Taste is all that matters

binji did ur new macbook arrive

One step closer to 4-8x faster Ethereum finality! It took some time and lots of tokens, but we now have a formally verified proposal for a decoupled consensus protocol in I* (a future Ethereum upgrade)! Not yet a full spec (up next), but it includes all the key consensus-relevant details to become one. Since Ethereum aspires to be live without most of the stake online, the protocol involves many more components than a normal BFT protocol, and its correctness involves much more than standard safety and liveness. Those nuanced properties are now verified! What's more, I came away convinced that all protocol design will involve AI-assisted Formal Verification in the future, both for correctness and iteration speed. The work wasn't limited to just: Design the protocol -> Formally verify it Instead, the loop became more like: Design -> Formal Model -> Find exactly what breaks and why -> Redesign it. For a fairly complicated protocol like this one, I think having the Lean model be part of the design loop played a big role in accelerating the process. A future with agents paired with formal models is a superpower for Ethereum development, because they can then use those models to find exactly where an argument breaks down, formalize counterexamples, test proposed fixes, iterate on the protocol. Many details that would slip under the radar when asking agents (and indeed, humans) can now be specified exactly and checked by the Lean kernel. This then forces agents to be more precise and lets them make verifiable progress on their own. It's been incredible to see this play out, seeing agents find gaps and propose protocol changes to fix them. In other words, autoresearch can speed up protocol design, formal verification is here to stay, and Ethereum Finality will get faster.

One step closer to 4-8x faster Ethereum finality! It took some time and lots of tokens, but we now have a formally verified proposal for a decoupled consensus protocol in I* (a future Ethereum upgrade)! Not yet a full spec (up next), but it includes all the key consensus-relevant details to become one. Since Ethereum aspires to be live without most of the stake online, the protocol involves many more components than a normal BFT protocol, and its correctness involves much more than standard safety and liveness. Those nuanced properties are now verified! What's more, I came away convinced that all protocol design will involve AI-assisted Formal Verification in the future, both for correctness and iteration speed. The work wasn't limited to just: Design the protocol -> Formally verify it Instead, the loop became more like: Design -> Formal Model -> Find exactly what breaks and why -> Redesign it. For a fairly complicated protocol like this one, I think having the Lean model be part of the design loop played a big role in accelerating the process. A future with agents paired with formal models is a superpower for Ethereum development, because they can then use those models to find exactly where an argument breaks down, formalize counterexamples, test proposed fixes, iterate on the protocol. Many details that would slip under the radar when asking agents (and indeed, humans) can now be specified exactly and checked by the Lean kernel. This then forces agents to be more precise and lets them make verifiable progress on their own. It's been incredible to see this play out, seeing agents find gaps and propose protocol changes to fix them. In other words, autoresearch can speed up protocol design, formal verification is here to stay, and Ethereum Finality will get faster.

some human things I’m tracking > religious schools, retreats, pilgrimages, and faith-based media rising as people search for moral certainty > “human-only” spaces: restaurants, schools, clubs, apps, and retreats that ban synthetic media, recording, phones etc > pet daycares, dog hotels, pet insurance, and premium pet food begging to skyrocket as loneliness increases and people defer to furry friends > post-career identity markets: people living longer and needing new titles, tribes, rituals, status games, and reasons to wake up after professional relevance fades > private members’ clubs solidify as paid social graphs for adults who lost community to remote work > dating apps fragmenting into belief-based and lifestyle-based matchmaking since infinite choice has become exhausting > family formation will become a premium service category: matchmaking, fertility, childcare, coaching, home design etc > eldercare will start shifting to more at-home treatments due to ai (over time it’ll be cheaper than care homes too) > analog cameras, vinyl, printed books, notebooks, “dumbphones,”and mechanical watches grow as anti-synthetic status objects > handmade goods becoming trust objects because machine abundance makes human effort valuable again > live events becoming more valuable as recorded media becomes forgettable > glp-1s are just the first mass consumer drug for editing desire, more to come. > fertility tech booming because career timelines and biological timelines are now in open conflict > oral exams, apprenticeships, portfolios, and live demonstrations returning because written work is becoming cheap to fake > digital detox products growing > air quality, water filtration, food sourcing, and sleep environments becoming mainstream status markers > luxury shifting from owning more things to accessing peace, beauty, privacy, time, and high-trust rooms > the biggest consumer opportunities coming from psychological scarcity: belonging, certainty, attention, embodiment, trust, and continuity

genuinely so worthy of an article, but had it in my bookmarks for a while. one of the many great reason binji has always been my goat aside his persona and advices are his writing. good piece, got v emotional from that ftx part, i really still wonder how it felt that day.