Gather round children, and let Daddy tell you a story known in the world of computing as "the leftpad debacle". NPM is the computing equivalent of a gay bathhouse where programmers all gather to exchange diseases (the formal term in computer science is "bugchasing" if you want to look it up). Years ago, a programmer […]
Tag: crypto
Aegora.jp: An Explainer
Aegora.jp is a somewhat complicated system in that it directly uses on-chain contract call transactions as its payment method. This means that a sale’s status passes through phases that are governed by actions that occur on the chain which can only be initiated by transactions that are signed by the users and must be verified […]
Alternative Tracks
“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually, then suddenly.” Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises A cascade of financial crises are rushing across the Western world. Gradually Imagine a set of express trains that are all headed toward a single catastrophic, multi-track collision. Each train is heavily damaged already, but the […]
The USD is literally a diffuse, dupable NFT
Fiat currencies have reduced themselves to the level of NFTs. The USD is a perfect example of this. The story is fairly easy to understand. The story of NFTs Some intelligent people realized that smart contracts could be used to register ownership of a given contract by a given public key, and that contract could […]
Tsuriai: Now engaging in smart contract work
I never thought I’d see the day, but Tsuriai (the tiny Japanese software company I work for) is now in the Ethereum smart contract market as a developer — which means I am now in that same market. Need a smart contract or blockchain/IPFS-based project developers/consultants/educators*?Just shoot the office an email at info@tsuriai.jp and they’ll […]
Social Trust: Why crypto, blockchain and smart contracts will not change the world
Lately I have been involved in a number of discussions about distributed systems, delegated authority structures, cryptocurrency and smart contracts. The hope of many is that cryptocurrency will avert inflationary trouble entirely and help the public hold government in check. There is also hope that smart contracts will magically turn Africa into a paragon of […]
Laws Derived From Moral Panics Are Dangerous
Politicians love morality laws. They really love sex laws. They really love child protection laws. And they really really love child sex laws. Manufactured moral panics are awesome if you are a career politician. By leveraging a moral panic you can whip people into a frenzy, warping their perception of reality to the point that […]