#Michael Kaminskas

[scottwellsmagic]

799: TRICS 2023 - Days One & Two Report

Thursday, November 2nd

Kayla Drescher                7:00pm – 8:00pm David Jonathon               9:00pm – 10:00pm

Friday, November 3rd

Blake Vogt                    11:00 – 12:00 Eric Jones                      1:00 – 2;00 Lunch                             2:00 – 3:30 Jon Armstrong              3:30 – 4:30 Insights                          5:30 – 7:00 Dinner                            7:00 – 8:30 Friday Night Show       8:30 – 9:30 Pizza Party                    10:00 Until

Time stamps for this episode:

00:00:17 - Scott takes off on his “flying carpet” from Houston to Charlotte for the TRICS convention. He talks about some of the talent who will be at the convention.

00:05:28 - at the registration desk we chat with Tiffany Allen (the wife of Boris Wild) who talks about the registration at this convention plus what it’s like after moving to France

00:12:07 - Shawn Farquhar (the Guest of Honor at this convention) plus Billy Hsueh talk about their recent travels around the world

00:21:44 - Marv Leventhal tells us about the health status of Tom Craven

00:32:58 - Kyle Purnell and John Wolfe chat about this convention and why they attend here regularly plus we recap the lectures from the previous night

00:38:45 - Scott Robinson, main organizer of TRICS tells us that this is year number 14 and some of the special things going on

00;44:00 - Joe Daniels will be the host of the Insights event later today and talks about who will be on the panel

00:49:19 - Roy Eidem confirmed that Tom Craven had passed within the past few hours and since Marv Leventhal and Scott Wells talked about him

00:52:03 - David Coll, Chris Sharp, and Robert Sands are all first-timers to this convention and explain why they came to this event and what they are looking forward to seeing. It’s a nice perspective from the viewpoint of first-timers.

00:55:48 - Michael Kaminskas and Scott Wells give a wrap-up of most of today’s activities.

Download this podcast in an MP3 file by Clicking Here and then right click to save the file. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed by Clicking Here. You can download or listen to the podcast through Stitcher by Clicking Here or through FeedPress by Clicking Here or through Tunein.com by Clicking Here or through iHeart Radio by Clicking Here..If you have a Spotify account, then you can also hear us through that app, too. You can also listen through your Amazon Alexa and Google Home devices. Remember, you can download it through the iTunes store, too. See the preview page by Clicking Here

[rwpohl]

obchod na korze, ján kadár, elmar klos 1965

[gabepont]

Graves and Lives

I don’t have a ton of time right now, but I’m going to try and give y’all a good summary of our day today. Again, there are some graphic depictions of the Holocaust, so skip today if that’s not your speed.

We started our day at the Okopowa Jewish Cemetery, which is one of three Jewish cemeteries that have historically existed in Warsaw. The first was from the medieval area, and was destroyed in 1526 when the Jews were kicked out of the city. The second was on the other side of the city, and was razed by the Nazis. Okopowa was created in 1806 and has been undergoing renovations since directly after the war. There were tombstones of a lot of significant people, like IL Peretz, Marek Edelman, Adam Czerniakowa, Michael Klepfisz and ER Kaminska. Also, there were tons of graves of members of the Jewish Uprising.

We heard from a lot of other cool groups and people, like Mi Polin and Stanislaw Zakrocymski, and I’ll try to write about them more tomorrow. Now, it’s time for bed.

Love,

Gabe

[jwbarkstrom-blog]

“Bright Lines and Sharp Edges”: Outline and Part of Paper

Author’s Note: I don’t really know how good this is because I wrote it last night. It is an introduction that should set up the rest of the essay pretty well. I am concerned that it makes sense (it might not) and if it appears focused enough to lead to the end of the third paragraph (the main topic of the essay). I don’t want to spend to long getting into the details of blockchain, but I also want the reader to have some idea of what I’m saying. Hopefully the topic is engaging, but from my perspective I really can’t tell.

“A lot of people are talking about how they’re going to make us disappear. But here we are, one of the first users of the technology.”

—Michael Bodson, on behalf of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation

The anonymous creator or creators of Bitcoin—known only by the alias Satoshi Nakamoto—sparked a libertarian, anti-institutional “decentralization revolution” that continues to rock Silicon Valley and ignite the baffling world of cryptocurrency. The visionaries behind this revolution utilize a technology known as blockchain: a completely public, decentralized, anonymous ledger that can verify, enforce, and store transactions, eliminating the need for trust in a centralized institution. Essentially, they want to remove the need for institutions altogether. Opinions on the ideological leaders of this decentralization movement range from what Izabella Kaminska calls “libertarian tech anarchists” (FT “Blockchain’s Governance Paradox”) to literal godsends to the free world. In a recent buzzword-laden presentation at the University of Virginia I heard Kevin Chen, speaking on behalf of the blockchain technology based IOTA Foundation, refer to the recent events as the “fourth industrial revolution.” On his LinkedIn, he refers to his occupation as “Evangelist.”

Paradoxically, this crypto craziness fails to truly disrupt institution. Instead of being rendered useless by technology, as per the hopes of the blockchain visionaries, institutions are actually utilizing blockchain. The article “Wall Street Occupies the Blockchain,” from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, chronicles big banks adapting blockchain to strengthen their own internal databases. Essentially, they took the decentralized power of blockchain and modified it into a private, non anonymous networks. Now Barclays, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan all are developing and using privatized alternatives to blockchain. Blockchain, although extremely inefficient for containing all data because of energy costs (Fairley), works as a nearly unbreakable way to store the most important data because it spreads the data across a network in real time: instead of needing to take down one server, one must compromise half of the entire network to compromise the data. Thus, the big banks make their own private network more powerful and harder to crack with blockchain. Instead of disrupting institution, blockchain strengthens institution. Michael Bodson from the blockchain-utilizing Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation—the group who settles and clears all U.S. stock and bond trades—puts the truth simply: “the blockchain here is about perpetuating the existing intermediaries, not about replacing them.”

The main problem with the world of cryptocurrencies is this contradiction: although crazy claims and noise such as “ending all institution” are everywhere, legitimate innovation is also being made. Financial news sources have to somehow cover both the illegitimate and legitimate, all while showing readers how to distinguish between both and quelling any possibly fears of the world ending. Fear-inducing ‘noise’ in the world of cryptocurrency is everywhere: from Block.com raising $200 million of ‘donations’ out of nowhere, to massive multimillion dollar hacks such as the DAO, to those claiming tokens could replace fiat money entirely—the yellow paper of cryptocurrency Ethereum, for example, says it could replace “all transaction-based state machine concepts”—and somehow readers of Bloomberg and The Financial Times have to make sense of it all and continue performing at their desk jobs. They have to see a picture of legitimate innovation underneath the insanity. Two popular columns targeted at very well-established professionals in finance, for example, use comedy to deal with the latest crazes in cryptocurrency and bring clarity their readers: Matt Levine’s Money Stuff from Bloomberg and Alphaville from The Financial Times. Investigating these columns reveals that comedy is largely a necessity: Matt Levine said that the world of crypto is a world of “bright lines and sharp edges” (Blockchain company’s smart contracts were dumb), and the writers need comedy to take some of this edge off. Because of comedy, readers can think hard about cryptocurrency without taking it seriously.

Outline

Quote from DTCC (set up contradiction)

Show contradiction

--1st paragraph: “revolution” will disrupt everythign

--2nd paragraph: use “Wall Street Occupies the Blockchain,” strengthen not disrupt

Contradiction is hard, and it makes it hard for news sources to cover it.

--Tons of noise, but innovation underneath

--Have to use comedy

Show development of article and coverage in general (next three points): begin with “this is insane!!!” (run the FT and Money Stuff parallel). Basically a structural analysis.

--LOTS of examples, but use the ones that will work in next two paragraphs in detail. Can quote random titles if they’re funny. Obviously quote first article in ICOmedy

Then go to “wait a minute, there’s something here? Funny hypothetical part

--Good examples: Levine’s “Blockchain Mania and MiFID II”, “Blockchain Diplomas the Real Deal,”

--FT’s “Blockchain’s Governance paradox”

Then reunite with world and end with something realistic

--Continue with articles used in paragraph before

What does this all mean?

[gessvhowarth]

Life As A Deliveroo Cyclist In London

Waiting. Photo: Dave McGowan The FT's Izabella Kaminska spent some time working for Deliveroo and accuses the company of using poor worker conditions to power their business model. We spoke to two anonymous former Deliveroo employees, to see whether her experience of delivering food around London on a bike correlates with theirs. Most Deliveroo workers get paid £7 an hour base wage, with a £1 bonus for each delivery. The cyclist has to pay a £150 deposit for their gear which is deducted from their paychecks, but they get that money back once they quit. The uniform includes fluorescent jackets, a positive for those we spoke to. Some riders loved the lack of structure the business had, describing it as a futuristic experience where they were effectively just answering to a phone app. Occasionally when there were issues they contacted the rider support team, who they spoke incredibly highly of, suggesting their job was a little lonely because of how independent the riders are. They especially relished the challenge the app presented when it would tell them how long it thought the delivery would take, so they could race themselves. To others this was incredibly frustrating, especially when the app broke (a rarity). Photo: Michael Goldrei Deliveroo advertises the role as flexible but this comes into question, as two shifts per weekend are mandatory. However, according to all sources, Deliveroo is incredibly laid back and doesn't enforce the rule with much stringency. One rider said he missed 17 mandatory shifts before the company got in contact with him, at which point he wasn't fired, they just changed his availability to null, meaning he can pick the job up again at any time. In reality, the job's pay varies. One worker earned an average of £8.10 per hour on her shifts. Her sample size is rather small, only five shifts. The riders we spoke to — who did the job over a few months — say they earned more. One rider said they earned an average of £8.83 per hour (still below the London Living Wage), while the other roughly said they earned about £10 (above the £9.75 London Living Wage). The lack of clear structure in the business means that different people had different presumptions about how much they'd earn. One said they were told they'd earn about £12 an hour, which seems to be a bit of an exaggeration. Others said they weren't promised anything of the sort, but it was implied that customers would be more willing to tip than they are (we think that might just say something about Londoners though). They didn't feel shortchanged by the company, and compared it to the pure gig economy model of Uber, which operates only via pay-per-drop, leaving employees more vulnerable. Photo: Peter H When cycling in London many fear for their safety, because of the large number of bike accidents in the capital each year. One rider didn't deem it safe to ride with the large Deliveroo box on the back of their bike. It meant they had difficulty seeing behind them, which they felt uncomfortable with. The "Roos" we talked to loved the job and spoke of a strong bond that existed between riders on the road. They also found that working for Deliveroo made them popular figures on the streets of London (excluding with cab drivers). They pinned it down to the universally-loved kangaroo adorning their gear, saying that as they weaved through the city, Londoners smiled at them. Ultimately being a Deliveroo cyclist will suit different people differently. Both of the riders we spoke to were students looking for extra income over the summer break, whereas those treating it as a full-time job might take a different view. Read more about Kaminska's full experience and find out about Deliveroo riders' attempts to fight for their rights and build a union. Note: the riders pictured here are not the Deliveroo workers we spoke to. Any opinions on Deliveroo or the gig economy in London? Let us know in the comments.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/londonist/sBMe/~3/TarevLrT4ZI/life-as-a-deliveroo-cyclist-in-london

[scottwellsmagic]

648: TRICS 2021 - Days One and Two Report

Thursday November 4, 2021

Selected Members of Sleight Club 7:00pm – 8:00pm Kyle Littleton 9:00pm – 10:00pm

 Friday November 5, 2021

Newcomer Lecture 11:00 – 12:00 Michael Ammar 1:00 – 2;00 Lunch 2:00 – 3:30 Ryan Plunkett 3:30 – 4:30 Insights 5:30 – 7:00 Dinner 7:00 – 8:30 Garrett Thomas 8:30 – 9:30 Pizza Party 9:30

Time stamps for this episode:

00:00:17 - On the road again with Scott as he heads to Charlotte, NC

00:03:32 - Charlie Randall meets up with Scott at the airport as they discuss the upcoming convention and their definition of “Sessioning”

00:12:36 - long time attendee, Glen Yost, talks about why he has been attending for so long

00:17:53 - John Miller from Atlanta, GA talks about the Obie’s 4F, Atlanta Braves, and TRICS

00:21:24 - Organizer and host, Scott Robinson, gives us some info about TRICS “by the numbers”

00:28:28 - Minotaur Co-Editor, Marvin Leventhal, offers to send the “missing issue” to any subscriber who never got Issue 4 of Volume 8. He also talks about Monday night’s lectures at TRICS.

00:33:45 - Dexter Cleveland, a.k.a. Algonquin McDuff discusses his contributions to the magic community and his best friend, John Moehring.

00:37:35 - Stephan Barksdale is a newcomer to magic conventions and gives his reasons for attending this as his first TRICS as his first convention ever

00:43:47 - Michael Kaminskas is at this convention but heads to Mexico City for another convention then on to the Magic Castle plus making cups and fake fruit as his side (?) business.

00:48:17 - Another first time attendee to TRICS and to any magic convention, Duane Short chat with us about why and how he found this to be his first.

00:52:55- Jonathan Levit and Scott do a wrap up of what the activities of the day have been.

Download this podcast in an MP3 file by Clicking Here and then right click to save the file. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed by Clicking Here. You can download or listen to the podcast through Stitcher by Clicking Here or through FeedPress by Clicking Here or through Tunein.com by Clicking Here or through iHeart Radio by Clicking Here..If you have a Spotify account, then you can also hear us through that app, too. You can also listen through your Amazon Alexa and Google Home devices. Remember, you can download it through the iTunes store, too. See the preview page by Clicking Here

[scottwellsmagic]

480: Penguin MAXX Southwest 2019 - Convention Update

The Penguin Magic Experience and Expo (MAXX) is a two day magic-FILLED event in March 15-16, 2019. It is your chance to hang out with, and learn cutting edge magic from some of the world's best magicians. And when we say hang out with, we mean it. Hanging out is ON THE SCHEDULE.

MAXX has everything you love about big magic conventions, all at a fraction of the normal magic convention price, and in 2 action-packed days. We're busy. You're busy. Spending 4-7 days away from home, away from family doesn't work for many people.

You will see and learn great new magic. You will hang out with the worlds best magicians. You will make new magic friends, new magic memories, and have a blast.

Schedule

FRIDAY

5:00pm - 7:00pm: After grabbing your registration, check out our Magic Expo dealers room! 7:00pm: We kick everything off with a magic show featuring many of our special guests. 9:00pm: Then after then show, stick around for a late night magic lecture with Michael Weber where he will teach you how to read a mind, name a thought-of card and make a solid object vanish using VooDoo! 10:30pm: As if that wasn't enough, The Other Brothers will give a full lecture and Q&A.

SATURDAY

Lectures 9:30am: Losander 11:00am: Chad Long 4:30pm: Dan Harlan: For this special Penguin Magic Experience, Harlan has prepared a lecture highlighting his latest innovations, plus a few old favorites, to illustrate the importance of a well-structured performance. Learn how to prepare professionally-polished presentations. 6:00pm:Garrett Thomas

12pm-6pm: We open up the Magic Expo Dealers room from 12pm to 6pm. This is a fantastic opportunity to see and buy some of the best magic available. Workshops There will also be workshops running throughout the day, featuring Brent Braun, Nick Locapo, Diamond Jim Tyler and Michael Kaminskas. These are more targeted talks about specific magic subjects, loaded with information that you will REALLY USE.

12:30pm: Nick Locapo: Killing Them with a Classic: Nick shares his exotic work on a classic in magic, that he has been fooling magician's with worldwide for years. 1:30pm: Brent Braun: Switched at Birth: Not examinable? It doesn't need to be! Switching objects in a practical and easy way in a real world environment. 2:30pm: Diamond Jim Tyler: Bar bets, scams and puzzles 3:30pm: Michael Kaminskas: Cups & Balls 8:00pm-9:30pm: A closing show featuring many of our special guests. 9:30pm-12:00am: The Penguin Magic Jam Session. Ask anyone of the headliners anything you like, this is YOUR time to hangout and ask all the questions you thought of too late, to see the moves you wanted a closer look at from the show or from a lecture, or to swap jokes, moves or just generally gawk and get autographs :)

Download this podcast in an MP3 file by Clicking Here and then right click to save the file. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed by Clicking Here. You can download or listen to the podcast through Stitcher by Clicking Here or through FeedPress by Clicking Here or through Tunein.com by Clicking Here or through iHeart Radio by Clicking Here. If you have a Spotify account, then you can also hear us through that app, too. You can also listen through your Amazon Alexa and Google Home devices. Remember, you can download it through the iTunes store, too. See the preview page by Clicking Here

[scottwellsmagic]

429: Gone in 60 Seconds

Many of us have had something stolen and some of us have had magic stuff stolen. I'm not talking about intellectual property theft or someone lifting your joke or outright stealing your act, but physical thievery of props and equipment. This week we hear cautionary tales of woe from some magicians who have had their magic props stolen and we learn lessons from their losses.

This week's podcast was inspired by a friend of mine, Marien Hopman from Chatham, Canada, sent me a link to a short radio broadcast where he told his story about having his magic stolen from his car. We were unable to get together to record his story, but you can hear his short, five minute story from "Afternoon Drive with Chris dela Torre" on CBC Listen by Clicking Here.

Time stamps for this podcast:

00:01:26 - Taylor Martin

00:06:46 - Lynx Kim

00:15:06 - Rudy Coby

00:23:00 - Christopher Hannibal

00:27:30 - Sebastian Tabany

00:32:21 - Michael Night

00:38:51 - Dan Garrett

00:43:35 - Russell Anderson

00:49:37 - Andrew Payne

00:54:37 - James Harrison

00:58:09 - Richard "the Magician" Ribuffo, Jr.

01:04:00 - Michael Kaminskas

01:07:29 - Mike Segal

01:12:39 - Ron Wilson

Download this podcast in an MP3 file by Clicking Here and then right click to save the file. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed by Clicking Here. You can download or listen to the podcast through Stitcher by Clicking Here or through FeedPress by Clicking Here or through Tunein.com by Clicking Here or through iHeart Radio by Clicking Here.. Remember, you can download it through the iTunes store, too. See the preview page by Clicking Here

[scottwellsmagic]

457: Michael Kaminskas - His Cups Runneth Over

Michael Kaminskas is a corporate magician who may not be as well known to the magic community as he should be. Not only is he one of the busy trade show magicians working today, he is also the “King of CUps” in that he has designed and manufactured his own unique brand of cups and Chop cups and fake fruit for the final loads. He worked for over a decade as a demonstrator in a Magic Shop and also had his own one-man magic show traveling up and down the Atlantic seaboard playing in the finest hotels and sponsored by a car company.

His coin work is flawless and he loves to talk about close-up. He has been featured at several magic conventions so his name is starting to get “out there” plus he was one of the dealers at this year’s MAGIC Live! event and sold out of nearly everything. His well crafted items are highly sought after by professionals.

Download this podcast in an MP3 file by Clicking Here and then right click to save the file. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed by Clicking Here. You can download or listen to the podcast through Stitcher by Clicking Here or through FeedPress by Clicking Here or through Tunein.com by Clicking Here or through iHeart Radio by Clicking Here..If you have a Spotify account, then you can also hear us through that app, too. Remember, you can download it through the iTunes store, too. See the preview page by Clicking Here