Hello, author here. Sorry about the lack of clarity, this article is the transcript of a 5 min lightning talk and it was really hard fitting all the relevant content in that little time :) (In retrospect that was a poorly chosen topic. When I picked it I thought the talk would be 10 min, 5 min is too short to explain a subject like this.)

> How that curve is initially drawn isn't clear at all. Is it flat and becomes complex over time by forking (+ data modification)?

Yes, the initial curve is typically constant 0.

> Why are interval boundaries real-value in a system that cannot actually express real numbers?

Like snthpy said "real" is a shortcut to say infinitely subdivisible. The numbers themselves are actually rationals.

> How are the intervals / portions decided? Is that simpler than generating UUIDs?

Nodes are forked from an existing node, that node decides which portion of its interval it gives to the new node. You pick the splitting point to keep complexity low.

Regarding comparison: you always know the values of the whole curve. When I say "a node only has to know about its share of the interval" I only mean the ID space. In a version vector there is a direct link between identifiers and counters, whereas here outside of your share of the interval you don't know who owns what or how many devices there are at any given point.

> Like snthpy said "real" is a shortcut to say infinitely subdivisible. The numbers themselves are actually rationals.

That sounds like a fair bit of complexity vs using 64/128-bit unsigned integers or something. I guess the benefit is that then you "never" have to reallocate / defragment?