A New Internet — WHY NOT?

Here are this week’s TOP TEN tech stories:

The world doesn’t need a new Facebook, it needs a new internet by Arjun Hassard. Compared to other multi-trillion dollar industries, the internet is an infant— a lot is going to change about how we use it and how people on the other end monetize us. “The appeal of monetizing your own browsing activity, preferences and identity through data marketplaces. The progression to self-regulated communities — replacing the ‘community standards’ imposed from Silicon Valley boardrooms and enforced by nudity recognition bots. A fix to bandwidth bottlenecks caused by centralized data storage architecture — faster, more reliable access. Above all, the guarantee of trustlessness by design. A user experience unblemished with the fear of being exploited.”

Kin is the Nintendo of Crypto, and Ted Livingston is our Miyamoto by Eric Martin. This crypto mass adoption thought piece has great comparisons. “In 1958, the first video game was invented: it was a game similar to Pong. In 2008, Bitcoin was invented with the the publication of the Bitcoin paper: Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. But it wasn’t until the 1980’s that video games started to achieve mainstream adoption, and I believe 2018 will mark the year when cryptocurrency will start to see mainstream adoption, through Kin. Kin is the cryptocurrency launched by Kik founder Ted Livingston, and soon to be integrated into the Kik messaging app.”

Quadcopter Physics Explained: This is Part 3 in the ‘Diary of a Flying Car Engineer’ Series by Sanyam Bhutani. It’s time. To build your own Quadcopter, or at least understand how they fly, because WHY NOT?!?! “Physics says to be in stability the net forces acting on a body should be zero. So if all the rotors were to spin in the same direction, it would result in a net Torque causing the complete Quad to rotate.” Read more about the Diary of a Flying Car Engineer in Part 0, Part 1, and Part 2.

Cost Per Reasonable Decision (CPRD) by John Cutler. Are reasonable decisions being made by the tech industry? Could a metric or KPI of past decision making ability drive more reasonable decisions? “What is the incremental value of an “8” decision that takes days/weeks/months (and lots of people ) vs. a “6” decision that takes minutes? And are your decisions so big (and feedback loops so long) that you’ll be unable to extract yourself early if things are going south, or double down if things are going well? Some decisions ARE like that. Most aren’t.”

Which is the fastest version of Python? by Anthony Shaw. Well do you wanna’ know? Me telling you doesn’t demonstrate proof unless you read how it was tested, but anyways, “Python 3.7 is the fastest of the “official” Python’s and PyPy is the fastest implementation I tested. I would love to see PyPy3 perform just as well, if not better than PyPy in the future as Python 2 becomes less-used.”

Becoming anonymous on the internet and gaining back your freedom by Adam. Can the internet consistently be accessed anonymously? “A few days ago @iamdylancurran wrote this tweet that went viral, even Edward Snowden retweeted it: “Want to freak yourself out? I’m gonna show just how much of your information the likes of Facebook and Google store about you without you even realising it.” I decided to take that TweetStorm and turn it into a site with simple yet actionable tips for the average non technical user to start gaining some of their freedom back.”

Thanks Facebook, Now We All know Why Privacy Is Important by Alex Mashinsky. It can be scary how much Facebook knows about you… but what does the alternative look like? “Decentralization makes things stronger because it reduces the amount of single points that can lead to failure. However, our current world comprises of massive centralized institutions that collect untold petabytes of personal data (with our permission via incomprehensible contracts signed with a click or a tap).”

A crypto-trader’s diary — week 1 by David Gilbertson. Very funny beginnings… “Maybe staring at charts for hours on end will bore me to tears. But I hope that I will eventually become at one with the chart; I will see its personality, like a pet snake. I will know the way it behaves at different times of the day, sense when it’s hungry, when it needs to go potty, when to stay clear, when to give it a little snek pat.”

The History of Money & the Future of Bitcoin and the Cryptocurrency Economy by Kenny Li. CRYPTO! It’s got what a dollar’s got… but maybe less bias principles? “Bitcoin’s value proposition is not digital currency — 90% of existing money only exists as digital currency; Bitcoin’s value proposition is its methodology in guaranteeing the trustworthiness of digital currency.”

How I became a Product Manager: A (14 Minute) career retrospective by Manas J. Saloi. If you can, pass your expertise to the next aspiring professional. “This post has been in drafts for over a year now. I wrote this as a response to the countless messages I get on Linkedin/Twitter asking how to move to a product role. Over the past 5 years I have worked for various startups, built a few interesting products and switched from a developer to a product manager. This is also my attempt to summarise my career as it stands now and includes learnings from my previous jobs.”

Kind Regards,

David Smooke, AMI