Jess and I met Ribbia on Friday. I’m sad we forgot to get a pic of all three of us, but Ribbia and I got to catch up during a swim.

Today Jess and I are enjoying beaches Noarlunga and Willunga

I talked to a woman who swam in a perfect circle in the water.

Amazingly, Jess recognized her as Queenie, who attended Jess' first talk at Goodness Me Festival!

(posted 12:12 Tuesday 04 February 2025 ACDT)

The Cost of a 51% Attack on Dogecoin (parody)

Why Do They Recommend 6 Confirmations for Dogecoin Transactions?

The recommendation for six confirmations in Dogecoin (and many other cryptocurrencies) is a security measure to ensure that a transaction is irreversible and secure from blockchain reorganization attacks. Here’s what happens during those six confirmations:

1. Transaction Broadcast

• When you send a Dogecoin transaction, it is first broadcast to the network.
• Miners pick it up and attempt to include it in the next block.

2. First Confirmation (Mined in a Block)

• The transaction gets included in a newly mined block.
• At this point, the transaction has one confirmation, meaning it is officially recorded on the blockchain.
• However, this block could still be replaced if another miner finds a competing block with a longer valid chain.

3-6 Confirmations (Further Blocks Built on Top)

• Each additional block added to the chain after the block containing your transaction increases security.
• A deeper transaction (buried under more blocks) is less likely to be reversed due to the cost of performing a 51% attack (reorganizing the chain).

Why Six Confirmations?

• Dogecoin has a 1-minute block time, so six confirmations typically take about 6 minutes.
• The reason for waiting for six blocks is to guard against blockchain reorganizations (where an attacker could try to rewrite history by mining an alternate chain).
• By the time six blocks have been added, an attacker would need significant computational power (over 51% of total network hash rate) to rewrite those blocks.

How Many Pentium Computers Would I Need to Take 51% of the Network?

Current Dogecoin Network Hashrate

• Dogecoin’s network hashrate is ~1.99 PH/s (peta hashes per second).
• 51% of 1.99 PH/s = 1.015 PH/s.

Hashrate of a Pentium CPU

• Pentium Gold G5400 CPU @ 3.70GHz: ~1,249 H/s (hashes per second).

Number of CPUs Needed

• 1 PH/s = 1,000,000,000,000 H/s
• 1.015 PH/s = 1,015,000,000,000 H/s
• Required CPUs: 1,015,000,000,000 ÷ 1,249 ≈ 812,650,520 CPUs

Physical Space Required

Each CPU setup (including cooling, PSU, and networking) requires ~0.2 m².

• Total Space Needed: 812,650,520 × 0.2 m² = 162,530,104 m²
• Converted to acres: 40,168 acres (~63 square miles)
• Comparable to: 1.5× San Francisco or Disney World

Power Consumption & Costs

• Each Pentium CPU setup consumes ~150W
• Total Power Consumption: 812,650,520 × 150W = 121.9 GW
• Electricity Costs (@$0.10/kWh):
  • Daily: $292.5 million
  • Yearly: $107 billion

Using ASIC Miners Instead

Instead of CPUs, let’s use Bitmain Antminer L9 (16 GH/s, 3,360W).

• ASIC Miners Needed: 63,438 units
• Total Power Consumption: 213.17 MW
• Physical Space Required: ~1.57 acres
• Electricity Cost: $186.7 million/year
• Hardware Cost: $634.38 million

Comparison (Pentium vs. ASICs)

How Many Girl Scout Cookies Would We Need to Sell?

Total Cost to Launch Attack: $921.08 million

• Profit per box: $4.00
• Boxes Needed: 230 million boxes
• Annual Girl Scout Sales: ~60 million boxes
• We’d need 3+ years of total cookie sales

Final Thoughts

• Attacking Dogecoin is nearly impossible.
• You’d need a land area larger than Disneyland for Pentium CPUs.
• Even with ASICs, it’s a multi-billion dollar effort.
• Unless you can mobilize every Girl Scout in America for years, it’s not happening! 😂

Notes

• This analysis was done by ChatGPT —I just asked the questions!
• All calculations and estimates were handled by AI.
• This was a fun exercise in understanding crypto security, mining costs, and logistics.

Great Cacao Ceremony today during which I was inspired to look into running a Cuddle Party event here in OZ.

31. The Lower World

THE ESSENCE

The lower world holds the hidden treasures of humanity. It is a place of rich and fruitful darkness where we can find the disowned parts of ourselves and the abandoned aspects of our psyches. The lower world is the place of our ancestors, where we discover the gifts and lessons from the past; it is the realm of the collective unconscious. Here we can meet our demons and transform them into pure energy, our source of personal power.

THE INVITATION

It is time to unearth your hidden treasures. Do not make yourself small in order for others to like or accept you. Bring out the gems and precious stones that you have kept inside your heart, hidden even from yourself. It’s time to honor your past and recast your life as a heroic quest. As you journey into the lower world, you will be offered all the gifts of your ancestors. Their struggles –the way they hurt, the way they lived, and the way they died– will become blessings.

THE MEDICINE

Are you one of those people who do not like to face the past? Now your past is calling to be acknowledged, to be heard, and to be embraced. The only way to become unstuck is to honor everything that has transpired in your life, reflect on the lessons learned, and move on. If you bear witness to your past and learn its lessons, it will stop haunting you. As you embrace its gifts, you will recover a missing part of your soul.

I sent it to JH, JP, MK, and ミ

Thank you to MK for initial feedback:

Just got started reading ‘I’m Fine’—the table of contents is impressive.  Wow!  Looks like it’s going to be an amazing book.  I know you want big stuff, Rob—and I’ll get to that in time—but I couldn’t help but notice you’re editing quite frequently, so please consider my sometimes nit picky stuff.

Thank you to JP for initial disclaimer:

Hello Rob,

I started reading your book and I decided I needed to let you know of some things about me that will impact my review.

First, I used to work in journalism and was an editor for a while. This instilled in me an approach of being overly critical.

Second, all my comments are intended to help you. I love what I have read so far and I think your ideas are right on the mark. I can absolutely relate to what you are saying. You are definitely on the right track; what I am seeing so far is some clean-up and reorganization may be needed, but that's all.

I wanted you to know this because I didn't want you to misinterpret my comments. Obviously, please feel free to ignore anything I will say - it is your book and I am just providing my thoughts on it, which may be totally misguided.

Special thanks to Ruri for driving us to Granges Beach today!

Special thanks to the beautiful weather and the gentle waves.

Thank you God for beautiful day and experience.

Max is Sophie and Nick’s black toy poodle(?) who Jess and I are sitting for two nights. We went for a quite short walk only about 1 house away from home; he didn’t seem interested in going further.

“Um, excuse me; I just wanted to double check if this is apple tea, because it tastes like green tea.”

“Oh, it’s not apple tea, it’s Apple Tea brand green tea.”

🫨