WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:18.861 The Weekly Thing, issue 227. Attention, Minnedemo, Learning. Published September 24, twenty twenty two. By Jamie Thingelstad. In this issue: Take care of your blog, attention not a commodity, QR codes, Apple Watch Ultra, iPhones 14 Pro, DAOs not corporations, Filecoin vision, RSS 20 years. 00:00:19.461 --> 00:00:24.278 Mazie was sharing with us that her History teacher has them do a Weekly WIL. A what? 00:00:24.778 --> 00:00:26.890 WIL is an acronym. What I Learned. 00:00:27.390 --> 00:00:33.199 So at the end of each week, she is supposed to capture what she learned and share that with her teacher. 00:00:33.699 --> 00:00:38.880 It made me think of the Weekly Thing. Part of my goal is to share What I Learned each week. 00:00:39.380 --> 00:00:42.148 That's a pretty cool assignment. Now lets get to WIL! 00:00:43.548 --> 00:00:45.021 Now, the Featured section. 00:00:45.621 --> 00:00:47.267 There are two links this week. 00:00:48.167 --> 00:00:50.521 Link one of two. Take Care of Your Blog. 00:00:51.021 --> 00:01:00.186 I love the passion and enthusiasm Rendle pours into this post. It is a call to action to fire up your blog and put some text out there on the Internet. 00:01:00.686 --> 00:01:11.461 Quote. There are no rules to blogging except this one: always self-host your website because your URL, your own private domain, is the most valuable thing you can own. End quote. 00:01:11.961 --> 00:01:17.034 Yes! 100% By the way, this really isn't that difficult to do these days either. 00:01:17.534 --> 00:01:25.814 Quote. So, if you want to push your career and your life in a new direction then take care of your blog. Because it all adds up. End quote. 00:01:26.314 --> 00:01:32.929 I had a website before I had a blog. The blog part starts in June two thousand four. 18 years and counting! 00:01:33.829 --> 00:01:37.762 Link two of two. Doc Searls Weblog · Attention is not a commodity. 00:01:38.262 --> 00:01:51.954 Doc Searls agreeing, and decomposing, some concepts in Scott Galloway's most recent posts. Searls takes objection with the metaphor of attention as a commodity. He suggests it is "dehumanizing", which I suppose he is right. 00:01:52.454 --> 00:01:59.216 In general I liked his perspective, but I also thought this statement about the current state of the web was so well stated. 00:01:59.716 --> 00:02:23.431 Quote. At this point in history it is almost impossible to think outside of platformed living. But the Internet is still as free and open as gravity, and does not require platforms to operate. And it’s still young: at most only decades old. In how we experience it today, with ubiquitous connectivity everywhere there’s a cellular data connection, it’s a few years old, tops. End quote. 00:02:23.931 --> 00:02:35.053 I also like his reminder that we are all still so early. There is still so much experimentation. It’s easy for us to just think that the web has settled on what it is. But it isn't. 00:02:35.553 --> 00:02:51.757 Quote. So, what can we do? The simple and difficult answer is to start making tools for individuals, and services leveraging those tools. These are tools empowering individuals with better ways to engage the world’s organizations, especially businesses. End quote. 00:02:52.257 --> 00:02:56.848 There is so much more to explore. So much more to build. So much more to discover. 00:02:57.348 --> 00:02:58.065 I love that. 00:02:59.465 --> 00:03:00.643 That's the end of Featured. 00:03:02.043 --> 00:03:03.401 Now, the Notable section. 00:03:04.001 --> 00:03:05.590 There are nine links this week. 00:03:06.490 --> 00:03:08.803 Link one of nine. QR codes, Dan Hollick. 00:03:09.303 --> 00:03:26.083 I absolutely devoured this post, how wonderfully interesting to learn a bit about how QR codes actually work. I will admit I was firmly in the camp that made fun of QR codes, but then along came a pandemic and smart phones and we all realized they can be pretty awesome. 00:03:26.583 --> 00:03:27.625 Highlights from me. 00:03:28.125 --> 00:03:36.436 1. I’m amazed at how much error correction information a QR code has so it can be resilient to damage and being partially obscured. 00:03:36.936 --> 00:03:39.587 2. The version 40 QR code is gigantic! 00:03:40.087 --> 00:03:46.002 3. How amazing that the company that invented them made them free by never exercising their patent. 00:03:46.502 --> 00:03:48.745 Take a dig through this and be amazed. 00:03:49.645 --> 00:03:52.497 Link two of nine. What I've Learned from Users. 00:03:52.997 --> 00:04:06.038 Graham sharing insights that he's learned from working with so many startups through the Y Combinator program. While this advise is framed for "founders", I think it can apply to many people in a variety of functions. 00:04:06.538 --> 00:04:07.472 I loved this part. 00:04:07.972 --> 00:04:38.907 Quote. A small improvement in navigational ability can make you a lot faster, because it has a double effect: the path is shorter, and you can travel faster along it when you're more certain it's the right one. That's where a lot of YC's value lies, in helping founders get an extra increment of focus that lets them move faster. And since moving fast is the essence of a startup, YC in effect makes startups more startup-like. Speed defines startups. Focus enables speed. YC improves focus. End quote. 00:04:39.407 --> 00:04:51.154 Speed is something to be cherished. Moving quickly, you get more chances to be right. Making sure you are on the shortest path is a good reminder to look up and around to check regularly. 00:04:52.054 --> 00:04:55.218 Link three of nine. Daring Fireball: Apple Watch Ultra. 00:04:55.718 --> 00:05:16.823 When it comes to Apple hardware Gruber is my go to person. HIs review of the Apple Watch Ultra is solid, and given that I have a pretty big wrist I’m intrigued to try one out. I've always felt that the Apple Watch was slightly small on me. The Ultra, and the additional capabilities, may look and feel great in addition to all the powerful features. 00:05:17.723 --> 00:05:24.131 Link four of nine. DAOs are not corporations: where decentralization in autonomous organizations matters. 00:05:24.631 --> 00:05:38.692 I find Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) one of the most interesting structures in crypto. I bought Lil Noun 1416 so I could be a Lil Nouns DAO voting member, and have been actively voting on most proposals. 00:05:39.192 --> 00:05:54.176 The details on different types of DAOs that Vitalik outlines here is interesting. I think his point here is that there is no single best DAO voting method. You need to design for what you are doing. There is still much to learn and discover here. 00:05:55.076 --> 00:06:00.977 Link five of nine. More resilient and user-controlled than AWS: Colin Evran's vision for Filecoin. 00:06:01.477 --> 00:06:27.436 Storing data for a long time, well beyond my lifetime, is something I wonder about. I fully intend to make sure that my blog, photos, and all my writing online is setup in some way that I can insure it is online for as long as possible, hopefully "forever". Filecoin is interesting for a number of reasons, but one of them is that the economics of storing the data can be built into the contracts on the blockchain. 00:06:27.936 --> 00:06:38.375 Quote. Via further updates, it is possible to create DeFi instruments that auto-renew deals for tokenholders, creating essentially a "perpetual storage" network. End quote. 00:06:38.875 --> 00:06:46.942 This is intriguing to me, in addition to other use cases. Disclosure: I have a small investment in Seal Storage, a Filecoin provider. 00:06:47.842 --> 00:06:51.370 Link six of nine. Crucial Questions from CEOs and Boards. 00:06:51.870 --> 00:07:01.730 Good read on seven different areas that Venables has had focused dialog with multiple Corporate Boards on security topics. This is a collection of more informal topics. 00:07:02.230 --> 00:07:44.424 Quote. To be clear, these aren’t the questions necessarily asked in Board meetings I present to, or executive meetings I attend. Rather, these are the questions typically asked when I meet people in such roles in informal settings and they just ask questions to be personally informed. The level of detail of my responses, of course, depends on the audience. So, the point of these posts is not to give you the content of the answers (much of which you will likely know), or to present an exhaustive list of questions and answers for all topics. The point is to give you a flavor of what these groups are asking as it reveals some insights into their concerns and challenges. End quote. 00:07:44.924 --> 00:07:47.384 The topics, and his points on each are good. 00:07:47.884 --> 00:07:52.472 The similar article on questions from CIOs and CTOs is very good as well. 00:07:53.372 --> 00:07:59.067 Link seven of nine. Daily General Discussion, September 16, twenty twenty two: ethfinance. 00:07:59.567 --> 00:08:05.230 Interesting framing on how EIP-1559 turned Ethereum from a currency into a commodity. 00:08:05.730 --> 00:08:29.302 Quote. EIP-1559 made the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) hungry, in order for the EVM to do its work it needs to be fed. Like a cattle is fed corn (a commodity), a furnace is fed fuel (a commodity), a tree is fed with fertilizer (a commodity) or a mathematician is fed with coffee (a commodity). The EVM is fed with ETH and the ETH used gets consumed/spent/burnt. End quote. 00:08:29.802 --> 00:08:51.409 I've heard EIP-1559 touted in many ways, mostly that it is deflationary. In the first 24 hours after it launched 4,700 Ether were burned, and according to Etherchain 2,632,172 ETH have been burned thus far, or 3,512,766,660 dollars and 92 cents at todays price. 00:08:51.909 --> 00:08:57.501 This view though is a different look. The analogy of staking being like farming is even interesting. 00:08:58.401 --> 00:09:03.426 Link eight of nine. Daring Fireball: The iPhones 14 Pro (and iPhones 14). 00:09:03.926 --> 00:09:20.880 Gruber going into great detail on the new iPhone 14. I love how much attention he pays to the details. I’m not due for an upgrade yet, but I like everything I see here. I have to comment that the "Dynamic Island" may be the strangest name that Apple has ever attached to something. 00:09:21.780 --> 00:09:25.441 Link nine of nine. RSS 2.0 Launched 20 Years Ago. 00:09:25.941 --> 00:09:45.208 RSS 2.0 was launched 20 years ago. I do so much with RSS, and to this day it is the most prevalent way I find and discover content. No algorithms, no ML, no social. Just the content I want. Thank you Dave Winer for making a protocol that continues to deliver, and hopefully will do so for decades more. 00:09:46.608 --> 00:09:47.955 That's the end of Notable. 00:09:49.355 --> 00:09:50.795 Now, the Journal section. 00:09:51.395 --> 00:09:53.292 Thursday @ 11:38 PM. 00:09:53.792 --> 00:10:01.956 My Validators made five proposals today on Gnosis Chain. New high. Still just a couple weeks into running my “at home” Dappnode Validator. 00:10:02.856 --> 00:10:04.848 Thursday @ 10:33 PM. 00:10:05.348 --> 00:10:11.834 The RSS feed for the Pinboard’s Popular links stopped working on Sep twelfth. Hoping this will be restored soon. 00:10:12.734 --> 00:10:14.531 Thursday @ 10:23 PM. 00:10:15.031 --> 00:10:25.361 The POAP for this years TeamSPS Kubb Tournament turned out just amazing! I created a Poapathon bounty and “InsertGenericArtName” just blew me away with this design. 00:10:26.261 --> 00:10:28.215 Thursday @ 10:19 PM. 00:10:28.715 --> 00:10:29.939 Minnedemo 37. 00:10:30.439 --> 00:10:40.760 It was great to see the Twin Cities technology community back together for Minnedemo tonight at the Reverview Theater. Minnedemo was also part of the Twin Cities Startup Week lineup. 00:10:41.260 --> 00:10:53.445 The presenters for tonight were great. I also have a special affinity for the vibe of the Riverview Minnedemos. Theatre snacks, food trucks, and a gorgeous evening are a pretty awesome combination. 00:10:53.945 --> 00:10:55.957 The demos were really impressive! 00:10:56.457 --> 00:11:05.773 Sunsett.io: Well designed and easy-to-use product to merge reporting information from many platforms into a single view for small- to mid-sized companies. 00:11:06.273 --> 00:11:12.912 Teqnizan Bluetooth Earrings: Cool idea of an earbud that is mounted into an earring and works outside of the ear canal. 00:11:13.412 --> 00:11:21.938 Collab Spot: Allows you to overlay a collaboration layer on top of any website allowing people to build a website to work together in the actual site. 00:11:22.438 --> 00:11:35.488 IntelligentRx: Mind boggling free tool that allows you to find discounts and coupons to apply to medications and save as much as 90% off the retail price. Incredibly impressive. Self-funded and growing. 00:11:35.988 --> 00:11:39.249 Seraph7 Studios: Presenter had to cancel. Guessing Covid. 00:11:39.749 --> 00:11:48.891 Aurelius 3.0: Solution that collects end-user feedback, does speech-to-text analysis, and allows you to curate and analyze aggregate feedback. 00:11:49.391 --> 00:11:59.270 SitEat: Service specifically designed to allow concession operators at sports venues to allow fans to order from their seat and get orders fulfilled much faster. 00:11:59.770 --> 00:12:07.608 I thought IntelligentRx had the most promise to be very impactful for people. SitEat is something I would love to use at MN United games. 00:12:08.108 --> 00:12:15.961 Even after 37 sessions, 259 demos, I’m still amazed at the creativity and ingenuity of the technology community here. 00:12:16.461 --> 00:12:20.589 Former Minnestar Board members: Me, Adrienne Peirce, and Jim Bernard. 00:12:21.489 --> 00:12:23.217 Thursday @ 4:51 PM. 00:12:23.717 --> 00:12:31.189 I got my Ethereum Mainnet Merge POAP today! It goes perfectly with my Ropsten Merge and Goerli Merge tokens. Tyler got one too. 00:12:32.089 --> 00:12:34.153 Wednesday @ 10:53 AM. 00:12:34.653 --> 00:12:45.454 Great morning sharing keynote for Protolabs GTX event on Innovation Accelerated! Thanks to Rob Bodor for the invitation and Oleg Ryaboy there new CTO for the introduction! 00:12:46.354 --> 00:12:47.986 Monday @ 6:05 PM. 00:12:48.486 --> 00:13:04.812 I decided to take a big "step up" in Wicky Thing Candles production and get a DigiBoil 9 gallon wax melter. Before we had three melters in two double boilers doing 3 lbs of wax at a time. Things4Good Fall Fundraiser coming November twelfth and thirteenth. 00:13:05.712 --> 00:13:07.344 Sunday @ 3:47 PM. 00:13:07.844 --> 00:13:09.068 Roadmap by Dariush. 00:13:09.568 --> 00:13:23.687 I stumbled upon Roadmap by Dariush (0xDariush.eth, @0xDariush) and the project intrigued me. He's hitchhiking from Armenia to Georgia and Turkey and from there to Europe. He is going to share the story on Ethereum. Interesting! 00:13:24.187 --> 00:13:33.615 He's supporting the journey a number of ways, including proposal 862 from Nouns DAO. I also grabbed one of the OG 100 tokens to support his trip. 00:13:34.115 --> 00:13:39.407 I find this sort of experimentation interesting and am curious to see how the experience works. 00:13:40.307 --> 00:13:41.939 Sunday @ 3:25 PM. 00:13:42.439 --> 00:13:49.894 Got cutting-discs on the Dremel and trimmed a dozen or so drawer pull bolts to proper lengths. Tammy filed them down after. 00:13:50.794 --> 00:13:52.426 Sunday @ 3:22 PM. 00:13:52.926 --> 00:14:02.803 Installed these cool modern sconces from Dutton Brown made right here in Minneapolis. I’m not very handy, but I have an unqualified confidence with light electric work. 00:14:03.703 --> 00:14:05.359 Sunday @ 9:19 AM. 00:14:05.859 --> 00:14:08.402 Tracking active Lil Nouns DAO proposals. 00:14:08.902 --> 00:14:13.130 Voted for Lil Nouns DAO proposal 48 "Lil Nouns Weekly Newsletter". 00:14:13.630 --> 00:14:18.623 Voted for Lil Nouns DAO proposal 49 "Lil Funding + Data Pod + Content Pod Refills". 00:14:19.123 --> 00:14:22.282 Snapshot vote for Nouns DAO proposal 142. 00:14:23.182 --> 00:14:24.883 Saturday @ 6:07 PM. 00:14:25.383 --> 00:14:32.247 First time running the Big Green Egg at our new house. Sous Vides beef tenderloin getting a finish on the fire. 00:14:33.147 --> 00:14:34.897 Saturday @ 4:35 PM. 00:14:35.397 --> 00:14:37.590 Noted milestones of your kid driving. 00:14:38.090 --> 00:14:40.576 1. Gets permit and you begin the journey. 00:14:41.076 --> 00:14:44.748 2. Passes drivers test and has their own drivers license. 00:14:45.248 --> 00:14:48.320 3. You add their phone as a driver on your car. 00:14:48.820 --> 00:14:51.446 4. They go to the grocery store on their own. 00:14:51.946 --> 00:14:54.507 Me, waiting for the return from the grocery store. 00:14:55.907 --> 00:14:57.354 That's the end of the Journal. 00:14:58.754 --> 00:15:00.319 Now, the Reply All section. 00:15:00.919 --> 00:15:05.717 Here are some replies from Weekly Thing #226 / Patagonia, Merge, Walrus. 00:15:06.217 --> 00:15:12.698 Jared shared a follow-on to my comment about Software Engineering versus Software Development. It is a great find! 00:15:13.198 --> 00:15:22.840 Your comment on Software Engineers versus Software Developers reminded me of this three part blog series Are We Really Engineers? I read a few months back. 00:15:23.340 --> 00:15:42.883 The author is a Software Engineer and set out to answer the question: "Is software engineering 'really' engineering?". He does so by interviewing people that have been both professional engineerings and professional software developers. It's a long read but it draws some interesting comparisons and conclusions. 00:15:43.383 --> 00:15:47.500 This is one of my favorite parts that made me appreciate working in software. 00:15:48.000 --> 00:16:28.181 Quote. > Software is entirely synthesized. It’s bounded entirely by logic. It doesn’t wear out like a spring, right? It just does what it’s supposed to do. The only thing that can actually go wrong is the specifications. The software was bad. - Nathan Software is far more consistent than any other kind of engineering. We usually think of software as a giant mess, a haze of interdependencies and incompatible hardware, but we actually have it pretty nice. If I give you a sorting function, you can expect it to sort. You do not expect it to sort a given list of (nonpathological) numbers only 95% of the time. That would be ridiculous. End quote. 00:16:28.681 --> 00:16:32.150 I thought you might find the series interesting so I thought I'd share. 00:16:33.550 --> 00:16:34.999 That's the end of Reply All. 00:16:36.399 --> 00:16:37.671 Now, the Briefly section. 00:16:38.271 --> 00:16:39.977 There are eight links this week. 00:16:40.877 --> 00:16:46.854 Link one of eight. Crypto-Mining Data Center Compute North Files for Bankruptcy, CEO Steps Down. 00:16:47.354 --> 00:17:10.095 Computer North is a Minneapolis company. Curious to know more about the details here. Compute North also had a lot of debt, with 300 million dollars borrowed in February. For mining in crypto in general I think the future is dim as more blockchains follow Ethereum's move to proof-of-stake. To be clear though, I tend to believe Bitcoin should stay proof-of-work. 00:17:10.995 --> 00:17:16.340 Link two of eight. High blood pressure is significantly lowered with breath training: NPR. 00:17:16.840 --> 00:17:21.012 Wild that you can train your breathing muscles and improve your blood pressure. 00:17:21.912 --> 00:17:24.006 Link three of eight. Simple Icons. 00:17:24.506 --> 00:17:30.026 2,350 free icons of different brands. Haven't seen that done before. All SVGs. 00:17:30.926 --> 00:17:33.963 Link four of eight. figr.app, Your notepad calculator. 00:17:34.463 --> 00:17:43.907 This reminds me a lot of Soulver, but looks even more powerful and is cross-platform. This type of "intelligent" notebooks that can do math can be very powerful. 00:17:44.807 --> 00:17:50.903 Link five of eight. Three Dynamics Shaping Leadership for the Future, Russell Reynolds Associates. 00:17:51.403 --> 00:18:02.850 Interesting perspective on three large trends: Globalization fraying, Innovation waves shortening, and Employee activism. I appreciated the Leadership implications attached to each one. 00:18:03.750 --> 00:18:05.677 Link six of eight. IYK, POAP Card. 00:18:06.177 --> 00:18:14.277 I’m a big fan of POAP (see my list of POAPs I've created)and a card you can have in your wallet to give them out via NFC is pretty cool. 00:18:15.177 --> 00:18:20.377 Link seven of eight. Uber Investigating Breach of Its Computer Systems, The New York Times. 00:18:20.877 --> 00:18:22.845 Oh wow, that is a lot of access. 00:18:23.745 --> 00:18:28.968 Link eight of eight. A look inside our sixth generation of server hardware, Dropbox. 00:18:29.468 --> 00:18:45.692 I wish there was more detail here but I find it interesting to see how companies that are competing with the cloud approach their hardware. Dropbox really cannot use the cloud for economic reasons, so they have to go bare metal. 20 petabytes in a rack is impressive. 00:18:47.092 --> 00:18:48.487 That's the end of Briefly. 00:18:49.887 --> 00:18:51.279 Now, the Fortune section. 00:18:51.879 --> 00:18:52.961 Here is your fortune… 00:18:53.461 --> 00:18:55.470 You have been selected for a secret mission. 00:18:55.970 --> 00:18:58.377 Thank you for subscribing to the Weekly Thing! 00:18:59.777 --> 00:19:06.648 That brings us to the end of the Weekly Thing, issue 227. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.