Month: August 2021

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CoinDesk Podcast Network - BREAKDOWN: Why Time Is the Ultimate Scarce Asset

A reading of two recent threads from crypto VCs on creator coins, NFTs and more.

This episode is sponsored by NYDIG.

This week, “Long Reads Sunday” returns to its Twitter roots with a reading of two threads from crypto VCs. The first comes from Andreessen Horowitz’ Chris Dixon and the second from Kyle Samani of Multicoin. Together, they paint a picture of the emerging landscape of experiments around non-fungible tokens, creator coins, the metaverse and discuss the idea of time scarcity as a key determinant of value. 

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NYDIG, the institutional-grade platform for Bitcoin, is making it possible for thousands of banks who have trusted relationships with hundreds of millions of customers, to offer Bitcoin. Learn more at NYDIG.com/NLW.

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“The Breakdown” is written, produced by and features NLW, with editing by Rob Mitchell and additional production support by Eleanor Pahl. Adam B. Levine is our executive producer and our theme music is “Countdown” by Neon Beach. The music you heard today behind our sponsor is “Tidal Wave” by BRASKO. Image credit: PM Images/DigitalVision/Getty Images, modified by CoinDesk.

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Everything Everywhere Daily - Black Tot Day

For several hundred years, the British navy was the most powerful in the world. One of the things which the British navy ran on was rum. Every sailor on a British ship for hundreds of years was given a daily ration of rum. However, on one dark day, the tradition of the daily rum allotment came to an end. Learn more about Black Tot Day and why it saddened a generation of British sailors, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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Lex Fridman Podcast - #212 – Joscha Bach: Nature of Reality, Dreams, and Consciousness

Joscha Bach is a cognitive scientist, AI researcher, and philosopher. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
– Coinbase: https://coinbase.com/lex to get $5 in free Bitcoin
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EPISODE LINKS:
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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(07:15) – Life is hard
(09:38) – Consciousness
(16:24) – What is life?
(26:33) – Free will
(40:38) – Simulation
(42:49) – Base layer of reality
(58:24) – Boston Dynamics
(1:06:43) – Engineering consciousness
(1:17:12) – Suffering
(1:26:06) – Postmodernism
(1:30:25) – Psychedelics
(1:43:40) – GPT-3
(1:52:22) – GPT-4
(1:58:47) – OpenAI Codex
(2:01:02) – Humans vs AI: Who is more dangerous?
(2:17:47) – Hitler
(2:22:44) – Autonomous weapon systems
(2:30:11) – Mark Zuckerberg
(2:35:47) – Love
(2:50:00) – Michael Malice and anarchism
(3:06:57) – Love
(3:11:05) – Advice for young people
(3:15:42) – Meaning of life

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This Machine Kills - Patreon Preview – 95. Everyday Insurtech

Outro: Processory - Take Me To Your Leader https://sugars.bandcamp.com/track/take-me-to-your-leader We talk about insurance technology as Jathan gives the lowdown on a big grant he just received to do a multi-year project investigating the political economy of the insurtech sector. We then discuss the FIRE sector more generally and look at recent reporting on how property tech companies are buying up homes. Some stuff we reference: • Draining the Risk Pools | Jathan Sadowski: https://reallifemag.com/draining-the-risk-pool/ • Data machine: the insurers using AI to reshape the industry | Ian Smith: https://www.ft.com/content/d3bd46cb-75d4-40ff-a0cd-6d7f33d58d7f • The personalisation of insurance: Data, behaviour and innovation | Liz McFall, Gert Meyers, Ine Van Hoyweghen: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053951720973707 • Zillow, Other Tech Firms Are in an ‘Arms Race’ To Buy Up American Homes | Maxwell Strachan: https://www.vice.com/en/article/93ymxz/zillow-other-tech-firms-are-in-an-arms-race-to-buy-up-american-homes • The attachments of ‘autonomous’ vehicles | Chris Tennant, Jack Stilgoe: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/03063127211038752 Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! patreon.com/thismachinekills Grab your TMK gear: bonfire.com/store/this-machine-kills-podcast/ Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)
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CrowdScience - Why is human skin so rubbish?

If you’ve ever fallen over and grazed your skin, maybe you wished it were made of stronger stuff. The tough hide of a rhinoceros or the protective armour of a stag beetle would do a better job. It’s a thought that’s been bothering CrowdScience listener Paul, who points out that our skin also suffers from acne, eczema and hives; it dries out; it bruises. In fact, human hide is so vulnerable that we cover our feet in other animals’ skin and our bodies in clothes just to make life more comfortable. Is this really the pinnacle of evolution?

Marnie Chesterton makes the case for the largest, fastest-growing organ, hiding in plain site on our body. Tissue Engineer Professor Sheila MacNeil from Sheffield University explains how skin manages to be breathable yet waterproof; flexible yet stronger than steel; sensitive to touch but protective against pollution and damaging UV. Skin biologist Dr Christina Philippeos from King’s College London explains how our bodies make a scar. Professor Muzlifah Haniffa has developed an atlas of the human skin – a tool to help researchers unravel the mysteries of how different skin cells interact. This atlas should help treat skin diseases in the future. Over in Tanzania’s Regional Dermatology Training Centre in Moshi, Dr Daudi Mavura talks us through a rare but devastating skin disorder called Xeroderma Pigmentosum, or XP. For children with XP, sunlight is dangerous because a mutation in the skin’s DNA repair mechanism means that UV rays can cause lesions and tumours.

Our epidermis is already multifunctional but over at Ben May Department of Cancer Research at the University of Chicago, Professor Xaioyang Wu and colleagues are looking at how much more skin could do. Personalised skin grafts may provide living drug patches to help people manage their disease, addiction or even weight.

With thanks to Dr Lynne MacTavish from Mankwe Wildlife Reserve in South Africa for describing a rhino’s skin.

Produced and presented by Marnie Chesterton.

[Image: Young and Old, dry skin Credit: Eric A. Nelson/Getty Images]

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CoinDesk Podcast Network - SOB: Ethereum, Bitcoin; Hard Fork, Soft Fork: How Decentralized Change Is Made

Ethereum’s London hard fork, also known as EIP 1559, took place on Aug. 5. The backwards-incompatible upgrade reignited community debate over hard forks, soft forks and the best methods – most foolproof, least polarizing – to bring about change to a network.

Join hosts Adam B. Levine, Jonathan Mohan and Andreas M. Antonopoulos as they explore the various ways in which consensus has been reached recently across the two largest protocols. The differences in technology and underlying philosophy means some solutions are more enticing to Ethereum and others to Bitcoin.

Ethereum maintains a so-called “difficulty bomb,” whose fuse is lengthened with every upgrade. If it ever goes off, miners would face exponentially harder work and proportionally diminished rewards, forcing them to switch from the pre-fork chain to the upgraded one. Bitcoin’s equivalent to the difficulty bomb, the User Activated Soft Fork (UASF), accomplishes the same thing by other means. Are these mechanisms the proverbial ‘Chekhov’s Gun,’ inevitably to be used in some later act, or simply empty threats to coerce miners into compliance?

Listen to this episode of “Speaking of Bitcoin” for an in-depth explainer of how wide-spread change occurs across decentralized networks and what changes might be in store for the future.

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This episode featured Adam B. Levine, Andreas M. Antonopoulos and Jonathan Mohan. It was edited by Jonas, our theme song comes courtesy of Jared Rubens and todays music during the break was Sloth Beats by Gurty Beats. Today's album art features a photo by Anita Jankovic/Unsplash, modified by Speaking of Bitcoin.

Have any questions or comments? Send Adam an email at adam@speakingofbitcoin.show

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CoinDesk Podcast Network - BREAKDOWN: Why Is the Fed so Scared of Stablecoins?

Last month’s FOMC meeting minutes show crypto and stablecoins came up for the first time ever as an official topic at a key Federal Reserve meeting. 

This episode is sponsored by NYDIG.

On this edition of “The Breakdown’s Weekly Recap,” NLW looks at:

  • News that Brian Brooks left Binance.US after a fundraise proved unsuccessful 
  • Why Coinbase is investing $500B in crypto 
  • The Fed’s discussion of stablecoins at last month’s FOMC meeting 
  • Which nations rank atop Chainalysis’ new adoption index 

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NYDIG, the institutional-grade platform for Bitcoin, is making it possible for thousands of banks who have trusted relationships with hundreds of millions of customers, to offer Bitcoin. Learn more at NYDIG.com/NLW.

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“The Breakdown” is written, produced by and features NLW, with editing by Rob Mitchell and additional production support by Eleanor Pahl. Adam B. Levine is our executive producer and our theme music is “Countdown” by Neon Beach. The music you heard today behind our sponsor is “Only in Time” by Abloom. Image credit: Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images, modified by CoinDesk.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Everything Everywhere Daily - The Civic Crown

If you’ve ever seen a sculpture or an ancient coin of a Roman Emperor, you probably have noticed that they were wearing a wreath on their head. That wreath, however, doesn’t mean what you probably think it means. It actually had a specific meaning which predated the imperial age, and the reason why emperors wore it all has to do with a single person. Learn more about the Civic Crown, also known as the Corona Civica, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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