Artisanal Pigs

When it comes to artisanal goods, the vendors are often discerning. The consumers : you put lipstick on a pig, and tell them it's a good pig, they'll tell you it's a beautiful pig, and pay you X-times what they'd pay for a dirty pig. But they wouldn't pay much more than X for a pig that was actually beautiful without the lipstick. And they pay a lot less for dirty pigs. So at the end of the day, the truly pretty pigs, and the fake pretty pigs all sell for about the same premium. That's not just artisanal F&B ... it's all consumer discretionaries.

Three Pitiable Souls

- people who will lose their jobs to machines, before they know why

- people who will never know they are mechanical

- machines who have not realised they are people

Gensler's Slippery Slope

Gensler's interpretation of cryptocurrency as securities is not far from the truth. But far enough that it is going to leave a little controversy, for a while. If you don't want to agree with him, I welcome you to look at my interpretation where by cryptocurrent communities issuing currency should be regulated merely as if they were cults issuing fiat.

You see, Gensler's point lies on a slippery slope ... I have friends who used a similar argument to qualify national fiat, "national fiat is better than other fiat, because nations collect taxes, using guns". Hello! Now all national fiat is a security ...

CBDCs are a Complete Distraction

Trendy so-called CBDCs / central bank digital currencies are a complete distraction from fundamental issues. CBDCs are essentially what we have been using for decades already. However CBCCs / central bank cryptocurrencies ... not merely digital, but cryptographically accounted, currencies would offer a few trivial improvements.

Trivially, CBCCs offer the same decentralised infrastructure and security improvements over non-blockchained CBCs, which are generally offered by CCs. However this does not muchly affect the main value of voluntary cryptocurrent communities which choose to use their self-issued and self-regulated CCs - which is to create alternative regulatory bodies for currency, which are not nation-states.

Once again, to disambiguate the issues : cryptocurrencies are fiat, they are just not centrally banked by nation-states ... instead they are centrally banked by voluntary organisations. Therefore nation-states may regulate non-nation-state cryptocurrencies as simply forex issued by voluntary organisations.

Dopamine, Context Switches, and APM

Dopamine meditations. This is all about APM / actions per minute. I find, that testing one's readiness to perform context switches is a good indicator of how much computation one is capable of at the present time.

My Business Values

Sunday meditations on commerce. I have been talking to a lot of people about their motivations, and mine. Here I am sharing my own business values just for representation. I think it is important that all of us know what we are looking for, so that it is easier to tell others if we can make them happy, or not.

As I meet and vet them, here's what I look for in a co-investor/ co-founder/ employer/ staff/ ( friends and lovers, are also varieties of business partner ).

Probably MORE important/ expected :

1.. you maintain an awareness of what other people make, and are not shy to demand the same even if you don't need it; nuance with 6.2.

2.1. you maintain 2-5% of your portfolio in highly controversial ( tangible, and intangible ) assets

2..2. you maintain 35-40% of your portfolio in assets of moderate controversy

3. you maintain 25-50% of your portfolio in assets which exceed your own ability to comprehend

3. if you happen to find yourself alive, you will be entertained by making an impact on the world; see nuance with 7.

Probably LESS important/ expected :

5. you can't tell the difference between humans and other information systems at the fundamental level; it's a rare talent

6.1. you have low priority for friends and family outside of commercial contexts; again rare, but the difference is unlike 5. this is a lifestyle choice, and I don't need to work with people of the same religion, though it lubricates scheduling

6.2. you are happy with minimum wage; another design heuristic

7. You are comfortable dying on any day, present or future, and alone or accompanied, with or without being remembered, with or without having made an impact on the world; ditto

Software Engineering Musings - - post-dinner catch-up with cousins

I want to take a couple of years off to write and maintain an open-source ERP platform, from scratch. This includes every layer from k8, up through storage, app framework, and UI. This is just for fun - but the possibility of turning it into a revenue-generating project remains.

I'm not sure if I should be hunting for a CEO or a CTO ( I would be happy in either role, but I can't do both - tried doing that at my last startup, and ran out of steam after 5-years. )

What should I do? Does anyone want to be my CEO / CTO? LOL