Where the Super Geeky Digital Currency Guys Dwell (3 min read)
ou can read this kind of gobbledygook all over the corner of the web where the super geeky digital currency guys dwell right now, why? because August 1st is fast approaching and important decisions are being made!
FULL INTERVIEW with SCRYPT miner Linus Dunkers (Plus bonus material)
After releasing the interview with Linus over five days via YouTube exclusively – i have now consolidated and added a sixth (exclusive to PopChest) part in the hope that the audience will be keen to see the sixth part of the interview where Linus discusses his experience as a customer of KnC Miner.
The Wayback Machine
I am consistently shocked at how many people i speak to that haven’t heard of the internet archives Wayback Machine, its a truly remarkable tool, especially when investigating corporate websites. You will be very surprised to find out how some sites started out. In my experience using the tool to investigate digital currency related startups and so called ICO,s websites i am almost always shocked at how the sites started out, they are often started in an industry or topic entirely unrelated to what its been used for today, this is obviously due to how domain names are traded but because the Wayback machine captures sites rather frequently you can really zoom in on a specific time frame and see the dramatic changes and put these on a timeline against what the current StartUp is claiming on their current site, this often shows if they are being somewhat economic with the truth.
The Wayback machine boasts some 299 billion web pages captured and archived over many many years. You will almost certainly find your own site should you search for it. I wanted to draw wider attention to its very existence, partly because it bothered me so many hadn’t heard of it, and how it is such a fantastic resource that they really ought to have.
So now you know!
WATCH: Micro-Series with SCRYPT Miner Linus Dunkers
Two years after our first interview we sat down with Linus Dunkers for a catch up interview. Join us as we take you inside a unique Swedish cryptocurrency mining facility, deep inside a disused military bunker.
Strictly no elephants (Qwids Cross-Post)
BETA UPDATE #8
Question. Can the customer of your customer, also be considered your customer? Immediate reaction, “Well no, not really.” Secondary reaction, “I guess it depends on where your business stands in the relationship between your customer and the customers customer. Something i missed in a previous post.
For Qwids it’s crystal clear that we are not so much placed between our customers and our customers customers, so much as we can be a tool for each party to interact with the other, or, that we are perhaps a destination (online space) for one party to interact with the other. In regards to what we have learned, we have realised that brands can have a hard time moving to a new destination, (or “Platform” as it’s often called in the hyper-tech-startup scene) if it is not already populated with a substantial amount of users.
This, we understand is largely due to the brand’s perception in the difficulty around moving their customers (or users) on to that shiny new platform. We are already slowly building up our user base, as you are likely aware it takes some time and without a fully functional service (Native App with access to camera/device notifications) it can be a slow process. So, for the time in which it takes for the Qwids Apps to be ready (in around June) we are going to be making use of a third party solution called MightyBell. Although it doesn’t give the brand’s using Qwids everything they could benefit from right away, it does give them the ability to notify Qwids users via mobile device notifications of new missions and offers, something we haven’t been able to do up to now. It also provides a place for Qwids users to trade their qwids, (remember lower case “q” is for qwids the points, upper case “Q” is for the service name) share missions, make suggestions on missions and offers, and general chit chat around the service, also via mobile device notifications.
If you are a Qwids user already head to qwids.me to join other users and help us test with the early adopter brands to help them identify the potential of the Qwids service, we would love to hear your questions. If you are just curious and want to check the scene at qwids.me, come on over also, just please bare in mind we are Sweden based at the moment and so the brands we are working with only operate within Sweden, of course if you are travelling to Sweden in the coming weeks feel free to try some mission out and claim your offers when you arrive.
Qwids Team
info@qwids.co
“On the Internet, Nobody Knows You’re a Bot” (Qwids-CrossPost)
“Brilliant! Best one so far” – Bot #2395895
When it comes to real genuine human relationships, how many of you would choose to automate the majority of your person to person interactions? How might it make the person you are talking to feel if they found out they were talking to a bot instead of you? I ask this question because many people today are saying the bot’s are coming – it is my opinion they are already here, and chances are you have spoken or interacted with one online without realising.
Last month I decided to try a few of these bot services out, one such service states on its website:
“Our main goal has always been to create user-friendly Instagram automation tool that mimic one’s natural behavior.”
The thing with ‘mimicking one’s natural behavior’ is that it suggests there is such a thing as natural behavior on the internet. When I ran the free version of the bot, I had the choice to make automated comments on other users Instagram post that had some predefined rules associated with them, (think hashtags) – the standard choices for comments were as follows, although you can add your own:
“Pretty Awesome :)” – Bot #239529228
Instagrammers – as you look at those comments above, do any of them stand out for you, perhaps you have seen them before on your own posts? Share your bot stories in our Facebook group
When I ran this bot on the @qwidsbiz Instagram account sure enough, engagement went up – in terms of other bots responding back to our Qwids Instagram posts, but the whole affair left me feeling quite ridiculous, and a few weeks later after speaking with my younger brother, (23 year old) he asked me why i had left that comment on his post on Instagram, he said it didn’t seem like me at all. I quickly came clean and told him I was trying this bot service which goes out and does some interactions on Instagram automatically, his reaction was that of disappointment sprinkled with a little anger. He felt that I had stooped to a new low, I explained I was researching exactly this topic:
– how do these types of tools make the end receiver feel?
This feeling of anger and disappointment was later re-confirmed to me by another friend who had gotten very excited about a very popular Swedish pianist commenting on her Instagram post. With great excitement my friend shouted out loud, “oh my god, he commented on my post” I responded – “Who?” As I looked at my friend’s post and the comment from the famous pianist – low and behold, I noticed it was exactly one of the ‘comments’ offered by the service I refer to above in this post, “Such an inspiration” the comment said. I didn’t know what to say, I paused a moment, and then i blurted it out – “That’s a bot!” My friend responded what do you mean? -I responded – “it’s an automated comment” I watched as the realisation washed over my friend’s face, closely followed my anger and confusion. She felt duped, I said not to worry too much, “this is happening all the time to everyone, and not only on Instagram” my comment didn’t seem to make the situation any better.
People of the internet! – Have you been in conversation with bot’s you thought were real people? Or people you thought might be bot’s? How was your experience when you found out? Did you ever find out?
Please consider sharing your stories with us in the facebook group – bot’s welcome?
“Enjoyable content! Thankyou.” – Bot #239511123
Mr Qwids, info@qwids.co, www.qwids.biz
Subreddit – CMV – Change My View
Discovery
A recent podcast episode by Planet Money entitled ‘On Second Thought’ brought my attention to a subreddit called Change My View. In this post i would like to share a little about this discovery. The premise of the CMV sub is as follows:
“A place to post an opinion you accept may be flawed, in an effort to understand other perspectives on the issue. Enter with a mindset for conversation, not debate”
You can find more info here should you wish to learn more. I highlight this particular sub because all things considered i am a complete Reddit addict, and consider (like most redditors) myself to be well informed and from a fairly diverse set of inputs and influences.
Typical Redditors
It’s what most Reddit users love about the service, you get a seemingly endless stream of links to content that you might otherwise not be subject to, collated by the masses and purely because you subscribed yourself to a certain subreddit which pertains to deal with a particular set of topics, events or subject matter; of which you decided to become exposed to, from multiple perspectives.
And so as you can imagine r/changemyview attracts many typical redditors (some 333,802 at last count) as this is often where one realises the benefits the most from continued usage of Reddit for daily consumption of content; whether it news, current events of more specialised subs that allow you to educate yourself and discuss with others around any given subject.
So why should anybody choose to post in public an opinion they accept may be flawed?
Apart form the anonymity reddit affords its users, for me i think it’s a fundamental societal value we share our opinions and beliefs in an effort to have them challenged in public, and in a jury of our peers, i feel it’s more useful than to have our private beliefs held close, so close that they are never discussed from alternative perspectives.
Those who have their beliefs held privately; never sharing them amongst the common discourse risk missing out on becoming more open in how they view others and the world in general. I do fear this makes us less connected and appreciative of each other, and will eventually end in individuals taking such extreme positions on their views and beliefs that they feel compelled to act in a way most would deem plain wrong. (See endless list of terrorist incidents)
Have you posted something in r/changemyview in an effort to learn something about yourself? How did it go? If you are yet to post there, please do not forget to read the rules before posting and prepare to learn something new about your view.
Discovering Ethereum. Part 1 – The World Computer
It was late in 2013 and being well and truly wrapped up in digital currency thanks to Bitcoin, i of course needed to subscribe some of my time and attention to another fantastic and wimsicla digital currency project.
The project was called Ethereum and for the life of me i can not recal what attracted me to it, perhaps it was the fact i was mentally engrossed in the developing digital currency ecosphere, and had become well (thanks to my stint on the worlds first digital currency course) and truly enamoured with the potential of the new technology, almost blindly so. (Thinking back – i have a feeling the project found me)
The Asset
The asset was called Ether and if i am perfectly honest with you i am not entirely sure what i was doing getting involved (likely speculating for fun and of course for a potential profit). What I did know at the time, was that they promised the possibility of something they (the developers) referred to as a “world computer”, they also promised many more features than bitcoin, the then standing king of “much more features” that one interested and infatuated with the digital currency space; could not bring themelf to ignore. The asset – Ether – would serve to power this super “world computer” and so those holding this asset would be able to power applications on the Ethereum network, sounds like something new i thought; the asset as an energy rather than a simple currency.
The Users
I am certain i was not the only one wrapped up in this fantastical enndevoaur, although I could not yet prove it. In fact, quite the opposite – i was sure it was just me and a bunch of geeked out developers (that were clearly somewhat libertarian minded in their beliefs given the value propositions of the platform) however, at that time (and somewhat still today) i am not entirely sure what my beliefs are when it comes to the crypto-space, and maybe that’s ok.
Sign me up!
I tapped my email address in to the required fields on the website and waited for an automated email response. I was in! God knows how, why or who made this connection but it had been made and so my time and attention had become tied up for the following few years, an attention tied up in a new digital project entitled Ethereum, but what was Ethereum? And how on earth did i become the holder of the digital asset Ether?
This post is not about Ethereum, for that information you can click here. This post is about my experience discovering Ethereum and so this post is my personal experience of discovery. That is all.
Clueless
I was part of something, something that often felt beyond my understanding but always felt like it might well be something awesome; something more awesome than i could fully comprehend sure, but something i was willing to watch and comprehend over time, and yes that was a fair bit of time, enough time infact to make me lose some of my faith in the founding developers vision.
Vision?
Wait there was a vision? Yes! there of course was a vision, but that does not mean it was realisable, in fact quite the opposite, there was much work to be done, so much work to realise the vision that many lost their nerve, so much so that they let go of their Ether, myself include.
Short Film – Hold Your Terror Close. (2min 49sec)
Hold Your Terror Close is a short film that tells the story of one womans battle to overcome her fears in order to reach her lover.
No lights. No camera. No Action.
I see a new wave emerging. One where people on social media that want to “engage” their audience, turn to automated video production solutions in order to get more moving pictures into their social feeds.
