Tag: dlt

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (June 2023)

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed seeing dirty but cheap western cars filling Africa. malware infested new iot devices or how parents are monetising their children in digital times.
https://cubicgarden.com/2023/06/01/public-service-internet-monthly-newsletter-june-2023/

Man sits in front of a computer monitor, looking sad

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed seeing dirty but cheap western cars filling Africa. malware infested new iot devices or how parents are monetising their children in digital times.

To quote Buckminster Fuller “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

You are seeing aspects of this with Mozilla buying fake spot, google launching passkeys and even Meta’s well rumoured but not launched microblogging platform using ActivityPub.

Will the real Connor step forward?

Ian thinks: This podcast is all about Connor’s story, but more importantly his online identity being used to fool employers into paying people a lot of money for skills they don’t actually have. This raises a lot of questions for the future of identity

Finally airtag stalking is being taken seriously?

Ian thinks: Finally Google and Apple have gotten together to stop the massive stalking problems of Airtags

The Obscene wealth simulator

Ian thinks: Perfectly timed for the Sunday Times rich list, this simulator gives you a sense of the “struggles” of the very rich people in society. Funny but also deeply tragic too.

The future possibilities for crypto?

Ian thinks: There is so much to say about this space, which has been generally eclipsed by AI recently. However this FT video does raise a number of good points. I also recommend the recently published public DLT paper by BBC R&D advisory team.

How I feel about the AI (LLM) changes when asked

Ian thinks: Over the last few months I have been asked about AI by many people, I want to deep dive but hold back. Using films like Her as reference, this video covers a lot of ground in short time but in completely understandable way

The debate over universal basic income is back

Ian thinks: Regardless of how close to midnight we are to AI singularity, the debate over UBI (Universal basic income) rages on

Forced to hack a world not built for you

Ian thinks: This fits with why I am interested in looking to the edges, where people in the minority are doing things to adapt technology for themselves and their community needs.

The dirty secret of online dating, but don’t worry AI will make it worst

Ian thinks: A bit of a key subject for me, I was surprised to see Wired explain the dirty secret in online dating. I am expecting AI chat bots to make things worst, as we experience higher levels of loneliness in society.

Sustainable streaming?

Ian thinks: I had only a small idea of the impact of streaming but this group is looking to make a big change to the sustainability of streaming services now and into the future.

Find the archive here

A Rallying Cry for a Free Digital Future

I watched a part of the ThisIsUnfinished conference (partly because I assumed the timezone were New York time and made the manual change to my calendar and I attended another conference in person on the Friday)

Anyway all the talks are online (Vimeo) to watch now. I did a little sum up for work but found the conference fascinating, especially when Baratunde Thurston filling in for time asked a member of the audience what they felt so far.

You couldn’t hear the reply but it was longer than expecting. Baratunde summed it up, saying the member of audience had found the contrasts of the talks interesting. I would agree, because in some talks you had people talking about web3 (internet 3 really) in the scope of DLTs (blockchain tech) and on the other hand you had talks like Eli Parser’s section of talks about what we can learn for the future.

I’m still going through the ones I missed but this insight is summed up in A Rallying Cry for a Free Digital Future.

This is great quote from Anil Dash…

Take a look at the phone in your pocket. Take a look at the tabs in your browser. Ask yourself. How many of those apps were made by people who you know, of know who they are there from your community. Maybe they’re local homegrown organic, just like the food that you eat, you know, where it’s tourist and do they share your values and care about the things you care about? And if you don’t feel good about what you’re putting in your eyes, when you put it in your mouth and make some changes. We do have a lot of power to make that thing a lot better.

This leads nicely into the potential of web3 beyond the short sighted put  everything on the blockchain stuff.

Plotting and harvesting Chia cryptocurrancy for a more green crypto future?

My Chia farming setup

I have admit over the last 2 months I setup a cryptocurrancy rig in my flat. Now when most people think about cryptocurrancy they think of bitcoin and the absolute insane amount of power going into mining bitcoins. This is why when I saw Bram Cohen (creator of BitTorrent) talk about creating something different (proof of space+time) I was always interested. To be fair I since BitTorrent I’ve been watching what he’s been up to, Bram is just one of those serial entrepreneur I keep an eye on.

After hearing about Chia, I downloaded the Linux app and got it up and running on a old laptop I use for bits and bobs. I would have used one of my my Raspberry PIs if I had Ubuntu installed. I plugged in a external USB to SATA SSD which I was using to run my old Dell XPS13 work laptop, when the internal drive got screwed up. Then plugged in a old USB to SATA caddy/docking bay with one of my old 2TB mechanical hard drives from my old server (pre NAS).

My Chia plot

Then left it plotting and harvesting my 1 single plot for a month or so.

At the time, the estimated time to win a Chia was 8 months. As I had the laptop on doing other things all the time, it wasn’t a big deal for me. Actually removing my server and replacing it with the NAS, 2x Raspberry Pis and this laptop  is actually less electricity than my single home made server with 7 drives and 4 fans. I hear most of you say wtf! I do have a lot of devices on in my flat and my electricity is high compared to typical single person but everything else (heating, water, etc) is low.

It was about 4-5 weeks when I was telling someone about Chia and noticed I had harvested 2 chia’s unbeknownst to me. To be clear I have 1 single 100gig plot and although I tried setting up 2 plots afterwards in parallel, I decided it was too much for my old laptop’s little quad core CPU and switched back to a single 100gig plot again (to be clear its more the parallel part which was the problem and CPU is only really used)

Chia CPU and Memory load in Htop

With all this in mind, I was introduced to the Reddit subthread for Chia, where I saw people building massive rigs to plot and harvest. Its quite insane and then hearing how Chia is being blamed for shortages in HDDs and SSDs. Of course why most people are interested in Chia (including myself) is the proof of space & time rather than proof of work. This realistically could be far more sustainable than proof of work models like Bitcoin. I say “could” because seeing these massive rigs seems to throw oil over the notion of Chia’s green attributes.

Although its tempted to add some more plots, I’m not going to change my setup because its sustainable for me. Little has changed on my network or on my physical desk. Getting in early was something very good but I got lucky with 2 Chia already.

Yesterday a friend mentioned Elon had tweeted about Tesla not taking Bitcoin for their electric cars.

I can’t say anything profound about Chia except I’m more than interested because its not just a speculated currency like Bitcoin. Although the price is super surprising for a new cryptocurrency. I said similar about Ethereum because of the smart contracts, NFTs and other things. The currency side is only slightly interesting while things like ChiaLisp for Identity spikes my interest.