Dialogues on Cent

I got into a nice little dialogue over the past few days with @Chevcheli0s, a fellow Centian, in the sub-comments of his reponse to a bounty [here] that was soliciting topics from Centians that they want to see discussed on Cent.

The dialogue sprung out of a tongue-in-cheek response from @Chevcheli0s where he jokingly posted:

Below I have copied our dialogue in full because it highlights just a taste of the best of what Cent has to offer.

@matthew:
"I wonder though, how would the Centian army actually respond... My money would be on a saner conversation than is possible over in the States though. @Chevcheli0s you think it'd break Cent?"

@Chevcheli0s:
"It very well may break Cent. At best, it would turn off a percentage of people and cause them never to return again. Religion and Politics are 2 areas where people are, generally speaking, unwavering in their beliefs. To oppose them is to oppose everything a person holds dear."

@matthew:
"Yeah I agree that politics and religion are the most powerful examples of beliefs that once held make individuals almost gleefully ignorant and dismissive of any "other" beliefs and the people that believe them. And in general, at least in this current zeitgeist that we find ourselves living within, I'm not sure if there's anything as thought-provoking as the fact that reading, listening to, and considering *other* opinions, beliefs and viewpoints is becoming even more uncommon and fraught with risk.

Unfortunately I think a lot of people attribute this fact to a growing ignorance and indifference of those groups of "others" who believe or act differently than themselves.

But if you think a little more, why should people care about something they don't believe in anyways? There is certainly no immediate incentive to care, and if there is a long-term incentive, it's so bloody far away as to be rendered meaningless.

I think that if you want others to care about different opinions and viewpoints, you're going to have to pay them to do so.

Up until now (literally up until Cent was launched) that was an immposible thing to do. But on Cent, I think it may be possible to pay people to, at least for a short period of time, care about something else and pay deeper attention to it then they probably ever would have otherwise. That'a why I think bringing up politics or religion *on Cent* won't break it since people will literally have an incentive to consider the "other" side."

@Chevcheli0s:
"That actually is a very very very brilliant point. I didn’t consider it that way. I always wondered what the goal of Cent was or how it would make money long term but that explains it. And I think you’re 100% right in your thinking."

Life on Cent

It's from Chapelle's Show, chill

The other day someone posted a random bounty about life [here]. It was a super open-ended post, but the bounty poster seemed to have reached some sort of epiphany about life.

Of course I took a shot at responding, and since I am quite happy with the response (and especially the gif since it seems crazy but actually ties in with what I wrote perfectly - but it for sure shocked the hell out of a bunch of Centians), I'll share it here as well. Enjoy.
__________________________

Out of curiosity I'd like to read a longer explanation where you explain why you wrote what you wrote. Like what does 'mind's eye' mean to you?

Anyways, I love to look at how ancient cultures thought of and represented basic concepts like 'life' to help me understand those concepts on a deeper level.

In classical Chinese life is represented by the character '生' which signifies the sprouting of a blade of grass or tree. Explicitly then life is the birth of something, but implicit within the birth of anything is both growth and ultimately death. So life in the ancient past was thought of as the birth, growth and death of anything.

While everything may have a life, the life of any human is valued higher than anything else in our modern times. This is no more clearly expressed than in the character set '人生' which means 'life' in modern Chinese, Korean or Japanese. Unlike in classical Chinese, however, the symbol for person or '人' has been attached to '生' to make explicitly clear that process of birth, growth and death of any human.

Thus life today is nothing more than the process of birth, growth and death that any human lives.

What is super interesting for me is that from this understanding of the apparent difference between how life may have been thought of in the past versus how it is actually thought of today, it seems to show that, at least in a broad general sense, we as humans are the only creatures who have the power to define what life is as well as it's relative value.

And as I wrote that, I just realized that that was probably what you realized too which is probably why you wrote what you wrote.

*mind blown*

Stay Grinding

We all get tired, especially after doing the same thing over and over.

Runners really get tired, because they perform a physically taxing action over and over.

The prescription to fatigue or feeling tired is usually to rest.

Good runners though, when they hit "the wall" or the point during a run or race when the feeling of exhaustion seems almost overwhelming, they break through that fucking wall and keep grinding.

After breaking through that 'runner's wall' a lot of runners get what they call a second wind to propel them until they reach the end of their run or race.

For non-runners, the equivalent of a run or race is the targets and goals we set for ourselves.

It may seem trivial, but one of my goals is to post on this blog (or hopefully on Cent soon) every day until I die or it just doesn't make sense to do so anymore. A couple other tasks I've set for myself are to post at least one Tweet a day on the Cent Twitter account and publish one Spotlight article every week on Cent's Medium page.

Regarding the latter two tasks, it felt as if I were hitting a mental wall yesterday morning. I just couldn't think of anything, but then I put my fingers to the screen and tapped out this Tweet:

And that sparked this convo beneath the Tweet:

Which ended in this priceless moment:

And that episode sparked the thought that helped me decide what this week's Cent Spotlight will focus on.

Boom.

Drugs: the Good, the Bad and the Trippy

It seems like everywhere I turn these days I'm sorrounded by Pollan. And when I say Pollan, I mean drugs.

Of course I am talking about how it seems like Michael Pollan is on every podcast talking about his new book on drugs - specifically hallucinogenics - entitled, "How to Change Your Mind."

As Michael has repeatedly said on the Joe Rogan experience [here], the Ezra Klein Show [here], and Waking Up with Sam Harris [here], our time appears exceptionally fertilized for this discussion on drugs. It's about damn time.

To continue this discussion I posted a bounty on Cent to provide a forum for Centians to talk about drugs however they want. I anticipate a lot of high quality open discussion and dialogue, but I'm sure there will be Centians who are completely against the topic. Nevertheless, I'm excited to see how it all unfolds.

Anyways, join the discussion and get paid for sharing your thoughts here: https://beta.cent.co/+jz6rjv. 

Delight

There probably isn't a more overused word in the world of tech startups than the word 'delight' and all of its derivatives. And for good reason; if users aren't delighted using your product you will absolutely fail.

But what is delight?

There are a few products that I remember experiencing delight when I first used them: Nintendo NES, Gameboy, Tomegotchi, iPod Touch Mini, Facebook, Kakao Talk, avc.com, Twitter, Instagram, and most recently Cent.

The delight I experienced when I used those products could be boiled down to three elements: a laugh, a smile and a good feeling.

Each person will express these three elements in their own unique way - and completely different elements may constitute their own experiences of delight - but one thing is for sure, it can't be faked.

Fake delight will sustain you a couple days, weeks or maybe a month max. Genuine delight on the other hand, that shit is like rocket fuel. Months, years even in some spectacular instances, will seem to fly by while you continue to be delighted.

If you are working in a company that makes something that delights its users, hang on tight. And if you're worried that maybe you're the only one who is experiencing delight, make sure you distill the elements of your delight from the product down and then optimize and market for that/those elements relentlessly.

Video of the Week No.1 - CryptoKitties & Fred Wilson

I don't normally watch a lot of Youtube, so when I do watch something on Youtube (that's not a music video) that almost certainly means it's share-worthy.

Over the past week I was daily checking Youtube to see if the talks from Token Summit III had been re-broadcast yet. They were finally released yesterday, including the talk I have been most eager to watch: Where CryptoKitties Are Going, a talk between Fred Wilson (USV) and Dieter Shirley (Crypto Kitties).

They discussed all things NFTs (non-fungible tokens), the state of development on Ethereum, and of course CryptoKitties. It was a great talk and is indeed share-worthy. You can check out the full chat here.

Lists & Discovery

Discovery is the holy grail of monetization. It's so potentially valuable, but until now has proved impossibly elusive.

The main way sites and services are able to monetize their concerns today is by selling the intent of their users. When you search for CryptoKitties or porn or an umbrella or whatever online, you are signaling direct intent about those things.

Those things can then be paired with an ad or featured site of a more or less similar nature. And the advertisers behind the ad as well as site operator who was featured pay for that intent. The theory behind that assumes that you will continue to be interested in what you signaled interest in.

That's more or less true for some things, but not everything. Hence, the stupid banner ads showing you teaspoons for 7 weeks after you buy what will in all likelihood be your first and last teaspoon while you're alive.

What would be ideal, or so the ad men and women tell us, is if the ads could show you something that you'd like without you even knowing you'd like that thing ahead of time (i.e. showing you something you may like without using previously signaled intent).

Our intent-based search approach has yielded probably trillions of sites, apps, pictures, podcasts, newsletters and more that are incredibly specific, focused and niche. And basically a few algorithms (e.g. Google and Facebook) are determining what of that ocean of information is ever shown to us.

So we miss a lot and forget a lot.

On Cent I have a weekly BOTI bounty where I attach a modest bounty and call upon my fellow Centians to share the best (i.e. funniest, most important, or thought provoking) articles, podcasts, Tweets, Grams, Youtube videos, apps, Dapps or whatever from the internet last week. The user submissions are then ranked based on an army of Centians who iteratively compare pair sets of submissions and select what they think is the best.

If 100s or 1000s of users that are from all over the world representing as varied and diverse a population as can be imagined all progressively rank and choose information optimizing for the "best", that's no different than getting 100s or 1000s of algorithms to interoperate together for the same purpose.

And despite what is now a relatively low incentive of around $5, the resulting BOTI lists have been delightfully great! What's more, several other users repeatedly expressed their delight and thanks for being provided a list that contains many great things that they'd never have been able to discover previously.

Fuck. Doesn't that just say it all?

Pretty soon I can foresee a Best of List for every major platform and aggregator, from Facebook and Instagram, to Twitter and Snap and everything else on a daily basis with way higher bounties. Moreover, it's my feeling that the value these lists produce (in terms of discovery and utility to say nothing of the delight and joy) will be monetizable to a degree that now is simply unimaginable. The key difference will be that the value will be captured mainly by the content creators, sharers, and curators with the platform host receiving a small share.

As forecast, the future will be a constant battle for and of the algorithms, but it will be for the human algorithms that make up that perfectly diverse unique blend of quality sorters that will be able to reliably produce lists that provide immense discovery value and the algorithms that are used to determine that perfect mix.

This has been a bit of a ramble, and there is a ton that needs to be fleshed out, let alone tested, but this has got me pretty damn excited. Now I just need to get a few others to see what I see. Happy weekend everybody.

Explaining Something Brand New

A lot of what we're doing on Cent is brand new.

Bounties for non-coders, new. Paying users to sort answers supported by an algorithm, new. And there is a whole lot more 'new' that's about to be released soon.

None of what we're doing is overly complicated though, but because it's so new there is a thick fog of doubt surrounding it.

For example, when it comes to our sorting system (a dead simple mechanism that relies on users signaling their preference for one response over another) many believe that it is being abused by users who seek to take home a portion of the bounties that get distributed to users by sorting responses blindly.

If you take a look at the responses that are finally sorted to the top and bottom of the response threads though, it becomes clear as day that the system is working. But since users aren't seeing, or aren't believing what they're seeing, we need to constantly repeat the fact that - at least as of now - it is actually working.

Repetition or brute forcing new concepts into peoples minds is the only way to get new concepts to stick.

So I put together a brief explainer that looks into sorting and how Centians are sorting responses in this week's Cent Spotlight #4. Check it out here and share it on Twitter or somewhere else on the internet then give me feedback or suggestions for next week's Cent Spotlight topic over on Cent here. And Cent on.

My Wife Cents for the First Time

Last night I helped my wife (@Monica) post her first bounty on beta.cent.co and it was a good one.

She loves to cook and share pictures and cooking tips on insta with a small clique of in-chin or insta friends, so I was curious how other Centians would respond to a food and recipe posting.

So far, so good.

You can check her bounty out here and feel free to share your food porn and recipes and sort through the other pictures and recipes that users upload. Why you ask? Because you'll get paid.

Blogging & Discussion

There is a pretty cool bounty live on Cent now [here] asking about how users think blogging may work if implemented into Cent.

About 40 Centians have responded so far, with several open to the idea of adding blogging capability and in some cases basically aligned 100% with my personal vision for how blogging would work on Cent.

Of course there are several users who aren't so sure.

One comment by fellow Centian @hpearcem pretty much sums up the opinion of those not in total support of the idea: "Cent is more of a discussion platform and blogging is not."

That opinion is completely understandable. For many, blogging is associated with writing in a diary; a diary that is, of course, open to the whole world. And like diaries, no one usually writes on another person's blog. But there is one glaring uncommonly common exception: the comment section found beneath basically every single blog.

The reality though is that the comment section has been dead for a long time for most bloggers. So for all intents and purposes, blogging has not been a platform for discussion for most bloggers. That though is a bug, not a feature.

For a small minority, blogging has been used as a platform for discussion, but this has been true only for super notable bloggers for the most part like Fred Wilson on avc.com for example; not your typical average blogger.

I am one of those typical average bloggers. As a typical average blogger, when I see the discussion that takes place at avc.com I am stoked, but envious since I know that barring some sudden celebrity or a super time consuming not to mention costly SNS marketing blitz, my discussion-less blogging reality will inevitably persist.

Since I am in no way special or extraordinary, there must be others out there in a similar position who feel something similar and want to have open discussions on their blogs.

Until now though, as I've said, there just hasn't been an easy way to accomplish this. But now we have Cent, and as long as you have a couple bucks you can bring that discussion you've longed for to your blog posts on-demand.

On top of that, users have been creating mini-blog posts already - just click your username and look at your history.

Anyways, to summarize: Blogging is very much a platform for discussion, it's just been the case that the blogging platforms out there until now have been terrible at attracting and sustaining that discussion.

Pro tip: you can substitute 'blogging' for a number of other native digital actions too like vlogging or podcasting or...the list goes on.

Interesting Questions

I was listening to an interesting conversation yesterday between the boys of The Bitcoin Podcast and Chris DeRose [here]. For those who may not know, whenever Chris is a part of any conversation it's never a dull one, and this time was no exception.

I'm about half-way through the podcast, but a comment echoed by the TBP boys has stuck with me. Essentially they said that a world where everybody is grey (i.e. when all of the races and peoples of the world marry and produce future generations of racially indistinguishable people) does not seem like a world that would be fundamentally interesting to them. They fear that all that is unique in our world today would disappear into a homogenous blob of sameness.

The underlying assumption in that line of thinking is of course that different colored people think differently. That is a common line of thinking, at least amongst a large segment of Americans. It also happens to be fundamentally racist. It's not the type of racism that results in murder, at least not directly, but it's racist nonetheless.

Anyways, what I thought about after listening to those comments was the type of question the TBP boys and people like them would then ask someone to make sure they help bring something unique to the table. Of course they'd have to ask something like: What color is your skin?

But is that the most interesting question you can ask someone? Wouldn't you rather ask about someone’s collective experiences, places lived, languages spoken, personal beliefs, and things like that? Of course, but people think that the color of a persons skin is a good metric to use to indicate diversity of those hyper-individual underlying characteristics.

Why? Perhaps because before modern modes of transportation and the internet was created, people (who happened to largely share the same skin color) shared broadly similar characteristics (e.g. beliefs, attitudes, languages etc...) across their respective populations

There is more to unpack here, and I may come back and expand this, but it's time to enjoy Buddha's Birthday and the day off from work I have because of it with my wife.

The Best of the Internet (BOTI)

Sit back, relax and enjoy my man

My third 'Best of the Internet (from last week)' bounty just closed over on Cent, and I am pretty happy with the results [here].

There are so many fascinating, profound, momentous, sad, hilarious, gut wrenching, bizarre, and unique articles, memes, videos, podcasts, games, apps, Dapps, and pictures that are added to the internet every week. It's been an impossible task to keep up with it all for a very long time.

The really popular stuff - at least for a majority of people - rises to the top pretty quickly. What is popular may represent the best for some, but it isn't necessarily popular with everyone and it may not be close to being what is the best for many others.

That's where my weekly bounty on beta.cent.co comes in. Even if I am only able to get a small subset of the thousands of Cent users, that provides numerous perspectives to filter and curate the internet for me. And that is what has happened with my bounty.

This week I got the best of all the fascinating, profound, momentous, sad, hilarious, gut wrenching, bizarre, and unique articles, memes, videos, podcasts, games, apps, Dapps, and pictures posted to the internet last week all in one easy to browse list. And all for $5 plus a couple bucks in tips.

I can't be 100%, but this feels like something pretty special. There may be services or instances that may provide something similar to this, but of those instances that I can think of now, I can also come up with a million reasons why what is possible on Cent with this bounty and in general is so special and different from everything that came before it.

Enjoy everybody. And Cent on.

Podcast of the Week No.7

The emerging phenomenon that is the so-called 'Intellectual Dark Web' and the individuals associated with that phenomenon are getting a lot of play in the media these days.

More than the content and beliefs espoused by the cohort of characters operating within this movement and its followers, I find the fact that this movement has sprung up by taking full advantage of distributed technology like podcasts, youtube and Twitter and the power it's gaining as a loosely connected de-centralized group to be way more interesting.

Now if you have over 10,000 Twitter followers you are granted privilege to write to an imaginary newspaper.

Whereas the old 'gated institutional narrative' of yesteryear that was set forth by the NYTimes, Harvard, the Senate and other old, elite institutions that used to control the coherence of societal thought, today those reporters and members of those institutions are just another voice.

Utilizing the aforementioned tech, a new substrate of conversation has manifested and is growing into a counterforce against the narrative put forth by centralized organizations.

Anyways, Vox's wonky podcast 'The Weeds' discussed the 'Intellectual Dark Web' last week [here], and while I think they did a pretty terrible job at arguing with what has actually been said since they instead discussed their emotional interpretations of what has been said, it's still a super interesting discussion to listen to.

Enjoy the podcast and have a great weekend everybody.

Will Cent Make it out of Beta?

The other day on Cent a concerned user posted a bounty [here] asking if Cent will make it out of beta or not. In typical fashion I provided a deep but brief response.

As a comment on Cent and my feelings about its future, I think my response would hold up well on its own, so I'll leave it here for those who may not be active Centians. I've edited it lightly for clarity.

The Future of Cent

Yes, Cent will make it out of beta.

How do I know? I talk with Max & Cam every week and know a bit about their plans for Cent. They can fill in the details later. But I can assure you that some amazing updates are comming our way soon.

About Bounties

It's important to remember that a bounty is a tool that is attached to posts. Moreover, posts don't even need to be questions. I agree with other users and think that the content of posts is much more important than the bounty value that gets attached.

Regardless of whether a bounty is high or low, it is much more important for a post to be interesting and appeal to other users. Higher bounties don't necessarily mean more responses, and low bounties have attracted boatloads of really well written and sincere responses.

Users

Daily and monthly users on Cent continue to grow. The number of users who post bounties ebbs and flows. For my part, I have come up with a weekly bounty to crowdsource a list of the top items from the internet last week. We should think of more of these regular bounties.

Other Sites Similar to Cent

I've heard of sites like gitcoin, bounties network, earn, steemit and yours.org where some people are earning a bit of pocket crypto. Cent is different than all of those projects in that it isn't limited to coders like gitcoin or bounties network and the social network forming around it feels so much better than places like steemit or yours.org. I think Cent allows users to earn more money in less time as well (this may differ case by case for now though).

Personal Feelings on Cent

If it wasn't already clear, I am all in on Cent. I think Cent is the future. The community of Centians and the calibre of discussion - both in the responses to posts but also in the sub-comments of responses - are creating a ton of value on their own. Add to that, the growing number of users that are getting paid ETH is laying the groundwork for a future network of Centians that will be able to pay others and get paid for their creativity and time, from any place in the world at any time.

Cent on everyone.

Team Building Part Deux

I made that (refer to picture) at my team building session yesterday. Yep, we made neon signs. And yes, that sign says HODL.

Korea is pretty much the global epicenter for crypto, but most Koreans are unfamiliar with 'hodl' and don't know what it means.

Of course you can explain the concept behind hodling, and you can explain the reason for the mis-spelling, but the best way to really explain the meaning is to use the 1:1 Korean equivalent: 좀버.

Now excuse me while I pass out on this commuter bus. It was a long damn night. Hodl on, hodl strong.

Team Building

About once a year or so each team, division and group within my company have a designated day or half-day for team building activities. This could mean bowling, neon sign making, going to a ropes course, mountain climbing or any "team building" activity.

If it were up to me I'd just cut to the chase and treat my team to a fancy dinner and drinks, but I'm the youngest old man you'll ever meet.

That said I'm usually always left feeling happy and satisfied that I took part in the team building session after it finishes. There are always a few more colleagues you get to know during whatever activity you end up doing, and we always drink copious amount of liquor with a tasty meal.

Most times a little discomfort upfront ends up being worth it in the end. Cheers to keep on keeping on through it all.

Profit Comes From People

Yesterday as I was catching up on a few recent daily articles from Ben Thompson's Stratechery newsletter, I was struck by the following sentence: Profit comes not from right but from worth.

Ben was talking about why he immediately ponied up the cash to maintain full access to Bloomberg's journalism. I almost said digital journalism, but since their an exclusively digital outfit (I think) I decided it's too early to get tautological. Anyways.

I totally get both his point about something needing to be worth something to elicit an exchange for it, as well as why he paid Bloomberg money: they write damn good articles that are worth paying for.

It also got me thinking of avc.com, Facebook, and Cent.

As I've said before, I think Fred's blog and comment section is one of the most valuable free resources on the internets today. The 5% of blog visitors who drop into the forum of debate below Fred's daily posts would surely pay something to both Fred and his commentariat if for no other reason than just to give back a little of the value they have taken until now. I know I would.

Facebook provides a global phonebook, replete with white and yellow pages. Although the phonebook wasn't must-read material when we used to have it delivered to our house when I was younger, it provided an indispensable utility (for a time) and paid for itself - it still does believe it or not - with revenue from ads. Each and every person pays for themselves in some small way just being a Facebook user and thus adding additional value to the network of other users and Facebook itself.

Cent, at least for now, is more like avc.com than Facebook. It's similar in scale (obviously) but also in terms of the value that the discussions between and amongst users generates. As of today, tens of thousands of dollars has passed through Cent, and that will only increase. That is proper value, and it's built into the experience from the beginning; there won't be some separate paywall bolted on later (nothing against paywalls, it's just that we are talking about two fundamentally different experiences).

The big question is how best to capture that value, but aside from that it's crucial to see where that value and the profits therefrom are derived from: People.

HR in Asia

You won't see this guy working in HR in Asia

In Asia, the best and brightest end up in HR.

In the West, HR is an after thought at best, and a mosquito like nuisance at worst.

Working in corporate HR within a major Korean conglomerate based in Seoul is a very interesting experience.

On the one hand I have a glimpse into the inner workings of the millennia old mandarin tradition of attempting to bureaucratically manage a surplus of talent fighting for a limited number of prized seats and allocating the best and brightest talent.

From private companies all the way to the government, HR is king in Korea, and I presume the rest of Northeast Asia as well. [I'd be interested to hear from folks with experience working in other parts of Asia if this is something general to Asia or more specific to Korea]

On the other hand in the West, HR is...Toby from The Office - the butt of all workplace jokes.

Asian HR is respected and feared; Western HR is mocked and derided.

I'm not quite sure how to square the difference in perception. And I'm not sure it's worth it.

The valuable takeaway is probably just to realize that things can be very, very different in different places. So if you ever find yourself employed in Asia and you need to meet with HR, you won't be meeting with a Toby.

New New Ideas & Marshall McLuhan

Cheers to fellow Centian @MaheShrestha for sharing this pic on Cent

Last night I finally wrapped up Marshall McLuhan's groundbreaking work "Understanding Media." Considering it was published over 50 years ago it is amazing how fresh the book feels.

One of the most impressive aspects of the book is the fact that it was published at all. In the book's introduction McLuhan recalls how an editor lamented that the book was unpublishable since it contained over 75% in brand new material; a "normal" book was supposed to only introduce at best 15% in new material.

Of course that editor was wrong, and McLuhan's ascent into the stratosphere of fame and renown is testament to that fact. But that editor wasn't worried for nothing.

Often times when someone introduces a new concept they leave their interlocutors dazed and confused. New concepts are just hard.

Readers of this blog and fellow Centians will remember my own initial consternation getting a feel for McLuhan's writing style let alone key core concepts. But after pushing through the first few chapters where McLuhan introduces everything new - literally nothing new is introduced later in the book - he professorially assaults the reader with a barrage of repetition, rephrasing and reiteration of those new ideas over and over.

It is an extremely effective technique. No matter how hard or foreign a new idea may be, if it is explained in a myriad of different ways consistently and with conviction, understanding is bound to follow.

Any good teacher probably knows this. It wouldn't surprise me if this method is called the 'Jesus Pedagogy'.

In fact, it's a technique that this humble blog has been employing in regards to a few subjects I'm passionate about like Cent (duh), Heidegger, and 이동식 just to name a few obvious ones.

So if you ever fall for something new and want to explain it to others, which you will have to at some point whether you want to or not, be prepared to give examples and explications for days and days as consistently as an automatic Swiss wrist watch.

Podcast of the Week No.6

I listened to quite a few podcasts last week. Several of them were quite good.

Each episode of Caliphate has been must-listen stuff, but I keep finding myself disappointed that each episode isn't longer.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy and Ezra Klein both pumped out solid episodes as well.

But it was Sam Harris and his discussion with Tamler Sommers about 'honor' that was my favorite podcast from last week [here]. That said, it wasn't my favorite episode because I agreed with everything in it; far from it.

I found myself disagreeing with Tamler's argument for championing the better parts of honor whilst condemning the negative consequences that arise when honor culture is taken to its extreme (e.g. in extreme Islam when families murder daughters for "bringing" shame upon them for being raped...).

I'm not sure if the opposite of honor culture is a society governed by rule of law as much as it's a society where citizens have a well developed sense of empathy from traveling widely with governing laws and enforcing institutions developed therefrom. After all, laws developed from cultures governed by honor codes will be just as if not more fucked up.

Like I said though, there are good parts of living honorably that would seem to be conducive towards fostering a better future for humanity. Perhaps Tamler mentioned that in the episode that I missed. Or perhaps his case for honor is clearer on his own podcast 'Very Bad Wizards' co-hosted with David Pizarro. I'll keep an open mind and continue listening for it.

맥모닝

Last night went late. Very, very late. But it was time well spent with great people.

Now, for the first time in five years (seriously) my wife and I are enjoying McDonald's breakfast on a chill rainy morning watching Mad Men.

I love weekends.

Happy Friday everybody.

Notes on Stories

I read an interesting article the other day by Ian Bogost entitled "Why 'Stories' Took Over Your Smartphone" about the rise of a brand new native mobile media format.

Formats are important because they are essentially behavioral defaults. They pre-define what is possible. They also standardize what, until a particular format arose, had been a totally bespoke effort based on a growing number of individuals producing something that looks similar using, potentially, vastly different means.

It's a great read, but for those who don't have time I cribbed some key passages from the article that highlight the salient points, at least for me.

So, skim through my notes below and give the article a read if you have more time.
______________________

Facebook’s chief product officer, Chris Cox, made a remarkable announcement...this week: “The increase in the Stories format,” he explained, “is on a path to surpass feeds as the primary way people share things with their friends sometime next year.”

[Stories are] a collection of images and short videos, with optional overlays and effects, that a user can add to over time, but which disappears after 24 hours. Users view a Story in sequence, either waiting out a programmed delay between images or manually advancing to the next.

Stories might be the first true smartphone media format. And that might mean that they will become the dominant format of the future.

[Stories are] composed in the heretofore ghastly 9:16 aspect ratio. This is an unholy view, like a widescreen television on its side. But it’s also the standard view of the smartphone display. 

Stories is not a technology, nor is it a feature. It is a media format, or even a genre, in the way that a magazine or a murder mystery or a 30-minute television program is.

[Stories] are chains of vignettes, as seen through the frame of the smartphone’s rectangle. Moving rectangles, maybe we should call them instead, after moving images, another name for the category that contains film, television, video, and the like.

“I think disassociation is sort of the point [of Stories]...It’s the same reason people go to Coachella just to take photos of themselves there all day.” The liveness of smartphone-authorship, combined with the ephemerality of the Story format, makes it a catalog of the experience of holding and looking through a rectangle almost all the time.

“Photography is not about the thing photographed...It is about how that thing looks photographed.” And likewise, a Story is not about the things sequenced in the story. It is about how those things look through the sensors and software of a smartphone.

Who are my Readers?

To everyone who is stopping here to read something on the regular: Thank you, it really means a lot.

Since I started blogging daily at the end of January, traffic to this humble blog has skyrocketed (in relative terms). There are over 750 unique visitors to this blog on average every month now. That's crazy. 

What's even crazier is that over 100 stopped by yesterday alone. 

I know there are a few Centians who stop by regularly, but there seems to be a lot of other folks. Maybe they're just bots?

Anyways it would be great to interact with you guys more before I shift this over to Cent.

Reach out to me on Twitter @bread_krumbs and give me a shout. Would be super grateful.

Playing for Keeps on the Blockchain

First of all, Cryptogs.io is a cool new Dapp. For those of you who don't know, Cryptogs has put Pogs on the blockchain as ERC-721 tokens and allows anyone to play for keeps against an opponent that could be anywhere around the world.

I wrote about it last week [here] after I came across a bounty on Cent looking for original artwork to create more pogs posted by the sites creator, Austin Griffith. The bounty is still live [here].

Well yesterday, I was finally matched up with another player located somewhere on the other side of the globe, and got three matches in. I lost more Pogs than I won, but that's not the big story.

Rather, after nearly 22 years, I found myself playing Pogs for keeps, on the blockchain. Crazy, right?

The game play is simple and straight forward, but before you begin to play for keeps there are a few steps you need to make it through.

First, go to Cryptogs.io, click 'Play Togs', and then click 'Create Game'.

Next, select five Pogs that you will play for keeps with. Bear in mind you may lose all of these, so if you have any precious Pogs, think twice about playing with them. That said, in the future a rare Pog will be a great incentive to attract an opponent who is also willing to play with a rare Pog.

After you click 'Submit' you will need to wait for an opponent. Pro tip: join the Cryptog slack or discord and try to find an opponent there before trying to start a game on the site.

Success! An opponent has finally joined.

You're almost there, just click 'Transfer to Contract' and make sure your gas levels are where they should be before signing the transaction in MetaMask or on your mobile Web3 client (I'm on CipherBrowser which takes care of setting approriate gas levels for you).

Sometimes you will be asked to generate the game. Simply click 'Generate Game', and again sign the transaction in MetaMask or on your mobile Web3 browser. Now you're ready to slam. Super excited (I really want that top Pog!).

The game will proceed automatically from here until all the Pogs have been flipped over. Remember, you keep the Pogs that flip over on your slam.

You can see the final results of my match here:

So there you have it. I lost more Pogs than I won, but I scooped that coveted kitty Pog that was designed by fellow Centian @MTimeTraveller, so I am super stoked.

If you want to play me for keeps, hit me up on the Cryptogs slack, I'm Matthew.

Fred Wilson Hearts Cent

Having someone hearting your Tweets isn't that big of a deal. But it isn't nothing. And if Fred Wilson hearts your Tweet, well that's just pretty damn cool.

I'm in charge of Comms at Cent and outside of our user base on beta.cent.co, our biggest following is over on Twitter, so that is where I concentrate a good bulk of our messaging and signaling.

Cent has been doing what few Dapps have been able to, and not just in terms of finding and growing an actual audience. Our users are putting real money in the form of ETH onto our platform that is flowing through our smart contracts and into the wallets of our users.

In fact tens of thousands of dollars have been distributed to 1300+ users since the beta went live at the end of last summer. Not only is that demonstrating real value, it represents tens of thousands of transactions that would not have been possible but for ETH and the Ethereum network.

That is real value, the same kind of value that Fred Wilson talked about in his post on Sunday [here]. So I linked that article and him into our Tweet. And he hearted it.

Idea Clicks

Have you ever wrestled with an idea, repeatedly turning it over in your mind trying to work it out until it feels right? Sometimes it's a real struggle, but there's nothing as satisfying as when everything comes together and the idea finally clicks into place.

As many of you know I've been wrestling with figuring out how I will operate this blog when I move it over to Cent. The general direction has been clear for awhile now - I will publish daily on Cent instead of here - but specifics like how I'll use the bounty mechanism have been unclear to me, so the idea hasn't really clicked yet in my mind.

Well, that is until last night when I was enjoying some of the best lamb in the world with my wife. I was explaining how a tipping function will be introduced to Cent soon that will coincide with the introduction of the original content function when it hit me, and everything finally clicked into place: I will employ a combo of bounty-first posts and more directed tip-based posts.

I will use the bounty function as a way to make big announcements or simply to attract quick, on-demand responses.

For an example of when I will deploy bounties, I will set a bounty on my first post in order to broadcast my plan to move my blog to Cent as well as recruit anywhere from 1~3 Centurions (i.e. moderators) for my blog. These moderators will be in charge of stimulating discussion under each of my posts and creating an atmosphere that is attractive to readers almost independently of my daily posts. For their efforts, the Centurions will get a cut of the $5 I will allocate to each post.

For daily posts, instead of attaching a bounty, I will instead utilize tips. Centurions will get a majority of the daily $5 tip allotment, and top comments from other users will split the remaining cash.

My plan is to develop a couple of recurring, regular posts for the weekend that I will attach bounties to. Currently I feature my favorite podcast from the past week every Saturday. I will continue to do so on Cent, and will ask other Centians to submit their favorite podcasts from the past week. Additionally I will try to set up a weekly 'crowdsourced RSS feed of sorts' by asking Centians to submit the single best thing they came across on the internet over the past week. Observant Centians will have noticed that I've just tried out this latter idea on Cent [here].

Well, that's it. It feels good to me. How about you? It looks like this change will happen sometime this week, so get your applications ready if you want to get paid for starting and curating discusssions under my posts. My short-term plan is to collect $150 in tips from readers to break even, but if I get more tips, my Centurions will for sure get raises. So get ready for the beginnings of something super different.

Cheers everybody.

Podcast of the Week No.5

Patrick O'Shaughnessy is on a roll. Each episode of his 'Invest Like the Best' podcast is a must listen (for me).

His guests are all deep thinkers, analytical as hell, and making big moves in the most exciting sectors around.

Last week Patrick had Chris Douvos, a managing partner at Venture Investment Associates, on the show [link] and it was just a great episode.

The discussion that ensued when Chris was discussing why he hates when others talk about what it would take to "make" a second Silicon Valley triggered a deep insight in myself about how I think about Korea. I am spreading that insight out over a series of posts that I will begin posting soon (hopefully on Cent 🤸).

In the meantime, happy podcasting and enjoy your weekend.

Consistency is a Bar

A good bar is open when you need it, seat ready and waiting.

You can join into conversation around you just as easy as you can listen to what others are saying and doing.

Most of the faces you recognize, and they you, but there's always a new face or two.

Your drink is always on tap, as is true for each regular and their favorite brew.

A good bar is nothing but consistent in this regard.

Cool New Project - Cryptogs.io

Yesterday a really cool new project in the Ethereum space posted a $70 bounty on Cent. They're looking for more artists to upload unique artwork to mint new Pogs that'll live on the blockchain. Yep, you read that right.

The project is called Cryptogs.io and they have put Pogs on the blockchain as ERC-721 tokens. Their site lets anyone mint their very own ERC-721 Pogs by simply uploading original art and paying 0.02 ETH for a stack (5 Pogs) or 0.004 ETH for a single. When you do upload a design, just make sure to add the name and email of the artist of the design.

After you mint your Pogs you can play someone for keeps (i.e you gamble with another player by stacking a certain fixed number of your Pogs with theirs, slamming the stack, walking away with whatever Pogs land facing up after your slam and losing Pogs that land facing up after the other players slam), or trade/sell them on other open exchanges like Opensea.

It's a simple project that seems well designed. I just received my stack of Pogs that I minted last night. Of course they are Cent Pogs, and of course I attributed the art work to the original artist cum Cent CEO and co-founder, Max Brody. Check out Cryptogs, then check out Cent and get paid to sort the best Pog designs.

Consequences

With most of life - both personally and professionally - being lived and carried out by so many in the digital world, many may lose touch with the real world consequences of their actions. They always exist; but there's a real gap.

For me, however, although I have one foot firmly planted in the digital world, the other foot is still very much in the real world - working at a global E&C contractor building big things in the real world is kind of the whole point.

And construction is dangerous. There's no way to deny that aspect with a million and one ways to die on any given construction site. That's why safety is *the* number one focus - or at least it should be.

Unfortunately, there was a serious accident on one of our overseas projects the other day. A family had their lives changed in one single, irreversible instant.

The investigation is still on-going - and to be crystal clear I am in no way a part of or affiliated with the investigation - so everything that factored into the accident will be revealed imminently.

But from my vantage point located within the safe and comfortable confines of our corporate office in Seoul - a part of reality removed from reality, if you will - there are a few threads that are connected to this terrible accident that have been sticking out for some time.

These threads are the result of bureaucratic decisions made regarding processes that, at least in name, were put in place for safety's sake. They weren't though; they were set up as a way to consolidate decision making power within the corporate function that put the process in place. Safety wasn't first. And because of that, something bad happened.

Sometimes when a reality, whether that be a digital or corporate one, becomes too comfortable, the gap between that reality and the dirty, dangerous reality of the indifferent real world is so blinding that we forget about how out actions may impact the latter. But for everyone who has their boots on the ground in that latter reality - and everyone does, at least at some point or other - those actions and subsequent consequences are unforgettable.

So the next time do something, think about the potential existential impact that you  or the group will have.

Thoughts on Marshall McLuhan?

Yesterday I was privy to some pretty freaking awesome news about Cent and original content.

While I can't go into specifics, I can say that good things will be happening soon. Very soon.

So in preparation of these 'good things', I posted on Cent and attached a bounty of 0.03 ETH [link]. This isn't a normal Cent post though, it is a bit of a test-post of sorts.

I'm not sure if my writing style will change when I start blogging on Cent, but I know I'll be able to interact in several new ways that just haven't been possible before.

One of those new interactions is soliciting immediate suggestions or ideas people may have about something or someone.

I know I want to write about Marshall McLuhan and his book "Understanding Media" that I'm currently reading and make some connection with crypto, but I'm not sure what that connection is yet.

So I made a post to see if there's any Centian out there who has already formed that connection as well as to solicit any informed takes that may exist that aren't reflected in Wikipedia or dusty journals.

Anyways, check out my Cent post [here] and discuss.