💬 Quotes
A steady change ongoing over at my blot site. Any piece of writing has to fit into one folder … any and all additional tags will only be emoji - so far I have identified these :
🥇, 🎥, 🎵, 💡, 💬, 📚, 📜, 🔗, 🖋, 🗒, 📃, 😂, 🔍
Not there yet - but it is the right thing to do.
”Will a spider rebuild its web (if destroyed by nature) in exactly the same place? No. It will relocate. It might even find no web is needed, because it knows how to live inside the porch light.”
💬 Stuart Robbins
(a good friend I was rapping with last week on ‘the new normal’)
“I salute Audible for continuing not to call them ‘podcasts’ — if you can’t listen to them in whatever app you want, they’re just shows, not podcasts.”
💬 John Gruber
I particularly like the use of ‘just’.
A quote for the times of COVID
“All human plans are subject to ruthless revision by Nature, or Fate, or whatever one preferred to call the powers behind the Universe.”
💬 Arthur C. Clarke
“Sympathy is often difficult and soon becomes hollow if one feels no pain oneself.”
Sophie Scholl
What's Next
"A masterful demonstration of symmetrical opposites."
Three Stories
These three stories provide context to the People First Newsletter that was published on Tuesday April 21st
Mining Coin Through Your Bodies Activity
🔗 Microsoft Files Patent For New Cryptocurrency and Mining System
Body activity data may be generated based on the sensed body activity of the user. A cryptocurrency system communicatively coupled to the device of the user may verify whether or not the body activity data satisfies one or more conditions set by the cryptocurrency system, and award cryptocurrency to the user whose body activity data is verified.
And
a brain wave or body heat emitted from the user when the user performs the task provided by an information or service provider, such as viewing an advertisement or using certain internet services, can be used in the mining process."
What could possibly go wrong? The answer - as always - it depends.
Investing In The Student Body
Back in 2015 Purdue announced that it was going to invest in its students. I mean really invest.
Through its research foundation, the school plans to create ISA funds that its students can tap to pay for tuition, room and board. In return, students would pay a percentage of their earnings after graduation for a set number of years, replenishing the fund for future investments.
💬 WaPo
There was a lot of huh hah in the media at the time about people selling themselves into servitude. Education is a right and and and …
and yet 5 years later …
One Man Voluntarily Enters Indentured Servitude
It’s just that this isn’t how he sees it. (The story of the man who sold fractional shares in himself.)
It’s not the same, but it reminded me a little of this idea from 2005 - essentially fractional advertising on a single page to fund Alex Tew’s education. (I am going to say it worked. Ever heard of Calm? Alex co-founded the company and he is now co-CEO. Calm is rocking!
Anyway - back to Alex (the other one) - and isn’t it odd that they are both called Alex?
‘$ALEX’ holders are promised a share of ‘any money’ he makes in the next three years! (He’ll pay out up to a total of $100,000 over three years—the rest is (his) to keep). $ALEX holders can vote on some of his life decisions!
That second one smacks a little of 🖇️📚 Luke Rheinhart’s Diceman
… but essentially what Alex is doing is convincing people with money to give it to him - and in return, he will give them more back within 3 years. Why is that any different to those same people buying stock in a company?
The world has been dallying with these ideas for a long time. There is push back from some quarters that caution needs to be applied because this could return us to millions of people working in ‘indentured servitude’ - and certainly by Investopedia’s definition that is exactly what Alex has just signed up for.
I think they are wrong. Sure, we need to tread carefully and not blindly sell all our rights (Lessons learned from musicians of the 60s?) - but surely none of it can be worse than the alternative?
People First!
People First!
Why would it be any different?
Why People First? It’s a question that I am often asked. Why not? If not people, then what should be first?
The questions being asked by mainstream media are primarily about how markets and business will recover - few ask how people will recover.
💬 John Philpin
Technology?
O.M.G. Technology!
We live in the thrall of technology. ‘Shiny Things’, that deliver 'squirrel’ interruptions into our daily lives. Nothing wrong with that, with all the usual caveats that we read about. BUT …
“ OMG - Technology … all
Owned
Managed and
Governed
Not by you - but by the very companies that 'sold' you the ‘bill of goods’ to begin with. ”
John Philpin
”Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy ready-made things in the shops. But since there are no shops where you can buy friends, men no longer have any friends.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
”Math is not about memorizing formulas without meaning, but rather about learning how to reason logically through precise statements"
Dr. Po-Shen Loh
Edmund Burke 200 years ago:
”The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
”The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.”
”Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”
.. and many more.
”Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
”The opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.”
💬 Sun Tzu, The Art of War
”I don’t share because I have not yet found an identity and privacy respecting social media platform that matches my particular brand of gregarious reclusivity.”
“Just remember folks that life is not a rehearsal, so you better get on with it.
Tommy Emmanuel