These programs assist in generating, analysing, archiving, protecting, and monitoring addresses on the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains. They do not require you run a local node or maintain a copy of the blockchain, and all security-related functions may be performed on an "air-gapped" machine with no connection to the Internet or any other computer.
Blockchain Address Generator creates address and private key pairs for both the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains, supporting a variety of random generators, address types, and output formats.
Multiple Key Manager allows you to split the secret keys associated with addresses into n multiple parts, from which any k ≤ n can be used to reconstruct the original key, allowing a variety of secure custodial strategies.
Paper Wallet Utilities includes a Paper Wallet Generator which transforms a list of addresses and private keys generated by the Blockchain Address Generator or parts of keys produced by the Multiple Key Manager into a HTML file which may be printed for off-line "cold storage", and a Cold Storage Wallet Validator that provides independent verification of the correctness of off-line copies of addresses and keys.
Cold Storage Monitor connects to free blockchain query services to allow periodic monitoring of a list of cold storage addresses to detect unauthorised transactions which may indicate they have been compromised.
This collection of tools allows various kinds of monitoring and analysis of the Bitcoin blockchain. They do not support Ethereum. These programs are intended for advanced, technically-oriented users who run their own full Bitcoin Core node on a local computer. Note that anybody can run a Bitcoin node as long as they have a computer with the modest CPU and memory capacity required, plus the very large (and inexorably growing) file storage capacity to archive the entire Bitcoin blockchain. You can run a Bitcoin node without being a "miner", nor need you expose your computer to external accesses from other nodes unless you so wish.
These tools are all read-only monitoring and analysis utilities. They do not generate transactions of any kind, nor do they require unlocked access to the node owner's wallet.
Address Watch monitors the Bitcoin blockchain and reports any transactions which reference addresses on a "watch list", either deposits to the address or spending of funds from it. The program may also be used to watch activity on the blockchain, reporting statistics on blocks as they are mined and published.
Confirmation Watch examines blocks as they are mined and reports confirmations for a transaction as they arrive.
Transaction Fee Watch analyses the transaction fees paid to include transactions in blocks and the reward to miners and produces real-time statistics and log files which may be used to analyse transaction fees over time.
You can download the complete source code distribution, including ready-to-run versions of all of the programs, from the Fourmilab Blockchain Tools home page.
All of this software is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.
Please see the
Fourmilab Blockchain Tools User Guide [PDF]
for details or read the
complete source code [PDF] in Perl and Python written using the
Literate Programming methodology with the nuweb
system.
File with rogue's gallery: ~`#$&*()\|[]{};"'''<>?!In addition, Flashback can be configured to use a variety of file compression utilities such as gzip, bzip2, and xz, automatically back up to removable media such as USB drives when inserted, and mirror backups on remote systems with scp. ]]>
$ unum utf8=0xE298A2 Octal Decimal Hex HTML Character Unicode 023042 9762 0x2622 ☢ "☢" RADIOACTIVE SIGNA new
--utf8
option displays the UTF-8 encoding of characters as a hexadecimal byte stream:
$ unum --utf8 h=sum Octal Decimal Hex HTML UTF-8 Character Unicode 021021 8721 0x2211 ∑,∑ 0xE28891 "∑" N-ARY SUMMATIONUNUM Documentation and Download Page]]>
What would we expect to see if we inhabited a simulation? Well, there would probably be a discrete time step and granularity in position fixed by the time and position resolution of the simulation—check, and check: the Planck time and distance appear to behave this way in our universe. There would probably be an absolute speed limit to constrain the extent we could directly explore and impose a locality constraint on propagating updates throughout the simulation—check: speed of light. There would be a limit on the extent of the universe we could observe—check: the Hubble radius is an absolute horizon we cannot penetrate, and the last scattering surface of the cosmic background radiation limits electromagnetic observation to a still smaller radius. There would be a limit on the accuracy of physical measurements due to the finite precision of the computation in the simulation—check: Heisenberg uncertainty principle—and, as in games, randomness would be used as a fudge when precision limits were hit—check: quantum mechanics.Indeed, these curious physical phenomena begin to look precisely like the kinds of optimisations game and simulation designers employ to cope with the limited computer power at their disposal. The author notes, “Quantum Indeterminacy, a fundamental principle of the material world, sounds remarkably similar to optimizations made in the world of computer graphics and video games, which are rendered on individual machines (computers or mobile phones) but which have conscious players controlling and observing the action.” One of the key tricks in complex video games is “conditional rendering”: you don't generate the images or worry about the physics of objects which the player can't see from their current location. This is remarkably like quantum mechanics, where the act of observation reduces the state vector to a discrete measurement and collapses its complex extent in space and time into a known value. In video games, you only need to evaluate when somebody's looking. Quantum mechanics is largely encapsulated in the tweet by Aatish Bhatia, “Don't look: waves. Look: particles.” It seems our universe works the same way. Curious, isn't it? Similarly, games and simulations exploit discreteness and locality to reduce the amount of computation they must perform. The world is approximated by a grid, and actions in one place can only affect neighbours and propagate at a limited speed. This is precisely what we see in field theories and relativity, where actions are local and no influence can propagate faster than the speed of light. The unexplained. Many esoteric and mystic traditions, especially those of the East such as Hinduism and Buddhism, describe the world as something like a dream, in which we act and our actions affect our permanent identity in subsequent lives. Western traditions, including the Abrahamic religions, see life in this world as a temporary thing, where our acts will be judged by a God who is outside the world. These beliefs come naturally to humans, and while there is little or no evidence for them in conventional science, it is safe to say that far more people believe and have believed these things and have structured their lives accordingly than those who have adopted the strictly rationalistic viewpoint one might deduce from deterministic, reductionist science. And yet, once again, in video games we see the emergence of a model which is entirely compatible with these ancient traditions. Characters live multiple lives, and their actions in the game cause changes in a state (“karma”) which is recorded outside the game and affects what they can do. They complete quests, which affect their karma and capabilities, and upon completing a quest, they may graduate (be reincarnated) into a new life (level), in which they retain their karma from previous lives. Just as players who exist outside the game can affect events and characters within it, various traditions describe actors outside the natural universe (hence “supernatural”) such as gods, angels, demons, and spirits of the departed, interacting with people within the universe and occasionally causing physical manifestations (miracles, apparitions, hauntings, UFOs, etc.). And perhaps the simulation hypothesis can even explain absence of evidence: the sky in a video game may contain a multitude of stars and galaxies, but that doesn't mean each is populated by its own video game universe filled with characters playing the same game. No, it's just scenery, there to be admired but with which you can't interact. Maybe that's why we've never detected signals from an alien civilisation: the stars are just procedurally generated scenery to make our telescopic views more interesting. The author concludes with a summary of the evidence we may be living in a simulation and the objection of sceptics (such that a computer as large and complicated as the universe would be required to simulate a universe). He suggests experiments which might detect the granularity of the simulation and provide concrete evidence the universe is not the continuum most of science has assumed it to be. A final chapter presents speculations as to who might be running the simulation, what their motives might be for doing so, and the nature of beings within the simulation. I'm cautious of delusions of grandeur in making such guesses. I'll bet we're a science fair project, and I'll further bet that within a century we'll be creating a multitude of simulated universes for our own science fair projects.
Winner:Runners up:
- The Powers of the Earth and Causes of Separation by Travis J. I. Corcoran
I am jointly choosing these two novels as fiction books of the year. They are the first two volumes of the Aristillus series and may be read as one long story spanning two books.
- The Code Hunters by Jackson Coppley
- The Dawn of the Iron Dragon and The Voyage of the Iron Dragon by Robert Kroese
- Delta-v by Daniel Suarez
- Pirates of the Electromagnetic Waves, Five Million Watts, and The Tower of the Bear by Fenton Wood
Winner:]]>Runners up:
- Stalin, Vol. 2: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 by Stephen Kotkin
- At Our Wits' End by Edward Dutton and Michael A. Woodley of Menie
- Sunburst and Luminary by Don Eyles
- Churchill: Walking with Destiny by Andrew Roberts
- Billion Dollar Whale by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope