dhs

[dhs]

Cande y Paulo - Barro Tal Vez (Luis Alberto Spinetta)

[dhs]

The Small Net

I think I first got online around 1996. And I miss that early Internet. It was a simpler world of weird websites and individual blogs. Nowadays the Internet is dominated by addictive social media, political mobs, an ocean of e-commerce, and pernicious advertising.

And web design has evolved beyond recognition too. In the early days it was common to hand-roll html files. Now there are a plethora of frontend and backend frameworks to choose from, each with an iceberg of dependencies.

I’d heard of a movement called the small net (aka smolnet or small web) as an antidote to all of this but it hadn’t quite clicked.

I recently found an entertaining and intriguing article proposing PDFs as the antidote to complex modern web design. I emailed the author in appreciation and he tipped me off about a project called Gemini. Suddenly the small net clicked...

The Gemini protocol is designed to be a simpler equivalent to http. It exists in a parallel universe to the Internet referred to as gemspace. Websites on Gemini are known as capsules and their addresses start with gemini:// instead of https:// You can’t browse gemspace natively through a normal web browser - you have to use a special browser or a proxy. Check out Wobbly from a web browser, Elaho on iOS, or portal.mozz.us.

Gemini markup is constrained to titles, text, links, bullets and quotes. There is no other formatting and no CSS. Images and links can’t be rendered inline with text. Links must be on their own line. And images can only be linked to. Luckily emojis are supported 😉 These constraints result in a focus on content and creativity.

It’s common for capsules to include a gemlog - equivalent to a blog - and to link to other capsules that their creators admire. This makes browsing gemspace a very personal experience - which is exactly the intention.

Browsing Gemini feels like the early Internet and I love it. Come and explore Gemini with me. And if you’d like a head-start on creating your own capsule, check out flounder 🐟

[dhs]

Defining (artificial) intelligence

I was astonished by GPT-3 when it was released last year. It was a machine learning system that could apparently write entire paragraphs quite coherently.

Shortly afterwards a discussion with an AI researcher friend made me re-think. If you use a large corpus of training data to guess which words might come next, is that really intelligence? Does it ‘understand’ what it’s writing?

(This notion became one of the threads that wove into my recent project Pan.)

A few weeks ago I was discussing this with a different AI researcher from DeepMind. Their response was to ask whether humans always ‘understand’ the answer they give to questions? Our answers often come from repeating something we heard elsewhere, guessing or just not properly thinking something through. Are we really so superior to a machine learning system guessing the next word based on a large dataset?

Last week I heard Emily Bender, co-author of ‘On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? 🦜’ take part in a panel discussion. Her take on this point was very different again. She said that to imply that machine learning are in any way equivalent to human intelligence is to fundamentally deny our humanity. She believes this so strongly that she refuses to debate with people who take this view!

[dhs]

Crypto #3

Previous posts here and here.

Since first buying ETH (and doubling down in a dip) I’m now up ~10X. And that touched 20X a few weeks ago.

Confidence is a determinant of the strength of a currency. When crypto was a novelty, confidence was low. As large institutions and sovereign wealth funds allocate to crypto, confidence is accelerating.

El Salvador recently became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender.

Previously I had thought of Coinbase as the #1 crypto exchange. And said that investing in Coinbase would be a good proxy for investing in crypto. Since then Coinbase went public at a valuation so high it has put me off.

I’ve also learnt that by volume Binance is far bigger than Coinbase. They are however a more controversial player. They’re based in China where crypto is banned(!) and some of their products are banned in other countries too. The UK’s FSA recently clamped down on their options trading service. Last week it wasn’t possible to buy crypto with GBP on Binance though this this has since been resolved.

I’m a fan of backing the #1 player in a consumer market as so much extra benefit accrues to the leader. Binance shares are not publicly traded but there is an interesting proxy available in their own in-house coin. BNB is aiming to be a smart contract platform like Ethereum. It’s currently trading at 50% off its all-time high (ATH) so I’ve bought in.

Andreessen Horowitz who I’m a fan of and are very bullish on crypto, recently made a large investment into a platform called Solana. Solana is another smart contract platform. Currently at 50% off its ATH, I’ve bought in.

A new dimension to me in crypto is staking. This means tying up your coins for a period of time in exchange for a reward.

The main risk is that if the price of a coin crashes then you can’t sell. With my long-term, conviction-led approach, the price crashing is an opportunity to buy more so - apart from extreme cases - this risk is mostly irrelevant to me.

The most significant staking project is the upgrade to Ethereum 2.0. This will dramatically increase the speed and energy efficiency of the Ethereum network. The end date of this upgrade is unknown but estimated to be 1-2 years away. The staking reward is currently equivalent to ~6% (decreasing as more coins are staked). Coinbase don’t offer ETH staking but Binance do so I’ve used a proportion of my ETH for this.

Binance also offer 30 day staking in BNB and SOL so I’m using that too.

Thanks to my OG crypto trader friend for the discussion & advice!

[dhs]

Dom Whiting’s ‘Drum & Bass On The Bike’ sets are a great combination of:

Great tunes, well mixed 🔑

Livestream tech: bike, decks, camera, mic, 4G

Livestream interactions: shout-outs to online viewers

Real world interactions: followers on bikes, amused pedestrians, cars honking

Just a good dude with an infectious passion!

Capturing the public’s imagination: this London set now has 1m views and hundreds turned up for his recent ride round Manchester

[dhs]

I stumbled on Jacob Collier’s reharmonisation of ‘Fix You’ a few months ago and found it fascinating.

A commenter on YouTube captures my thoughts:

It's weird, I watch this guy and I'm not even that crazy about his stuff, but his ability - in every sense; vocally, instrumentally, compositionally, theoretically - is so superior, that I'm completely fixated.

There’s something about his manner (talent? confidence? enthusiasm of his fans?) that I find a little embarrassing for some reason. But his talent is unmistakeable. Check out:

Instagram Live explaining harmonisation

Charles Cornell on Why Musicians Love Jacob Collier

Playing Sparks with Chris Martin

Musical conversation with Charlie Puth

His epic Grammy-winning arrangement of Moon River

[dhs]

I’m hooked on Marc Rebillet’s positive energy and musical talent. His Sunday livestreams are just the ticket!

(Thanks for the tip Mark!)

[dhs]

I mentioned Depop here back in October 2017. Today they announced their acquisition by Etsy for $1.6bn. A huge result for a UK startup and will hopefully have a ripple effect for other startups too.

[dhs]

Juggling From Above (via kottke)

[dhs]

New Sigrid!

[dhs]

Do you have enough time to take on a new project?

[dhs]

Proud Virgin Galactic investor today! 🚀

[dhs]

John Berger’s Ways of Seeing

[dhs]

The neuroscience of napping

[dhs]

Sensationalist headline aside, this sounds like it’s going to be a beautiful film.

[dhs]

I highly recommend WaitButWhy’s article on the Fermi Paradox.

This is an interesting take!

[dhs]

School of Life - How to simplify your life