How to be successful? Of course, all you need to do is get up earlier, purr more often and carry more weight. However, there are people who decide to take a different path - that of fraud. Today I will tell a short story about how Microsoft finished off its competitor, Digital Research.

CP / M

I think that each of you has heard about MS-DOS, which is commonly called DOS. However, as much as this system was popular in Poland, it was not the only system from this family. We also had PC-DOS (which was actually MS-DOS, but developed by IBM) or the above-mentioned DR-DOS (FreeDOS appeared later, but it's also in this family of systems).

DR-DOS is an operating system created by Digital Research. It was created as a successor to another system - CP / M. IBM could not get along with DR, so they signed a contract to supply software from Microsoft. Microsoft decided to buy another operating system - 86-DOS and develop it for IBM's hardware. The similarities of MS and IBM's system to CP/M were so huge that DR wanted to sue these companies for copying their product. As compensation, IBM allowed Digital Research to sell the system alongside PC-DOS (IBM had the right not to use the MS-DOS name). However, IBM's and Microsoft's operating system was much cheaper than its counterpart which meant that CP/M began to be squeezed out of the market.

Digital Research's product was not fully compatible with IBM's, an initial plus began to turn into a minus as PC-DOS began to rule the personal computer market. Even later attempts to improve CP/M could not tip the balance. Simply put, DR systems were too expensive and IBM and Microsoft began to set the trends.

DR-DOS

However, DR rolled up their sleeves and went into battle. The first thing they did, besides achieving compatibility with Microsoft's product, was to significantly lower the price and start introducing newer and newer features to the system - such as HMA support, allowing the system to handle more RAM than 640KB, and file compression. From now on, it was up to Microsoft to make newer and newer changes to keep up with DR-DOS, and they had to cut prices. Customers (and especially computer makers) were so interested in DR's product that they started offering DR's products widely.

If you're going to kill someone there isn't much reason to get all worked up about it and angry. Any discussions beforehand are a waste of time. We need to smile at Novell while we pull the trigger.

When a user ran Windows 3.1 Beta on his computer using DR-DOS he was horrified when the system informed him of a "non-fatal error". Every run of Windows or certain programs reported the problem.

This is a feature added at the request of Bill Gates. The message you see here is not a "real" error. Code was added in various parts of the operating system that detected what system it was running on and displayed the message. Of course, DR-DOS handled these programs without a problem and everything worked perfectly despite the error message. However, users of the system seeing such messages, according to the vice president of Microsoft - "(...) to do is feel uncomfortable, and when he has bugs, suspect that the problem is DR-DOS and then go out to buy MS-DOS".

In the final version of Windows 3.1, the code was disabled, but you could easily enable it by changing 1 byte, and rumours of DR-DOS malfunctioning spread around the world. Not even a patch to pass the "sieve" of AARD

Caldera

DR-DOS was sold to Novell and eventually went to Calder. The first thing the company did when it bought DR-DOS (later Novell DOS) was to file a monopoly case against Microsoft for, among other things, AARD code and "bundling" Windows 95 with MS-DOS (Win95 was a DOS overlay, but installed Microsoft DOS by default, even though DR-DOS could very well have acted as a "shim"). We know from leaks in 2009 that Microsoft paid Caldera $280 million for his practices.

Sources:
- CP/M image Wikipedia, from Digital Research website under PD license.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M#/media/File:CPM-86.png

- Photo Novell DOS, Wikipedia, Ghettoblaster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DeviceLogics_DR-DOS_8.0_720x400.png

- Photo of AARD from Wikipedia, from Betawiki under CC-BY-SA 4.0 license
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Windows_3.10.068_setup_AARD_code.png

- History of MS-DOS (Coleslav) [PL]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq5qKRAMpLw

- Windows' Hidden Self Destruct Code (Nostalgia Nerd)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIfNIWn2Ad4

Do you know what censorship is?

In Poland, on 31 Jan during the weather forecast, a weather presenter on public television put a sticker promoting a charity which buys equipment for children's treatment.

Unfortunately, this charity is not supported by the government (Because the creator supported women's protest, supporting the abortion of seriously ill babies).

The presenter was fired and the material was removed from the website.

Link to verify:

poznan.tvp.pl/1780092/pogoda

In general, I have been working on Bitblog for some time now, which is a kind of competition for Zapread (but also not entirely, so I am counting on cooperation between projects). For now it is still a very early phase.

Such a description of various curiosities.

1) Iframe + logout ...

According to the conversations with @fwtf I had to set X Frame-Options to Deny. And if it makes it impossible to display the page in Iframe, it's done. Very strange, because I would expect full blocking ... On the other hand, can a browser know how a given page is configured without entering it?

2) Markdown proposal

Markdown has cool features that ordinary HTML code does not have. It is usually a safer form, but it also takes less disk space (and in decentralised systems this is important information). I don't know if Markdown will be available, but tests are ongoing and there is an editor (add_articles2.php). Unfortunately I'm not good at Javascript and configuration of this editor ... but it works quite well for now (but it would be useful to throw away HTML completely).

Eh, and Fervi is spoiling again ;) Well, it seems to me that we need to approach the issue of social networks on Bitcoin differently. There are different social networks and none of them are excluded (Twitter is not a competition for Facebook or Instagram) and so BitBlog will not be a competition for Zapread, but a complement.

People want to join groups, so we use Discords or Zapread (although I'm not very active doesn't mean I'm not there :D). We want to be part of something!

My plan is this. Creating a simple system to create posts (like a blog). Thanks to its openness the system can even be decentralized, where content can be sent to other Nodes. After all, it is the site administrator who can decide what can and cannot be found on his site. Of course, nodes themselves can be independent and connect to their favorite nodes with similar interests.

Of course, what I want is for my instance to automatically upload user entries to Zapread if it is created. Thanks to proper "architecture" construction (e.g. it will be possible to have one tag, compatibility with Zapread restrictions) it should be possible. Of course, the user will be able to disable the upload of his Zapread entries (e.g. when he wants to do it from his account).

I think that cooperation can help us and I would like to strive for it. Maybe we can help Yalls somehow, but I don't know how yet ;)

Some remember my old DGameMarket project based on STEEM shitcoin. Although the concept of "DGame" brand was cool for me (there were supposed to be some interesting brands related), unfortunately, because of shitcoin reasons the project fell down (Shitcoin died).

So I had to manage the projects differently. Of course, as Bitcoin has always ruled the world of cryptovalut - the choice had to fall on him (no competition).

DGameMarket is the second iteration of the project ... DGameMarket. Based on experience I decided to make a product that will be better than the original version:
- Automated .
- Trust minimized
- Safe
- Open Source

If there are people willing to test - please write to me on Zapread or Discord. The more errors and problems we solve, the better.

I want to thank @fwtf for reporting security related bugs.

Może czas coś napisać? ;)

Ethereum uniemożliwia śmierć RSK - Kolejne ATH

Przeciążone Ethereum sprawia, że ludzie zaczynają szukać alternatyw dla tego projektu. Sidechainowi RSK udało się pozyskać ponad 37 000 aktywnych kont, co nie jest dużą liczbą, ale wzrasta cały czas. Dzięki czemu niektóre projekty dodają wsparcie dla tej sieci, jak np. DAI (co prawda jest lepszy DoC, ale widać trend).

Dodatkowo zwiększyła się liczba zablokowanych Bitcoinów (i odblokowanych RBitcoinów) i wynosi ona 358BTC, co prawda jest to mało, ale z drugiej strony widać trend rozwojowy.

Dane: https://explorer.rsk.co/

Carrot do usług

Ostatnio pojawiło się o nowym projekcie aplikacji dla twórców - Carrot. Jeśli dobrze rozumiem jest to aplikacja, która służy do zlecania zadań dla użytkowników. My dostajemy wynik, za który płacimy w satoshi użytkownikom. Mała rzecz, a cieszy ;)

https://earncarrot.com/

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Mikronewsy:

* Pine64 może niedługo obsługiwać Bitcoina dzięki BTCPayServer. Niestety chcą jeszcze obsługę fiatów dostać i negocjują z giełdami, dlatego czekamy.
* A mi w pisaniu sklepu idzie coraz lepiej ;) Już jest podstawowa wersja kupowania gier! :P
* Bluewallet jest w nowej wersji, ale najważniejszą zmianą jest obsługa Payjoin, czyli transakcji z "utajnioną" kwotą transakcji

Zima idzie ...

Satsback wstępnie gotowy

Robisz zakupy na Allegro? Jadasz na pyszne.pl? Zapewne odpowiedź brzmi tak i nie dziwmy się - lubimy fastfoody czy zakupy. Satsback to kolejny istniejący projekt typu "cashback", w którym za zakupy możemy z powrotem otrzymać część kwoty w Bitcoinie. Tak więc łączysz przyjemne z przyjemnym ;)

Twórcy zapowiadają rozszerzenie oferty na inne państwa.

Opatentowany kod optymalizujący Bitcoina może wkrótce trafić do Bitcoin Core

Patent na koncepcję optymalizującą pracę węzła wygasa, a to umożliwia dodanie kodu do Bitcoin Core. Chodzi o włączenie endomorfizmu GLV do kodu biblioteki dotyczącej krzywych eliptycznych dla Bitcoina. Stworzona przez Hala Finneya implementacja (zapewne będzie testowana i poprawiana w razie problemów) pozwoli o szybszą weryfikację blockchaina Bitcoina nawet o 25%.

https://bitcoinpl.org/bitcoin-core-aktywuje-metode-optymalizacji-przetestowana-przez-hala-finneya-9-lat-temu/

Nowy portfel od Blockstream - Aqua

iOS wreszcie w czymś jest lepszy chociaż to czysty przypadek ;) Mowa tutaj o nowym portfelu od Blockstream zwany "Blockstream Aqua". To co cechuje ten portfel oczywiście oprócz obsługi Bitcoina i Liquida jest jego dążenie do maksymalizacji prostoty - w tym kupowania Bitcoina używając Apple Pay bez żadnego KYC.

https://blockstream.com/2020/09/26/en-introducing-aqua-wallet/

HATERS

© Copyright Paweł Kuczyński

In my subjective opinion, Lower Silesia is, the best land in Poland to live in - perhaps the fact that this region has been conquered into the reign of other countries (the Czech Republic, Germany), perhaps the proximity to Western Europe or its shape makes it simply good here.

However, this province has its advantages. Apart from quite well-developed architecture (Aquapark, forests, communication) it has good points for the average resident. We have a lot of monuments, even a lake with a beach is located here, but also mountains. So, within a radius of 40 kilometres from the town, you can relax on the beach or climb the mountain Sleza.

In the past, it used to happen often to climb this mountain, but I haven't done it for a long time - when the opportunity came, my friend and I went to "conquer it again".

How not to prepare yourself

At the beginning, the plan was to meet earlier and go to a stop, but even this did not work out, because you had to go to the shop to make the right supplies. It took a while, but it was included in the preparation time. Then we went to the bus stop, but we could not find the bus. A quick look at the schedule on the phone - you had to go to another stop (quite close).

All right, the bus in 4 minutes and we will be there ... Unfortunately, the timetable on the phone was not correct. Buses outside the city are not official, city supported carriers. So you cannot find them (timetables) on the city website, you have to look for them in other places, which do not have to guarantee their correctness. So you had to wait longer, but you did. For a price of about two dollars the bus reached the town of Sobótka, which is located from 500 meters from the top (or rather a stop).

We decided to follow the red trail. I do not know if this is the case in other countries, but in Poland there are 5 colours of trails. This trail should be the most interesting ... I don't know if that's the case, but it's about going uphill at an angle of ~30 degrees for about two damn hours. I thought I'd go down for a heart attack. I don't know if it's because I used to climb the yellow trail (but they both connect in half), but I've never been so tired of climbing. Sometimes I wondered if I would give up, but we did. We managed to climb up.

Attractions

First, we went to the lookout point right next to the church. It is simply a tower, where after three or four ladders we climb up a mountain and can take pictures of the area. Unfortunately, although my phone is worth $100, I did not want to risk losing it. In addition, the tower itself does not look properly secured and I preferred not to risk any strange maneuvers.

Church

The church is the main attraction at the top of the mountain for some reason, but unfortunately, when we got there, we could not visit it anymore. So there are pictures from outside this building.

Going downhill.

Going down the same path as the entrance ... seems easier, because less effort is needed, but because of the unevenness of the terrain it is a big problem. Slippery stones and a large fall cause you to try to walk on the ground instead of on these stones. On the way, however, you have managed to take a picture of a virgin with a fish and a bear.

He managed to get on the bus (he was already driving once an hour) and return home. Tired terribly, but alive. For a week my legs hurt, so I don't know if I recommend it ;)