EvakSep 13, 2025
mhoye
the nine billion names of god in a rainbow table, does this get me anywhere
Sep 12, 2025 at 3:30pmWeb
Show threadmhoyeSep 12, 2025

I sort of love that nine billion of something was an incomprehensibly large number of things when that story was written, but today it's like enh, 2^23ish things isn't really that many, just make sure you've got fast storage, you can do most of this in RAM....

50's sci fi author: "But surely you must need the world's most powerful computers for such an arduous, years-long task?"

Me, looking at a base model Mac Mini and thinking about going home early: "Well. uh.... yeah about that...."

Show threadmhoyeSep 12, 2025
Troy Hunt popping up to say that all nine billion of the names of god have appeared in one or more previous breaches, to avoid divinity-stuffing attacks you need to rotate your cosmologies as soon as possible.
Show threadmhoyeSep 12, 2025
wait as we expand the number of ways that we can speak to the nature of the universe, does the number of names of god increase combinatorically as a result?
Show threadDerek MartinSep 12, 2025
@mhoye I’m sure G doesn’t care. All names point to the same One.
Show threadAN/CRM-114Sep 13, 2025
@mhoye If you are a person in the United States whose existence has ceased due to a data breach of the Seventh Veil that revealed all nine billion names of your god, you may be eligible for one month of free credit monitoring
Show threadBill, organizer of stuffSep 13, 2025
@flyingsaceur @mhoye I understood that reference. 👍
Show threadAN/CRM-114Sep 13, 2025
@wcbdata @mhoye I think I heard about the breach on Radio Clash
Show threadcafeinuxSep 13, 2025
@wcbdata
I didn't, but I'd love to. What do I need to watch, read, or learn, to be part of the 10 000?
@flyingsaceur @mhoye
Show threadKevin Boyd (he/him) 🇨🇦Sep 12, 2025
@mhoye "eh, sqlite3 can handle it"
Show threadmhoyeSep 12, 2025
@kboyd srsly
Show threadTomasHradckySep 12, 2025
@mhoye Clarke would have chuckled at how he wrote that short. On the mark for the 50’s but off for current times. The idea/concept still holds up well though.
Show threadRob IsaacSep 12, 2025
@mhoye So you’re saying humans have been reliably terrible at understanding the implications of geometric and exponential progressions since at least the 1950s?
Show threadbrennenSep 12, 2025
@mhoye goddammit the stars are going out again somebody check the logs we're gonna have to block a bunch of IPs or something
Show threadAN/CRM-114Sep 13, 2025
@mhoye as soon as you complete the table, that will get you straight to the sounding of the final trumpets, so maybe don’t let that happen
Show threadKim ScheinbergSep 13, 2025

@mhoye
One of my favorite moments of working on a James Randi biography was when he told me that his favorite short story was The Nine Billion Names of God

And he said it with such... reverence

Show threadmhoyeSep 13, 2025
@kims I would like to hear more about this story.
Show threadKim ScheinbergSep 13, 2025
@mhoye
I can no longer find the transcript of the interview, but I have the write-up my partner did after our first interview with Randi:
Show threadKim ScheinbergSep 13, 2025

@mhoye
speaking of James Randi...

Eight years ago there was a hurricane in Florida. He managed to catch one of the last planes out and we put him up for a week in NYC until it was safe to go home

[this pic was taken 8 years ago today]

https://www.newyorker.com/news/as-told-to/an-eighty-nine-year-old-escape-artist-trapped-by-hurricane-irma

Show threadMiraSep 13, 2025
@mhoye Thr lights in the heavens do a really great light show before going out
Show threadMason BiallySep 15, 2025
@mhoye Not at all endorsing the author, but this is a major plot point of Unsong, just the first chapter of it is based on this.
Show threadJames YoungSep 19, 2025
@mhoye nine billion names of god as ebooks, is that interesting