Wyoming, US
I am sitting under a tree in the backyard of an Airbnb in Sheridan, enjoying the sound of several birds and occasionally of bugs. The weather is great now, not too hot in the daytime, and a bit cool at night.
This week, we drove across Yellowstone park from Montana to Wyoming. We stayed in a small lovely county called Sheridan. It was easy to encounter squirrels, rabbits, and deer. They showed up in our yard every day. I took many videos of those cutiepies.
Each family here seems to have two dogs, and dogs were barking when I passed by their houses. I even saw a cute sign on a house’s lawn saying, “Husky Strong.”
Life is too short for not having spare time in your backyard, with a cup of good coffee.
Hacks
Ethereum
I tried the Ethereum client, Lighthouse, and was a validator on the Goerli Testnet for a couple hours. The Lighthouse documentation is clearly written, and I can follow it effortlessly. The log:
The Eth2.0 spec is too complicated for me. I don’t think I understand it. I then read some Eth 2.0 staking posts, such as
- Eth 2.0 staking;
- Eth 2.0 Economics;
- Examining the Proposed Validator Economics of Ethereum 2.0;
- 8 Things Every Eth2 Validator Should Know Before Staking.
But those posts didn’t seem to inspire me to be a validator on Ethereum with requirements such as
- 32 ETH per validator;
- 24 hours online;
- Validators might need a powerful CPU and storage;
- Validators can expect 4.6% – 10.3% in annualized rewards. The number is likely to be changed because of the evolving Eth2.0 spec;
- Validators might be punished and lose the staking ETH if not validating properly.
Rust
Single Page Applications using Rust.
This is a nice tutorial about building a web page with Rust. The example compiles Rust to WASM and uses Yew for building UI components. It worked for me as I followed half of its content. However, for a simple web project, I think Rust on the backend, a little JavaScript, and HTML should be good enough.
Mozilla’s layoff brought out huge discussions on Twitter and blog posts. Everybody is blaming Mozilla. Some expressed their understanding of the needs of a business. Some analyzed relationships between the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation.
The most important topics that developers care about: the Servo browser engine, the Rust team and the Rust programming language.
It was a sad week for Mozilla.
Smart Contract Security
I have been worried about the security of Solidity smart contracts since I hacked on BigAnnouncement.eth, even though our code is extremely simple, which makes it less bug-prone.
I am reading a paper, Security checklists for Ethereum smart contract development, and I’ll do some tests and exercises on OpenZeppelin to better understand secure smart contract development.
Meanwhile, I am still skeptical of other Solidity smart contracts. The language isn’t designed rigorously, and I sometimes program badly.
I hope soon people can write smart contracts in Rust instead of Solidity on Ethereum.
Readings and Notes
- Write your Own Virtual Machine
- Write your Own Proof-of-Work Blockchain
- How to read a code
- Why You Win or Lose: The Psychology of Speculation by Fred C. Kelly. This is the book notes.
- Video: The Craft of Writing Effectively
The function of a piece of writing is to move a research area forward, not to be preserved for 500 years.
Writing is not about to express what is in our head, it is about changing other people’s thoughts. Nobody cares about the ideas you have.
Bad writing style: backgroud + thesis and a better style: problem + solution.
Writing needs to be persuasive, organized.
The most important: writing needs to be valuable. It is readers who value it.