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The following are not my beliefs, but a compilation of notes from conversations I had with a self-described Bitcoin “mutant”, named Edan Yago, contributor to Sovryn . Letting him ramble on about Bitcoin resulted in mesmerizing, mythical, and fascinating ruminations about Bitcoin’s destiny. So for one, I myself believe in Bitcoin as a digital store of value. It is a huge chunk of my portfolio, and I believe it will outlast 99% of the cryptocurrencies we have today. There is no better symbol of scarcity and hard money in crypto to date. However, I feel just about the same level of admiration for Ethereum, as it is opening up so many use cases through DeFi and DAOs. I am putting my biases aside to explain a very rare (and what I find fascinating) point of view. I present you Part 1 of The Hero’s Journey of Bitcoin: The Great Game The cryptocurrency experiment could not have higher stakes. Geopolitics is often referred to as the “Great Game”. It’s the game of thrones for global power. It is a game played by sovereign states. Bitcoin is the only way that ordinary people can play the Great Game. Bitcoin allows us to play this game by creating a sovereign currency that can challenge state powers and contend for the title of global reserve currency. To me that is the goal. For if we, ordinary people, can challenge sovereign states, we become sovereign ourselves: sovereign individuals. If we wish to play the game on this level, it is very important that we understand that this is a game that can only be played by Bitcoin. No other cryptocurrency can win this game, no matter how “advanced” it is. Indeed, if any other cryptocurrency ever seemed like it could rival Bitcoin for the mantle of Cryptocurrency King, it would not simply mean that Bitcoin had failed. The entire cryptocurrency experiment would have failed. The purpose of this is to explain why. First, we must examine the true nature of money. Then we must understand how Bitcoin hacked the nature of money to create the perfect money. Finally, we must understand Satoshi’s Paradox — that if anyone can create a successful crypto-”currency”, nobody can. Bitcoin is invented scarcity in the face of inflation The Homosapien: this weak, hairless, primate with pathetic teeth and claws, is the dominant life form on earth. How? It is not our intelligence, our ability to speak or our opposable thumbs. We had all those for hundreds of millenia and were still just in the middle of the food chain, living in fear of cats. So scared of bears it was . Then, just a few tens of millenia ago, something changed- and we began a rampage of domination across the planet. Intelligence and speech contributed, but the turning point was that we learned to collaborate at scale. We did this by creating shared illusions, “stories’’ that guided our behaviour beyond our tribal instincts and allowed us to share goals with people we may never meet, in distant lands and times. Chief among these shared illusions was religion and money. Religion allowed us to hold abstract ideals as collectively valuable. Money allowed us to trade with distant strangers, even adversaries. Blockchain is the newest human innovation for dispersed collaboration, even among adversaries, and it is no coincidence that it was invented for the express purpose of creating a super-money. taboo to even mention the word for bear Today, the dominant money, and hence the dominant shared illusion, is the US dollar. Despite the obvious flaws of fiat, there is no shared story as universally accepted as the U.S. dollar. USD is the current reserve currency of the world. are denominated in USD. People hide Benjamins under their mattresses in San Francisco, Beijing, Tehran, and Khartoum. No matter the differences in culture, political ideology, or religion, most of the world agrees on USD. Iran and the United States are in a state of open conflict. Yet, both hoard USD. It is the only cultural invention that is so universally accepted. 61% of international bank reserves To compete in the Great Game, we would need to create a shared story about money, that was the most powerful shared illusion yet. We would need to bewitch the world with a spell of almost unimaginable power. Ten years ago, Satoshi Nakamoto created that spell, wrote it in code, and unleashed it upon the world with the perfect Enochian ritual. What Satoshi Nakamoto did, should have been impossible. He created value from nothing. On January 3rd, 2009, the Bitcoin network came into existence and Satoshi Nakamoto mined the genesis block of Bitcoin. As of October 1, 2020, it sits at a market capitalization of about $200 Billion. Bitcoin has become a working manifestation of the abstract concept of financial sovereignty. Powerful as it is, his spell (like all magic) is a fragile illusion. “There are trivial truths and there are great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true.” ― Niels Bohr We must remember that shared illusions are just that: illusions. The greatest shared stories are mind-bogglingly absurd to the uninitiated. “Jesus was born to a virgin?” “Nirvana can only be achieved by ceasing to desire it?” “China is communist?” “USD has value?” The internal logic of Bitcoin is just as mind-warping. One need only listen to Warren Buffet as his mind reels from it: “Cryptocurrencies basically have no value,” said. “They don’t produce anything.” “It is a delusion, basically,” “ squared”. Buffett rat poison Buffet is not a stupid man. In fact, he is right, but he is not “right on the money.” Buffet sees only the trivial truth, not the great truth. What is the mind-warping great truth about Bitcoin? Bitcoin is an invented digital scarcity. Before Bitcoin was created, there was no shortage of Bitcoin, yet since it came into existence, the shortage of it only grows. And this is the fundamental truth that must be understood by anyone who seeks to understand cryptocurrency: It is valuable only if it is assuredly scarce. Without that fundamental property, the entire cryptocurrency spell is broken. , one of the most prominent new converts to the Church of Satoshi, explains this very clearly. When the Bitcoin forks began, he lost faith, the spell was broken. If anyone could create a “version of Bitcoin” — then Bitcoin’s scarcity was replaced with infinite inflation. He sold. Raoul Pal However, as Bitcoin triumphed against these pretenders, not only was his faith renewed, it was redoubled. Indeed, the threat that BCH, BSV and the other “competitors” represented, was a necessary step along Bitcoin’s hero’s journey to ultimate victory. Bitcoin is the invention of programmatic scarcity. It can only happen once. No blockchain after Bitcoin can invent programmatic scarcity again. Herein lies Satoshi’s Paradox: if anyone can create money through crypto-currency, then nobody can. Which brings me to ETH (and by extension, all altcoins) Anyone can create a token that has value. However, nobody can create a token that can be . And should any present or future Vitalik Buterin, Justin Sun or Gavin Wood, ever create a token that could plausibly rival Bitcoin, Bitcoin will fail. And with it, every single other pretender, including the token that came to rival Bitcoin, will also fail. money Before I explain why, let me be precise in what I mean by “fail”. I do not mean that Bitcoin will lose all value. Bitcoin will always have value, if only as a collectors item. What I mean by fail is that we will lose the Great Game. We will lose the ability to be sovereign through the creation of our own sovereign currency. We will lose the battle that really matters: the battle for the world’s premier money. Vitalik has always been very careful to describe ETH, not as a money, but as a commodity. ETH was analogous to oil, used to power transactions with “gas”. This was a very careful word choice by Vitalik, and I believe stems from an understanding of Satoshi’s Paradox. Recently however, the “ETH is money” meme has caught some traction. ETH, the argument goes, can “flippen” Bitcoin. ETH is the reserve currency of the Ethereum network, the Ethereum network is able to support advanced use-cases Bitcoin cannot, and this will lead to the Ethereum network overtaking the Bitcoin network and, as a result, to ETH overtaking BTC — and become the global Money. Perhaps you agree. Perhaps not. For our purposes here, it doesn’t matter. All you need to accept is that it is conceivable that altcoin could go through this process. We will use Ethereum merely as an example for why this logic is deeply flawed but also very important. some Imagine this wet dream of ETH-heads were to come to pass, what would happen? Bitcoin and Ethereum, would both — quickly or slowly — lose value. Why? For the simple reason that for all the Raoul Pal’s out there, the spell would be broken. Ethereum would prove that Bitcoin can be usurped but instead of capturing Bitcoin’s market capitalization, it would cap the potential market capitalization of both. Everyone would realize, including ETH-heads, that digital scarcity could be created by anyone with a big enough network, which would mean that Facebook, Tik Tok and the CCP could do it, which would then mean that they too could be usurped in the same way that tech companies regularly usurp each other. This realization would be followed moments later by the realization that digital scarcity can always be inflated, and therefore cannot exist. sustainably And with that the “exorbitant privilege” of Moneyness, that sustains the value of Bitcoin and the entire crypto-space would be gone. If anyone can do it, nobody can. All value would collapse to utility value, and since cryptocurrency can have near infinite velocity all value would tend toward zero. The entire space would experience what ICO tokens experienced in December 2017. A refutation of Chris Burniske’s that utility tokens can have sustainable value. Narrator: they can’t. misguided theory From MV = PQ to QED It is not enough for us to satisfy ourselves that Ethereum cannot succeed as Money. We must also look at the other side of the equation: it, or something like it, can destroy Bitcoin as a contender in the Great Game. I wish to grasp Satoshi’s Paradox in full. Only Bitcoin can be money… but also it is not guaranteed that Bitcoin will be money. If I may be pompous for a moment, I think that there is such a thing as enlightenment. I think that one achieves it by grasping that what one believes is a fragile illusion, while still having faith in the illusion. Buddah realized the illusion of self, without abandoning his ego. Niels Bohr realized the illusion of scientific theory, without becoming a flat earther. I invite you to realize the illusion of Bitcoin, without becoming a nocoiner. Here is where my thinking diverges from that of most Bitcoiners. Bitcoin can fail, but we cannot let it. We cannot let Ethereum, Ripple, Libra or any future challenger build a network effect to rival Bitcoin’s lest the fools ruin the party for themselves and all of us in their ignorant avarice. However, we must welcome challengers, for each new challenger strengthens Bitcoin, provided we defeat it. Yes, this is a space badger who happens to be bullish on Bitcoin As to how we can ensure that Bitcoin is never defeated, that the illusion never be revealed, I leave to you, dear listener. However, I will offer my own opinion. In the Bitcoin lore of old, there was once a meme, now seemingly forgotten: “Any technology which improves upon Bitcoin will simply be adopted by Bitcoin.” In the wake of the block-size wars, where any suggested change to Bitcoin became heresy, this meme was forgotten. The lesson of the Blocksize wars was well learned: don’t change Bitcoin. Bitcoin must remain inviolable. Let’s not learn the lesson too well though. Bitcoin should certainly adopt any technology which even might be valuable. The place to do this is in Bitcoin Layer2, and particularly on sidechains. Is Ethereum a technology “that improves upon Bitcoin”? Who cares, people seem to like it, and even find it useful. It is building network effects. “Yum”, says Bitcoin as it absorbs Ethereum’s powers- not on Bitcoin mainchain, but on the . “Fee Fi Fo Fum”, says Bitcoin, “do I smell more innovation?” Polkadot, you say? “Yum”, says Bitcoin, as it continues to snowball towards its destiny as Sovereign Money. Our Money. RSK sidechain Follow: Edan Yago on Twitter Sovryn on Twitter Sovryn Website Sovryn on Discord Sovryn Blog Ingamar on Twitter Also published at https://medium.com/sovryn/the-heros-journey-of-bitcoin-part-1-satoshi-s-paradox-64f90abb7811

Bitcoin: The Great Game

Raising Capital For Your Business: First Steps To a Great Deal

We are all at a wonderful ball where the champagne sparkles in every glass and soft laughter falls upon the summer air. We know, by the rules, that at some moment the Black Horseman will come shattering through the great terrace doors, wreaking vengeance and scattering the survivors. Those who leave early are saved, but the ball is so splendid no one wants to leave while there is still time, so that everyone keeps asking “What time is it? What time is it?” but none of the clocks have any hands — George J. W. Goodman, aka ‘Adam Smith’ Supermoney (1972) I obtained my financial independence during the Dotcom bubble of 1999. I was one of the lucky winners of that particular game. I never played in a financial bubble game before, and I never will again. I didn’t set out to play in a financial bubble game. I started a web site for home buyers back in April of 1994. A year later, I partnered with a relocation services firm. Until 1997, we tried to earn the most profit possible. Then, we were acquired by a large media company, which told us to concentrate on something called EBITDA, which is a measure of profits that does not deduct expansion costs. That is, we were encouraged to expand, but we remained fairly conservative. By 1999, other companies offering web-based relocation services were taking in venture capital and even going public. We saw that soon we would have to either try to go public ourselves or allow ourselves to be acquired by a company that already had issued shares on the stock market. All of us were skeptical of the market fascination with Dotcom stocks, so we took the conservative route and were acquired. That was a good choice, because by the time we could have put ourselves in shape to try to sell shares to the public, it would have been the summer of 2000, and by then the Dotcom bubble had popped. In fact, we were acquired by a company that I will refer to as BubbleDotCom, whose stock crashed while we were still locked out of selling it. Fortunately, our acquisition had not been paid for entirely with stock. Some of the proceeds were in the form of cash, and the cash retained its value. In short, a bunch of investors who bought shares in BubbleDotCom provided cash to that company, which used some of that cash to buy us. The investors, except for the few that might have sold early, eventually lost what they put in. Part of their loss became the source for my financial independence. Nothing to change my lifestyle, but enough so that I don’t have to get along with anyone to earn a living. The stock market and reality The stock market is not always in a bubble. Shares of stock give the holder part ownership in large companies. Ownership of a real company with real profits means that you have an asset with real value. Indeed, if you could predict accurately the profits of a company, then you could precisely calculate what share in its stock are worth. Future earnings are the reality on which stock market prices are based. But investors can disagree about where earnings are headed, so that some investors think that stocks are cheap while others think that stocks are expensive. As news plays out, some investors change their minds, and that leads to changes in share prices. Because future earnings cannot be known with certainty, you can never be sure that a market is in a bubble until after the fact. But Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith demonstrated thirty years ago that in an experimental stock market setting, even with future earnings known so that the correct value can be calculated, . bubbles frequently emerged Smith’s experiments showed that even when investors are aware that there is a discrepancy between stock prices and fundamental values, they continue to hold onto their shares and even buy more. I believe that what Smith found in experimental markets also can be found sometimes in the real world. When investors are aware that stock prices are high relative to traditional indicators of value, why do they not sell? I believe that the answer lies in the epigraph with which this essay began. Bullish investors have been earning paper profits and reaping psychic rewards, and they stick around in the hopes of more. They know that what Goodman calls the Black Horseman may come at any time to ruin the fun, but they presume that they can get out while their portfolios still show a profit. And yet it is mathematically impossible for all of the bullish investors to get out with a profit. If a stock goes from $10 a share to $100 a share and back down to $5 a share, then on average the shares bought on the way up have to be sold for less than their purchase price on the way down. If you buy into a bubble, then the chances are you will lose. A Bubble as a Chain Letter I believe that a bubble market acts a lot like a chain letter or pyramid scheme. A few people make a fortune in a bubble market, at the expense of a large number of people who take modest losses. The winners are those who sell close to the top, as we did with out Internet company. The losers are the many who buy on the way up and are unwilling or unable to get out before the crash takes place. Which brings me to Bitcoin. There are many people who will tell you that they have made money by being bullish on Bitcoin. But that is delusional. In order for people to realize their Bitcoin profits, they would have to sell, and if a lot of people sold, then that would have driven the price of Bitcoin down. Instead, it is a mathematical near-certainty that most people who believe that they have made large profits on Bitcoin are still holding most of their Bitcoin, so that their profits only exist on paper. And if Bitcoin crashes, which I expect it will, most of those people will not be willing or able to sell before their large paper profits have turned into small paper losses. Does that mean that going short Bitcoin is a sure bet? No. There is a saying, often attributed to John Maynard Keynes, that “the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” This makes it perilous to try to fight a mania. If you saw the movie , or read the book, you know that if the market for mortgage securities had stayed irrational a few months longer, at least some of the bearish speculators would have been wiped out before their positions were vindicated. The Big Short But if I am correct that Bitcoin is a bubble, then somebody at some point can make a fortune by selling Bitcoin short, perhaps on the futures market that recently opened. The other big fortunes in Bitcoin will be made by the few who sell their Bitcoin while the the bulls still outnumber the bears. And once again, it is a mathematical near-certainty that most of the bulls will not get out in time. My advice is to stay away from playing the bubble game in financial markets. Let other people buy Bitcoin. Let other people short Bitcoin. Let other people buy stock market darlings like Amazon at extraordinary multiples of their recent earnings. Instead, invest in assets where the price has a more reasonable relationship to reality.

Playing the Financial Bubble Game

This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. Authors: (1) Terence Blésin, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL); (2) Wil Kao, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL); (3) Anat Siddharth, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL); (4) Alaina Attanasio, OxideMEMS lab, Purdue University; (5) Hao Tian, OxideMEMS lab, Purdue University; (6) Sunil A. Bhave, OxideMEMS lab, Purdue University; (7) Tobias J. Kippenberg, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL). Table of Links Introduction Results A. Physics and design B. Device characterization C. Bidirectional microwave-optical transduction D. Pulsed transduction Discussion Acknowledgments Appendix A: Theory Appendix B: Fabrication process flow Appendix C: Optical characterization Appendix D: Characterization of acoustic resonances Appendix E: Characterization of bidirectional transduction Appendix F: Optimization of optical extraction efficiency Appendix A: Theory 1. Coupled mode theory for optical modes hybridization Using a pair of optical resonances increases the intracavity photon number for a given input optical power, resulting in an enhanced optomechanical interaction. Such an optical doublet is implemented here by evanescently coupling two micro-rings, forming a photonic molecule. Consider two bare optical modes with resonance frequencies ωl and ωr that correspond to the left and right micro-rings, respectively. The two modes couple with a rate J, which yields the Hamiltonian [1] and the equations of motion With Laplace transform, they can be rewritten in frequency domain as 2. Transducer Hamiltonian and input-output relations In terms of bare micro-ring modes, the transducer Hamiltonian is given by Note that the piezo-coupled acoustic mode interacts with only one of the micro-rings. To compute quantities directly related to the experiments, we rewrite the Hamiltonian in terms of the supermodes (Appendix A 1) as Finally, by defining effective optomechanical coupling rates and going into a rotating frame defined by the operator we have in the interaction picture. The time evolution of the bosonic modes can be computed using the Heisenberg-Langevin equations given by We can move to the frequency domain by using the Fourier transform along with the properties We then have 3. Conversion efficiency and added noise For the following analysis, we consider the triply resonant configuration where ω+ −ω− = ωm and the optical pump is on resonance with one of the optical supermodes. First, we consider the anti-Stokes configuration where ∆− = 0 and ∆+ = −ωm. From Eq. A24, we have the input-output relation The equations of motion is given by 4. Estimation of correlated microwave-optical pair generation rates Equations A40 and A43 suggest that entangled pairs of microwave and optical photons can be generated in the Stokes configuration since it gives rise to an effective two-mode squeezing Hamiltonian [3–5]. In order to verify that the HBAR transducer can generate entangled pairs of microwave and optical photons, we compute the on-chip pair generation rate, expected to be equal to the output photon flux from the lower frequency optical mode as in standard spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) scheme. Integrating over the transduction bandwidth, we have In practice, the pump laser should be filtered for the optical output to be dominated by heralding photons, and other losses from the measurement setup can further reduce the effective rate. For η oc = 7.9×10−5 , κ− = 2π×300 MHz and κm = 2π × 10 MHz, this would corresponds to an on-chip pair generation rate of 190 Hz. Losses in the measurement chain will have to be accounted for to estimate the count rate at the detector. In order to measure entanglement between the microwave and optical fields, the on-chip rate must be higher than the thermal decoherence rate of the acoustic mode κmnth,m(ωm), where the thermal occupancy nth,m(ωm) is given by the Bose-Einstein distribution. For ωm = 2π×3.5 GHz and κm = 2π×10 MHz, the decoherence rate at 800 mK is 43 MHz and 0.5 Hz at 10 mK. Therefore, the transducer needs to be operated in the mixing chamber of the dilution refrigerator, with a pulsed pump to reduce heat load. The total rate of optical heralding is hence gated by the pump duty cycle.

Bidirectional Microwave-optical Transduction Based on Integration: Appendix A: Theory

This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. Authors: (1) Terence Blésin, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL); (2) Wil Kao, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL); (3) Anat Siddharth, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL); (4) Alaina Attanasio, OxideMEMS lab, Purdue University; (5) Hao Tian, OxideMEMS lab, Purdue University; (6) Sunil A. Bhave, OxideMEMS lab, Purdue University; (7) Tobias J. Kippenberg, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL). Table of Links Introduction Results A. Physics and design B. Device characterization C. Bidirectional microwave-optical transduction D. Pulsed transduction Discussion Acknowledgments Appendix A: Theory Appendix B: Fabrication process flow Appendix C: Optical characterization Appendix D: Characterization of acoustic resonances Appendix E: Characterization of bidirectional transduction Appendix F: Optimization of optical extraction efficiency III. DISCUSSION Non-classically correlated microwave-optical photon pairs can be generated through spontaneous parametric down-conversion in our transducer. These correlated photon pairs constitute a key ingredient toward entangling distant quantum processors via the Duan-LukinCirac-Zoller protocol [4, 45]. With the current device parameters, the pair generation rate on chip amounts to 190 Hz, which is well above the thermal decoherence rate for 3.5 GHz at 10 mK as explained in Appendix A 4. However, losses in the measurement setup specific to such an experiment, as well as the gating of the optical pump required to alleviate the effective heat load, are expected to limit further the final heralding rate. Quasi-free-standing structures, such as 1D OMCs, do not readily thermalize and are thus more susceptible to heating effects. Even though our transducer also utilizes a suspended acoustic resonator, it may be feasible to operate at a higher duty cycle than what is presented in Fig. 4. It has been shown that a buffer gas environment can facilitate thermalization of a 1D OMC, at the cost of increased damping of the mechanical breathing mode [46]. On the contrary, the HBAR mode of interest here should be relatively insensitive to such viscous damping, as the acoustic wave propagates predominantly along the longitudinal direction inside the cladding. Therefore, a sample cell affixed to the mixing chamber flange and filled with buffer superfluid helium—an inviscid fluid that is both an excellent thermal conductor and electrical insulator—could potentially improve the heralding rate without hampering the conversion efficiency [47]. The present design is also suited for tasks beyond quantum state transfer. The transducer can be a key component of photonic interconnects for superconducting qubits [7, 8], where laser lights routed through optical fibers are used to encode microwave signals directly inside the dilution refrigerator during qubit readout. It may be challenging for traveling-wave EOMs to attain the requisite half-wave voltage to be competitive in noise performance against conventional all-electrical readout scheme utilizing high-electron-mobility transistor amplifiers [8]. Our triply resonant approach affords a path towards a scalable optically controlled cryogenic waveform generator for both qubit readout and control. The multimode nature of the transducer is particularly suited for frequency-multiplexed dispersive readout. Transduction leveraging multiple HBAR modes is already demonstrated in Fig. 3e. One can additionally utilize line-type instead of point-type dimer coupling for the photonic molecule, which gives rise to a dispersion in the supermode splitting [48]. In combination with the multitude of acoustic overtones, a single transducer can therefore support several spectrally distinguishable triply resonant systems that serve as qubit multiplex channels. Finally, since the transducer requires no superconducting element to function, it may be pertinent for applications in classical microwave photonics. Optimization of design and fabrication should engender further improvement on device performance. The conversion efficiency, proportional to microwave extraction efficiency (Eq. 2), can be improved by replacing AlN with scandium-doped AlN [49], which features a piezoelectric coefficient d33 about five times larger than AlN [50, 51] while preserving CMOS compatibility. There is likewise additional upside on the photonics (Appendix C 1). Bending radiation loss can be significantly reduced by increasing the micro-ring radius r. In particular, intrinsic quality factor exceeding 107 has been demonstrated with an r approximately ten times larger using the same fabrication process [52]. It may be anticipated that the efficiency gain here may be chiefly compensated by the reduction in optomechanical coupling rate g0 ∼ 1/ √ r. Nevertheless, by thinning the waveguide to 200 nm that approaches half of the acoustic wavelength, g0 is expected to remain unchanged. As in the thick-core waveguide fabricated using the photonic Damascene process, such a thin-core waveguide on a subtractive manufacturing platform is expected to exhibit negligible bending loss [53]. Assuming critical coupling conditions (Appendix F), we therefore expect another 1.5- time gain in η tot. Finally, optical insertion loss can be nearly eliminated by employing a spot-size converter to facilitate mode-matching with lensed fiber [54–56]. Combining these improvements, our transducer could achieve a total efficiency η tot = 6 × 10−3 . In conclusion, we have designed, fabricated, and characterized a compact piezo-optomechanical microwaveoptical transducer that integrates wafer-scale, CMOScompatible HBAR and Si3N4 photonic technologies. Free of any superconducting components, this triply resonant transducer attains a bidirectional off-chip photon number conversion efficiency of 1.6 × 10−5 and a bandwidth of 25 MHz, with an input pump power of 21 dBm at room temperature. Multimode transduction leveraging distinct HBAR modes have been demonstrated, suggesting prospects for designing frequency-multiplexed photonic interconnects for superconducting qubits. Realistic design and fabrication improvements may even allow access to experiments in the quantum regime.

Bidirectional Microwave-optical Transduction Based on Integration: Discussion

This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. Authors: (1) Terence Blésin, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL); (2) Wil Kao, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL); (3) Anat Siddharth, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL); (4) Alaina Attanasio, OxideMEMS lab, Purdue University; (5) Hao Tian, OxideMEMS lab, Purdue University; (6) Sunil A. Bhave, OxideMEMS lab, Purdue University; (7) Tobias J. Kippenberg, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL). Table of Links Introduction Results A. Physics and design B. Device characterization C. Bidirectional microwave-optical transduction D. Pulsed transduction Discussion Acknowledgments Appendix A: Theory Appendix B: Fabrication process flow Appendix C: Optical characterization Appendix D: Characterization of acoustic resonances Appendix E: Characterization of bidirectional transduction Appendix F: Optimization of optical extraction efficiency C. Bidirectional microwave-optical transduction We measure the off-chip efficiency η tot of the microwave-to-optical (up-conversion) and optical-tomicrowave (down-conversion) processes as a function of off-chip CW input optical pump power Pin. Compared to the on-chip efficiency η oc, this efficiency also accounts for the loss channels of the microwave and optical ports. First, we study the transducer in the triply resonant configuration. For up-conversion, the optical sideband generated from the microwave input, detuned by ωin = ωm from the pump frequency, is measured via a self-calibrated heterodyne detection method. The off-chip optical output containing both the pump (ωL) and the sideband (ωs) is combined with a local oscillator (LO; ωLO) and detected. By placing the LO at a frequency ωLO = (ωL + ωs) /2 + δ such that the photodetector response is constant over a frequency span of δ, we determine the sideband power relative to the pump. Picking off a fraction of the optical output then enables the determination of its absolute power and, by extension, that of the sideband with a power meter. The measured optical sideband power is compared to that of the microwave input to yield η tot. In the case of down-conversion, the optical input is generated by modulating the phase of the pump with an electrooptic modulator (EOM) driven by a microwave source of frequency ωEOM = ωm. Only one of the resulting sidebands is admitted into the photonic molecule and transduced, as the other is far off-resonance. The converted microwave power is directly probed with an electrical spectrum analyzer (ESA). Summarized in Figs. 3a and c, bidirectional transduction processes corresponding to both the effective beam-splitter (ωL = ω−; anti-Stokes) and two-mode-squeezing (ωL = ω+; Stokes) interactions are investigated. We reach a maximal η tot of −48 dB at 21 dBm pump for each configuration. Knowing the port losses, we estimate an on-chip efficiency η oc = −41 dB (Appendix E). Accounting for the extraction efficiency η ext, we further obtain an internal conversion efficiency η int = 2 × 10−3 from Eq. 2. Furthermore, we deviate from triple resonance to map out the transduction bandwidth. First, for a pump still resonant with one of the optical supermodes, the input microwave frequency ωin and input optical detuning (controlled by EOM drive frequency ωEOM) are varied for up- and down-conversion, respectively. Shown in Fig. 3b and d, transduction leveraging the main transduction mode exhibits a full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 25 MHz. The multimode nature of the transducer is further manifest in Fig. 3e, where the pump is in the beam-splitter configuration but slightly detuned from aˆ−. An additional transduction peak in η tot with a FWHM of 10 MHz is observed around ωin = 2π × 3.165 GHz, which corresponds to another HBAR one FSR away from the main transduction mode ωm = 2π × 3.480 GHz. The engineering degrees of freedom such as cladding and actuator thickness (HBAR FSR), and optical dispersion (supermode splitting as a function of optical wavelength) in the present system offer possibilities for frequencymultiplexed transduction.

Bidirectional Microwave-optical Transduction Based on Integration: C. Bidirectional

This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. Authors: (1) Terence Blésin, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL); (2) Wil Kao, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL); (3) Anat Siddharth, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL); (4) Alaina Attanasio, OxideMEMS lab, Purdue University; (5) Hao Tian, OxideMEMS lab, Purdue University; (6) Sunil A. Bhave, OxideMEMS lab, Purdue University; (7) Tobias J. Kippenberg, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL). Table of Links Introduction Results A. Physics and design B. Device characterization C. Bidirectional microwave-optical transduction D. Pulsed transduction Discussion Acknowledgments Appendix A: Theory Appendix B: Fabrication process flow Appendix C: Optical characterization Appendix D: Characterization of acoustic resonances Appendix E: Characterization of bidirectional transduction Appendix F: Optimization of optical extraction efficiency B. Device characterization We perform metrological characterization to affirm the integrity of the stack. Shown in Fig. 2a, the region of suspended cladding is first identified through optical micrography; the released substrate below leads to a contrast in the image. To further access the layer structure, we use focused ion beam milling to create an opening on the device surface at the suspension site. This opening provides sufficient clearance to directly image the cladding acoustic resonator, pictured in Fig. 2b, confirming the removal of silicon. We then characterize the transducer as an optoelectronic network with one microwave port, two optical ports, and one auxiliary electrical DC port. Each optical port comprises an edge-coupled lensed fiber and on-chip bus waveguide terminated by 1D nanotapers designed for TE-polarized light, yielding a fiber-to-fiber coupling efficiency of −8 dB. For adjusting the frequency splitting between optical supermodes, a bias voltage is applied to the DC port to drive either the piezoelectric actuator [44] or an integrated thermo-optic heater placed in the vicinity of the micro-rings (Appendix C 2). The former affords no additional heat load and is hence cryogenic-compatible, whereas the latter provides an easy alternative for fast room-temperature characterization. The avoided mode crossing characteristic of a photonic molecule is exemplified in Fig. 2c. We access the HBARs through the microwave port. Calibrated high-frequency probes are used to contact the top and bottom electrode pads of the piezoelectric actuator, effectively linking the acoustic resonator with a transmission line. The reflection spectrum (Fig. 2d) reveals predominantly one single series of HBARs with a free spectral range (FSR) of 320 MHz, which corresponds to the acoustic length of the cladding. The transduction acoustic mode at 3.48 GHz exhibits a typical total linewidth of 13 MHz with a microwave extraction efficiency of κex,m/κm ≈ 11%. The microwave response is distinct from that of an identical stack composition with unreleased substrate. There, a periodic envelope corresponding to the cladding modes that are more strongly coupled to the microwave is superimposed over the full-stack HBAR response (Appendix D and Ref. [40]). The absence of these full-stack modes provide another piece of evidence of successful cladding suspension. Finally, we study the device acousto-optic response in the triply resonant configuration, where the transducer effectively operates as a resonant single-sideband modulator. The optical output containing both the pump at the symmetric-mode frequency and generated sideband at the antisymmetric-mode frequency are mixed by a photodetector. Such a beat-note spectrum shown in Fig. 2e displays response peaks aligned with the HBAR frequencies in Fig. 2d, demonstrating three-wave mixing.

Bidirectional Microwave-optical Transduction Based on Integration: B. Device Characterization

204 Stories To Learn About Nft Art

SpriteKit is a powerful framework provided by Apple for creating 2D games and interactive animations. It's a versatile tool for game developers, allowing them to bring their creative ideas to life. In this article, we'll explore how to create the classic "Snake" game using SpriteKit. "Snake" is a timeless arcade game that involves controlling a snake to eat food and grow longer while avoiding collisions with the walls. Prerequisites Before we dive into the development process, make sure you have the following set up: Xcode: Download and install Xcode, Apple's integrated development environment (IDE), from the Mac App Store. Basic knowledge of Swift: Familiarity with the Swift programming language is essential for understanding the code in this article. Setting Up Your Project Let's get started by creating a new SpriteKit project in Xcode: Open Xcode and choose "Create a new Xcode project." Select the "Game" template under the "iOS" category. Fill in the project details, such as the product name and organization identifier. Ensure that the language is set to Swift. Choose "SpriteKit" as the game technology. Click "Next" and specify the project location, then click "Create." Designing the Game Collision Detection To begin with, we will determine the components of our game, and we will make the masks for collisions for them enum CollisionMask: UInt32 {
    case snakeHead = 1
    case snakeBody = 2
    case apple = 4
    case edgeBody = 8
} In the method our game scene, you'll need to implement collision detection to check if the snake has collided with the food or edge. When the snake eats the food, it should grow longer, and a new food item should appear. update(_:) Snake and Food To create the snake and food objects, we'll use . SKShapeNode final class Apple: SKShapeNode {
    convenience init(position: CGPoint) {
        self.init()
        
        self.path = CGPath(ellipseIn: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 10, height: 10), transform: nil)
        
        self.fillColor = .systemRed
        self.strokeColor = .systemOrange
        
        self.lineWidth = 2
        
        self.position = position
        
        let pBody = SKPhysicsBody(circleOfRadius: 10, center: CGPoint(x: 5, y: 5))
        
        pBody.categoryBitMask = CollisionMask.apple.rawValue
        self.physicsBody = pBody
    }
} Our snake have base items which build body: class SnakeBodyElement: SKShapeNode {
    
    var setChildSuperParent: (SKNode) -> Void = { _ in }
    
    var diameter: CGFloat { 10 }
    var runDuration: TimeInterval { 0.2 }
    
    private var isNeedAddCild: Bool = false
    private var childElement: SnakeBodyElement?
    
    init(atPoint point: CGPoint) {
        super.init()
        
        self.path = CGPath(
            ellipseIn: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: diameter, height: diameter),
            transform: nil
        )
        
        let pBody = SKPhysicsBody(
            circleOfRadius: diameter / 2,
            center: CGPoint(x: diameter / 2, y: diameter / 2)
        )

        pBody.isDynamic = true
        pBody.categoryBitMask = CollisionMask.snakeBody.rawValue
        pBody.contactTestBitMask = CollisionMask.edgeBody.rawValue | CollisionMask.apple.rawValue
        
        self.physicsBody = pBody
        
        self.fillColor = .systemTeal
        self.strokeColor = .systemGreen
        
        self.lineWidth = 1
        
        self.position = point
    }
    
    required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
        fatalError("init(coder:) has not been implemented")
    }
    
    override func removeFromParent() {
        super.removeFromParent()
        childElement?.removeFromParent()
    }
    
    func moveTo(position: CGPoint) {
        let currentPosition = self.position
        
        self.run(SKAction.move(to: position, duration: runDuration))
        
        if let child = childElement {
            child.moveTo(position: currentPosition)
        } else if isNeedAddCild {
            let newElement = SnakeBodyElement(atPoint: currentPosition)
            newElement.setChildSuperParent = setChildSuperParent
            childElement = newElement
            setChildSuperParent(newElement)
            isNeedAddCild = false
        }
    }
    
    func eat() {
        if let child = childElement {
            child.eat()
        } else {
            isNeedAddCild = true
        }
    }
} And a head: final class SnakeHead: SnakeBodyElement {
    
    override var diameter: CGFloat { 20 }
    override var runDuration: TimeInterval { 1 }
    
    private let moveSpeed: Double = 100
    private var angle: CGFloat = 0
    
    override init(atPoint point: CGPoint) {
        super.init(atPoint: point)
        
        self.name = "SnakeHead"
        self.physicsBody?.categoryBitMask = CollisionMask.snakeHead.rawValue
        
        self.physicsBody?.contactTestBitMask = CollisionMask.edgeBody.rawValue
            | CollisionMask.apple.rawValue
            | CollisionMask.snakeBody.rawValue
    }
    
    required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
        fatalError("init(coder:) has not been implemented")
    }
    
    override func moveTo(position: CGPoint) {
        let dx = CGFloat(moveSpeed) * sin(angle)
        let dy = CGFloat(moveSpeed) * cos(angle)
        
        let nextPosition = CGPoint(x: self.position.x + dx, y: self.position.y + dy)
        
        super.moveTo(position: nextPosition)
    }
    
    func moveClockwise() {
        angle += CGFloat.pi / 2
    }
    
    func moveCounterClockwise() {
        angle -= CGFloat.pi / 2
    }
} Game Loop SpriteKit provides a built-in game loop through the method in our scene. This is where you'll update the game's logic, such as moving the snake and checking for collisions. update(_:) override func update(_ currentTime: TimeInterval) {
    // Add game logic here
} User Interaction To control the snake, you'll want to capture user input. One common way to do this is by handling touch events: override func touchesBegan(_ touches: Set<UITouch>, with event: UIEvent?) {
    // Handle touch events to change the snake's direction
} Implementing Game Logic Now that you have the basic structure of game, it's time to implement the game logic. Here are some key steps: Move the snake in the direction determined by user input. Check for collisions with the walls. If the snake collides, the game should end. Check if the snake's head collides with the food. If so, make the snake longer and spawn a new food item. Keep track of the snake's length and update the score. Implement game over logic when the snake collides with the walls. Game Scene In SpriteKit, games are built around scenes. We'll begin by designing our game scene, including the snake and food elements. Open the file in your Xcode project. GameScene.swift Change the existing code: final class GameScene: SKScene {
    
    private var snake: SnakeHead?
    
    private var apple: Apple?
    
    let infoSender = CurrentValueSubject<Int, Never>(0)
    
    override init(size: CGSize) {
        super.init(size: size)
        
        scaleMode = .resizeFill
    }
    
    required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
        fatalError("init(coder:) has not been implemented")
    }
    
    override func didMove(to view: SKView) {
        
        view.showsPhysics = true
        
        guard let viewScene = view.scene else { return }
        
        viewScene.physicsWorld.contactDelegate = self
        
        viewScene.physicsBody?.allowsRotation = false
        
        viewScene.backgroundColor = UIColor(red: 0.8, green: 0.8, blue: 0.8, alpha: 1)
        viewScene.physicsBody = SKPhysicsBody(edgeLoopFrom: frame)
        viewScene.physicsBody?.categoryBitMask = CollisionMask.edgeBody.rawValue
        viewScene.physicsBody?.collisionBitMask = CollisionMask.snakeBody.rawValue
            | CollisionMask.snakeHead.rawValue
        
        viewScene.physicsWorld.gravity = CGVector(dx: 0, dy: 0)
        
        setup(skScene: viewScene)
    }
    
    override func update(_ currentTime: TimeInterval) {
        if !isPaused {
            snake?.moveTo(position: apple!.position)
        }
    }

    override func touchesBegan(_ touches: Set<UITouch>, with event: UIEvent?) {
        buttonAction(touches, color: .green) { [weak self] tNode in
            if tNode.name == "CounterClockwiseBtn" && !(self?.isPaused ?? true) {
                self?.snake?.moveCounterClockwise()
            } else if tNode.name == "ClockwiseBtn" && !(self?.isPaused ?? true) {
                self?.snake?.moveClockwise()
            } else if tNode.name == "Pause" {
                self?.isPaused.toggle()
            }
        }
    }
    
    override func touchesEnded(_ touches: Set<UITouch>, with event: UIEvent?) {
        buttonAction(touches, color: .gray)
    }
    
    override func touchesCancelled(_ touches: Set<UITouch>, with event: UIEvent?) {
        isPaused = true
    }
    
    private func setup(skScene: SKScene) {
        var position = CGPoint(x: skScene.frame.minX + 30, y: skScene.frame.minY + 30)
        self.addChild(createBtn(name: "CounterClockwiseBtn", color: .gray, position: position))
        
        position.x = skScene.frame.maxX - 80
        self.addChild(createBtn(name: "ClockwiseBtn", color: .gray, position: position))
        
        position.y = skScene.frame.maxY - 80
        self.addChild(createBtn(name: "Pause", color: .systemBlue, position: position))
        
        createSnake(skFrame: skScene.frame)
        
        createApple(skFrame: skScene.frame)
    }
    
    private func createSnake(skFrame: CGRect) {
        snake = SnakeHead(atPoint: CGPoint(x: skFrame.midX, y: skFrame.midY))
        snake?.setChildSuperParent = self.addChild(_:)
        self.addChild(snake!)
    }
    
    private func createApple(skFrame: CGRect) {
        
        let randX = CGFloat(arc4random_uniform(UInt32(skFrame.maxX)) + 1)
        let randY = CGFloat(arc4random_uniform(UInt32(skFrame.maxY)) + 1)
        
        apple = Apple(position: CGPoint(x: randX, y: randY))
        
        self.addChild(apple!)
    }
    
    private func createBtn(name: String?, color: UIColor, position: CGPoint) -> SKShapeNode {
        let btn = SKShapeNode()
        
        btn.path = CGPath(ellipseIn: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 45, height: 45), transform: nil)
        btn.position = position
        btn.fillColor = color
        btn.strokeColor = .darkGray
        btn.lineWidth = 10
        btn.name = name
        
        return btn
    }
    
    private func buttonAction(
        _ touches: Set<UITouch>,
        color: UIColor,
        action: (SKShapeNode) -> Void = {_ in}
    ) {
        for touch in touches {
            let touchLocation = touch.location(in: self)
            
            guard let touchedNode = self.atPoint(touchLocation) as? SKShapeNode,
                  touchedNode.name == "CounterClockwiseBtn"
                    || touchedNode.name == "ClockwiseBtn"
                    || touchedNode.name == "Pause"
            else {
                return
            }
            
            touchedNode.fillColor = color
            
            action(touchedNode)
        }
    }
}

extension GameScene: SKPhysicsContactDelegate {
    
    func didBegin(_ contact: SKPhysicsContact) {
        let collisionObject: SKPhysicsBody
        
        if contact.bodyA.node?.name == "SnakeHead" {
            collisionObject = contact.bodyB
        } else {
            collisionObject = contact.bodyA
        }
        
        switch CollisionMask(rawValue: collisionObject.categoryBitMask) {
        case .apple:
            let apple = contact.bodyA.node is Apple ? contact.bodyA.node : contact.bodyB.node
            snake?.eat()
            apple?.removeFromParent()
            infoSender.send(infoSender.value + 1)
            createApple(skFrame: view?.scene?.frame ?? .zero)
        case .edgeBody:
            snake?.removeFromParent()
            infoSender.send(0)
            createSnake(skFrame: view?.scene?.frame ?? .zero)
        default:
            break
        }
    }
} And finally, we'll update our application to show the score: @main
struct SnakeApp: App {
    private let scene: GameScene //BloxScene
    @State private var info = "0"

    var body: some Scene {
        WindowGroup {
            ZStack {
                Color.gray
                    .edgesIgnoringSafeArea(.all)
            
                VStack(spacing: 0) {
                    Text("Score: \(info)")
                        .font(.body)
                        .foregroundColor(.white)
                
                    SpriteView(
                        scene: scene,
                        debugOptions: [.showsFPS, .showsNodeCount, .showsDrawCount],
                        shouldRender: { timeInterval in true }
                    )
                    .frame(idealWidth: .infinity, idealHeight: .infinity)
                }
            }
            .onReceive(scene.infoSender.eraseToAnyPublisher()) {
                info = "\($0)"
            }
        }
    }

    init() {
        self.scene = GameScene(size: CGSize(width: 10, height: 10))
    }
} Conclusion Creating the classic "Snake" game using SpriteKit can be a fun and educational project for both beginners and experienced game developers. This article has provided a high-level overview of the steps involved in setting up the project and designing the game scene. The real challenge lies in implementing the game logic, handling user input, and creating an enjoyable gaming experience. Remember that game development is an iterative process, so don't be discouraged by initial setbacks. With persistence and creativity, you can create a polished "Snake" game that is both engaging and entertaining. Good luck with your SpriteKit game development journey!

Creating the Classic "Snake" Game with SpriteKit

Christian Science by Mark Twain, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . CHAPTER IV here CHAPTER IV It is often said in print that Mrs. Eddy claims that God was the Author of Science and Health. Mr. Peabody states in his pamphlet that “she says not she but God was the Author.” I cannot find that in her autobiography she makes this transference of the authorship, but I think that in it she definitely claims that she did her work under His inspiration—definitely for her; for as a rule she is not a very definite person, even when she seems to be trying her best to be clear and positive. Speaking of the early days when her Science was beginning to unfold itself and gather form in her mind, she says (Autobiography, page 43): “The divine hand led me into a new world of light and Life, a fresh universe—old to God, but new to His 'little one.'” She being His little one, as I understand it. The divine hand led her. It seems to mean “God inspired me”; but when a person uses metaphors instead of statistics—and that is Mrs. Eddy's common fashion—one cannot always feel sure about the intention. [Page 56.] “Even the Scripture gave no direct interpretation of the Scientific basis for demonstrating the spiritual Principle of healing, until our Heavenly Father saw fit, through the Key to the Scriptures, in Science and Health, to unlock this 'mystery of godliness.'” Another baffling metaphor. If she had used plain forecastle English, and said “God wrote the Key and I put it in my book”; or if she had said “God furnished me the solution of the mystery and I put it on paper”; or if she had said “God did it all,” then we should understand; but her phrase is open to any and all of those translations, and is a Key which unlocks nothing—for us. However, it seems to at least mean “God inspired me,” if nothing more. There was personal and intimate communion, at any rate we get that much out of the riddles. The connection extended to business, after the establishment of the teaching and healing industry. [Page 71.] “When God impelled me to set a price on my instruction,” etc. Further down: “God has since shown me, in multitudinous ways, the wisdom of this decision.” She was not able to think of a “financial equivalent”—meaning a pecuniary equivalent—for her “instruction in Christian Science Mind-healing.” In this emergency she was “led” to charge three hundred dollars for a term of “twelve half-days.” She does not say who led her, she only says that the amount greatly troubled her. I think it means that the price was suggested from above, “led” being a theological term identical with our commercial phrase “personally conducted.” She “shrank from asking it, but was finally led, by a strange providence, to accept this fee.” “Providence” is another theological term. Two leds and a providence, taken together, make a pretty strong argument for inspiration. I think that these statistics make it clear that the price was arranged above. This view is constructively supported by the fact, already quoted, that God afterwards approved, “in multitudinous ways,” her wisdom in accepting the mentioned fee. “Multitudinous ways”—multitudinous encoring—suggests enthusiasm. Business enthusiasm. And it suggests nearness. God's nearness to his “little one.” Nearness, and a watchful personal interest. A warm, palpitating, Standard-Oil interest, so to speak. All this indicates inspiration. We may assume, then, two inspirations: one for the book, the other for the business. The evidence for inspiration is further augmented by the testimony of Rev. George Tomkins, D.D., already quoted, that Mrs. Eddy and her book were foretold in Revelation, and that Mrs. Eddy “is God's brightest thought to this age, giving us the spiritual interpretation of the Bible in the 'little book'” of the Angel. I am aware that it is not Mr. Tomkins that is speaking, but Mrs. Eddy. The commissioned lecturers of the Christian Science Church have to be members of the Board of Lectureship. (By-laws Sec. 2, p. 70.) The Board of Lectureship is selected by the Board of Directors of the Church. (By-laws, Sec. 3, p. 70.) The Board of Directors of the Church is the property of Mrs. Eddy. (By-laws, p. 22.) Mr. Tomkins did not make that statement without authorization from headquarters. He necessarily got it from the Board of Directors, the Board of Directors from Mrs. Eddy, Mrs. Eddy from the Deity. Mr. Tomkins would have been turned down by that procession if his remarks had been unsatisfactory to it. It may be that there is evidence somewhere—as has been claimed—that Mrs. Eddy has charged upon the Deity the verbal authorship of Science and Health. But if she ever made the charge, she has withdrawn it (as it seems to me), and in the most formal and unqualified; of all ways. See Autobiography, page 57: “When the demand for this book increased... the copyright was infringed. I entered a suit at Law, and my copyright was protected.” Thus it is plain that she did not plead that the Deity was the (verbal) Author; for if she had done that, she would have lost her case—and with rude promptness. It was in the old days before the Berne Convention and before the passage of our amended law of 1891, and the court would have quoted the following stern clause from the existing statute and frowned her out of the place: “No Foreigner can acquire copyright in the United States.” To sum up. The evidence before me indicates three things: 1. That Mrs. Eddy claims the verbal author ship for herself. 2. That she denies it to the Deity. 3. That—in her belief—she wrote the book under the inspiration of the Deity, but furnished the language herself. In one place in the Autobiography she claims both the language and the ideas; but when this witness is testifying, one must draw the line somewhere, or she will prove both sides of her case-nine sides, if desired. It is too true. Much too true. Many, many times too true. She is a most trying witness—the most trying witness that ever kissed the Book, I am sure. There is no keeping up with her erratic testimony. As soon as you have got her share of the authorship nailed where you half hope and half believe it will stay and cannot be joggled loose any more, she joggles it loose again—or seems to; you cannot be sure, for her habit of dealing in meaningless metaphors instead of in plain, straightforward statistics, makes it nearly always impossible to tell just what it is she is trying to say. She was definite when she claimed both the language and the ideas of the book. That seemed to settle the matter. It seemed to distribute the percentages of credit with precision between the collaborators: ninety-two per cent. to Mrs. Eddy, who did all the work, and eight per cent. to the Deity, who furnished the inspiration not enough of it to damage the copyright in a country closed against Foreigners, and yet plenty to advertise the book and market it at famine rates. Then Mrs. Eddy does not keep still, but fetches around and comes forward and testifies again. It is most injudicious. For she resorts to metaphor this time, and it makes trouble, for she seems to reverse the percentages and claim only the eight per cent. for her self. I quote from Mr. Peabody's book (Eddyism, or Christian Science. Boston: 15 Court Square, price twenty-five cents): “Speaking of this book, Mrs. Eddy, in January last (1901) said: 'I should blush to write of Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures, as I have, were it of human origin, and I, apart from God, its author; but as I was only a scribe echoing the harmonies of Heaven in divine metaphysics, I cannot be supermodest of the Christian Science text-book.”' Mr. Peabody's comment: “Nothing could be plainer than that. Here is a distinct avowal that the book entitled Science and Health was the work of Almighty God.” It does seem to amount to that. She was only a “scribe.” Confound the word, it is just a confusion, it has no determinable meaning there, it leaves us in the air. A scribe is merely a person who writes. He may be a copyist, he may be an amanuensis, he may be a writer of originals, and furnish both the language and the ideas. As usual with Mrs. Eddy, the connection affords no help—“echoing” throws no light upon “scribe.” A rock can reflect an echo, a wall can do it, a mountain can do it, many things can do it, but a scribe can't. A scribe that could reflect an echo could get over thirty dollars a week in a side-show. Many impresarios would rather have him than a cow with four tails. If we allow that this present scribe was setting down the “harmonies of Heaven”—and certainly that seems to have been the case then there was only one way to do it that I can think of: listen to the music and put down the notes one after another as they fell. In that case Mrs. Eddy did not invent the tune, she only entered it on paper. Therefore dropping the metaphor—she was merely an amanuensis, and furnished neither the language of Science and Health nor the ideas. It reduces her to eight per cent. (and the dividends on that and the rest). Is that it? We shall never know. For Mrs. Eddy is liable to testify again at any time. But until she does it, I think we must conclude that the Deity was Author of the whole book, and Mrs. Eddy merely His telephone and stenographer. Granting this, her claim as the Voice of God stands-for the present—justified and established. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Mark Twain (2004). Christian Science. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3187/pg3187-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

It is often said in print that Mrs. Eddy claims that God was the Author of Science and Health

As reported in previous updates, and , governments around the world fear losing power. There have been a lot of lies, disinformation, a few battles (eg. ) which may have been seemingly or temporarily won by crypto, but large governments and central banks refuse to give up. here here Gary Gensler and the SEC vs crypto More and more nations are bringing their own CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) to market, painting regular crypto and Bitcoin as evil, and trying to convince the public that state-run CBDCs are a better alternative than cryptocurrency. In a , less than 1% of people have chosen the government CBDC… That must tell you something! It seems that the only people who believe that CBDCs are any good, are governments that make CBDCs and those who do not understand cryptocurrency. large African nation where 50% of the citizens hold crypto In another African nation, infamous for its government policy of printing more cash than any man can carry, Zimbabwe is splitting the difference. The Zimbabwe dollar was once worth more than the USD and the British Pound. Over decades of mismanagement, the conversion rates dropped drastically, to a point where a $10 Trillion Zim note had less power than a penny in other nations. After careful consideration, and a few abortive attempts to relaunch the Zim dollar as an unbacked fiat paper currency, . This is an unprecedented move. the Zimbabwe government is now looking to back its CBDC with gold The USA reduced 1:1 gold-backing from the USD in the 1940s, and removed it entirely in 1971. There has not been an asset-backed currency in over fifty years. If Zimbabwe can pull this off, it will be a monumental achievement, and may see other nations follow suit, for fear of being left out. Of course, if the asset-backing fails, it could wipe out anyone holding the currency. Sadly, having your cash dramatically devalued is nothing new for Zimbabwe’s people, where the life savings of millions of people were wiped out a decade ago. We truly hope that the resurgence of asset-backed currency works out and catches on. Although it is arguable that everyone have cryptocurrency, not everyone wants it. A gold-backed currency that cannot be infinitely printed and devalued sounds like a short step in the right direction for many. should Interestingly, when the USD was asset-backed, it in 1653, 1762, 1844, and 1900. Imagine a society where the price of groceries, houses, vehicles and all consumer goods stayed roughly the same for 300 years… Selah! held around the same value Since 1933, when the USD moved away from gold-backing, the purchasing power of the unbacked paper fiat currency has dropped over 90% ( ). It may be a long time (if ever) before any western nation introduces an asset-backed currency, as governments would have to purchase massive reserves of gold and silver and then pay someone to store the assets. Can they afford to do that? Probably not. 99.65% for the GBP The same governments who desire asset-backing may also have to ban private ownership of gold and silver, as has been done in the past by the USA, Poland, Australia and the UK. When the government passes a law saying they are seizing your valuables “for your own good”, and then later, offers to sell the same asset back to you for triple the price, it may be time to break up with them and start seeing other governments... If you think that pandemics, masks and lockdowns were “unprecedented”, wait until you see what comes next with CBDCs versus crypto. In the last 200 years, whilst unbacked fiat currency has dropped by 90-99% in value, there have literally been seven (7) cholera pandemics, another black plague, Spanish flu, Hong Kong flu, Swine flu, Bird flu, SARS, MERS and COVID. Your ancestors were probably very sick of cholera. You may be sick of inflation, devaluing currencies and central banks that almost always overcorrect; with the poorest people being the biggest victims. But everything can still work out OK in the end, as Satoshi Nakamoto gave us Bitcoin: a deflationary currency that aims to hold its value over time, without manipulation by governments or central banks. As your cryptocurrency can be stored on your phone or a small USB device (eg. ), it is a lot harder for the jack-booted government agents to seize your crypto than it was for them to seize your grandpa’s gold in 1933. Long live Satoshi, for we are all Satoshi now. Ledger Banks Versus Crypto As we saw recently, the collapse of several banks in the USA caused no small amount of panic among account holders, and a decent rise in the price of cryptocurrency. This month, another bank looks to be folding up, as and its stock dropped by 50% within hours. It seems that disgruntled bank savers and bank stock investors may have been seeking the ‘safe haven’ of crypto, as the Bitcoin price jumped 2.5% whilst the bank was falling. First Republic Bank lost $100 billion Despite anyone with a brain realising that the recent bank collapses have been caused in large part by the , dramatically raising rates after promising not to do so, there are still legislators in the USA claiming that the bank collapses were caused by crypto. This may be as irrational as claiming that ambulances cause accidents, because you always see an ambulance next to the carnage, but some undereducated people will undoubtedly fall for the bluff and blame crypto instead of the Fed’s incompetence. irresponsible actions of the Federal Reserve , the world’s oldest banks in London are lining up. , and may benefit from any mass exodus of crypto companies leaving the USA. Even as the USA seems to be squashing crypto companies The UK is embracing crypto companies Echoing words that could have been said at the start of the Revolutionary War, the head of the UK’s financial regulator acknowledged that crypto was once a small “symbol of rebellion” but has now “become more widespread”. Rather than fighting against cryptocurrency, the UK is opening its arms and inviting input from crypto stakeholders, so that governments and crypto companies can work together in creating a strong, transparent and regulated system. Meanwhile, not to be outdone by their old rivals, the , which they hope will be adopted across the European Union. Your dreams of a crypto-funded European holiday may be getting closer. French are drafting up crypto-friendly legislation of their own Out of Chaos, into Maturity It was not so long ago that crypto-mania seemed more mainstream than disco-fever. Matt Damon spruiked crypto.com on TV and YouTube, “Seinfeld” sitcom creator Larry David waxed on about FTX, as did football legend Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen. One of the Kardashian failed to disclose receiving $250 000 for promoting Eth-Max (and was later fined five times as much as she received). Youtube channels, blogs and podcasts focusing on cryptocurrency were popping up like mushrooms, and it seemed that everyone was making money (particularly the “ ” who were being paid to say that bad projects were great). fin-fluencers After all the hype came the hangover, and crypto markets dropped from $3 Trillion to $1 Trillion. Some people lost all their money (eg. SBF’s FTX investors), some lost 90% on altcoins, many had their funds locked up indefinitely (eg. Celsius) and most became very disillusioned. If you cannot trust actors (people who lie for a living), then who can you trust? Over time, people realised they could trust in the projects, not the pretentious pizzazz. You could trust in the algorithm not the actor, have faith in the smart contract not the supermodels. Crypto markets have been gradually recovering many of the lost gains (well, the decent projects are recovering, not the $HITcoins), Bitcoin is up around 70% this year, but it seems quiet out there… What’s going on? With a minimum of 20 year’s experience, everyone in the BostonTrading team is old enough to remember the movie “ ” with Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas. The movie was set in 1985, a time when the stock market was mostly still mysterious and elitist. Although fiction, the movie seemed to show that anyone with tenacity, intelligence (and maybe a touch of bad-assery) could make money in stocks. Some of us wanted to be Bud Fox, some wanted to be Gordon Gecko, and we all wanted to be rich. Wall Street From 1985 to 1987, the stock market rose dramatically, up to 521%, as everyday people piled into this apparently demystified opportunity. However, companies cannot continue to rise in price unless there is underlying value, and the Gecko hit the fan in late 1987 in one of the world’s worst stockmarket meltdowns. Prices dropped and everyday investors had their dreams as well as their investments crushed. However, in the aftermath of the massive stock crash, savvy investors bought the dip, and continued to seek value rather than fanfare. We all know that the stock market continued to function after the 1987 crash, as it did after the 1929 crash, 9/11/2001, the 2008 GFC and many others. After the hype, comes the hangover, but those who manage it well, will be happiest. You can still make money in after a stock crash, and you can still make money after a crypto crunch: just keep your wits while everyone else is losing theirs. When Bitcoin dropped from $30k to $20k last year, it was the . This year, when BTC rose from $20k back to $30k, there was very little noise. We feel that this is a good thing, as it seems that the crypto market is displaying some maturity. death knell for FTX, Celsius, Three Arrows Capital, Genesis, BlockFi and Voyager Digital Those who were partying like rockstars and eyeing off Lambos after making 50% gains in 2021, seem to be quietly enjoying a cup of Earl Grey during the 50% gains in 2023. Having been through a 75% drop in 2022 seems to steel the nerves and prevent one from celebrating too early. Even as crypto markets may drop 90% or make 1000% gains in the next three to five years, remember that Satoshi giveth and Satoshi can taketh away. Do not become overly excited by the temporary fluctuations: just accumulate, HODL and see what 2030 will bring. What the WEF? If the central banks and governments of the world are stormtroopers chasing the crypto rebels, then the WEF would be the Empire, and “Mister Davos”, aka. Klaus Schwab is the Emperor. Schwab has been head of the WEF for over 52 years, and his detractors claim he is a law unto himself, answerable to no shareholders and no country. Mostly critical of cryptocurrency, WEF members such as US Treasury Secretary and European Central Bank President have claimed that crypto is bad for the planet, only used for criminal activity and money-laundering ( ). Janet Yellen Christine Lagarde FALSE: crypto uses less energy than legacy banking systems, and has 98% less criminal use than the USD At this stage, we could line up the usual suspects: mostly white, western octogenarians who hold onto the old systems (Lagarde has more power than many small nations, Schwab has more power than most large nations, Yellen was Chair of the Fed), see that they are biased against the new systems, and change the acronym of the World Economic Forum to “White Elderly Fossils”. The World Economic Forum has been saying for years that crypto mining is bad for the environment, and constantly bleating out claims that Bitcoin mining uses more power than (insert some tiny country with a tiny population). This is just as misleading as the “ambulances cause accidents” scenario, as the WEF is comparing apples to orangutans. Bitcoin and crypto are not tiny island nations and should not be compared to them. The crypto industry is an alternative to the massive global banking system; but it does not suit the narrative of the crypto-naysayers to compare crypto’s energy usage to the power use of every single bank, branch, ATM and brokerage house. ( .) Spoiler alert: crypto is far better for the planet than the archaic banking system Despite the obvious bias they have shown for many years, even the WEF had to come out and applaud the , where unexpected methane gas flares from oil production or landfill that are normally burnt and wasted, are captured and used to mine cryptocurrency. environmentally-friendly use of crypto mining by Crusoe Energy Mind you, despite applauding the Crusoe company, the WEF was very careful to use elusive euphemisms such as “data processing”, “the future of computing”, and “computing revolution”. Not once in the or posts did the WEF mention that Crusoe was saving the planet with cryptocurrency or Bitcoin; as that would mean admitting WEF hypocrisy. video Even though the White Elderly Fossils did not come out and say that the planet could coexist much better with crypto than with legacy banking, or that crypto is the future, we trust that some of the younger, less biased and independent thinkers are starting to notice. The rebellion does not succeed because a few telekinetic wizards with glowing swords are stronger than the Emperor; the rebellion succeeds because good must always overcome evil, the new must overcome the old and decentralised democracy must always supplant power concentrated in few hands. What are we up to? As crypto markets claw back some of their gains from the terrible 2022 crashes, we see a few projects improve faster than others. This month the DARTcoin fund shows gains from 103% up to 130% in TRON, QNT and MATIC (whilst Bitcoin is only around 70-80% of its 2022 values). For the flagship Bostoncoin fund, we show gains between 105% up to 117% on coins such as Solana, CRO and BAT. Stock is down in SuperLoop, as employees returning to offices drives WFH network use lower, although we expect ‘net use to go higher in the long-term, with the increase of autonomous vehicles and smart home devices. Stock in exchange Coinstash is up around 33% since we bought. The BOS fund itself is up 274% since the 2020 lows. During the last crypto bull run, the Bostoncoin diversified portfolio made almost twice the returns of Bitcoin. We were happy that during the crypto bear market, we basically kept pace with the benchmark, so the highs were much higher and the lows were not much lower. As , many investors faced losses of over 90% in the bear market, and several institutions went bankrupt or had to close down. Thanks to our strategic selection and sensible investing, we are still thriving, and absolutely delighted to be with you for the next bull run. reported last month We cannot promise that the gains will be over 1000% like they were last time, but we can promise you a free gift if you share this newsletter with a friend and encourage them to subscribe. I am sure that you know someone who was into crypto for years before you were, and you secretly wish they had told you much earlier. Be generous with your knowledge and share the good news: all the best crypto updates, once a month, for free, and your friend can easily unsubscribe if they don’t like puppy jokes. See you next month. Apr 30 2023 BOS NAV 69.003552 AU BOS Price 75.9039072 AU BOS NAV 47.6124518 US BOS Price 52.373697 US Apr 30 2023 DART NAV 100.263669 AU DART Price 110.290036 AU DART NAV  69.1819332 US DART Price 76.1001265 US

Crypto Versus the Government

This Side of Paradise: Book I, Chapter I - Amory, Son of Beatrice

Tom Brady will go down as one of the greatest football players of all time. Love him or hate him; there is zero doubt about that. His achievements are legendary. He blew past milestones people never thought were possible (and setting records) one can only hope to see broken in their lifetime. One of the essential qualities to Tom Brady’s game is —his leadership has taken him to the biggest stages in the country, getting the maximum talent and productivity out of his teams for the longest time. And while you may not be married to a supermodel or have Tom Brady’s arm, the GOAT can teach us valuable lessons on leadership that we can apply to our own lives. But to understand his lessons on leadership, we must first understand what kind of leader Tom Brady is. his leadership skills What kind of leader is Tom Brady? Brady is best known for . His work ethic and dedication to the game are evident for his teammates to see.  He embodies self-determination, self-discipline, and self-regulation. Unlike many stars in the league, Brady started his NFL career as a 6th round draft pick, virtually condemning him never to make it big. However, because of his hard work, belief in himself, and passion for the game, he remained ready for any opportunity at any time. When starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe was injured at the start of the New England Patriots’ 2001 season, Brady was prepared to step up to the plate (wrong sport, but the analogy works). leading by example Being drafted late may have been a blessing in disguise for Brady’s career—he is one of the few players to have experienced what it’s like a player starting at the bottom and working at the league's highest levels. He leaves the impression that his status is achievable, but shows others through his actions why he is the best. For those around him, Brady exists as the epitome of a success story, from a bottom pick to the greatest to ever play the game. Through his story, he has shown that hard work can genuinely create paths to success. Brady has gained a reputation of being remarkably consistent, constantly training, learning from his mistakes, and performing at a constant level. He has never been known for his athleticism like other elite NFL players; it’s one of the primary reasons he was such a late draft selection. While he has never been able to become the most athletic player in his career, Brady has undoubtedly been able to compensate and minimize his flaws through hard work and relentless focus. He isn’t the fastest player; however, he has developed an elite level of awareness that helps him avoid the defense. By working on his flaws to become a well-rounded player, Tom Brady has been able to find success. What’s remarkable is that Tom Brady has been able to impart this success on others. Using himself as his best example, he shows others what it takes to be the greatest player of all time. That leadership by example is magnified by the fact that he was overlooked at the top of the draft. His dedication and focus got him to the top of the game, and that’s inspiring for his teammates. It brings out the best in those around him as they focus on a singular goal. The idea of leading by example is not exclusive to football, of course. Leading a team in business or leading a team in football requires the same skill set. Leading by example is an excellent way to prove your legitimacy and dedication to others. One common misconception about leading by example is that the leaders are silent, mind their own business, and are generally unapproachable. However, from the told by other players about Brady, he is . Even though he is the first in the facility and last to leave every day, Brady always engages with others, talking to them and coaching them. He leaves the impression that his status is achievable but shows others why he is the best through his actions. This idea can be applied to more mundane work as well. Leading by example is not about leaving your team in awe of your work and achievements; instead, it is about showing that your high level of work ethic is possible and achievable for others. Delivering results underlines what you can achieve with his level of dedication. stories far from a silent leader Brady is also known amongst players for . When with his team, he is both personal and personable. There is no ego to deal with, despite his rarified stature. He understands the winning culture and what it takes to achieve great things at the highest level and under tremendous pressure – and in his case, physical pain. keeping a positive yet competitive team environment Because of this, Brady becomes the biggest supporter of his teammates. He understands that while he may be an outstanding player, football is a team sport, and everyone has a role to play. Brady is motivated to teach others what it takes to win, even in his position. He exemplifies this by becoming a second coach, making adjustments to improve the play, and reassuring each player they have what it takes to be a winner. His winning pedigree backs up his advice: he commands the players' full attention in the locker room. On a personal level, Brady to younger players, showing the areas of improvement while also taking the time to train them and answer any questions they may have. So long as the players are willing to get better, Brady is committed to teaching them what he knows – and those players know that Tom Brady has elevated his status in the league from a backup to an x-time world champ. They want to eat whatever Tom is eating. acts as a mentor Brady also exemplifies outstanding leadership by . , Brady went the extra mile to reward his long-time teammate Rob Gronkowski. Despite the resistance from his coaches, Brady opted to stay in a blowout game to throw an extra pass to Gronkowski, netting him a $500,000 bonus for achieving his completion goal. It’s a perfect example of listening to your teammates, understanding what they want, achieving their goals together, and rewarding them for their effort. aligning personal and team objectives for more established players During his tenure on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers While his personal achievements are impressive, Brady also assists his teammates, constantly and risking injury to achieve other players' personal and team goals for other players. His actions instill trust in others and ultimately motivate them to play harder and contribute to the winning culture that Brady is known for. putting his reputation on the line Like Brady’s story, these traits are achievable in the business world. Please get to know your team, understand their desires and motivations, and construct a plan to achieve their goals. Lead by example, showing others what an elite level looks like, but also be on the ground, pushing your team higher and higher towards that level. Success isn’t achieved overnight, but over time, through effort and dedication, expect to see you and your team grow to their fullest potential. About the Author Lomit Patel is the Senior Vice President of Growth at Together Labs (formerly IMVU). Before Together labs, Lomit managed growth at early-stage startups, including Roku (IPO), TrustedID (acquired by Equifax), Texture (acquired. by Apple), and EarthLink. Lomit is a public speaker, author, advisor, and recognized as a Mobile Hero by Liftoff. Lomit's book Lean AI , part of Eric Ries' best-selling "The Lean Startup" series, is now available at Amazon .

How to Become the Greatest Leader of All Time: Tom Brady Style

Life is determined by a few key moments. That was the case when in 2016, Masa Son met Adam Neumann in the WeWork offices. Masa had only twelve minutes to decide whether to place a $4 billion bet on WeWork! With the usual coolness, Adam Neumann - a tall guy that felt ok in walking barefoot without a shirt in the middle of the street - played his cards at best. A few minutes later, Masa Son, among the wealthiest people in Japan, scribbled $4 billion on his iPad. That made Adam's company, WeWork, valued at $47 billion! Masa and Adam would project WeWork to be valued at $10 trillion by 2028! Yet the wind was going to change very quickly. And just two years later, the whole thing was to implode. From the height of a $47 billion valuation, the company risked losing it all! This isn’t a movie by Oliver Stone, who wrote the legendary Wall Street, interpreted by Michael Douglas, in 1987, and which would paradoxically inspire generations of financiers. We’re, at this time, into WeWork’s offices, a real estate company claiming to be among the largest tech players, running what the company called  a Space-As-A-Service Business Model. This story is so exciting that Apple TV+ is making a series about it, interpreted by Jared Leto. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAuhT5241h8 Recapping the WeWork story When , a reporter at Wall Street journal since 2010, he had been following WeWork’s founder rise for a few years. Eventually, the story got so compelling that when WeWork crashed, Eliot wrote a book about it called “The Cult of We.” Founded in 2010, in SoHo, NYC, by Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey, WeWork quickly expanded. By 2012, WeWork was a successful and profitable company that was now worth over a hundred million in a very short time. I interviewed Eliot Brown 2016 would be a turning year for WeWork as it managed to get a $4 billion offer after a 12 minutes tour of the offices, Masa Son, founder of SoftBank. Masa Son would later promise to take over the company for $20 billion and make it into a $10 trillion behemoth by 2028! Things didn't turn out as expected. Masa Son pulls back from its promised investment as liquidity drains out. WeWork, therefore, tries to IPO to getting the funding it needs to survive. Yet, as it submits its S-1 form to the SEC, the whole scandal comes out, as a conflict of interests, bad management, and extreme losses become public! WeWork would have to withdraw its IPO. As the company restructured, it went public via a SPAC company BowX, valuing it at $9 billion (instead of the $47 billion of value at its peak). By March 2022, WeWork is valued at less than $4 billion. What happened there? Let’s look at one of the craziest stories of the tech industry, which might well resemble the epitome of what can go wrong when markets are supplied with massive liquidity and private investors are looking for the next big thing! The Early Years As Eliot Brown explained to me, Adam Neumann's entrepreneurial story started when he moved back to Israel with his mother, where he lived most of his life, before adulthood. In Israel, he lived in a Kibbutz, a communal socialist experiment. There, he learned the value of community. He also learned how the place was a mess as it was hard to make the community keep going without the financial resources. After a short stint in the Navy in Israel, he moved to New York. In the city, he found the perfect place for him to bloom. He just wanted to become rich, and with his sister already in New York, working as a supermodel, he was right on introduced to interesting people. Adam was quite energetic, a natural extrovert; he found it very easy to make friends and build communities just for having fun. His first venture as an entrepreneur was a baby clothes company (mainly financed with his sister’s money), which tried to make clothing that had knee pads for babies when they were crawling. It was called “Krawlers.” The idea was that babies’ knees must hurt, so here’s a way to make it, so they don’t and didn’t go very well. Yet Adam was a great salesman. However, his inability to understand the product and his lack of passion about it (he was a man in his 20s) made the business continuously struggle. The real turn of events came when he met someone who ran an office space subleasing company, a little incubator-type environment called Sunshine Suites. It was the son of a classmate of his at college. Adam felt impressed by how much money Sunshine Suites was making. In the meantime, Adam had met an architect, which turned into a good friend named named Miguel McKelvey. Adam Neumann pitched the idea to do something similar to Miguel McKelvey, who became the co-founder of something very similar to what would later become WeWork. Back in Brooklyn, they convinced their landlord to give them a floor and put up the money to organize a first co-working space. The landlord put in the money, and real estate, and Adam and McKelvey put in sweat equity. The deal worked pretty well! Soon enough, the company, which they called Green Desk, was a success. We’re in the 2010s. When Adam Neumann saw the idea was working well, he figured to turn it into something way bigger. Yet the landlord didn’t seem to agree. Thus, he liquidated the two co-founders and gave them about $500K each. Adam Neumann recommended McKelvey to keep his money as he would have spent it, so that they could use it for their next venture. A Real Estate or Tech Company? Finally, as the vision was shaping into Neumann’s mind, he wanted to build something big, a multi-billion dollar business. He also understood that to do so; he had to play the venture capital game. And as it would later turn out, he was very good at it. But before we get to that, Adam Neumann, in the meantime, had  also met what would become later on his wife: Rebekah Paltrow, causing with the actress Gwyneth Paltrow. At the first encounter, Rebekah Paltrow tried to inspire Neumann to think big, but also to do so with vision, and not to only think about money. While this might seem inspiring, as we would see throughout the story, it also turned into one of the paradoxes of the whole WeWork story, in what we can call “fake leadership.” Fast forward, WeWork is indeed a good idea. That’s a sort of real estate arbitrage, where you leverage on a longer-term lease to rent the real estate locations at a much higher price to co-working companies by offering them ancillary services. This model is well known today, yet pretty new in the 2010s. However, while this business model turned out to be profitable at the time (we’re right after one of the greatest real estate bubbles of our times), when commercial real estate was under pressure, it was still a business that was very hard to scale. The primary reason was that WeWork had to anticipate the costs related to long-term leases and pay them out slowly as more members came in. While over time this model would make sense, in the short-term this form of arbitrage also carried negative cash flows. Yet, we’re in a period when private markets were heating up, and venture capital was massively betting on tech companies. Adam Neumann, therefore, realized the importance of reframing WeWork as a tech company rather than a real estate player. Indeed, over the years, WeWork called itself a . This was done to mimic the successful and rising industry of software companies offering their technology for a monthly fee ( ). Space-as-a-Service business model the Software-as-a-Service The move was successful, as WeWork quickly convinced venture capitalists to invest. Among the first, there was Benchmark, a well-known name in Silicon Valley. They were the first big check into Uber. This created an aura of success, it validated WeWork as a tech company, and it made it into a multi-million dollar success. And the road to billions wasn’t that far! Radio on The Internet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzAdXyPYKQo One of the most hilarious scenes of the series Silicon Valley (above) well explains in a hot market what makes a company successful. It’s not the revenues. It’s the hype you can create, but also how much you can shift your narrative around growth rather than profitability. That is what WeWork did. Adam Neumann, at that point (we’re around 2014-2015) had mastered the venture capital game. And he started to secure other financing deals. The real breakthrough came when they managed to pull in a mutual fund, Fidelity. A growth fund part of the Fidelity family gave WeWork an over $200 million cheque, making the company valued over $10 billion for the first time. Fidelity at the time was pulled into WeWork as it was trying to show it could invest in innovative companies, and for the mutual fund, a cheque of over $200 million was a small thing compared to the hundred of billions it had under management. Lack of Skin in the Game While WeWork grew to become what is called a , yet, as WeWork was growing by surfing venture capital investments, Adam Neumann was taking money off the table by selling some of his shares to finance his lifestyle. Decacorn At the same time, he was also opening personal loaning lines to keep the extravagant lifestyle the family was living. On the one hand, he preached to his team to work hard and do it for the mission; on the other hand, he was taking money off the table where he could to finance his lifestyle. To be sure, there is nothing bad about taking money off the table, especially if you’re letting some of your early employees, and the people that made the company successful do the same. Instead, he was taking favorable deals for himself, and that’s it. And there is more to it. The rising conflicts of interests and crazy acquisitions As WeWork was growing, a plethora of conflicts of interest started to build up. In fact, Adam Neumann, on a growing number of deals, would, on the one side, invest in the property behind the commercial building. And on the other hand, manage the company as WeWork’s CEO. For a company that was now worth more than $10 billion this was a matter of concern. And yet, as the company scaled, things only got worse. The money that Neumann would take from the various financing rounds, were also used to do acquisitions that didn’t make any sense. The epitome of it was the acquisition of a company called Wavegarden, which actually made artificial waves for surfing! Two visionaries or two Madmen? The real turning point for Neumann (or, if you wish, the beginning of the end) and WeWork came when he encountered Masa Son, the patron of SoftBank, a Japanese conglomerate, who had billions of dollars at its disposal. Masa Son’s career is quite interesting. In fact, he managed to become among the wealthiest person in the world, during the dot-com bubble, only to see his wealth to evaporate. Even though he failed with the dot-com bubble he still managed to build an aura of success thanks to a huge winner. Indeed, Masa Son had invested $20 million in the early days of Alibaba, turning it into a multi-billion win! The approach he used was gut instinct in spotting a visionary founder. Thus, it was this ability (as he later recalled) to spot a visionary like Jack Ma (founder of Alibaba) that made the investment so successful (according to Masa Son). As , referring to Jack Ma (I edited the text for readability): Masa Son recounted He had no business plan, and zero revenues, but his eyes were strong, strong eyes, shiny eyes, I could tell from the way he talked, he had charisma, leadership. So his business model was wrong, but the way he talked, and he could bring young Chinese people following him. Masa Son, after the dot-com crush, had started to rebuild his business by investing in the communication industry, until he tried to merge Sprint and T-Mobile, and failed. Yet, when Masa Son real mission was to find the next visionary. When he met Neumann he had successfully built one of the largest funds ever created, for tech companies. The Vision fund, in fact, had secured over $45 billion from Prince Salman (King of Saudi Arabia). With that money Masa Son was ready to invest in the next tech messiah, able to change the world. Here we go back to the day Masa Son had scribbled the $4 billion investment on his iPad. That made Adam's company, WeWork, valued at $47 billion! Yet the story wasn’t over yet. All is Falling Apart Masa Son became the main mentor of Adam Neumann, at the point that the two met to discuss the final vision for WeWork, making it into a multi-trillion-dollar success! Indeed, as Son and Neumann met, in 2018 Son had promised Neumann to buy out WeWork, make it a private company, and bring it to become a $10 trillion company by 2028. That was the grandiose/mad vision! Yet, as the deal was about to close, things changed pretty rapidly. As market liquidity started to drain up, pressure mounted on the Vision fund, and Masa Son called the deal was off the table. This made Neumann go in the path of one of the most unsuccessful IPO attempts. As the window of opportunity to IPO was closing, WeWork tried to go public in 2019. Yet, as the WeWork S-1 was released the public was shocked to see a company’s bearing massive losses, and with no plan whatsoever to turn a profit any time soon. And to make things worse, all of Neumann’s conflicts of interests started to be made public, until the situation became unsustainable, and after various theatrical moves, Adam Neumann was ousted, yet he left the company with one of the most generous, severance packages of all time. At the time of this writing, WeWork, which would later IPO through a SPAC, is now worth less than $4 billion. The once envisioned multi-trillion success, turned into a nightmare. The overall company survived all that, showing that overall, WeWork wasn’t a bad idea. But of course, neither a tech company that could be worth more than Apple, Amazon, and Google combined.

How WeWork's Implosion Turned it into a Shell of its Initial $47 Billion Promise

If the presence of robots in our regular life still sounds like a utopia, the possibility of interacting with them on social media is no more a far-fetched idea. In recent years, , , and created virtual avatars to promote their brands. Though such digital influencers might be harmful to the mental health of kids surfing social media or pose a risk to ‘real’ models to lose their jobs, brands are not going to stop leveraging CG-models in their campaigns. KFC Balmain Yoox Renault What Are Virtual Influencers? Digital , digital avatars, or also referred to as CG models, are images created with computer graphics by CG artists and 3D designers. These influencers do not exist in the real world, as you might have guessed, but they do have backgrounds and life they actively show on social media. influencers Typically, a whole team of designers, artists, and content writers work to represent the life of such an influencer. To make them look, move and sound more realistic and human-like, developers use motion capture. Some of the virtual influencers are actually real human bodies with a CG-made face. Digital models not just live a life that is often more interesting than ours but ‘take part’ in fashion shows, give concerts, promote brands on social media, and earn real money. , a Los-Angeles startup is probably one of the most mysterious and famous creators of virtual models. They’ve created , the most popular digital influencer at the moment. Miquela is naturally not the only creation of Brud. The startup has developed some other digital avatars and managed to drive millions of investments to their company. Brud Miquela Creators of , ‘first digital supermodel’, have also created the whole model agency targeted at CGI-models. Virtual models who have contracts with the agency work with Smart, KFC and Dubai Mall. Shudu TheDiigitals Top 5 Virtual Models in the World is a ‘change-seeking robot’ with over 2 million followers. Miquela was born in 2016 in the U.S. Now she is one of the top digital avatars touting streetwear and luxury brands like , and . She is also a singer who has released several singles by now and one of the most influential people on the Internet, according to Times. Lil Miquela Calvin Klein Prada Chanel is also created by the Brud startup. Blawko, like any other CG-avatar, lives his own life on Instagram, plays video games, goes on dates, and promotes brands like Nike, Netflix and DelTaco. Blawko has garnered 156,000 followers on Instagram. Blawko is a friend of Miquela and Blawko developed by the same company in Los Angeles. An interesting fact about ‘relationships’ between Miquela and Bermuda is that in 2018, the whole media war started between the two: Bermuda was believed to hack Miquela’s account, deleted all of her posts and replaced them with her own. Bermuda It was an amazing PR trick as it made the social media community believe that two robots were produced by different companies. Now both of the girls have photos and videos with each other. claims she is the ‘world’s first digital supermodel’ and has 202,000 followers. She was created by a photographer Cameron-James Wilson who says he has never got any profit from his project and his only goal is to bring diversity into the world of fashion. Shudu is qualified for campaigns of Ellesse and is featured in world-renowned fashion magazines like Vogue. Shudu is a 19-year-old digital influencer and activist who works with , , , , and others. Noonoouri Dior Versace Valentino Moschino The Pros and Cons of Virtual Influencers as a Marketing Tool Influencer marketing can be a really actionable tool for brand awareness, bringing traffic to your website, increasing conversions and sales. Yet, as in any other field, working people can go very unexpectedly and in a wrong way, even. Influencers can take a long time to reply to you or don’t reply at all, set high prices for their campaigns, promote their social media pages not organically but stuff them with bots, and these are just some of the cases you might face after an influencer outreach. These and some other reasons lead to brands choosing digital influencers. Another reason why is: Virtual influencers talk about their virtual life. They are extraordinary, to say the least. As for the , the majority of them are Gen Zers, and their ER is three times higher than the one of real bloggers! Geographically, their audience is based in the U.S. at most. audience of digital influencers Besides, content creation for virtual influencers costs a lot. If a regular Instagram influencer can just post a selfie at no cost, for 3D-Instagrammers and a whole team of artists, it can take lots of investments to create a quality selfie. Virtual Influencer Marketing: Pros The biggest pro that brands would love when working with virtual influencers is that they are easier to work with in terms of production: you don’t need to hire makeup artists, rent studios or arrive at Instagrammable locations for a photo shoot. You don’t need to spend money on flights, worry about deadlines, or think about the people management of ‘real’ influencers. Another advantage that brands can get from working with virtual influencers is that a brand acquires not only a promotional post or a story but a bursting interest from mass media who are now excited to write about CG-models. Later on, such a positive side-effect will faint, yet, in the beginning, your campaign will surely achieve the desired attention. Virtual influencers can be at several places without the Time-Turner at the same time and work for different campaigns simultaneously. What human can do that? With constant technological onrush in mind, marketers can assume that eventually, the production and creation of such influencers will be cheaper and more advanced: AR, AI and neural networks implementation is not far behind. Virtual Influencer Marketing: Cons All you need to do is to contact the virtual influencer on social media, and their developers will do the rest. Yet, this might be very expensive to create or tailor a 3D-model to your campaign. As the technology enhances, the price for this will diminish, at the same time, however, interest for virtual influencers will drop, too. Also, such business deals and collaborations are a financial loss for the government since virtual influencers don’t pay taxes, and their developers often don’t reveal their personalities. Not all of them, though. Another ethical concern of working with virtual influencers is that they can’t truly experience what people can — they can’t feel the taste of food they promote or feel the fabric of clothes they wear in photos. So before partnering with a CGI-model, don’t look at their ER alone, think through the whole strategy and decide if you should team up with them at all. If you do, you will at least have a novel experience in social media and influencer marketing. Who knows, maybe digital influencers will boost sales of your products?

Why Are Virtual Influencers Appealing to Gen Zers?

Don't blow off new technologies too quickly, or you might regret it. You ever do something you didn't know was smart. But it turned out to be really smart later on? Me, either. The oldest thing I own is a 100-sided die. My friend and I bought it 30 years ago at a hobby shop. . Today, it's worth nothing. But its sentiment is beyond measure. Yet, "beyond measure sentiment" doesn't pay the rent. Still, if you hold on to the right thing long enough, you pay the rent with it. But how are you supposed to know what the right thing is? The truth is, you never can know for sure. Sometimes, it's about getting lucky--like this next person. It cost us $5 can The oldest Bitcoin wallet with the largest amount in it is . right here It’s value today is 5,112,856,558.4 USD. I had thought it could be a lost Bitcoin wallet until I saw its activity three days ago. Someone has been feeling nice for several years now. And I don't know who the owner is, but I know they have no regrets about being the ultimate HODLer. So it could be Satoshi Nakamoto. But who knows for sure? This next person, however, probably feels really different. His name is . And he was the first person to figure out a GPU could mine Bitcoin about than a CPU. And so, that's what he did. He mined and mined, and he had "a lot of them" after a while. Laszlo Hanyecz 800 times faster Bitcoin was only a year old. So, there wasn't even an energy cost tied to the coin yet. Although rudimentary markets valued his 10,000 coins at , he still didn't know what to do with them all. And so, Hanyecz, on May 18th, 2010, posted on the Bitcoin forums, then with only 230 members, that he would pay for two pizzas, probably large. $41 10,000 Bitcoins And in three days, he got an answer. It was a little much to pay for two large Papa John's pizzas. But what else was he going to do with all these coins? So, a fellow forum member bought the pizzas, delivered them to Hanyecz, and he, peer-to-peer, transferred the coins. Forty-one dollars is a lot for two large pizzas, even today. But I love pizza, but not that much. Of course, he had no idea what would happen with Bitcoin years later. And , "he has no regrets." Oh, by the way, notice the article I linked has Bitcoin at half what it is now? Crazy, right? 634,224,577.49 USD? he says But he didn't just buy pizzas with Bitcoin once. No. Hanyecz continued buying pizzas with Bitcoin. . In total, he said he spent . Four or five more times 40,000 BTC I'm not even going to put the dollar amount because I don't want to take the fun away from you nor be responsible for any hospital bills. But I do feel like I need to sit down. I have to believe Hanyecz went through some kind of "dark night of the soul" to get through his decision. I mean, it's done and over. And that's all he can really do. But, man. What a hell of a thing to have to reconcile. It makes you wish you were a hoarder. I know what you're thinking: why can't I get lucky? Well, I'm not much of a dating coach. But we're here to talk about making money. So, can you focus, please? Okay, let's roll with this. Can you get lucky? Nowadays, there are over listed across various markets. Most of them die quickly. But some don't. And even fewer stick around for years, then among those, a few make millionaires. 13,000 coins Now, if you read my articles, you know I play the long game with a bit of risk tossed in. Perhaps you can't buy $100 worth of each crypto that exists (unless you can, of course. Then, by all means, knock yourself out) because it would cost over $1.3 million. But yeah, you can get lucky. However, it usually takes more time than a pump and dump. Look at . Maybe some of you saw it coming, but I didn't. And a lot of other people didn't either. I watched (highly recommend) the other day, and he showed me how you could mine Kadena and earn Kadena VoskCoin $480 a day! is an excellent site that gives you an estimate of what ASIC miners earn in a day after electricity use. See that top listing? At the time of this article, it was at . It hurts my heart that I don't have a mining farm. ASIC Miner Value $408.27 But I've got to reconcile it. As you can imagine, those ASICs are sold out. While the website I linked lists two manufacturers, they are new, and they want for one miner. Those miners would sell for sub $10,000 before the semiconductor and supply line problems. Afterward, they could sell for about . And yeah, it's price gouging. But I'd pay for it. $25,000 Be careful because they are probably scammers. $15,000-16,000 However, $25,000 from a new company? No. Please be careful out there, okay? Anyway, Kadena , and not many knew. I thought to myself. There must be a way to increase the odds you and I could be in the vicinity of a great deal like that. I mentioned in my last article a possible portfolio strategy for the older investors among us. But honestly, it can work for any age. It's got an option to invest in a risky coin. Sure, It's gambling, hands down. And you could lose. But you'll lose because you knew there were risks. And not because someone scammed you. popped off So, let's look at what to know to mitigate scam risk. What to look for in a risky bet to avoid a scam I feel like I'm running over the same old ground here. But, in a way, I can't stress enough how informed you must be to take on this kind of risk. So, here we go again. And really, you should do this for any cryptocurrency but especially high-risk ones. The purpose You got to look deep into the project's goals and see what they're trying to achieve. For example, does their token only pay for the usage of their particular service? For example, a ticket sales token where you convert fiat to a token, then the vendor must convert the token to fiat? No thanks. Or, does the project have a goal like , whereby you are rewarded tokens by buying and deploying a wifi hotspot for IoT devices. Helium (HNT) Sign me up. Indeed, you can get a Helium miner, plug it into a regular wall socket and start mining today. It's easy. But, you need to be near other nodes to earn more tokens. . So, you can check it out. I'll leave you the map here The point is, be sure the project has long-term merit, or you're looking at a probable red flag ( is a fluke, so it doesn't count). DOGE The whitepaper Yes, they're sometimes dull. But whitepapers contain all the critical information telling you whether they're promising or whether you should run. It needs sections like tokenomics, token allocation, vesting schedules, plans, roadmaps, etc. It should have as much detail as possible. The more, the better. If a project skips on the whitepaper or it's hard to read and understand, run away. Don't think that because you don't understand it that you're not smart. The project leaders are the ones who aren't smart. Why? Because an excellent project leader should be able to explain their plan to a five-year-old. "Never invest in anything you don't understand." -- Warren Buffett. The website Cats have websites. So, a development team's project better have one. If you have to go to to look at what's happening with a cryptocurrency's progress, run away. They must have a website. And it must be well done and organized. It's too easy to set up a website that looks halfway decent. GitHub So there are no excuses. Here's of a website you don't want to see. Now, I get it. The project was going for a theme with the and all. But when you're making a sales pitch, clear and solid beats cute and novel in the minds of an investor. By the way, if you're invested in Superminesweeper, I mean no offense, and I hope you take off. an example Windows XP look The development team I'll admit, I'm weak in this area. So, I'd have to do a lot of on individual team members, which isn't bad. I mean, I can look up their LinkedIn and see if their experience gels with what I believe a developer of their particular project should have. But I don't know in the crypto space. Some people do. And if that's you, excellent. I hope to be where you are soon. additional research prominent names The team doesn't need to be lawyers and dishwashers. They should have relevant experience, you know, like programming or something. Or, business leadership would also be a good one. I believe you get the idea. I mean, it was a no-brainer for people to initially invest in when a former Ethereum guy headed it up. But when you're out here in the crypto badlands, you don't know what you might get. Cardano So, do the diligence. The investors Some projects will have , and you might recognize some of their names. Perhaps they've invested in other successful projects. These people know their stuff. And while anyone can make mistakes, they're less prone to than most. private investors Also, you want to be sure the development team has an investment as well. But beware if the team's token holdings are larger than the tokens available to the public. Sure, but, once again, an exception to the rule. Plus, it's centralized. Ripple has most of XRP One more thing. Be sure the team must keep their tokens locked up for 24-36 months. I've looked around, and that seems to be the standard. You don't want them doing a rug pull. The partnerships Now, these projects will claim any partnership on their page for clout. And they're not wrong for doing so, as long as the are actual ones. So, if a project uses Gmail and they call that collaboration with Google, run away. partnerships There should be some details and dates regarding the partnership. If they have a deal with someone prominent, check their website and see if they've announced it. If you can't find anything anywhere else but on the project's website, run away. I know. There's a lot of potential running. Sorry. Conclusion You never know what decisions you make that will bear fruit. didn't, but it's understandable. He couldn't see the future--none of us can (unless you actually can, then call me). Laszlo Hanyecz You'd love to be there when some great pump or moonshot happens. But the truth is, even if something like that does happen, it takes time. After all, it took eleven years. Then, it took one year. Bitcoin Shiba Inu It takes time and luck. However, you can increase your chances of not spending by knowing what to look for in a possible future project that could pump. $600 million on two pizzas I've got to credit and , authors of for the inspiration and the pizza information to write this article. Paul Vigna Michael J. Casey The Age of Cryptocurrency, I checked it out from my local library, but you can also pretty cheap. Or, of course, there's always Amazon. . So, I don't make any money from that link to Thriftbooks. get it here I'm not an affiliate You guys, be careful out there in crypto-space.

10,000 BTC for 2 Pizzas Wasn't The Entire Story...

Right at Fallout 4’s beginning, before the bombs fall and before anything else happens, you’re presented with the most important choice in the entire game; how you look. The game’s character customisation tools are more than enough to make a unique character. But what if you wanted more? What if you wanted to be huge and ripped with a six-pack to make Ares weep with envy? Or what if you wanted to look like a supermodel instead of just a regular old survivor? You might need some Fallout 4 Body Mods to do that, with some face mods on the side for extra measure. These body mods don’t just change the player character’s figure but will also increase their detail and make them compatible with the many Fallout 4 armor mods that can be found on the Nexus. The other mods complement the body mods by getting better face and skin textures so that everything is completely overhauled. : Be careful when you look up the mods on the list. Since a lot of this has to do with improving body graphics and skin textures, the screenshots of the mods might not be safe for work. Warning Fallout 4 Body Mods The body mods you can find on the Nexus aren’t complicated. Mostly. Each one focuses on a different sort of body type ranging from slender to ripped. From there, they’re also differentiated by the way physics is integrated into the bodies. A word of warning; most body mods require armor and clothes mods to be run through Bodyslide, a tool that can adjust clothing to your body mod of choice. Not all clothing mods have been adapted for Bodyslide so you’ll want to make sure that the body mods you use have the appropriate level of support. If you just use the mods without properly adjusting clothes, things will look very strange indeed. 1. Caliente's Beautiful Bodies Enhancer -CBBE- by Ousnius and Caliente If you’ve modded Skyrim before, you’ve heard of CBBE, one of the oldest and best supported Fallout 4 Body Mods. CBBE aims for a reasonably grounded look for Nora, without the absurd proportions you’ll see further down on the list. There’s no shortage of armor and clothing mods to use with CBBE and thanks to its relative simplicity, it is easy to install without needing a bunch of prerequisite mods. Download it here 2. Super Hero Bodies (Enhanced Vanilla Bodies Conversion) by smorris2012 Super Hero Bodies does what it says on the tin, turning Nate into a man built like a brick outhouse, enough to give Henry Cavil a run for his money. The mod works well to give Nate a Hollywood Action Star look, rippling with muscle and looking very impressive. His clothes might look a bit strange thanks to the triangular silhouette but it works well. Like CBBE, it’s lightweight and easy to install and it does have reasonably good mod support. Download it here 3. Atomic Beauty by TheMilkDrinker Atomic Beauty is basically what you get when the concept of normal female proportions gets bathed in mutagenic nuclear radiation. Much like the radroaches and blood bugs, things are much, much larger than they should be. It’s probably quite immersion breaking if you installed it. The reason why it’s on this list is because of the sheer volume of mods that support this body type. It’s absurd proportions makes this body mod incredibly popular among certain clothing modders. Download it here Fallout 4 Face and Skin mods Once you get a nice new body mod for your character, you might notice that the default skin looks a little potato like. It’s not terribly surprising considering the game’s age. Fortunately, there are mods for this too. Not all skin mods will be compatible with your body mod which makes it worth checking. 1. Valkyr Female Face and Body Textures by Fuse00 This female-only face and skin mod has been on the Nexus almost as long as the game has been out and has the compatibility to boot. Not only does it provide detailed face and skin textures, it’s used in a significant portion of face preset and NPC overhaul mods. Incorporating this mod into your load order will probably make it easier for you to install those mods down the line. | Download it here CBBE Version 2. Real HD Face Textures 2k by Avallonkao Real HD Face Textures works by taking the vanilla Fallout 4 face textures and increasing the detail on it to 2k textures, a significant improvement. While most face mods have a different style from Bethesda's, this mod keeps to the original, letting it fit into modded games that don’t change faces much. Unfortunately, this mod is incompatible with mods that add facial details which aren’t at the same resolution, which is something to keep in mind. Avallonkao has made compatibility patches for Looksmenu Compendium, one of the more popular mods that are affected, which makes this mod a little easier to choose. [Download it here](https://Download it here) 3. Natural Male Textures SHB Vanilla by Avallonkao This skin mod is quite similar to the one above which shouldn’t be too surprising given that it was made by the same person. Like Real HD Face Textures, this mod upscales the slightly cartoonish looking vanilla textures to a more detailed variant. It works seamlessly with the mod above and can work with most male body mods. Download it here 4. 8K Realistic Skin Textures by Typer If you, for any reason, want to get body textures so detailed you get to watch your graphics card start chugging as you load into character customisation, this is the mod for you. Typer has made skin textures at an absurdly high level of detail. This mod will take a toll on your system with all the detail it needs to load, which is something you might not be seeing all the time. Download it here Fallout 4 Utility Mods Bodyslide and Outfit Studio by Ousnius and Caliente As mentioned above, Bodyslide and Outfit Studio is a mod you’ll get very familiar with if you start installing body mods. This tool is necessary to convert the different clothing mods into a form that will fit your body type to avoid visual glitches. It can be a little challenging to set up, especially if you’re using Mod Organiser 2 to manage your mods but it is absolutely essential. Download it here Final Thoughts on Fallout 4 Body Mods There are actually quite a few more Fallout 4 body mods but those are designed for more specific things in mind or don’t enjoy the same degree of compatibility. The ones in this article will probably be enough to improve your character to a degree most people would want and would easily fit in most load orders. More in Gaming: Destiny 2's Witch Queen Lives Amongst Us Guardians of the Galaxy Game: Release Date, Gameplay, Story 7 Scariest Roblox Horror Games: The Absolute Scariest Keep up with all the latest gaming news, features, and guides. Subscribe to our newsletter in the footer below!

7 Best Fallout 4 Body Mods and Face Mods

Las 7 mejores modificaciones corporales y faciales de Fallout 4

The Problematic Fakery Of Lil Miquela Explained: An Exploration Of Virtual Influencers and Realness Just as robots replaced the factory workers, and the drive-through workers were outsourced to India, those employed to yacht the world, drink fat-burning smoothies and just be attractive are getting furloughed too. Stars—they’re just like . us Influencers are being upended by Virtual Influencers, and these CGI avatars may be disrupting something even more integral: truth. We’ve already been mystified by their soft edges and been made uncomfortable with their attractiveness. There’s , the world’s first digital supermodel, , the digital tattooed “fuccboi,” and Miquela Sousa AKA , the Princess Leia-bunned poster child of the movement. They now come in an array of options. Human or . or . or . Lean or plus-sized. Choose your player. Shudu Blawko Lil Miquela alien Political apolitical White BIPOC Insecure by your own success? These names have been sponsored by the likes of , made out with , and graced the covers of . This year, Lil Miquela signed with and is projected to earn over $10M. Someone who doesn’t exist is more successful than you. Let sink in. Chanel Bella Hadid Esquire CAA that Virtual Influencers’ success thus far is clear from the business POV. Brands are attracted to the novel like bugs to a light. Virtual Influencers are controllable and pose no risk—Miquela doesn’t have seven-year-old racist tweets to blow her film prospects. Further, it’s proclaimed that Virtual Influencers command higher engagement than a Influencer. And most apparently, they’re nice to look at. So why not shell out for a sponsored post or invest tens of millions in their animators? three times human As these fictitious personas begin to thrive in the uncanny valley and spin off business implications left and right, what’s just as noteworthy is what they silently scream about today’s cultural climate. As the headlines mount, their prices climb, and more brands test drive the concept, we should take a beat. How duped are we? Virtual Influencers are not original of a concept. Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett have been successfully animating their Gorillaz for over 20 years, snagging Grammy noms and even appearing on MTV’s . But this was only after Alvin and the Chipmunks cleared the way back in 1958. Making them sexy isn’t new either—check out Jessica Rabbit. And brands playing in this space is old hat. GEICO has been pulling the strings of their own virtual influencer, Martin the accented gecko, for over 15 years now. that virtual band Cribs What Tony the Tiger is to cable, Miquela is to Instagram. The only difference is that today’s animated characters now have a life worth following. Miquela also isn’t owned by and she supports #BLM. It’s only fitting that in 2020 our mascots are progressive free-agents hustling in the gig economy. the man... Christopher Travers, founder of , the database for all things Virtual Influencers, says they “represent the ongoing merger of humanity and the internet.” He believes, “Virtual influencers enhance and humanize the world's relationship with digital experiences.” But what we’re humanizing—our online convergence—may be unfit for personification. Perhaps it’s a step too far. VirtualHumans.org In a 2018 with the publication , Miquela shared, “I definitely wouldn't say my identity is crowdsourced. I'm an artist and have expressed opinions that are unpopular and as a result have cost me fans.” Her literally crowdsourced answer is the work of Brud, the transmedia studio which is valued upwards of . And it’s this untruth—“I’m not crowdsourced”—a thread of deceptiveness, that when pulled, doesn’t seem to end. When media literacy costs elections, we need more truth, not deception. interview Business of Fashion $125M Miquela claims she’s an AI robot. A fictitious entity, acting as a human, manifested as a life-like robot. “I'm a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude.” Of her millions of young followers, how many of them are fully conscious of her misrepresentation? Truth in Advertising, the industry , is calling for FTC reform. Scroll by fast and you can’t spot the difference. And that’s the very draw of Miquela, over the cartoonish . Miquela to pass. It’s this effort that’s critical. Any less realistic, it’s try-hard. Any more realistic, it’s nefarious. But while the majority notice the fakery, they’re still left confused. watchdog Seraphine attempts “There needs to be internet literacies for young people if Virtual Influencers are going to become more common,” advises Dr. Jamie Cohen, an expert on digital culture. “The internet did not come with an instruction manual and we accept certain unique things to occur in that space, but knowledge of how Virtual Influencers operate, who operates them, why they operate them, and who they are for, is crucially important to a consumer culture.” Beyond transparency, another popular demerit of Virtual Influencers is their bar of unrealistic beauty. As Kaitlyn Tiffany for puts it, “They are physically perfect women made of pixels, standing in for women who have long been pressured to physically perfect, without the advantage of that even being possible.” On a of Miquela posing with an model, one Lil Miquela fan account comments, “the robot more pretty.” Miquela’s handlers at Brud rush in to disagree with the commenter, perhaps recognizing “we went too hot.” Vox become photo actual Miquela isn’t just competing with models, but talent. The fact that, “a glorified sticker”, as writer puts it, is now competing with actually marginalized people is sinister. CGI-diversity is mistaken with real diversity. One online commenter asks, “Why rep a real woman of color when you can have a fake one that you can totally control about them?” To those leaning in, this is insincerity without awareness—a score against Team Human. And we’re doing this to ourselves. It’s self-deception at its worst. real underrepresented Rob Horning everything Another more operational untruth is whether Miquela is even AI. That Brud claims to be a computer software, robotics and AI company, yet according to exclusively employs visual effect artists and content producers is another distortion. It’s a collage of misrepresentation. LinkedIn We don’t seem to mind, though. What we’re engaging in is —Miquela and The Undertaker are one in the same. It’s pretend. We suspend our belief, and listen to Miquela’s answers as if she was actually opinionated and freckled. VC’s are spellbound too, just by sticker companies. kayfabe all The world of Virtual Influencers permits adult playtime. There’s an irony here. Social media has become the bungalow to house our curated and filtered highlight reels, and Influencers, built up from trust, have sold out, pushing products and cashing oversized checks. Meanwhile, starlets like-for-like, and pay to inflate their metrics and procure verified checkmarks. This entire ecosystem is drenched in fiction. That GenZ is willing to engage with a flagrantly fake person should not be surprising. The illusion of “attainable beauty” is just the tip of the iceberg. We love it. And we can’t get enough. It’s all fake. Miquela is a caricature of many users’ own Insta presence. We strive for and fawn over her exaggerated life, but ignore the warning: it’s not real. Travers of points out, “Virtual Influencers do not social media fake—social media platforms predicated on celebrating fictional ideologies of life grew to create an environment now ripe for fictional characters to step in and succeed.” One ushered in the other. But what’s fascinating is that GenZ is both leaning into and this state of affairs. It’s a push and pull. VirtualHumans.org make rejecting When sweatpants-wearing, high school TikTokers rise to fame in their parent’s kitchen and begin to dethrone The Kardashians, Jenners and Ratajkowski’s of the world, change is afoot. GenZ is recognizing these people are in fact nothing like them. They never were. And who even wanted ? Those objects on our screen are not as close as they appear. What is the Influencer Economy, but just the redistribution of stardom and power from legacy names? And that a Brazilian, 20-year-old Miquela can be perceived and valued as more than the traditional A-listers is significant. that relatable The fake is more real. According to a by social content agency, Fullscreen, nearly a fourth of GenZ and Millennials would describe a Virtual Influencer as “authentic.” study Some ask her, “Do you feel pain? Can you actually eat food? Do robots dream of electric sheep?” Others ask what her favorite song is or where she currently lives. She doesn’t reply. Whether one is playing along or feels shrewd enough to try to out her, she’s under our skin. For Dr. Cohen, the perennial question is, “Who is the one playing us, or are we the one playing the game?” The yearning for this to all be real reveals a desperation. Miquela, unaffected by politics, debt, COVID-19 and bullies is what’s truly aspirational. She’s our best selves, stripped of our messy human shortcomings, disappointing flaws, and soft vulnerabilities—the inverse of a zombie. Being called less—or more—attractive than the real model beside her doesn’t affect her ego. She has none. Isn’t the dream? that “We should be concerned by a Virtual Influencer’s ability to create parasocial relationships,” warns Dr. Cohen. When something is designed to take more from us than give back, we encounter trouble. When we close Instagram feeling worse, not better, after exploring Miquela’s life, we hurt ourselves. Tell Siri you love her as a joke, it doesn’t care. Not a stretch, our attraction toward Miquela hints at what’s down the pike with the future of . intimacy What is Miquela but the sex robot in each of our pockets? According to Dr. Stacy Thayer, Professor of CyberPsychology at California Lutheran University, “[Virtual Influencers] create a fantasy, but has the potential to move us further away from acceptance of our own realities.” Miquela is a fantasy, but she’s not to be mistaken with escapism. A sci-fi movie is escapism. Miquela , not frees us. Her looks and role straddles the fence between real and fake—or rather, there is no longer a fence, but just spillover. We don’t know what to make of this early mess. As a result, we just stare and yell hypnotized—contrasting our looks to CGI beauty, getting lost in their fictitious , and applauding the diversity and of the plus-sized ones. captures feuds stretch marks We’re not entirely lost, though. There was proper backlash for when Miquela her “sexual assault encounter” in a rideshare via a vlog—one which never occurred in reality. PR at Lyft should be peeved. What’s the legal basis for slander here? Also, can this piece be considered libel as it may affect Miquela’s career prospects? In any case, slim chance law catches up this fast. shared Publicity around Virtual Influencers should not be used as a proxy for their success or justification of their existence. We’re not too far gone. “Virtual influencers are a neutral content medium,” says Travers. “Like podcasts, like short-form videos, or like selfies, Virtual Influencers can be used for whatever purpose the creator desires.” As more Virtual Influencers are spawned and Samsung works on their virtual project, , we should focus on intent. It’s not that these characters exist, it’s what we decide to do with them. Some are already leveraging the concept to people about The Holocaust, memorializing victims to share their stories after they pass. Others are approaching virtual avatars as characters to confide in as they don’t judge and are more accessible and affordable than talk therapy. human NEON educate Our way through is to remember what we’ve been taught. Let’s not judge Virtual Influencers because they’re different. Let’s look past appearances. Rather, let’s consider their . Not how they look, but how they behave, and why they’re here? What is their purpose, and how do they us? character help Technology is a tool to better understand ourselves, after all. A black mirror. Miquela isn’t . Which begs the question, are any better? real we Also published . on Forbes

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