#Prop Trading Sydney

[equallyshaw]

𝓼𝓮𝓮𝓲𝓷 𝓻𝓮𝓭 | 𝓶𝓪𝓽 𝓫𝓪𝓻𝔃𝓪𝓵 𝓪𝓾 ↠ love at first sight! ↠ au masterlist!

↠ warnings: none? ↠ word count: 2.3K +

when sydney told olivia that they'd be hosting the team's new years party that year, olivia was not too thrilled. she was looking rather forward to spending the night out on the town, but once sydney demanded her sister's presence that evening; she'd be getting it come hell or highwater. it was around 7 pm when she heard music beginning to play, throughout the house and sighed. she had just finished her makeup and hair for the evening, and quickly sent a few texts out to her best friends naomi and nastia, who were in california and chicago that evening. sydney propped open her door just a bit, "can you watch the girls for a few minutes?" and with that olivia turned around with a huge grin on her face with her hands open wide for her two nieces for them to run towards her. she picked both of them up and pretended to eat them, causing them to shriek loudly bringing a smile to sydney's face.

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it was two hours later, and after many many rounds of playing barbies with the two girls- she was relieved by another wag for a bit to grab a drink. she sighed loudly and playfully, once she reached the kitchen counter where matt and sydney were talking with another player. "god! they are so mini you's." she teased while opening up a seltzer, to which matt laughed loudly. "they are a mini syd." he joked, causing sydney to slap his arm playfully. "you are off babysitting duty for the night, i promise." sydney mused passing a small plate snacks,f from the charcuterie board. "good. i could use the night off every once in awhile." she joked, causing the two parents to laugh and tease her relentlessly. "oh! you need a night off?" both sydney and matt joked, causing her to giggle. "why yes!" she hummed, before taking her plate and drink towards the living room. she quickly made her way over towards grace - anders lee's wife and holly, bo horvat's wife. "hey!" grace beemed, pulling the red head into a small hug. "hi holls!" grace said hugging holly as well, "what have i missed?" she grinned sipping some of her drink. "oh lets fill you in!" grace joked, and the three went into catching up mode.

this was the first time in a few years that olivia had made it home for the holidays, her father and mother had been visiting her for the past four plus years while she had been at school in los angeles. she hadn't come back for much of her breaks, besides the off-season, because she was a sucker for new england summers.

she was engrossed in a long conversation when mat had shown up at the party. he greeted some teammates, and their partners before he saw the infamous red head that was never to be found. since matt had been traded from toronto, he had yet to see olivia in the flesh.

oh, how he could not bare to look away.

⋆｡ °✩

it was around 11 when mat had finally worked up the courage to say hi and introduce himself. the two found themselves in the kitchen grabbing some refreshment replacements, and snacking on some more appetizers. "you're olivia right?" mat asked as the two hadn't said anything to each other for a few minutes. she looked up from her phone, and nodded. "yes. and you are?" she questioned looking at mat. she had never seen him before, and she could see the somewhat arrogance oozing off of him. he looked at her, taking in her blue eyes. god, mat knew he was officially gone - even if she hadn't spoken more than a few words to him.

"im mat." he said not moving from where he stood, a few feet away from her. she nodded giving him a small nod, "nice to meet you mat." she said respectfully. he nodded, continuing to look at her as he sipped his amber looking drink. "this is the first time I've see you before, what got you over to the east coast?" he said somewhat teasing, somewhat seriously. she sipped her drink before responding, "well, I've been in los angeles at ucla for the past four years. i graduated in 2022, but haven't had a chance to come back since the summertime. which meant you weren't here." she mirroring his tone. he tsked his tongue, "such a shame. I've heard a lot about you, and how fun you are." he said grinning. "oh really? i am just enough fun, thankyou." she hummed, "a respectable amount." she teased cocking her head to the side just a bit. "interesting. but seriously, syd and matt always said that you're welcome but that you never take up their offer?" he questioned, sipping more of his drink.

the fucking nerve of this dude, she thought.

"well, thats not really your business is it?" she questioned slyly. he chuckled as she sighed, knowing he was not giving up. "since my parents moved to california full time, i really don't have a huge reason to come back here. besides, long island is their home. not mine." she said truthfully, "besides, its not like i can leave los angeles whenever i feel like it. i have work there, that i have to tend to." she said shifting her feet. "oh really? what kind of work, anything interesting?" he questioned, actually interested. she nodded, "i have a boutique jewelry shop that i run with my mom. im actually here on business, we are interested in opening up another shop in the hamptons actually." she said feeling the shift in the conversation. the tense conversation turning to genuine. "oh really? that's actually really cool." he said and she nodded, "yep." she said a bit too short, than she had anticipated. "whats it called, like the name?" he questioned. she smiled, "it's called greenwich jewels." she said. "i think that's the first smile you've had since this conversation started." she rolled her eyes. "there you go, ruining the vibe." she said chuckling just a bit. "me?" he teased, "yes! just when i thought that you were actually being nice and interested, you go and ruin it with your demeanor and your sarcastic tone." she said shaking her head, and mat was eating this interaction all up.

when he didn't respond, and all but continued to stare at her, she scoffed. "you're unbearable, guess all the rumors i've heard have been true." she chastised, before turning to leave. "oh? you have heard of me, huh?" he questioned, trying to get her to not leave. she froze, turning towards him just a bit, "unfortunately." she grimaced before leaving the kitchen.

⋆｡ °✩

she was on facetime with kappy, around 11:50 while she was in the office on the first floor. she needed a few minutes by herself and then kappy called, and it was good timing. "yeah barzal is an animal, definitely a jerk." he said and that made olivia laughed loudly. "are you sure you didn't describe yourself?" she teased, and he flipped her off in the process. "but seriously, when are you coming to st louis red?" he questioned and she shrugged. "do i seriously have to wait until the off-season?" he questioned, and she shrugged again. "ill let you know." she said truthfully. he nodded, "but you're the CEO you make your own schedule i thought?" he said causing her to laugh loudly again. "alrighty kap, hush." she said rubbing her face softly, holding back a giggle. " ill call you in a few days?" she questioned and kappy nodded, "happy new years red." he smiled, to which she mirroed. "happy new years kappy." she hummed, before ending the facetime. she plopped her phone onto the white desk in front of her, as she stretched her body out. she was ready to go to bed, and knew she'd be taking the two little ones to bed shortly at 12; and give their parents some time without the little ones.

her head whipped to the door, as it squeked open. she rolled her eyes as she scowled. mat smirked, stepping into the room. "if you wanted privacy for our new years kiss, you should have just said so. i had to search the whole house like a sleuth." he said amused. she scoffed, turning back towards him. "what is your problem?" she demanded, as her phone began to go off. the both of them looked towards her phone that was still on the desk, and 'zeeeegrass' flashed on the screen. she gave mat a glare, as she picked up her phone. she swiped to accept, and saw the lovely dirty blonde fill her screen. "hi z." she said looking up at mat who only leaned against the door, still staring at her. "yo! when are you back home again?" he questioned and olivia tore her glare from mat to trevor. "seriously z? i've told you how many times?" she said a tad bit annoyed, "oh woah, who pissed you off?" he asked animated. she giggled, "you'd never guess." she said monotoned. trevor grinned, "let me guess, matty said some bad jokes." and that made olivia laughed. "no, but i wish it had been that." she said truthfully, "but ill be back on the 7th." she followed up. "cool cool well happy new years ginger, but i gotta go. jacks calling me." and she felt the blood drain from her face. "oh. nice. well happy new years z." she said, now desperately trying to get off the phone. "alsooooo, my new years resolution is to figure out what happened between the two of you in the hamptons, will i have that resolution granted?" he teased, and she shook her head no before hanging up. she stood up now, feeling somewhat nauseous, and wanted to desperately hide her face from the world.

"please let me go mat." she said looking at the ground, as mat had not moved from the door. she looked up at him now, and crossed her arms. "id like to leave, without making a scene." she said unenthused. he grinned, "now i gotta know...what did happen between the two of you, huh?" he teased taking his arm off the door, and took a step closer towards the redhead. she shook her head, "none of your business- again." she chastised. he chuckled a bit, "if you tell me, ill tell you a secret." he said enticingly but she gave him a disgusted look. "you're actually crazy, mat. wild." she said as she heard the group outside beginning to count down from 12. he stepped right in front of her, invading her space. she could feel the heat and arrogance radiating off of him, making her shiver with a chill. "mat.." she trailed off as he leaned in, pausing just before his lips would have met hers. he smirked, staring straight into her blue eyes.

she swallowed harshly, as she looked down at his lips. as soon as they heard 'one' from the other room, mat swiftly took hold of her by placing his hands on her lower back while simultaneously kissing her. her hands instinctively went to his face, to hold on to him in some way. his hand began to move down further before she realized that she had been kissing him back. she pulled back, not meeting his eye. without saying a word or looking at him, she moved past him and out of the room. as soon as she was halfway down the hallway, she placed a soft finger on her rosy lips. she cursed herself on how vulnerable she had been, and how much she liked the kiss. but she hated the guy. she quickly filtered herself into the living room seeing sydney and matt with the two girls, and olivia kneeled down to them to hug the two. "who's ready for bed?!" she said and the girls shook their heads, and jumped up and down. "i thought we said no sugar past 9:30?" she questioned looking up at sydney, and then the both of them looked at matt. he put his hands up in innocence, causing the two sisters to laugh. "you guys enjoy the rest of the evening, im gonna head up with these two." she said grabbing ahold of their hands, and the three of them headed upstairs. as she picked up the youngest one at the base of the stars, she saw mat coming back into the living room. the two froze momentarily before olivia broke eye contact, and headed upstairs.

while she headed upstairs, mat went to go say by the hostess'. "mat! happy new years, darling." sydney said pulling the younger hockey player in for a hug. she left an arm on his shoulder, as they turned towards matt. "thanks for the hospitality, but im gonna head out. a bit more tired than i had anticipated." he said and the couple nodded. "lets walk you out. but first, take some desserts!" sydney said pulling mat towards the kitchen, along with matt.

matt for the rest of the night, could not shake the red head and even acknowledged that he may have gone too far. he realized that that he might have been a jerk, at some points. though the girl would argue, it was the whole time. even as he drove towards his apartment where his ex was waiting for him, he couldn't shake the girl. he cursed himself, once he realized he wanted to see her again. even if in the capacity he did not totally want.

but he knew one thing, he was smitten.

back upstairs a little while later, as the two girls were tucked in and read to sleep; olivia headed towards her room that the two young ones had dubbed 'tie tie's room', because it was right across from theirs. she laid down on her back, looking up at the white ceiling that was straight out of the gilded age. her thoughts were running a mile a minute, she hated mat and wished she would have slapped him. slap that stupid but attractive smirk off of his face. no, she despised that arrogant and cunning canadian. she turned over on her stomach and screamed into the comforter. she needed to get back to california without seeing him, or else she might hurt his feelings.

no, she'd kill him.

hope you all enjoyed! please like and reblog if you did (:

tags: @toasttt11 @cillianthinker

[kompleksi-hq]

Kompleksi - Sara Pain (2007)

Sister Longlegs Dances in the Disco - track 9 (B3 on vinyl).

A video made by Tina Ulevik-Piirto / Spul Films Australia.

Tina Ulevik (later Tina Ulevik-Piirto), an experimental film-maker from Australia, joined as Kompleksi's MySpace friend in summer 2006. During the brief correspondence that followed and pHinn having had seen and liked the DVD of Tina's short film Xenophobic Site that was traded to a copy of Kompleksi's album (which was still unreleased at that point), an idea was had that maybe Tina would also be interested in creating a video clip for Kompleksi. Tina was into the idea, this being her very first music video, too, and the filming got underway in August and September 2006, both in Australia and Kompleksi's hometown Tampere; the final video combining footage from both countries, thousands of miles and oceans away from each other, on virtually opposite corners of the globe.

Different scenes around the town of Tampere were filmed by pHinn on two early Sunday mornings in September 2006, capturing imagery from the quiet Tampere downtown and the town's famous landmarks, such as the Orthodox Church, Wäinö Aaltonen's statues on the Hämeensilta Bridge, some ugly "Brutalist"-style apartment buildings, the desolate Särkänniemi Amusement Park, looking somewhat spooky after the tourist season was over, and naturally the Näsinneula Observation Tower, the very symbol of Tampere. pHinn also filmed himself lip-synching at home, with a camera standing on tripod and very carefully stationed to get the right angle and position; then did some shots of Mike Not playing synths at his home studio; and the silhoutte shot of pHinn singing at the end of video was shot by Mike through an ordinary bedsheet lighted from behind.

This sort of "no-budget" film-making, using ordinary household objects as props, turned every now and then to be quite demanding and time-consuming, but also seemed to work out well in the final cut. In her turn, Tina -- who played the song's Sara Pain character -- filmed herself at her own home, creating in process some very effective shots of Sara, "a skinny girl with a shirt and tie", walking through the dark corridors and brooding in solitude. Add to this some bleak-looking outdoors shots on the outskirts of Sydney, plus Tina's own archive footage from her trips around the world: a highway tunnel in Norway, the gloomy corridors of the Castle Suomenlinna in an island in front of Helsinki, and of a hostel in Dresden, Germany, which added to the mental moods and claustrophobia felt by Sara Pain, the ill-fated main character of the song.

Three DVDs of raw footage of material filmed in Tampere were then sent via snail mail to Australia, and after Tina had received the package, the lengthy editing process could start in earnest, lasting all through autumn 2006 and winter 2007, as Tina also had her day job to take care of, alongside the creative process of putting Kompleksi's first music video together. Ideas were constantly exchanged and thrown around in e-mails, and we received countless rough cuts sent through YouSendIt.com, which were then commented and honed again, on and on... Eventually, in early March 2007, the final cut was at hand.

[quicksnapsphotobooth]

Bringing Smiles to Sydney Events with Professional Photobooths

In the middle of Sydney's busy event scene, there's a cute addition called photobooth hire that's making regular parties into special ones. Beyond the glitz and glam and the grandeur of the decorations, photobooths bring an area of pure joy and freedom to every event. From weddings to business events, birthdays to anniversaries, fun photo frames have become an important part of the event culture in Sydney.

Getting into a Fun World

Imagine going into a world where every pose is a chance to laugh, every photo is a chance to show off your own unique style, and every frame is a blank canvas for your creativity. This is the magic that a photobooth Hire Sydney brings to an event. It's not just about capturing moments; it's also about making a place where people of all ages can let go of their fears and enjoy themselves.

When people get in front of the camera, they enter a world where they can be themselves. The funny props, weird backgrounds, and contagious energy of the booth make it a place where people can have fun without holding back. It's a place where people get together to laugh, strike poses, and make memories that are as real as they are happy.

Making Real Connections: Going Beyond Poses

Events are more than just get-togethers; they're also chances to meet new people and make friends. Photobooth hire in Sydney takes this idea one step further by giving people a place to talk in a natural way. As family and friends gather around the booth, the mood becomes one of shared fun and joy.

When people trade toys and encourage each other to get in front of the camera, the photo booth helps them make real connections. Strangers become friends when they laugh at each other's silly poses, coworkers break the ice with funny faces, and family members share emotional moments that often go unnoticed because of how formal an event is.

Putting happiness in every picture

People often say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but when it comes to Sydney photobooth hire, it's also worth a thousand smiles. You can feel the happiness in the pictures, which show not only how people look but also how they feel and connect with each other.

The power of a picture comes from the fact that it can stop time. With a Picture booth, these happy times are made even happier. Each picture captures the laughing, camaraderie, and shared experiences that happen in the booth, making a visual story that says a lot about the atmosphere of the event.

A celebration reminder that will last forever

In an age where digital material is the norm, it's nice to be able to hold a memory in your hands. This is where a picture booth rental really shows off its charm. As the camera records the moment, the printer prints a memory that guests can take home. These prints are more than just pieces of paper; they are celebration tokens and memories of the happy times.

The magic is in how they can be used in any time. Couples often put these pictures into albums that tell the story of their trip, while event planners make scrapbooks that show what the event was like. These pictures are a link between the event and the memories of it. They can be looked at again whenever a sense of longing comes over you.

Perfect picture memories for every event

A photobooth is a great addition to any kind of event, from weddings to business galas to birthday parties to family reunions. It's appealing because it can improve the experience no matter what kind of meeting is going on. It's a way to add an element of surprise and creativity and make memories that are as different as the events themselves.

As photo booth hire in Sydney continues to grow in popularity, it's clear that the charm it adds to events isn't just a passing fad; it's a transformative addition that takes parties to a whole new level. The framed photos become more than just mementos; they become symbols of the happiness, laughter, and relationships that make each event special.

Taking Joy Picture by Picture

Photobooth rental has become an important part of event planning because it brings joy, brings people together, and helps people remember things. With every pose, every frame, and every click of the camera, a story is told: one of shared laughter, real relationships, and picture-perfect moments.

The magic of a photo booth rental is in how easy it is to use. It doesn't need fancy decorations or complicated settings to make an impression. Instead, it focuses on the natural desire to have fun, the joy of sharing experiences, and the universal appeal of capturing memories. One thing is clear as Sydney's event scene continues to change: the pictures may be still, but the joy they show is anything but.

In the end, Photo Booth Hire Sydney is a way to have fun, connect with others, and make memories that will last. It shows that even when things are big, it's the little moments of happiness that really shine. When guests step into the booth and strike a pose, they're not just making snapshots; they're creating a legacy of shared smiles and treasured moments that will last the test of time.

[memorableeventz]

Marquee Hire - Get Creative with Your Party or Event

Marquee hire is a great way to get creative with your party or event. They are highly customizable and allow you to create your perfect venue space.

There are a number of different marquees available for hire including; Pagoda, Pop Up and Frame Marquees. They are all weatherproof and can be placed on a grass or concrete floor.

Pagoda Marquees

Pagoda marquees (also known as Chinese Hat marquees) are strong and versatile structures, allowing them to be left open on all sides, creating an airy space useful on hot sunny days or closed in with sidewalls for use as a dining tent or catering area. They can also be linked to other marquees as a decorative entrance or reception space, and are well-suited to acting as small trade or market stalls at outdoor event marquee hire Sydney.

These eye-catching marquees can be decorated with drape silks, lighting and furniture to complement any event theme or colour scheme. They also do not require guy ropes, which reduces tripping hazards. Their 5m x 5m size makes them perfect for linking to larger marquee structures, creating a bar or catering station, seating lounge area or reception space. They are especially useful as a focal point for weddings, engagement parties and large birthday bashes.

Pop Up Marquees

During the COVID-19 pandemic many businesses needed to find an instant solution for their outdoor marquees or tented shelters. While our standard pole marquees are the finest in the market they can be delivered to your door within 24 hours, this is not always enough if you need an immediate solution and require a marquee that can be deployed instantly.

Our pop up marquee range are a quick and easy solution and can be set up in minutes. They are ideal for back yard parties, small events and markets and can be ordered with walls if required. They can also be linked together for larger sheltered areas and gutters can be added to ensure protection from rain.

The first thing to decide is the size of marquee you need. You will also need to decide if you want the roof and walls printed or not. If you do, you need to choose whether you want full or half walls. The walls are useful as they provide protection from the elements and open up branding opportunities from all angles.

Frame Marquees

A marquee is a great way to create a space that feels like your own. It also lets you add more decorations and food to your event prop hire Sydney. which is not always possible with a normal venue.

Marquees come in a variety of shapes and sizes. You can choose a round marquee for a family party, or a rectangular marquee for a wedding or a large event. The different shapes mean that you can customize the marquee to suit your needs and preferences.

Another benefit of marquees is that they can be erected on any surface. This is a big advantage over other types of tents, which require more structural support to stay up. This means that you can use a marquee on a hill or slope, or even next to a building. Moreover, a marquee can be easily dismantled and put into storage when it is not in use. This makes it an ideal choice for companies that want to avoid disruptions in their workplace.

Event Marquees

When planning your event hire Sydney you may want to consider hiring a marquee. A marquee can be an ideal venue for weddings, parties or corporate events. You can choose from a variety of styles and sizes. Some are small and can be used for small parties, while others can accommodate larger crowds.

The marquee can also be branded with your company’s logo and can help draw more attention to your event. If your event is a trade show, you can use a marquee to house multiple stations with different businesses. You can even use them to host a stage for a business presentation or a product launch.

It is important to find the right marquee hire company for your needs. Make sure you understand their costs and the type of marquee they offer. It is also a good idea to ask the company about their sustainability initiatives. In addition, you should meet with them at your proposed venue to check that the site is suitable.

[photoboothhireaus]

4 Reasons To Hire A Professional Cheap Photo Booth For Corporate Event

If you're looking for a fun, unique way to spice up your next corporate event, consider hiring a professional cheap photo booth hire Sydney service. These booths are great for everything from corporate parties and trade shows to company picnics or holiday get-togethers. 

They even make great wedding favors that guests will love and use over and over again. Here are five reasons why you should choose this option:

High-Quality Photos

While it's true that cheap photo booths are popular nowadays. When you hire a professional Cheap Photo Booth Hire Sydney for your corporate event, you'll get photos that look like they were taken in a studio and not in someone's basement.

Professional photographers have years of experience under their belts, so they know how to make sure everyone looks their best and gets the shot just right! If you want your guests to have memories of an event that will last them for years, then hiring one of these folks is definitely worth it!

Wide Range of Props and Backdrops 

The first thing to keep in mind is that props are a big part of the fun. While you may have some ideas about what types of props you'd like to use, it's important to have a wide range on hand so that everyone can feel involved, regardless of their interests or personality. The more options available, the better!

When it comes time for your event, having backdrops will help customize your photo booth experience even further by allowing guests to take pictures against images relevant to them (for example: if there are 20 people attending an event at a corporate office building for which all employees wear suits every day--and one person wears jeans every day).

Customizable Packages 

The best part about hiring a professional photo booth for your corporate event is that you can customize the package to fit your needs. You can choose from a variety of packages and get exactly what you want in terms of hours, prints, props, and other special effects.

For example: If you only need one hour of service and don't want any prints at all (maybe because they're too expensive), then that's fine! 

Or if you want unlimited prints but don't care about having props or special effects like backdrops or props with lights on them - then go for it! The choice is yours!

Easy Set-Up and Tear-Down 

A professional photo booth will be set up in minutes, but can also be quickly taken apart and put away. This is important because you don't want your event to get bogged down by a bunch of gear that needs to be carried around and stored. Instead, you'll want to focus on the activities at hand--and that means having a photo booth available whenever you need it.

A professional photo booth can be set up indoors or outdoors depending on what works best for your venue and weather conditions. 

If it's raining outside but dry inside your venue, don't let that stop you from having fun! Just find somewhere safe where there won't be any water damage (like under an overhang) and let the fun continue!

Conclusion

We hope this article has helped you understand the benefits of hiring a professional photo booth for your next corporate event. 

If you're still on the fence about whether or not to hire Cheap Photo Booth Hire Sydney, don't worry! Contact professionals today.

Source:https://jukeboxhireservices.blogspot.com/2023/04/4-reasons-to-hire-professional-cheap.html

[your-dietician]

Asian stocks moving lower in wake of latest volatile session on Wall Street

New Post has been published on https://medianwire.com/asian-stocks-moving-lower-in-wake-of-latest-volatile-session-on-wall-street/

Asian stocks moving lower in wake of latest volatile session on Wall Street

TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares were mostly lower on Wednesday following another volatile day on Wall Street, as traders braced for updates on inflation and corporate earnings.

Benchmarks fell in Tokyo NIY00, Shanghai CN:SHCOMP and Hong Kong HSI00 but rose in Sydney.

South Korea’s Kospi KR:180721 lost 0.1% to 2,189.86 after the Bank of Korea raised its key rate by 0.5 percentage point, amid the backdrop of Fed rate hikes in the U.S. and growing inflation risks from the weak won and rebounding global oil prices.

In currency trading the Japanese yen declined to a 24-year low against the U.S. dollar JPYUSD at 146 yen-levels, raising expectations of another intervention by Tokyo to prop up the yen. By midday the dollar USDJPY was at 146.17 yen, up from 145.80 late Tuesday. The euro EURUSD cost 96.96 cents, inching down from 97.07 yen.

The weaker yen raises costs for both consumers and businesses who rely on imports of food, fuel and other needs, but the bigger purchasing power for foreign currencies is expected to boost tourism. Japan reopened fully to individual tourist travel this week after being closed for more than two years because of the pandemic.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost 0.2% to 26,348.73 in morning trading. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 AU:ASX10000 gained nearly 0.2% to 6,656.00. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 2% to 16,491.39, while the Shanghai Composite shed 1.2% to 2,943.24.

On Tuesday, the S&P 500 SPX fell 0.7%, marking its fifth straight loss, closing at 3,588.84. The Nasdaq COMP dropped 1.1% to 10,426.19. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA added 0.1% to 29,239.19, while the Russell 2000 index RUT rose 1 point, or about 0.1%, to 1,692.92.

Recession fears have been weighing heavily on markets as stubbornly hot inflation burns businesses and consumers. Economic growth has been slowing as consumers temper spending and the Federal Reserve and other central banks raise interest rates.

The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday cut its forecast for global economic growth in 2023 to 2.7%, down from the 2.9% it had estimated in July. The cut comes as Europe faces a particularly high risk of a recession with energy costs soaring amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

See: Global economy most vulnerable since COVID crisis, with housing market at potential ‘tipping point,’ IMF warns

Wall Street is closely watching the Federal Reserve as it continues to aggressively raise its benchmark interest rate to make borrowing more expensive and slow economic growth. The goal is to cool inflation, but the strategy carries the risk of slowing the economy too much and pushing it into a recession.

“The market desperately wants a reason for the Fed to be able to stop tightening and the data recently hasn’t given them that opening with respect to inflation,” said Willie Delwiche, investment strategist at All Star Charts.

Computer-chip manufacturers continued slipping in the wake of the U.S. government’s decision to tighten export controls on semiconductors and chip manufacturing equipment to China. Qualcomm QCOM fell 4%.

See: Intel reportedly plans to lay off thousands of workers, with details potentially emerging alongside quarterly earnings

Uber UBER fell 10.4% and Lyft LYFT slumped 12% following a proposal by the U.S. government that could give contract workers at ride-hailing and other gig economy companies full status as employees.

The Fed will release minutes from its last meeting on Wednesday, possibly giving Wall Street more insight into its views on inflation and next steps.

Investors still expect the Fed to raise its overnight rate by three-quarters of a percentage point next month, the fourth such increase. That’s triple the usual amount, and would bring the rate up to a range of 3.75% to 4%. It started the year at virtually zero.

Rex Nutting: Leading indicators show inflation is slowing, but Fed policy makers are too busy looking in rearview mirror to notice

The government will also release its report on wholesale prices Wednesday, providing an update on how inflation is hitting businesses. The closely watched report on consumer prices will be released on Thursday, and a report on retail sales is due Friday.

“Everyone is still hoping that every inflation report will be the one that shows that pressure is alleviating,” Delwiche said.

Wall Street is also gearing up for the start of the latest corporate earnings reporting season, which could provide a clearer picture of inflation’s impact.

Among the companies reporting quarterly results this week: PepsiCo PEP, Delta Air Lines DAL and Domino’s Pizza DPZ. Banks including Citigroup C and JPMorgan Chase JPM will also report results.

In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude CL00 lost 82 cents to $88.53 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. U.S. crude-oil prices fell 2% Tuesday. Brent crude BRN00, the international pricing standard, fell 62 cents to $93.67 a barrel.

Read the full article here

[capitalwalker-blog]

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[vanishingsydney]

It's been 12+ months since international tourists have been permitted in this town due to the pandemic of Covid 19, which has been all but eliminated in Australia, due mainly to its isolation from the rest of the world and being an island nation. Domestic air travel is now picking up, but it will never replace the 4 million overseas visitors who usually come to Sydney every year. Any business that principally relies on that trade is now surely sunk, despite being propped-up by lengthy Government assistance to retain their workers, but that's now over. Then there's the enormous impact of the thousand legal immigrants who routinely used to arrive every week and settle in Sydney for good. They've gone. Hard times.

1. Absolute flight path. Coming into land at Sydney Airport last week. 2. Idle tourist vehicle. 3. Chem trail over the Inner West. A rare sight in 2020. Marrickville.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Ant, Uber, and the true nature of money

The US election news has largely overshadowed a seismic moment in global finance: Ant, a fintech company that spun out of Alibaba/Alipay, was scheduled to have the world's largest IPO, topping even Aramco, the Saudi sovereign wealth fund.

Then Chinese regulators canceled it.

As Yves Smith writes in her excellent Naked Capitalism breakdown, the consensus narrative on this is capricious Chinese regulators changed their minds and jerked the rug out from under Ali's billionaire owner Jack Ma.

The reality is a lot chewier.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/11/china-takes-step-against-securitization-consumer-borrowing-with-suspension-of-ant-ipo.html

To understand it, you need to understand the difference between the Chinese and American "money story." In the US, there is widespread, unquestioning faith in the fairytale that money predates the state and is separate from it.

In this story, people come together to trade but are plagued by disparate goods: if I want to pay for your chickens with a cow, how do you make change? They spontaneously decide that something (gold?) is money and price their cows and chicks in it.

Then, governments come along tax our gold away, and then to add insult to injury, governments abandon gold and insist that paper is as good as gold, print too much of it and crash the economy!

This probably sounds familiar to you, but it's just not true.

The actual historical reality, supported by history, archaeology and anthropology, is that governments created money by creating tax. The first "money" was the Babylonian ledgers that recorded how much of their crops farmers owed to the state and their creditors.

Money took a leap forward with imperial conquest: emperors solved the logistical problem of feeding and billeting their occupying soldiers by charging the occupied a tax that had to be paid for in coins stamped with the emperor's head.

They paid the soldiers in these coins, and demanded that their conquered populations somehow get the coins in order to pay their tax, with violent consequences if the tax wasn't paid. So the people sold food and other necessities to soldiers to get the coins.

Money, in other words, is how states provision themselves, and it derives its value from the fact that you have to pay your taxes in it. Governments spend money into existence by buying labor and goods from the public, and then tax it out of existence once a year.

The money the government spends, but does not tax, is the public's money - the money left over for us to transact. All the money in circulation is the sum total of all the money the government spent but didn't tax - that is, the government's deficit is the public's asset.

When governments run "balanced budgets" (or budget surpluses), they remove money from the economy, leaving the public with less to spend. That can be a good thing - a way to fight inflation, which is when too much money chases too few assets.

Low government spending slows growth by taking away the private sector's ability to spend. When the private sector is at full employment, when it is buying all the stuff that's for sale, you need to do something to keep inflation at bay.

During WWII, the USG competed with the private sector for stuff and labor. Uncle Sam spent lots of new money into existence, paying people to build munitions - but then convinced people to buy war bonds, burying that new money for years to come.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/07/taxes-for-revenue-are-obsolete.html

But when governments run so lean that there isn't enough money in the economy for the private sector to buy the stuff it needs, it seeks out other forms of money, like bank loans (which generate interest income for shareholders - one reason the market likes austerity).

In theory, bank lending is tightly regulated. Banks are the government's fiscal agents, creatures of the state, only able to trade because of a government charter. But when there isn't enough money in the system, unregulated banks spring into existence.

Another word for "unregulated bank" is "fintech" (h/t Riley Quinn).

And now we're back to China and the money story. Chinese finance regulators have always treated money as a public utility, to be spent or withdrawn to accomplish public purposes.

During the country's rapid industrialization, regulators loosened the flow of money to allow for rapid capacity-building, directing the country's productive capacity to building factories that would multiply that capacity.

But when they shut off the spigot and told factory owners that their future growth would come from making and selling things, the wealthy rebelled and sought out money from unlicensed banks or banks that were willing to break the rules.

This led to a string of subprime debt crises over the past five years, as regulators crushed these wildcat money-creators as fast as they popped up.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2016-02-17/china-s-600-billion-subprime-crisis-is-already-here

China's 1% fought back. They emigrated:

https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2012/08/rich-chinese-flee/

They used cryptocurrency (aka fintech) to evade capital controls, inflating the Bitcoin price-bubble and the Vancouver/Sydney/etc real-estate price bubble as they laundered their money and stashed it in safe-deposit boxes in the sky:

https://www.ft.com/content/bad16a88-d6fd-11e6-944b-e7eb37a6aa8e

As China's shadow economy ballooned it also grew in criminality. There was the wave of Chinese debt-kidnappings, which became so widespread that hostage-taking was described as "China's small claims court."

https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/08/chinas-police-think-hostages-arent-their-problem/

No wonder regulators fought back.

China's regulators didn't win a decisive victory, but they retained enormous control over their money-supply, and that REALLY paid off when the pandemic hit and they suspended all debts, rents, and taxes and mothballed the entire productive economy.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/01/cant-pay-wont-pay/#jubilee-now

Contrast with the US where the finance sector is an industry, not a public utility. Finance flexed its political muscle and diverted nearly the whole stimulus to itself, then crushed the productive economy by demanding debt service and rents.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/09/michael-hudson-how-an-act-of-god-pandemic-is-destroying-the-west-the-u-s-is-saving-the-financial-sector-not-the-economy.html

The ability to use finance as a utility is one of China's crucial assets, and it defends that asset ferociously. And THAT'S why the Ant IPO got killed. Ant's major source of income is short-term, high-interest lending, what Chinese regulators call "pawnbrokering."

China's pawnbrokers are a $43B shadow banking sector, and the country's regulators have been cracking down on them for the past year.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-12/china-is-said-to-scrutinize-43-billion-pawn-shop-lending-boom

$43B is a drop in the bucket of China's shadow economy (valued at $9T!), but it has real metastatic potential.

Ant's innovation is to fintechify the pawnbroker industry, by tying it to apps (on the front end) and to a US-style debt-brokerage (on the back end).

IOW: Ant's business model is that desperate people use an app to request and quickly receive high-risk, high-interest loans.

Then Ant sells the loans to "investors" (AKA "securitization"). Converting debts into income streams for third parties is the true basis of the finance industry. It's the means by which socially useless intermediaries extract ever-mounting rents from the productive economy.

And as Smith writes in her breakdown, the fact that Chinese finance regulators weren't going to let Ant explode his mass-scale, app-based payday-lending pawnbrokerage is not a surprise. They've been telling Jack Ma this for MONTHS, publicly and privately.

Ma thought he could simply bull his way past the Chinese regulators - that because he runs Alibaba and its subsidiaries, that they would defer to him. But the whole point of a finance regulator is NOT to let the finance sector write its own rules.

That's because bankers will cheerfully set the whole economy on fire to turn a buck (see, e.g., America).

Ant was on track for the largest IPO in world history due to investors' appetite for converting Chinese money from a public utility to a private enrichment vehicle.

So yeah, you're goddamned right the Chinese regulator wasn't going to let him do it. Their whole JOB is to not let him do it.

If you read this far, you may be asking yourself why, if governments don't need taxes to fund programs, they bother to tax at all?

There are two important reasons. The first is to fight inflation, by removing existing money from circulation so that when the government spends new money into existence to pay for the things it needs, that money isn't bidding against the existing supply.

But the other reason is to deprive the wealthy of the power that money brings, lest they use that power to pervert policy. Jack Ma's billions are what got him to the brink of a disastrous IPO for his unregulated bank.

And the US election demonstrates just how badly public policy fares when concentrated money is brought to bear on it for parochial purposes. Take Prop 22, the California ballot initiative to allow Uber and Lyft to misclassify their employees as independent contractors.

No on Prop 22 is a no-brainer. Vast numbers of gig workers are full-time employees, not contractors, and Lyft and Uber and other gig economy companies have pioneered labor misclassification as a tactic for paying literal starvation wages.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/14/final_ver2/#prop-22

And yet, Prop 22 passed, thanks to the largest-ever spending on any ballot initiative in California history: $205 million ($628,854/day!), spent pn 19 PR firms (including Big Tobacco's cancer-denial specialists).

https://jacobinmag.com/2020/11/proposition-22-california-uber-lyft-gig-employee/

The spend included a bribe to the NAACP Chair's consultancy that made sub-minimum wage jobs with no benefits for people of color (the majority of gig workers) seem like a blow for racial justice.

All told, Uber/Lyft's campaign outspent 49 out of 53 CA House races COMBINED.

And it was a bargain. Lyft and Uber have stolen $413m from California's employment insurance fund since 2014 - and that's just one cost they ducked through this victory. Far more important are the savings they'll realize on worker safety and job-related death claims.

The gig economy companies are the epitome of the financial economy destroying the productive economy. None of these companies turn a profit, after all - all they do is destroy actual, profitable businesses.

Currently the entire restaurant sector is being laid to waste by Postmates and Uber Eats (even as both lose vast sums):

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/19/we-are-beautiful/#man-in-the-middle

And the workers who lost out with Prop 22 are being "chickenized" - having all the risk of operating a business shifted onto their side of the ledger:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/14/poesy-the-monster-slayer/#stay-on-target

(No surprise, one of Prop 22's signature achievements was denying workers the right to unionize).

The desperation of chickenized workers is downright dystopian:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/02/free-steven-donziger/#phone-trees

and chickenization (not automation) is the major cause of falling wages:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/17/on-face-interaction/#zombie-robots

Lyft, Uber, Postmates, and the whole gamut of gig economy companies are all haemorrhaging money. Uber alone lost $4.7B in the first half of 2020. That's how you can tell they aren't tech companies: tech companies profited during the pandemic.

Gig-economy companies aren't part of the productive economy - they're part of the finance economy. They rely on investors, not profits from delighted customers, to stay afloat. They make nothing. They destroy everything: workers' lives, productive businesses.

They will never be profitable. Ever.

Take Uber. The company only exists because the Saudi royals amassed so much money that they could bend reality. The "Saudi Vision 2030" plan calls for the creation of new sources of post-oil wealth.

To that end, the Saudis have poured money into the Softbank VC fund, which then supported global-scale, money-losing, predatory businesses in the hopes of securing a monopoly (or, failing that, unloading the company onto dazzled suckers).

When the company IPOed last year, it had already lost $10b. It loses $0.41 on every dollar you spend on your fare. And yet, the Saudis got away clean, off the backs of investors who assumed that a pile of shit this big must have a pony under it somewhere.

Some believed the company's lies about the imminence of self-driving cars. Uber is not going to make a self-driving car.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/30/death-to-all-monopoly/#pogo-stick-problem

Some believed the company's lies about profitability via growth. It can't grow to profitability. By its own disclosures, profitability depends on every public transit system in the world shutting down and being replaced by Ubers. #Nagahappen.

https://48hills.org/2019/05/ubers-plans-include-attacking-public-transit/

The Saudi strategy - and its punishing, economy-destroying reality-distortions - are exemplary of what happens when government let too much money accumulate in unaccountable, private hands. Prop 22 will kill and starve workers, and the public will pick up the pieces.

The businesses that profit from these deaths and immiseration will fail anyway, but not before their major backers and top execs make hundreds of millions or billions.

Recall: the Ant IPO was set to smash the existing record: Saudi Aramco (AKA the money behind Uber).

Meanwhile, all the blood and treasure squandered on Prop 22 - the $205m spent on the Yes side, the $20 spent by unions on the No side - won't save Uber or other gig economy companies.

Not only are they bleeding money, but as Edward Ongweso Jr explains, "Uber is losing legal challenges in France, Britain, Canada, Italy," turning drivers into employees or allowing "lawsuits reclassifying them as such."

https://www.vice.com/en/article/3annmb/proposition-22-passes-in-california-but-uber-and-lyft-are-only-delaying-the-inevitable

And other US states - NY, MA, NJ - are working to end the misclassification of Uber drivers and other gig workers.

Permitting Uber and other gig economy companies to flout the law did not make the economy better. All it did was transfer more money to the wealthy.

And the money they wealthy amass is converted to political power, usurping money's role as a public utility and converting it to a means to seek private gains at public expense.

[mimeparadox]

What do you hate about the map scene?

In brief, it serves little purpose but to undermine Sydney in a way that is sexist in a very specific way.  It is also bad world-building.

1) It does that thing where someone argues that [sexism/racism/sexual harassment, etc.] is taking place, only to be shown, that no, in this particular case, it’s not actually [sexism/racism/sexual harassment, etc.], therefore painting the original claim as irrational or paranoid.

In this particular case, Sydney argues that Vaughn is not listening to her, the person with experience with SD-6, and invalidating her direct, first hand knowledge because she’s a woman—which is something that happens, a whole fucking lot. We’re quickly told, however, that no, Vaughn isn’t being mansplainy—he actually knows more about SD-6 than Sydney does.  This, on its own, would be enough to bring down the scene, but it’s compounded by reason 2. 

2) There’s no reason for Sydney to be that confident about her opinion of SD-6.

Let’s recall the context. Sydney has just learned that SD-6, where she worked for seven years, was the opposite of what she thought it was.  A smarter person might have taken this moment and question everything they thought they knew about the organization, but not Sydney, who believes, despite a complete lack of evidence, that she can take the organization down in one month.  She then gets shown the map, which shows that yeah, she knows nothing about the organization, and she’s quickly kicked back down to Earth.

So why does the scene exist the way it does?  Reason number 3.  

3) The scene exists mostly to set up a rational Vaughn / irrational Sydney dynamic.  

It took me a while to notice this because season 1 Vaughn is probably my favorite Vaughn—he has a particular reason to exist and a role in the series’ ecosystem that is both distinct and essential—but the more I rewatch the season, the more clear it is that the dynamic between the two characters this season is often one where Sydney is proposing obviously boneheaded courses of action, while Vaughn tells her why she’s wrong.  Examples include Sydney wanting to give SD-6 the wrong code after her rendezvous with Anna (1.04), her decision to quit SD-6 (1.12), the mission to bug Sloane’s house (1.15) and, of course, the map scene.  

And you know, I get why this happened.  The writers not-incorrectly noted that their relationship would need to have some tension. Additionally, it’s true that the list of ways in which Vaughn and Sydney could be on equal footing or balance each other out is limited, making this approach tempting.  But—and this is an important but—it doesn’t really work without undermining Sydney. Sydney shouldn’t need Vaughn to tell her things that she already should know—not given what we’re told about her and the tactical cleverness we see during missions. She shouldn’t need Vaughn to do her long-term tactical thinking for her. Or, if they wanted to actually go and make her someone with a very particular comfort zone that doesn’t translate to other contexts—someone who is only effective in the now—then they needed to actually lean on that, instead of just claiming that Sydney is somehow a master of all trades.  As is, this is the first of many of the series’ attempts to prop up Vaughn at everybody else’s expense, perhaps the series’ single most consistent unforced error. 

4) It’s a Chekhov’s Gun the series immediately ignores (this is the new reason)

The other big purpose of the map scene is to establish the organization’s scale. It sets SD-6 and the Alliance as these impossibly large threats, too complex to take down in a month like Sydney suggests.

Well, it’s a good thing they’ve got a map, isn’t it?  

In a different series, the damn SD-6 map would be a vital plot device. Every episode we’d focus on a different part, and it’d be Sydney’s job to disrupt it. And on one hand, that this isn’t the case makes perfect sense: Sydney should not be the one working to disrupt SD-6. She’s the Alex to the C.I.A.’s Nikita, so her role should be information-gathering and sabotage—filling in the map rather than crossing out elements of it.  BUT this also means that the most important part of the mission is largely going on offscreen, while the series is telling us it isn’t. The map suggests proactiveness. It says “we are going somewhere.” It also suggests direction, which the series never delivers on. The missions we actually see are largely reactive: with some marked exceptions (the SD-6 hack; the bug on Sloane’s office that doesn’t deliver on anything), they are attempts to stop SD-6 from getting stronger, rather than actually weakening them.  

(This, of course, contradicts what we’re shown next time we next see the SD-6 map, later in the season, and we’re told that the C.I.A. has done a lot of progress weakening it, thanks to, Vaughn suggests, Sydney’s work.  Except we haven’t seen that work, or how Sydney’s efforts are tied to them in anything but the most abstract ways. Just as importantly, we never see SD-6 actually act as if it has been weakened.)

The issue here is also that with the map, Alias is promising a complex enemy, which it never really delivers on: SD-6, by the time it’s taken down, is more or less exactly what it was when it was first introduced.  We only get to see one or two sides of it, instead of the hydra that we were promised.

Granted, it’s hard to get to see those sides when our view into it is largely through Sydney’s eyes, but it didn’t need to be this way: Nikita, despite a similar set-up, managed to make Division feel much more fleshed out, even before we got its origin story in the second half of season two.  In that first season and a half, we got to see its clients—heads of state, former heads of state, executives, the U.S. government—its rank and file and its higher-ups, and we got to see it as too complicated to be seen as just any single thing. Nikita also managed to portray the battle against Division as both proactive and reactive: Nikita and Alex were reactive when it came to stopping missions, yes, but they were also proactive when it came to doing things like taking down the black boxes, identifying and taking down Oversight, and trying to steal Percy’s money. This is crucial to the story: it portrays Nikita and her people as effective and competent, and grants her agency in Division’s eventual takedown. Sydney’s fight, meanwhile, ends up being largely irrelevant; it’s Sloane, not her, who ultimately plays the key role in bringing the organization down.  

But I’m getting off topic. The problem here is that when it comes to actually illustrating stakes, the map scene is useless. It illustrates nothing.  It tells us nothing about SD-6. It drives nothing, and provides no direction. It promises complexity the series never delivers on.  

So in conclusion…

After an excellent pilot, the map scene is our very first piece of evidence of how badly things would get. It’s both bad character-building and bad world-building, and I hate it.  

[weekinethereum]

January 25, 2019

News and Links

Layer 1

[eth1] state rent proposal 2

[eth1] selfish mining in Ethereum academic paper. Per Casey Detrio, EIP100 changed the threshold to 27%. But since ETC doesn’t have EIP100, it’s just 5 or 10%.

[eth2] a long AMA from the Eth2 research team

[eth2] yeeth Eth2 client in Swift

[eth2] What’s new in eth2 includes Ben’s take on future of the PoW chain

[eth2] notes from last eth2 implementer call

[eth2] Vitalik’s security design rationale

[eth2] More Vitalik: Eth2 and Casper CBC video talk

[eth2] Collin Myers takes a look at the proposed economics for validators

Layer 2

Raiden on progress towards Ithaca release, which will include pathfinding and fee earning as well as monitoring. More from Loredana on building CryptoBotWars on Raiden

Magmo update: about to release their paper on Nitro, their protocol for a virtual state channel network

The case for Ethereum scaling through layer 2 solutions

Optimistic off-chain data availability from Aragon

Starkware on a layer 2 design fundamental: validity proofs vs fraud proofs. Also: its decentralized exchange using STARKs planned for testnet at end of q1.

Stuff for developers

Solidity v0.5.3

web3j v4.1.1

Web3.js v1.0.0-beta.38

Waffle v2 of its testing suite (uses ethers.js)

Celer Network’s proto3 to solidity library generator for onchain/offchain, cross-language data structures. Celer’s SDK

ERC20 meta transaction wrapper contract

“dumb contracts” that store data in the event logs

ETL pipline on AWS for security token analytics

Interacting with Ethereum using web3.py and Jupyter notebooks

Tutorial on using Embark

Tutorial: using OpenLaw agreements with dapps

OpenBazaar’s escrow framework

Etherisc opensources the code for their Generic Insurance Framework

Austin Griffith’s latest iteration of Burner Wallet sales

Deploying a front end with IPFS and Piñata SDK

Video tutorial of Slither static analyzer

Overview of formal verification projects in Ethereum

zkPoker with SNARks - explore iden3’s circom circuit

Ecosystem

Lots of charts on the bomb historically and present

Gnosis Safe is now available on iOS

A big thing in the community was r/ethtrader’s DONUT tokens. Started by Reddit as “community points” to experiment in ethtrader upvotes, the donuts can be used to buy the banner, vote in polls, and get badges. So a Reddit <> Eth token bridge was created, and DONUT traded on Uniswap. But some people preferred donuts to be used for subreddit governance, so the experiment is currently paused. That’s my take, here’s Will Warren’s take.

Decentralizing project management with the Ethereum Cat Herders

ENS permanent registrar proposals

Client releases

The Mantis client written in Scala now supports ETH and will stop supporting ETC

Enterprise

Hyperledger Fabric founder John Wolpert on why Ethereum is winning in enterprise blockchain

Levi’s jeans, Harvard SHINE and ConsenSys announce a workers well being pilot program at a factory in Mexico

Tokenizing a roomba to charge it

Correctness analysis of Istanbul BFT. Suggests it isn’t and can be improved.

Governance and Standards

Notes from last all core devs call

A postmortem on the Constantinople postponement

SNT community voting dapp v0.1 - quadratic voting system

EIP1712: disallow deployment of unused opcodes

EIP1715: Generalized Version Bits Voting for Consensus Soft and Hard Forks

ERC1723: Cryptography engine standard

ERC1724: confidential token standard

EIP1717: Defuse the bomb and lower mining reward to 1 ether

Application layer

Augur leaderboard. And Crystalball.be stats. Augur v1.10 released

Lots of action in Augur frontends: Veil buys Predictions.global, Guesser to launch Jan 29, and BlitzPredict.

A fiat-backed Korean Won is live on AirSwap

Adventureum - “a text-based, crowd-sourced, decentralised choose-your-own adventure game”

PlasmaBears is live using LoomNetwork

Kyber’s automated price reserve - a simpler though less flexible option for liquidity providers. Also, Kyber’s long-term objectives

Interviews, Podcasts, Videos, Talks

Trail of Bits and ChainSecurity discuss 1283 on Hashing It Out

Videos from Trail of Bits’ Empire Hacking

Scott Lewis and Bryant Eisenbach give the case for Ethereum on a Bitcoin podcast

Philipp Angele talk on Livepeer’s shared economies for video infrastructure

Tarun Chitra on PoS statistical modeling on Zero Knowledge

Gnosis’ Martin Köppelmann on Into the Ether

Martin Köppelmann and Matan Field on Epicenter

Tokens / Business / Regulation

If you don’t have a background in finance, MyCrypto’s learning about supplying and borrowing with Compound will be a good read.

A nice look at the original NFT: CryptoPunk

NFT License 2.0 to define what is permitted with NFT and associated art

IDEO on what NFT collectibles should learn from legacy collectibles.

Matthew Vernon is selling tokens representing 1 hour of design consulting

Caitlin Long tweetstorm about Wyoming’s crypto-friendly legislation

Crypto exchanges don’t need a money transmitter license in Pennsylvania

General

Samsung to have key store in their Galaxy S10. Pictures show Eth confirmed.

Zilliqa to launch its mainnet this week, much like Ethereum launched with Frontier

NEAR’s private testnet launches at event in SF on the 29th

Polkadot upgrades to PoC3 using GRANDPA consensus algo

Looks like Protonmail wants to build on Ethereum

Messari says Ripple drastically overstates their supply to prop up their market cap

Sia’s David Vorick on proof of work attacks

a zero knowledge and SNARKs primer

Infoworld when the Mac launched 35 years ago: do we really need this?

Have a co-branded credit card in the US? Amazon (or whoever) probably gets to see your transaction history, which means they’re probably selling it too.

Dates of Note

Upcoming dates of note (new in bold):

Jan 29-30 - AraCon (Berlin)

Jan 30 - Feb 1 - Stanford Blockchain Conference

Jan 31 - GörliCon (Berlin)

Jan 31 - Maker to remove OasisDEX and Oasis.direct frontends

Feb 2 - Eth2 workshop (Stanford)

Feb 7-8 - Melonport’s M1 conf (Zug)

Feb 7 - 0x and Coinlist virtual hackathon ends

Feb 14 - Eth Magicians (Denver)

Feb 15-17 - ETHDenver hackathon (ETHGlobal)

Feb 27 - Constantinople (block 7280000)

Mar 4 - Ethereum Magicians (Paris)

Mar 5-7 - EthCC (Paris)

Mar 8-10 - ETHParis (ETHGlobal)

Mar 8-10 - EthUToronto

Mar 22 - Zero Knowledge Summit 0x03 (Berlin)

Mar 27 - Infura end of legacy key support

April 8-14 - Edcon hackathon and conference (Sydney)

Apr 19-21 - ETHCapetown (ETHGlobal)

May 10-11 - Ethereal (NYC)

May 17 - Deadline to accept proposals for Instanbul upgrade fork

If you appreciate this newsletter, thank ConsenSys

This newsletter is made possible by ConsenSys.

I own Week In Ethereum. Editorial control has always been 100% me.

If you're unhappy with editorial decisions or anything that I have written in this issue, feel free to tweet at me.

Housekeeping

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[biographied]

Celebrity Charlie Chaplin Biography

Chaplin was named after his father, a British music-hall entertainer. He spent his early childhood with his mother, the singer Hannah Hall, after she and his father separated, and he made his own stage debut at age five, filling in for his mother. The mentally unstable Hall was later confined to an asylum. Charlie and his half brother Sydney were sent to a series of bleak workhouses and residential schools.

Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in London, England, on April 16th, 1889. Chaplin improvised an outfit consisting of a too-small coat, too-large pants, floppy shoes, and a battered derby. As a finishing touch, he pasted on a postage-stamp mustache and adopted a cane as an all-purpose prop. Chaplin did not always portray a tramp; in many of his films, his character was employed as a waiter, store clerk, stagehand, fireman, and the like. His character might be better described as the quintessential misfit shunned by polite society, unlucky in love, jack-of-all-trades but master of none - Celebrity Biographies.

Charlie Chaplin starred in, wrote, and directed some of most memorable films in motion-picture history, including The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), The Great Dictator (1940), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award as best actor, Monsieur Verdoux (1947), and Limelight (1952). Chaplin was named after his father, a British music-hall entertainer. He spent his early childhood with his mother, the singer Hannah Hall, after she and his father separated, and he made his own stage debut at age five, filling in for his mother.

In 1918 Chaplin jumped studios again, accepting a $1 million offer from the First National Film Corporation for eight shorts. That same year he married 16-year-old film extra Mildred Harris—the first in a procession of child brides. Charlie Chaplin’s - Celebrity Wife was Mildred Harris (1901-1944). They married in 1918 after Mildred believed she was pregnant - it was a false alarm, though she did later give birth to Charlie’s first child, who sadly only lived for three days. Their divorce, in 1920, was acrimonious. For more information, please visit our site https://biographied.com

[violetren]

I strained my hip at work a little over a week ago, so now it aches when I do just about everything. The thing it's fucked up most is my sleep.

Normally I like to lay on my left side but currently that fucking hurts so I have to use either my right side or my back and prop myself into hip/spine friendly positions with pillows. Stomach is out 'cause I either can't breath right or can feel my neck about to crick, there's no middle ground.

So sleeping on my back is easiest pain wise. The trade offs are all the time spent getting the pillows into the correct support position without feeling like the blood is getting cut off to my feet and also how fucking light my sleep gets. My dreams become fragmented as fuck and I'll wake up just enough to realise I'm in bed and moving is damn near impossible.

Sometimes I hover at that edge of sleeping and waking so long that I become aware enough of my body to make it move. The instinct to go left gets beaten down with a stick pretty fast by discomfort so to the right I go.

Which is mostly fine except for my body asking what tf I'm doing 'cause I don’t normally lay on this side and it's been quietly compensating for my left all day so now the right wants to be achy too. But it's less discomfort than the left so I deal and eventually fall asleep. And it's deeper than when I lie on my back but it's weird and never quite pleasant. Not full blown nightmares because even on nights like tonight where some asshole was chasing me with an axe at some dream bent version of my work there was this overwhelming feeling of me just thinking "fucking really? This is what we're doing?"

So while I wouldn't call them flat out nightmares I do end up sort of shaking myself out of them by bringing myself back to semi wakefulness. Turns out running from some unidentified asshat with an axe in your dreams is far from restful sleep because at this point I'm fucking tired. Even for a person that barely counts as awake I am fucking tired.

So I switch back to my back for a little bit but eventually I am so fucking tired that the pain takes second priority and I roll onto my left side and fall asleep fast enough to not think about how terrible an idea it is.

And it's great. Deep sleep. My dream scenario does a previously on but instead of ending up getting chased by an axe murderer I end up looking vague job offer/tourism video clips that seem to be like Disney land development ideas for places like Sydney and Sweden, while eating popcorn with Jack Jack and Edna Mode.

Then I become rested enough that my body is like "Wait a minute bitch I'm in pain" and then I wake up stiff and sore and have lie awake on my back for like 20+mins willing my body to chill the fuck out so that I can get out of bed and eat because before it so rudely woke me up I was eating some perfectly buttered popcorn.

[capitalwalker-blog]

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[crazyboytech]

147: Detective work leading to viable trading strategies, and the rise of AI w/ Dr Thomas Starke

147: Detective work leading to viable trading strategies, and the rise of AI w/ Dr Thomas Starke

Aaron Fifield October 18, 2017 Podcast 1 Comment Dr Thomas Starke is a Physics PhD who once designed microchips, worked as an engineer for Rolls Royce and lectured at University of Oxford, before applying his know-how of modelling to financial markets… As a trader, Thomas has contracted to various funds and up until recently, he was a Quantitative Developer at a well-regarded Sydney prop trading…

[thesteveyates]

The Contessa 26.

Canterbury tales.

An unknown bloke who designs fast dinghies and dayboats.

What was i thinking ?, here i am working on the design series posts for ‘F’ and ‘G’ now and for some reason i completely missed out on some of the ‘C’s, so in this post i’m going to try and correct that with a quick look at one of the best traditional smaller cruising boats ever built and then take a look at the work of British designer ; Keith Callaghan.

Contessa 26.

“Sweet sailing, seaworthy, safe, seamanlike” : these are all words that have bee used to describe the Contessa 26 as designed back in 1966 by David Sadler alongside boatbuilder Jeremy Rogers who built the boats under his ‘Contessa’ brand.  The basic design drew strongly on the Folkboat shape ; Sadler having been a Folkboat owner. In size, shape and displacement the Contessa is very much akin to a later model Folkboat with it’s semi-long keel, keel hung rudder, low coachroof and so on….to it’s ‘compact’ Folkboat like cabin under a low coachroof.

These are all pretty old boats now and there are a lot of very tired and run-down ones kicking around, and they do pop up occasionally as cheap sell-offs ; i tracked one on EBay last year that went for less than £1000 but that one looked as though it needed a new engine, all new rigging and new sails…..i’d be happy to sail one without an engine, in fact i would make the boat faster by filling in the prop void and just having a big oar to get home with !.

What they are as an older GRP boat is a much heavier layup than more modern GRP hulls, please correct me if i’m wrong but iv’e never heard of a very bad case of boat-pox in the Contessa 26 either.    Even a rough one is eminently rescue-able and, i would say. totally worth the effort : that of course begs the question “would i have one” ?.  My answer is both yes and no in the context of that answer over time.  In the past my answer would have been yes except that i chose a Frances 26 instead because it’s a bit of a ‘chunkier’ boat inside and there were lots of things i liked more about the Franny !.       My current answer is no because i now want boats that dry out on their own bottom with either none, or very little support : both the Contessa and my old Frances will stand on their keels, that’s how i scrubbed mine, but both of them need legs to stand on a beach.

Contessa 26…..what is it good for ?

Answer….pretty much anything and everything as long as it’s just you and maybe your partner, and don’t expect to be able to stand up in one ; just like a Folkboat !.  The list of Contessa 26 voyages and accomplishments is so long that it’s hard to pick out a good small sample but here’s a few ; this, by the way, is a quite shameless cut and paste from the Contessa 26 Wiki page.

“In a review Michael McGoldrick wrote, “The Contessa 26 … is clearly robust and overbuilt, and it has to rate as one of the very best ocean-going production boats in its size category. For example, it has no sliding hatch over the main companionway, a feature which makes the cabin roof much stronger and better able to withstand a pounding in an offshore storm. Evidence of this boat’s abilities as a bluewater cruiser can be found in the fact that it was chosen by both Tania Aebi and Brian Caldwell in their separate attempts to set the record as the youngest person to complete a single-handed circumnavigation. Because of the nature and origins of this design, the Contessa 26 has a narrow beam and limited elbow room down below.

Peter Hancock tells of his travels in Kylie in Sailing out of Silence, Sailing into Sunshine, and Sailing Home. Several transoceanic voyages have been completed, including two circumnavigations: by Tania Aebi in Varuna, as described in her book Maiden Voyage, and by Brian Caldwell who in 1995 aged 19, began a journey of 27,000 miles (43,000 km) in Mai Miti Vavau to become, at the time, the youngest person to sail around the world alone. These latter two sailed in the J. J. Taylor built Canadian version of the 26.

Norwegian couple Henrik Nor-Hansen and Nina Kristin Nilsen are currently undertaking a circumnavigation in their Jeremy Rogers 1976 Contessa, Bika having set-off from Norway in Spring 2005.

Australian Nick Jaffe sailed singlehanded in his Jeremy Rogers 1972 Contessa 26 named Constellation, to Sydney, Australia. He set off from Monnikendam, the Netherlands on 17 September 2007 and arrived in Sydney in the early hours on 1 February 2010.

Canadian Stéphane Tremblay, sailed singlehanded & engineless from Sandy Hook, New Jersey to Spain via the Azores & back against the trade wind, aboard his J.J. Taylor Contessa 26 Joshua III on 15 May 2008.

Thomas Höckne did two single-handed circumnavigations in a Jeremy Rogers Contessa 26 named “Tai Fun”. The first lasted between 1981 and 1985,and went via the Panama Canal and the Cape of Good Hope. The second lasted from 1987 to 1998, via the same general route. Both started and ended in Helsingborg Sweden. “Tai Fun” had no inboard engine.“

Now for something radically different : Keith Callaghan and boats that look like a Merlin Rocket on steroids.

Here’s one of his 18 foot open dayboat designs on Ebay.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Highlight-18-dingy-lifting-keel-keelboat-with-road-trailer/184145807743?_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20160908131621%26meid%3D197d5f9bc66c4060920f3e4e0abcf029%26pid%3D100678%26rk%3D4%26rkt%3D12%26mehot%3Dnone%26sd%3D193350150500%26itm%3D184145807743%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2380057&_trksid=p2380057.c100678.m3607&_trkparms=pageci%3Abcefee2b-5570-11ea-9eda-74dbd1802dc4%7Cparentrq%3A6ceb59dc1700aad7016064c7fffdd082%7Ciid%3A1

I’m unusual for a sailor of my generation in that i didn’t come up through dinghy racing as most of my friends had done ; had i gained that early ‘seat of the pants’ experience i would have been a much better sailor earlier on….at least i think so.

One of the boats that i greatly admired when i was effectively learning to sail….usually as bowman and all round winch-winder….was a very wide (for the time) and reputedly fast wooden racing dinghy that i was told was a Merlin Rocket.  I never did get to sail that one but as a class it was one that i always watched out for and still do, on this coast we have an active class of them just down the coast at Salcombe and racing them there, or in nearby Looe, is a big deal.   I used to marvel at their plethora of control lines and their radical looking wide chined hulls with that uncompromisingly sharp bow.

Merlin’s and please note that none of these pictures are my own.

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The high ‘C’ connection here is that British designer Keith Callaghan designed a series of radical ‘Rockets’ and then went on to design a whole series of other fast dinghy’s and dayboats with a very ‘Merlin Rocket’ kind of look to them….plumb bowed and usually wide sterned boats that look a bit like small mini transat yachts.

I have to admit that iv’e always hankered after a Merlin just for fun, except that i’m too old, too heavy and too slow to sail one…..or maybe not !.  For many years now iv’e kicked around the idea of somehow getting a viable boat to the start line of the Everglades challenge and one boat that iv’e always had in mind would be an older ‘classic’ Merlin but much converted.   That’s not as stupid an idea as it seems as there plenty of different Merlin designs, i’m just learning my way around them and the EC itself is often sailed in smaller and slower boats.

At the moment it’s still a daydream project except that iv’e worked out which of the older designs would be the one to go for and even had a chat with the class secratary to sound them out on the idea.  The main problem, aside from taming one and learning to react quickly again is that i would have to convert it to a solo boat and one would be more easily handled offshore.  I can see ways of doing that with for example a ‘soft’ rig like a standing lug and maybe a small balancing mizzen…..the boat isn’t much different in overall size to local guy Steve’s Welsford ‘Navigator’ although of course it’s a radically different concept.

Who knows…….?

The high ‘Cee,s’ The Contessa 26. Canterbury tales. An unknown bloke who designs fast dinghies and dayboats. What was i thinking ?, here i am working on the design series posts for 'F' and 'G' now and for some reason i completely missed out on some of the 'C's, so in this post i'm going to try and correct that with a quick look at one of the best traditional smaller cruising boats ever built and then take a look at the work of British designer ; Keith Callaghan.