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Nebula #23

September 7, 2018Nebula

The Pencil Nebula in Red and Blue by José Joaquín Perez

Hey,

Bitcoin is a rabbit-hole. It’s impossible not to fall into it once you start getting interested in this technology. Medium is the message, and trying to understand the impact of Bitcoin (or cryptocurrencies at large) in the world is daunting. What is money? What is privacy? What are states? Why should we organize this way when we have this kind of tech? Can we be sure that it’s a good thing for us? Well, we don’t know, and we can’t for sure. It took telephone 75 years to reach 50 million users. Radio took 38 years, TV 13, Internet 4, Facebook 2, and Pokemon Go 19 days. Social experiments gets distributed to the public quicker, especially now that we don’t rely on custom-made devices to access them. Will hyper-bitcoinization happen, like maximalists predict?

  1. 📖 I finished reading The Sovereign Individual. It’s been an interesting read. Back in 99, the authors made a few predictions on how microprocessing and asymmetric cryptography would impact the world. They compare our current political landscape with the downfall of the catholic church in the XVI century. They also talk in great lengths about how the Logic Of Violence changes during the transition to the Information Age and what will happen to our democratic industrial societies (Trumpism, etc…). They are off a few bets and sometimes are redundant or develop extreme and contradictory ideas but it is still a good book to understand why politics as we know it might cease to exist.
  2. 📖 I started reading The Bitcoin Standard. I already learned about Rai Stones in how an Irish-Americans named O’Keefe crashed a micronesia island’s economy. Informative!
  3. 🔐 Sarah Jamie Lewis on her favorite (and hilarious) vulnerability discovery: The Blowjob Injection Attack.
  4. 🛠 The Raspiblitz is a DIY bitcoin and lightning network full node on a RaspberryPi. One can now access a global payment network and transact with the entire world for around 150 euros. How mind-boggling is that?
  5. ⚡️ Could we create a new banking system on top of the Lightning Network? Nik Bathia thinks so and I’m clearly not in a position to have any valuable opinion on the question, but it’s inspiring.
  6. 🔐 The best privacy-respecting browser, TOR, gets a new release and hits 8.0.
  7. 👩‍🎨 A sub-reddit dedicated to empty and dead malls. It’s fascinating to take a look at these empty concrete buildings, and it’s impossible for me not to think of them as witness of the past. Will these buildings one day get a new life?
  8. 🎧 Sou Kono – Midnight Ravers. Sou Kono is a French-Malian band. They produce a music mixing electronic and traditional vibes, but without ever being a cliché.

Happy reading,
Marc

Image Credit & Copyright: The Pencil Nebula in Red and Blue by José Joaquín Perez.


Links Worth Sharing #12

April 12, 2018Nebula

Aloha,

Here are some links I think are worth sharing. I’m taking a few weeks off ?, so please wait a bit for the next edition!

  1. ? I finished binging Star Trek: Enterprise. Despite its many default, I loved this show! The final episode is utter shit though.
  2. ? Speaking of binging, The End of the F***ing World is pretty fun to binge!
  3. ? I started reading Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and it’s already blowing my mind. I love that kind of big unifying theory.
  4. ? A few months ago I read Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth by R. Buckminster Fuller. The theory of the Great Pirates is highly inspiring. He also describes the problem with our accounting. It seems boring but it’s actually one of the biggest problem we have as neo-liberalism is such a shitty system when speaking of externalities.
  5. ? A Curated List of Privacy Respecting Services and Software. Use it if you want to find alternative to human-farming services.
  6. ℹ?? En France, les villes lentes font leur chemin. Basé sur le modèle du Slow Food, les Slow Cities conjuguent ruralité et urbanité.
  7. ? Minimal warm groovy house music? Yes please! Farben Presents James DIN A4.
  8. ?‍? NEEEEED! LEGO Just Got Stylish: Modular Furniture to Bring Out Your Inner Child .

Thanks for reading!

Marc


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