be a requisite for being an eukaryote. This is one of the central thesis of Power, Sex, Suicide by Nick Lane (2006).
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Generate the example by Ciro Santilli 34 Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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Let's break down a minimal runnable Linux x86-64 example:
hello_world.asm
section .data
    hello_world db "Hello world!", 10
    hello_world_len  equ $ - hello_world
section .text
    global _start
    _start:
        mov rax, 1
        mov rdi, 1
        mov rsi, hello_world
        mov rdx, hello_world_len
        syscall
        mov rax, 60
        mov rdi, 0
        syscall
Compiled with:
nasm -w+all -f elf64 -o 'hello_world.o' 'hello_world.asm'
ld -o 'hello_world.out' 'hello_world.o'
TODO: use a minimal linker script with -T to be more precise and minimal.
Versions:
  • NASM 2.10.09
  • Binutils version 2.24 (contains ld)
  • Ubuntu 14.04
We don't use a C program as that would complicate the analysis, that will be level 2 :-)
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ELF header by Ciro Santilli 34 Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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Running:
readelf -h hello_world.o
outputs:
Magic:   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: 3
Running:
readelf -h hello_world.out
outputs:
Magic:   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: 3
Bytes 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 = 8x 00: reserved bytes. Must be set to 0.
  • 1 0: e_type = 01 00 = 1 (big endian) = ET_REl: relocatable format
    On the executable it is 02 00 for ET_EXEC.
    Another important possibility for the executable is ET_DYN for PIE executables and shared libraries.
    ET_DYN tells 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 = 8x 00: execution address entry point, or 0 if not applicable like for the object file since there is no entry point.
    On the executable, it is b0 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
  • 2 0: e_phoff = 8x 00: program header table offset, 0 if not present.
    40 00 00 00 on the executable, i.e. it starts immediately after the ELF header.
  • 2 8: e_shoff = 40 7x 00 = 0x40: section header table file offset, 0 if not present.
  • 3 0: e_flags = 00 00 00 00 Arch specific. i386 docs say:
    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?
  • 3 6: e_phentsize = 00 00: size of each program header, 0 if not present.
    38 00 on executable: it is 56 bytes long
  • 3 8: e_phnum = 00 00: number of program header entries, 0 if not present.
    02 00 on executable: there are 2 entries.
  • 3 A: e_shentsize and e_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 .shstrtab section.
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Organization developing electron on helium quantum computer by Ciro Santilli 34 Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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Yanis Varoufakis by Ciro Santilli 34 Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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He beats the The European Union is a failure drum pretty well.
Video 1.
Political Economy: The Social Sciences Red Pill by Yanis Varoufakis (2016)
Source.
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Knuth reward check by Ciro Santilli 34 Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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N-V center quantum computer by Ciro Santilli 34 Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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ecash by Ciro Santilli 34 Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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Prayer wars by Ciro Santilli 34 Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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These are some of the earliest inscriptions in the blockchain, and therefore extremelly visible.
Although the prayer verses appear contiguous in ASCII dumps, Eligius was not actually mining every block: it is just that in those early days, miners still hadn't started adding advertisement messages to every block, so only Eligius shows up and appears contiguous.
At some point, opponents noticed these messages, and started adding atheist mockery graffiti replies, which appear interspersed in ASCII dumps with the prayer.
The first prayer is the Latin version of the Divine Praises, a Catholic prayer composed in 1797 in Italian by Luigi Felici for the purpose of making reparation after saying or hearing sacrilege or blasphemy. Luke claims he was referring to anything in particular that came prior in the blockchain: twitter.com/LukeDashjr/status/1749182637569122434. There arent many earlier inscriptions at all to refer to in any case! The prayer and correspondong interrupts (in transaction outputs, not by other miners) ordered by block are:
  • 139690 (2011-08-05) prayer: "Eligius/Benedictus Deus. Benedictum Nomen Sanctum eius."
  • 139717 prayer: "Eligius/Benedictus Deus. Benedictum Nomen Sanctum eius.'
  • 139758 interruption: ***************************************************. This is not a Coinbase message: www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/23befff6eea3dded0e34574af65c266c9398e7d7d9d07022bf1cd526c5cdbc94. This Bitcoin input script appears to spend a standard P2PKH output, but it first adds an extra value to the stack which contains the ***.
  • 139792 prayer: "Benedictus Iesus Christus, verus Deus et verus homo.'
  • 139831 prayer: "Benedictum Nomen Iesu.'
  • 139838 (2011-08-06) interruption: "I LIKE TURTLES" (tx 78eb16507b3d3df615e3b474e853db4667f4b11954ec6d918b1ded0fca7ad25a)
  • 138898 prayer: "Benedictum Cor eius sacratissimum."
  • 139904 prayer: "Benedictus Sanguis eius pretiosissimus."
  • 139921 prayer: "Benedictus Iesus in sanctissimo altaris Sacramento."
  • 139942 prayer: "Benedictus Sanctus Spiritus, Paraclitus."
  • 139954 interrupion: "aC-C-C-COMBO BREAKER" (tx 138c024a76df99ecafd2236d5429cf574b7778a3c6508bd83f116c832f3c6980)
  • 139960 prayer: "Benedictus Sanctus Spiritus, Paraclitus."
  • 139977 prayer: "Benedicta excelsa Mater Dei, Maria sanctissima."
  • 139990 (2011-08-06) prayer: "Benedicta sancta eius et immaculata Conceptio."
Then comes:
and various others + output message interruptions.
Then at last come the first miner message interruptions. Luke explained on Twitter[ref] that they were also made by Eligius pool, as there was a system in which contributors besides Luke could submit their own strings:
  • 142547: (2011-08-25) tx 8e1e44a48b5e79636675d1476f8e4add075bbeb7f49e00ec743eed56f17feaaa A yandere game is starting in 60 seconds! Please type "]yandere" to join. Yandere Simulator comes to mind, but it can't be because that was pitched 2014.
  • 142550: "A yandere game is starting in 60 seconds! Please type "]yandere" to join."
  • 142573: (2011-08-25) "Militant atheists, bit.ly/naNhG2 -- happy now?". A Rickrolling link. Perhaps one of the fist.
  • 142596: (2011-08-25) "<cjdelisle> ran out of prayers?! That explains the price drop.". Possibly quoting this dude on som twitter.com/cjdelisle Bitcoin IRC channel givesn the <USERNAME> format?
  • 142640: "an de ti go su by ra me ni ko hu vy la po fy ton": Tonal system numerals. Interesting.
followed by more prayers and interruptions such as tx ec92d245822fa1ff862f3314b9102f36fe1eb8bc055865674c75323540aedef6:
FFS Luke-Jr leave the blockchain alone!
Oh, and God isn't real
The last Luke prayer appears to be on block 143822 (2011-09-03)
... the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth labourers into his harvest.
Then there is a bit of radio silence, until finally Slush Pool started self advertising for the first time on block 163970 (2012-01-26):
/P2SH/BIP16/slush/R,
They had been mining for a long time by then (December 2010 according to en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Slush_Pool), but this is when they decided to add a human readable ASCII message as well.
From then on, miner messages would be forever polluted with ads, and Luke's multi-miner message feat would never again be reproduced.
The non-obvious interruptions are all well known memes/anime references:
Bibliography:
  • 2011-08-19 bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=38007.0 "Eligius miners aware of prayers in block headers?" from on bitcointalk.org by user "Graet" who quotes prior discussion from a Bitcoin IRC channel:
    <luke-jr> cosurgi: by design, it contains "random" data-- I've just been setting some of that "random" data to prayers
    <Graet> mm interesting luke-jr i understand you are strong in your faith but you dont think putting prayers in might alienate some ppl - after all btc is multidenominational
    <luke-jr> Graet: Catholics do not believe in freedom of religion.
    <Graet> and you make your non catholic miners aware of this?
  • 2011-11-2 bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52979.0 "Mysterious transaction spotted in blockchain!"
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Len Sassaman tribute by Ciro Santilli 34 Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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Tribute to computer security researcher Len Sassaman, who killed himself on 2011-07-03, starting with an ASCII art portrait followed by text.
Because it comes so early in the blockchain, and because it is the first ASCII art on the blochain as far as we can see, and because is so well done, this is by far the most visible ASCII art of the Bitcoin blockchain.
Transaction: www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/930a2114cdaa86e1fac46d15c74e81c09eee1d4150ff9d48e76cb0697d8e1d72 from 2011-07-30, a few weeks after the suicide.
Created by famous computer security researcher Dan Kaminsky and Travis Goodspeed, presumably this other security researcher, evidence:
"Bernanke" is a reference to Ben Bernanke, who was one of the economists in power in the US Government during the financial crisis of 2007-2008, and much criticized by some, as shown for example in the documentary Inside Job (2010). As hinted in the Genesis block message, the United States Government bailed out many big banks that were going to go bankrupt with taxpayer money, even though it was precisly those banks that had started the crisis through their reckless investment, thus violating principles of the free market and business accountability. This was one of the motivations for the creation Bitcoin, which could reduce government power over economic policy.
It is worth mentioning that there do exist some slightly earlier "artistic" inscriptions in the form Punycode inscription in the Namecoin blockchain, but as far as we've seen, the are all trivial compared to BitLen in terms of artistic value/size.
---BEGIN TRIBUTE---
#./BitLen
:::::::::::::::::::
:::::::.::.::.:.:::
:.: :.' ' ' ' ' : :
:.:'' ,,xiW,"4x, ''
:  ,dWWWXXXXi,4WX,
' dWWWXXX7"     `X,
 lWWWXX7   __   _ X
:WWWXX7 ,xXX7' "^^X
lWWWX7, _.+,, _.+.,
:WWW7,. `^"-" ,^-'
 WW",X:        X,
 "7^^Xl.    _(_x7'
 l ( :X:       __ _
 `. " XX  ,xxWWWWX7
  )X- "" 4X" .___.
,W X     :Xi  _,,_
WW X      4XiyXWWXd
"" ,,      4XWWWWXX
, R7X,       "^447^
R, "4RXk,      _, ,
TWk  "4RXXi,   X',x
lTWk,  "4RRR7' 4 XH
:lWWWk,  ^"     `4
::TTXWWi,_  Xll :..
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
LEN "rabbi" SASSAMA
     1980-2011
Len was our friend.
A brilliant mind,
a kind soul, and
a devious schemer;
husband to Meredith
brother to Calvin,
son to Jim and
Dana Hartshorn,
coauthor and
cofounder and
Shmoo and so much
more.  We dedicate
this silly hack to
Len, who would have
found it absolutely
hilarious.
--Dan Kaminsky,
Travis Goodspeed
P.S.  My apologies,
BitCoin people.  He
also would have
LOL'd at BitCoin's
new dependency upon
   ASCII BERNANKE
:'::.:::::.:::.::.:
: :.: ' ' ' ' : :':
:.:     _.__    '.:
:   _,^"   "^x,   :
'  x7'        `4,
 XX7            4XX
 XX              XX
 Xl ,xxx,   ,xxx,XX
( ' _,+o, | ,o+,"
 4   "-^' X "^-'" 7
 l,     ( ))     ,X
 :Xx,_ ,xXXXxx,_,XX
  4XXiX'-___-`XXXX'
   4XXi,_   _iXX7'
  , `4XXXXXXXXX^ _,
  Xx,  ""^^^XX7,xX
W,"4WWx,_ _,XxWWX7'
Xwi, "4WW7""4WW7',W
TXXWw, ^7 Xk 47 ,WH
:TXXXWw,_ "), ,wWT:
::TTXXWWW lXl WWT:
----END TRIBUTE----
Code 1.
Len Sassaman tribute
.
Figure 1.
Len Sassaman (2010)
Source. Reference image from Wikipedia for the ASCII art.
Figure 2.
Official portrait of Ben Bernanke (2008)
Source. Reference image from Wikipedia for the ASCII art.
Video 1.
Black OPS of TCP/IP by Dan Kaminsky (2011)
Source. Presented at the BlackHat 2011 conference. Dan unveils the Len memorial at the given timestamp around 8:41. The presentation was done on 2011-08-03 or 04, so very few days after the upload to the blockchain.
From the JSON transaction we understand the encoding format:
   "out":[
      {
         "spent":false,
         "tx_index":0,
         "type":0,
         "addr":"1CqKQ2EqUscMkeYRFMmgepNGtfKynXzKW7",
         "value":1000000,
         "n":0,
         "script":"76a91481ccb4ee682bc1da3bda70176b7ccc616a6ba9da88ac"
      },
      {
         "spent":false,
         "tx_index":0,
         "type":0,
         "addr":"157sXa7duStAvq3dPLWe7J449sgh47eHzw",
         "value":1000000,
         "n":1,
         "script":"76a9142d2d2d424547494e20545249425554452d2d2d2088ac"
      },
...
      {
         "spent":false,
         "tx_index":0,
         "type":0,
         "addr":"157sXYpjvAyEJ6TdVFaVzmoETAQnHB6FGU",
         "value":1000000,
         "n":77,
         "script":"76a9142d2d2d2d454e4420545249425554452d2d2d2d2088ac"
      }
So it is really encoded one line at a time in the script of the transaction outputs.
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AlphaFold by Ciro Santilli 34 Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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Clear client-side storage by Ciro Santilli 34 Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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Adenosine triphosphate by Ciro Santilli 34 Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 1970-01-01
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The fact that ATP is the universal energy storage mollecule of all life on Earth is such an incredible unifying principle of biology!
It is the direct output of all the major forms of "energy generation" in cells: ATP synthesis mechanism.
It is just as fundamental as the genetic code for example.
No wonder dozens of Nobel Prizes were related to its discovery, given its complexity.
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