The answer seems to be no, which is a crying shame but I recently noticed Standardnotes, added a new sub-service which seems closer to what I imagined from WordPress
We’ve put a lot of work into our note sharing platform called Listed. Listed allows you to publish and share notes directly from the Standard Notes web and desktop app. Best of all, it allows readers to subscribe to your new posts. Your subscribers are immediately notified by email any time you publish a new post. Unlike Medium, Listed allows you to own your content source, and have a more direct communication channel with your readers.
You can imagine this could be a neat way to keep a group of people connected, outside the prying eyes of a centralised service. For example it could be a neat email mailing system like mail chimp. Imagine something like NTK in this way?
Ok so listed is still in early days but theres some interesting decentralised blogging systems like Steemit which are doing something different with the community of writers.
Head further a field with the new scooter
New Scooter, new waterproof wear, its time for a ride into Europe before the UK leaves Europe (said with a very heavy heart)
Ride a roller coaster in another country Closely related to the previous one, its got to happen in 2018. I love them and its time to go further a field to see what others are doing.
Go to a new part of the world Regular resolution and its a great one to have.
See more comedy
I can’t really believe I didn’t go to any comedy last year, got to make changes to include some comedy in 2018.
Explore more about the brain using neuroscience
Massively interested in the power, quirks and processing of the brain; from the dreams it creates to the way it processes memes. The recent talk reminded me how much I love this area. Certainly like to see more talks like that.
Only eat artisan chocolate unless its Kitkat, Twix or Maltesers
I like chocolate but I decided a while ago that I should only really eat a certain percentage or higher. My tolerance for lower cocoa is dropping and like my cocktail choices; its time to avoid the rubbish stuff. Chocolate tasting confirmed this and the cocoarunners subscription should offer enough to keep me away from the rubbish stuff. I decided I should give myself some outs.
Do more with my Estonian e-residency I want to do more with my e-residency and its about time, I started using this state backed digital identity to do more. Even if its just signing documents as me.
Make better use of the online services I have paid or invested in I have paid for quite a few services like Plex, Standard Notes, Trakt, etc. They have all passed the point of me thinking this is good and I should support it for what ever reasons. Certainly need to connect them up with local services like ttrss, etc using ifttt.
Be more daring in matters of the heart
Last year was a quiet year for me, mainly because I was away so much and frankly I’m quitedisillusionedwith thecurrent online dating platforms. Its time to find something else. There has to be better and I need to find it.
Decentralise more and use POSSE more Time to move away from these centralised services and look for open source alternatives which value a distributed, federated, loosely connected models. I take what I said about my role in Mozfest quite seriously. Started using Mastoden more and been using things like Standardnotes, Wallabag, etc… then syncing or publishing elsewhere under my own steam
Theres an advert on UK TV these holidays about a bed with USB ports. Of course this isn’t anything too exciting as there have been beds with Bluetooth for a while. But it got me thinking about a quote (which I can’t find now) but roughly goes…
“The aim of smartphone apps like facebook is to be the first thing you look at when waking up. Levels of success are measured by how long you spend in bed not moving just consuming.” – Power phrased….
Wish I could find the original quote because its sounded even more scary than what I could remember. Ideal ways to never deal with your smartphone addiction.
In his 1997 book “Architects of the Web,” Rhapsody founder Rob Reid calls this phenomenon “shooting the proscenium arch,” referring to the “proscenium” that frames a traditional stage. It’s the idea that when new technology arrives, the first thing people do is try and force old technologies onto the new format. He writes:
“The proscenium arch has many forms, and it lurks at the birth of all media. Early radio broadcasters whose announcers read directly from newspapers were shooting the proscenium arch. TV broadcasters who pointed their cameras at chitchatting radio announcers were shooting it as well. But the proscenium arch’s day always passes quickly, as familiarity with a new medium grows, and content evolves in directions that its earliest pioneers could not have foreseen.”
69 mins of sleep deficit over the whole year, which is massively down from the previous year. My average sleep this year has been 8 hours 22mins (massively up!). Average deep sleep has been 4.18hrs almost 51% of my sleep.
According to Gmail I have had 41,481 conversations, have 26,442 emails in my inbox and sent 6,741 emails this year
Have 48, 142 photos and 2,688 photos albums in Google photos.
Tasks wise I have 231 open tasks and completed 2435 over the year
Been on 44 trips including Tallinn, Sarajevo, Funchai, Edinburgh, Reykjavik, Dublin, Amsterdam, Berlin and Cologne this year
I spent 417 hours watching films (34.7 a month) and 411 hours watching TV series (34.3 a month)
Spent 989 hours working in Media City UK, 129 hours working in many coffee shops in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, 116 hours working on a train and 113 hours working at home. Theres a very long tail with lots more locations like hotels, Nottingham Uni, York Uni, Ravensbourne, etc.
Be taken out of my comfort zone by Kate and take her out of comfort zone
Well half of this happened, in March. Kate took me literally to the edge of comfort in a bright yellow camper van. Rough camping on a cliff face in Ireland was too close to my limit. There was a point early next day when I had to insist on a camp site because at least they had toilets and was far less exposed to the gale like winds (remember the first ferry was cancelled because of the winds).
I had planned to take Kate to Tokyo next year but this has been put on hold a little longer.
Head further a field with the scooter
No Northern Ireland trip but I did make it to Ireland via Kate. I did ride to Hull to see how the new scooter would handle the long ride and get a feel what it would be like if I went on the ferry to Netherlands or Belgium. Recently I have been riding with proper winter clothes, combine this with the better handling of the new scooter and I’m more likely to go for long rides in the rain.
Improve my circus skills
Still the Vertex is still not quite there, more practice is needed. But I’ve also been going to the Firejam’s in Castlefield Arena. I’m now reconsidering getting a fire diabolo again. I know its bloody dangerous but fire is just so cool compared to LEDs.
Visit a Japanese styled spa at least once every 4 months in the UK
I knew every 4 months was achievable so this is a tick. I went to Liquidrom in Berlin once, the Midland hotel twice and had the pool to myself at the Melia Madeira Mare. Still really need to find a better spa near Manchester but the Midland Hotel isn’t bad, especially when quiet.
Ride a roller coaster in another country
This will have to be a task for next year. However I noticed Alton Towers and Blackpool pleasure beach have new rides coming in 2018 now. My hope is to combine the trip on the scooter with going on a roller coaster park in Europe.
See the Aurora (Northern lights)
This is a massive tick. Its always been on my list forever and thanks to brian suda who introduced me to the man/legend Snorri Por Tryggvason, who took me on a unbelievable journey which had us out and about near Reykjavik. Will never forget this.
Another few places not planned at all. Reykjavik Iceland, Tallinn Estonia and Sarajevo Bosnia & Herzegovina. According to Google maps I’ve taken 44 trips in the last year, but that includes trips to London, Newcastle, York, Cardiff, Bristol, etc.
Don’t shy away controversy and get more political
Absolutely and I’ve been digging at the deeper issues facing society with data ethics, private & public and machine learning.
Go to more comedy clubs and contemporary theatre plays
I have absolutely no idea, but honestly makes me trust Facebook even less. Usually Facebook and Google will surface stuff from the past and ask if you want to share/make it public. This isn’t one of those, it just appeared and friends started commenting and liking again.
Regardless, I was planning to do something similar again so here’s my holiday card for the holiday period; for family, friends and followers. Happy Holidays and look forward to 2018, as 2017 has been pretty poor (but not as bad as 2016)
When Shea Campbell started creating his own drinks, he naturally relied on classic recipes. However, his background, both in engineering (he has a Masters in subsea engineering with specific interest in chemical erosion and interaction in Arctic sub-zero temperatures) and as a chef (you can taste his food from January at Noma, Copenhagen), helped him to think differently about how the bar industry approaches mixology.
I certainly think this is a good thing, because there is so much more than could be done with cocktails. Its a seriously under explored field and like chocolate there is a category of artisan cocktails.
This is why I like to go new places and sample there changes to standard cocktails. Certainly can’t beat standing at a bar talking to a bartender who knows there stuff.
I’m still playing around now and then with my cocktail making kit, trying to make different takes on cosmopolitans. Been trying to make it with pomegranate juice (instead of cranberry) and raspberry liquor (instead of triple sec). Others include coffee sour, new chocolate & bourbon fashioned, etc. I won’t talk about the failed experiment adding triple sec to vodka martini! I have other experiments but I’ll save them for the new years eve party. The problem is I can do stuff which works for me but others, less so…
“My hope is that through education and interaction we can change the language of how we speak about drinks,” he says. “Rather than teaching classic recipes, it would be better to explain the effects of ingredients, so that alternate items can be chopped and changed. What we do right now is like teaching someone how to spell words without first giving them the knowledge to understand the alphabet.”
Now this would be great and very much needed. Almost a 101 for effects. All that knowledge is locked in the grey matter of bartenders up and down the world right now. Something closer to alchemy rather than chemistry.
Back in October I was again a spacewrangler for Mozfest. I haven’t had a proper chance to write-up the experience since I was going from one place to another. Unlike previous years as a spacewrangler, Mozilla themed the festival around the internet health report issues.
An internet controlled by many, no one actor can own it, control it or turn it off
In the discussions in Tallinn it was clear the root of the issue is Power! Its what lives deep under the data ethics, hence why I keep mentioning data portability (the ability to own and not be reliant on one system/service)
…power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely – Sir John Dalberg-Acton
Big centralised power tends to lead towards corruption. A good example of this is the dating industry which is centralised and treats its customers like cattle. There is something about these centralised services which cuts people off from each other, hence everything is mediated through the centralised server. Of course they would claim its to protect the users, which is certainly partly true (based on the amount of women’s profiles which say please no pix of your parts) but thats not the only thing they do…
So with all this in mind, I switched from privacy and security which had enough momentum; to decentralised with a Z; poor Erika had to hear me joke/moan about it everytime (thanks Erika for being such a sport).
The timeline from the Mozretreat to Mozfest is pretty aggressive, and with just me and Viki working on the whole decentralised space at the time. It became clear we needed to have more people. In past Mozfests, its been a team effort of Jon, Michelle, Michael, etc. However earlier in the year Jon told me he wasn’t spacerangling this year. Jasmine had stepped back from spacerangling last year anyway, so I thought long and hard about what people would be ideal. This was all during working out the call for participation. I asked a few other people and luckily 3 out of the 5 people I asked agreed. The wrangler team now included Tim and Jon from BBC R&D, then Mark joined a bit later.
Organisation of time and space
It wasn’t easy as everyone was super busy but we made it work using lots of google docs/sheets, github, google hangout, skype, trello, etc. As I was the most experienced there was a lot of weight on my shoulders but by the time we started getting proposals in, things felt better. After the call closed, we read every single one rated and ranked them all. First cut was the travel stipend ones then the others afterwards. There was something strange that the quality of the proposals seemed to better in the middle of the call. The late & early ones seemed less thoughtful.
The wall of mozfest issues in the decentralisation space
The months moved on and we slowly cut the list down to 44 proposals. By September there was a lot of logistics work including working out where everything was going to fit (we had selected far too much). We ended up with 3 talk (learning) spaces, 2 workshop (shed) spaces and 1 gallery space; 6 things happening in parallel just in the decentralised space alone. It was going to be tricky but I thought we can manage it with 5 spacewranglers. Unfortunately Viki couldn’t make it but at the last minute Jon convinced 2 trainees from BBC R&D (Kristine & Kristian) to join us, without them it would have been near impossible, very thankful for their help and stepping in at the last minute. If there wasn’t enough challenges, our commissioned artist (Archana Prasad) also ended up not coming from India due to illness. This made us scramble a little to come up with an overall theme to fit, which was the one thing which I knew we didn’t do such a great job on as previous years (the library) & (ethical dilemma cafe)
Mozfest this year tried something quite different from previous years. Instead of the weekend festival in Ravensbourne alone, they hosted a week long of events at the Royal Society of Arts (RSA). The events were very varied and the space was opened as a co-working space all weekend. This seemed to be very fitting with the RSA’s own plans for a 21st century coffee house?
I also attended a few other events including Mel’s slidedesign and the glassroom which I wrote about already, it was also a good time to arrange meetings with people including Nesta. Later in the week, spacewrangler duties increased meaning more time at Ravensbourne oppose to the Mozhouse, this means I could only attend the first part of the databox event. But I was able to capture the interchange between Nottingham Uni (Databox) and York Uni (OBM engine). The conversation at the table in Mozhouse will have big consequences for the living room project and more.
Mozhouse was a very good idea and I think with more events using up the space, it could really add something different to Mozfest.
Mozfest is always something you are not totally sure will work but it always does. The space was tight but my gut reaction of the layout was just about right. We squeezed in 6 spaces and it wasn’t so bad, although talk space 3’s intimacy was a little lost sadly.
This year Mozilla used Slack to bring conversations with spacewranglers and session owners together, it kind of worked but there was some missed/dropped conversations between slack, github and emails. There was a discussion about Mozfest using the centralised Slack service oppose to decentralised systems like matrix and mattermost, but it was a matter of practicality at the time. Maybe next year Matrix could be be the host? Sure Matrix must have a feature some serious dataportability features.
The reason why I mention Matrix, is I was seriously impressed with the Matrix people. They really got the while Mozfest thing and setup Matrix node (a mini PC) over the course of the festival weekend. It ran for most of the weekend and was perfectly timed for their session. As it was federated, when the PC did hit a problem, the other Matrix servers took on the processing instantly.
As always I never get the time to wonder around the other spaces due to spacewrangling in one zone. But I did get to see a few other things including the Privacy & Security space (they shared the floor with us), Unbox space and tiny rolling IOT home.
Some of the highlights included when Storj labs failed to turn up and having to announce to a busy audience of people this fact. I said people could leave as the session facilitator was no where to be seen, or they could talk between themselves. Of course being Mozfest, the expert audience started talking and 40mins later they were still talking and Mich Baker had joined the conversation. This sums up the emergent nature of Mozfest, spacewranglers are simply constructing the environment for this all to happen.
Another few sessions were cancelled including the much wanted connected world of music, which I had planned straight after Kristian’s Smart Blockchain Indie Film Distribution, and the Internet Of Things. Another well attended interactive session with lots of questions and discussion asking the expert audience again instead of speaking at them. Very happy we were able to host the session as we seeked out using decentralised solutions on existing problems rather than just talking about the underlying technology.
Another good non-technical session I poked my head into but knew would be good when choosing it was the co-op talk. On the face of it some might ask whats that got to do with decentralisation? But it fitted the wider theme of power and distributed and federated power.
Although we did have some sessions which were about the technology too. One example was host your data on the peer to peer web with Dat. I walked through the session a few times and was quite enjoying it and wish I could have attended the whole thing.
Let’s Keep Our Chat Local was the Matrix session and although waking back and forth, I caught enough to learn quite a bit about Matrix service. Earlier that week I had installed riot.im app on my Android tablet and through-out the week finally got myself on the server.
To prove the power of Matrix, they had already setup a bridge to the #decentralized slack channel and made it super easy to talk between the services. On top of all this, I saw audio/video messaging over matrix, something around VR and other very cool things. I took away the need to investigate more, and maybe consider using it for decentralised dating?
Spacewrangling for Mozfest again was really good and maybe slightly less stressful except the unexpected surprises near the end. I think we got a real nice balance of topics through-out the decentralised spectrum. From general interest to deep rooted knowledge, everyone was catered for making decentralisation interesting to everyone. Next time, I would work harder on the theming because although the theming and navigation was mixed together, in retrospective we could have set this much earlier and included the likes of databox project into the experience. I was impressed with the diversity of speakers and audience. There was a deep fear we would end up with all white men and actively worked hard to make sure this wasn’t the case.
Party time
The night parties at Mozfest have always been great and the Saturday night one was good but I did prefer the creepy one in 2016, however I know immersive theatre isn’t everyone’s bag. The venue of Mozhouse/RSA was great and it would have been great to throw some more of the rooms open to others to do things like host a game of werewolf (for example).
We had hoped to secure someone from the decentralised space to play at Mozhouse but it didn’t happen. However on the Sunday night party, I did get to DJ on my pacemaker like previous earlier Mozfests. Unfortunately I didn’t record the mix but I can assure you it was really good and got quite a few people dancing.
Thank you to all!
I want to thank the wrangler team Viki, Jon T, Tim C, Mark B, Kristine and Kristian. Sarah A, Erika D, Marc, Emse, Dan R, Solana, Sam B, all the other spacewranglers, Ravensbourne’s staff including Claire, our decentralised sessions owners who did a excellent job through all the chaos.
The attitude and spirit of the session was higher than ever before. It might be the fact they could talk beforehand via Slack or something else? Even with the challenging emergent environment, imagine doing a large 50+ people session about digital colonialism with no chairs! This happened and we/they made it all work regardless.
Lastly I’d like to thank the audience who attended this excellent festival and attended a lot of the decentralisation space. The engagement was higher than last year and rightly so, the work we put into getting a balanced set of talks worked out very well.
If it was just Mozfest, it would be great but add the glassroom exhibit and #Mozhouse and you got something much closer to the impressive festivals like TOA Berlin and SxSW. The extra days before the festival really elevated it beyond previous years and likely kept the festival base in London for the foreseeable future?
It was during a Christmas lunch at Pie & Ale, Rachel Wise pointed me towards a post in the Guardian and short video from Jordan Stephens. Well worth watching and reading. Here’s one of the key parts…
It’s our responsibility as we become adults to acknowledge this pain and gain compassion for ourselves and acceptance of others. But for men in particular, when the patriarchy says that it’s OK to grab a woman’s ass, or tell her what to do, or watch too much porn or deny her space – and you accept this as a way of treating another human being – you deny yourself the opportunity to understand why you desired that comfort of power in the first place. The ego wants dominance and control. And the male ego is currently everywhere.
As far as I can see, this toxic notion of masculinity is being championed by men who are so terrified of confronting any trauma experienced as children that they choose to project that torture on to the lives of others rather than themselves.
What’s even more upsetting is that often when men allow themselves to feel this pain, it’s so new to them that they kill themselves. We live in a society where men feel safer killing themselves than acknowledging pain. Accepting the patriarchy from a place of false benefit will prevent you from ever truly loving yourself or understanding others. It’s OK to feel sad. It’s OK to cry. It’s OK to have loved your mum and dad growing up. It’s OK to have missed them or wanted more affection. It’s OK to take a moment when you’re reminded of these truths. When you allow your brain to access these emotions, it knows exactly what to do. So nurture yourself. Talk honestly to the people around you, and welcome the notion of understanding them more than you have ever done before.
You see, DaddyzPrincess29*, we all have names. Good, noble names that took weeks, perhaps months to choose— from Hannah to Jordan to Lady Bird. And what we’ve discovered is that those names actually work best—better than usernames—when it comes connecting with people. So listen closely laidback___stu, because this applies to you — even if you are straight chilling right now on a basement futon.
Ahead of the new year, we’re removing OkCupid usernames. It’s starting with a test group and will soon be rolled out to everyone on OkCupid, so all users will need to update their profiles with what they want their dates to call them.
This instantly reminded me of Facebook real names policy, a few friends of mine have effected by this policy and many more. Of course Okcupid brush around this with…
We’ve also heard from many members of our community that they want to maintain the privacy they enjoy with usernames—with this change, we won’t be collecting full names; instead, we encourage our users to go by the name they’d like their dates to call them on OkCupid.
So this is what you would like to be called? Something like a username?
Is OKCupid going to take on the pain and effort of checking and verify peoples names? If so then they really need to look at the outrages previously.
If not, then whats the point of the change? I can easily call myself something of poor taste
As the Ars Technica calls it OkCupid’s rapid Tinder-ization (I’ve been pretty much saying the same thing)
In OkCupid’s case, the move follows some other major changes that bring the service far closer to resembling Tinder. This one, for example, mirrors Tinder’s use of Facebook profile data, which thus assigns a “real” first name to a user’s account.
Last month, OkCupid rolled out a change to its messaging system that prevents any user from seeing if they’ve received an unsolicited message unless they stumble upon the message-sender’s dating profile and indicate a “like.” Doing this unlocks that suitor’s ability to directly contact the other person. This is similar to Tinder, which only allows messages to be shared when both users indicate a “like.” For some users (read: the popular ones, as per activity on the site), this feature change can reduce mailbox clutter. For others (read: the less popular ones), this makes receiving messages much more difficult and all but requires constant flipping and swiping through profiles just to raise your chances of unlocking a sender’s ability to contact you.
In July, OkCupid also removed an opt-in feature that showed users who had stumbled upon their dating profile and at what time they did so. This allowed daters, particularly the less popular ones, to passively peruse potential matches of interest. By removing this opt-in feature, OkCupid essentially nudged users to do more browsing and swiping through the entire site’s meat market of available daters.
Although this change doesn’t affect me so much, I support all the people who this will affect. This is another example why online dating really needs to be disrupted for the sake of the future of humanity.
Update
The Verge have a followup which goes into much more detail and hit right at the point of Okcupid’s flippant policy change
Via email, a company spokesperson told The Verge that OKCupid won’t require legal names, but the shift is already unpopular with users. Online, the reaction to the news has been overwhelmingly negative, with users either flocking to Reddit to discuss the change, or leaving angry comments on the post itself.
The change isn’t just, as OKCupid’s flippant post suggests, about users no longer going by aliases like “BigDaddyFlash916.” The allure of a place like OKCupid as opposed to, say, Tinder, is that it was a secure place to share more intimate personal details, including sexual preferences. Dating apps made for phones are generally looking for users to find matches based on proximity, age, and gut-instinct attraction to other people’s photos. OKCupid invites users to answer questionnaires, build elaborate profiles, and describe themselves thoughtfully. For users, this is a double-edged sword: you get to know people better, but you also make yourself vulnerable to strangers who can potentially learn a lot about you.
social credit is an attempt at a softer, more invisible authoritarianism. The goal is to nudge people toward behaviors ranging from energy conservation to obedience to the Party
Zhima credit, well I guess at least its more transparent than the scores mainly hidden by the likes of Uber, Airbnb, Facebook, etc. Although most are being more open about the scores now.
I was showing Brian Suda (Never was sure if Brian actually saw the original tweet, as I missed a space in the original tweet) that they have Icelandic chocolate from Omnom in Manchester. Out of the blue Molly (who I’ve never met or spoke to before) jumped in with…
I find this brand to be my least favorite. I would actually prefer a Hershey’s KitKat
I was slightly shocked, Hershey’s KitKat is one of the worst Chocolates I’ve ever tasted. Of course I quested how she could make such a statement but at the same time savvy Takk jumped in, saying their partners Cocoarunners supply many types of Chocolates and they are doing a chocolate tasting night in December. I was sold!
Having been to another Chocolate night under Funnzing, I was very happy to see the format was very different and much more interactive. The whole thing was fun and less of a lecture. My worry about nuts was crushed when I asked at the start, to which the answer was none of the chocolates have nuts but may contain traces.
Cocoarunners ran through the different types of chocolates and dispelled a load of myths including the cocoa percentage myth. Higher percentage of cocoa doesn’t always equal more bitterness. The first two chocolates were similar percentage but from different locations changing the nature of the taste quite a bit.
She also talked about why we should consider artisan Chocolate over the others, comparing the choice to artisan coffee and artisan wines.
She showed us how to really taste chocolate (snap, smell, place on the tongue and let it melt). It was a great night and found some chocolates I certainly want to have.
A few of my questions I came with were answered including;
Why is there little chilli really dark chocolate?
Trends in chocolate making have just moved on, some stick some don’t. Most people who have very high percentage chocolate want to taste just the Chocolate.
How is 100% chocolate classed as chocolate, and if its 100% how does it gel together without something else? The definition of chocolate is everything from the bean and doesn’t include fat, milk or sugar. Out of the bean you get cocoa powder and cocoa butter. Both combined keeps the whole thing stable enough to make a bar.
What is the trend for Raw Chocolate? Marketing nonsense and likely a not very safe one if it really was raw.
Ultimately I was half convinced of artisan chocolate before I even went along, and still like a UK Kitkat and Maltesers. But life is too short for rubbish wine, coffee, tea and chocolate. Even some of the white chocolate surprised me to be honest.
I was introduced to some very nice chocolates and I will be adding a category for great chocolates to my notes. From the same evening…
100% Manufaktura Czekolady from Czech Republic was so smooth and took quite a few people by surprise. As they assumed 100% would be like “eating dirt” – someone said surprised. To me it was like eating a 85% dark.
70% Solomans Gold from New Zealand had a smoky Lapsang taste and was wonderful to eat. Can imagine it as a late night treat while drinking lapsang tea.
I’m signing up for a monthly chocolate delivery! Can’t wait! Just need to make sure they don’t send me any Hershey nonsense, no matter what others say/like…
It was a while ago when I received some bitcoins from a friend via tipjar. I added the tipjar link on my blog and every once in a while I received a very small amount of bitcoins as tips. The amounts were so small that I didn’t really take note till I needed to move the wallet.
That was when I noticed the amounts were adding up to less decimal places in bitcoin and the value in British sterling was also starting to add up to a few coffees. After the move to blockchain.info (no matter what I thought about the founder), I decided to keep an eye on the figure but forgot about it. Wasn’t till about a week ago, when I decided to have a quick look at the amount it was worth and was pretty shocked.
The tips were adding up to something quite big and thats when I decided maybe I should convert some to sterling and ethereum. I have never put any money into bitcoin, its all been donated or paid to me in return for something, I treated it as a bit of a joke to be honest. But over the last few weeks it became very real as I transferred quite a bit out and still had some left over, just in-case the bitcoin bubble keeps growing. But i’m simply not motivated enough to track its progress and put money into it. Ethereum I’ve found interesting since I first saw the videos about it so I’ll keep an eye on that too.
Thanks to everyone who tipped my blog or paid into my wallet over the last 3 years, I owe a great gratitude to all those people. I’ll keep writing… feel free to keep tipping.
Its been 3 years since the scheme launched and nearly 30,000 people from 139 countries signed up. I only signed up earlier this year but still love the idea and keeping an eye on what else I can do with a EU state backed identity.
Estonia launched it’s e-Residency programme three years ago tomorrow so that anyone on Earth could apply for a secure government-backed digital identity and gain access to our e-services.
Understandably, no one was entirely sure back then who would actually sign up and why. Many of the first e-residents were simply excited to join our borderless digital nation and had no plans to use their digital ID cards.
What interests me is the classification of the people who signed up.
Digital nomads
Entrepreneurs who want EU access
Entrepreneurs within the EU
Entrepreneurs facing Brexit
Startup entrepreneurs
Freelancers from emerging markets
Blockchain entrepreneurs
I’m more a Digital nomad facing Brexit I guess.
Due to rapid advances in digital technology and more flexible working cultures, a rapidly increasing number of people are choosing to live as ‘digital nomads’ because they can work anywhere there’s an internet connection.
There’s been a sharp rise in applications from the UK since the country voted to leave the European Union. Many British entrepreneurs discover e-Residency while searching for a way to ‘stay in the EU’, but soon discover that the benefits of e-Residency are bigger than Brexit as it can often enable them to more easily conduct business globally.
