A lot has already been written about different aspects of why most distributed blockchain-based consensus systems are just… bad. And yet we are still able to find new such reasons. At least I think this is a new one. I have not seen it mentioned anywhere so far.
Distributed blockchain-based consensus systems, as they are currently implemented, are an energy-waste ratchet.
I am specifically talking about systems like Bitcoin and Ethereum, and any other system that:
The fifteenth International Day Against DRM (IDAD) is next week, and we here at the Defective by Design campaign are calling on you to help us send a message to purveyors of Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) around the world, letting them know that DRM is unacceptable in any and all of its forms. This year's Day Against DRM will be held next Friday, on December 10, 2021.
She’s Got It by The Leonard Simpson Duo; Mittrom by Mach-Hommy & Earl Sweatshirt; Open the Brain by Quelle Chris; Snake Oil Scientist by Marlowe; and Aunties Steak & Rice Hold the Cabbage by Camoflauge Monk (from Chopin Prelude in E Minor by Les Baxter). #SpotifyWrapped
The post #SpotifyWrapped appeared first on Zeldman on Web and Interaction Design.
The most revealing graph presented in Wednesday’s September quarter national accounts is one showing what has happened just beyond the end of the September quarter, in the one we are in now.
Melbourne’s lockdown ended on October 27.
The graph uses anonymised bank account data to show what happened to spending in Victoria as soon as the lockdown was lifted.
Selected Victorian spending data
How much cash would you need to be paid to agree to live without a smartphone for a year?
If you are like the typical American, the answer is US$10,000 – which is far, far more than what we are actually charged for having and using smartphones.
How much would you need to be paid to live without a computer?
According to the same research, just published by Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, a typical American would want US$25,000 to live computer-free for a year.
For the GPS system that lets us map where we are on all our devices, the answer is US$3,000; for streaming services such as Netflix the answer is another US$3,000.
For refrigeration the answer is US$10,000; for air conditioning, another US$10,000; and for running water US$50,000.
Blue Beanie Day in support of web standards is celebrated around the world on November 30. Hey, that’s today. So how can you help? Glad you asked! Take a self-portrait wearing a blue beanie (toque, tuque, cap) and post it to your website and social media channels with the hashtag #BlueBeanieDay. And for that extra […]
The post Blue Beanie Day 2021 appeared first on Zeldman on Web and Interaction Design.
Spotify and an Australian journalist both made more headlines for one of the most influential pop stars on the planet
Continue reading...Like many journalists who’ve honed their careers at the ABC, economics writer Peter Martin began in a small local newsroom and moved through the ranks to become a specialist reporter and a foreign correspondent. Having subsequently worked in commercial media, he has a renewed appreciation of the ABC, both professionally and personally. Here he reflects on his strong lifetime attachment to the ABC, and the lessons he’s learnt about both the skills of the profession and the responsibilities of being a public broadcaster.
The good news is supposed to be that when the government gets out of the way “can-do capitalism” will have us roaring back to where we were before.
That’s the prime minister’s newest slogan, and we had better hope for more.
The unpleasant truth is that before the pandemic Australia’s economy was disturbingly and unusually weak. Can-do capitalism wasn’t doing what it should.
Reserve Bank chief economist Luci Ellis put it this way a few days after Morrison talked about freeing the engines of the economy to do their work.
In the decade or so leading up to the pandemic, there was a nagging sense that these engines of prosperity were running out of steam – investment was low, productivity growth was lagging, and many of the behaviours we associate with business dynamism were on the decline.
Outside of mining, business investment had been shrinking as a share of the economy for more than a decade.
Hard on the heels of the terrible news that the apostrophe is in decline, my wine fridge packed up
Continue reading...Back in early 2017 Re and I made a five year plan. It was vague and mainly concerned with paying off our mortgage. I had not had a mortgage for 15 years and was quite upset with the feeling that I was going rapidly backwards financially.
It seems like the usual holiday sales just get earlier and earlier. Not content with just hammering us with ads, certain megalithic companies named after large rivers or fruits try to foist their "deals" on us as soon as they can. Given the degree to which our lives are mediated by technology, it's no surprise that so many holiday sales focus on "devices," that catch-all name we've given to those computers that run in our pockets, laps, and living rooms. Yet before you cave to pressure, you should make sure that gift isn't putting your friend or family member under unjust control.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he wants to keep prices down.
Without his party in power, “you’re going to see petrol prices go up, you’re going to see electricity prices go up”.
There’s something practical he can do straight away to stop prices from rising.
Apart from a home, a car is the most important purchase most Australians make.
We typically hold on to our cars for six years, and most last many years longer.
This means that when we buy a car we have to have an eye on the future, on what it will make sense to drive half a decade down the track.
In almost every way, certainly when it comes to running and maintenance costs, electric vehicles are the best option.
Mathematical refinement aside, economics is back to where it was a century ago: the study of the allocation of given resources, plus the quantity theory of money. Macroeconomics – the theory of output as a whole, which was invented by John Maynard Keynes – has virtually disappeared, despite the revival of key tools when crises erupt.
Despite appearances – especially in the United States – the era of high inflation isn’t set for a comeback in the view of Australia’s leading economists, and most see no need for the Reserve Bank to lift interest rates next year.
In the US, figures released last week showed the consumer price index surged 6.2% in the year to October, the most since 1990. So-called “core” inflation (which excludes volatile prices) climbed 4.6%, also the most for 30 years.
US underlying inflation
