#gonna be a software engineer by dawn

[somehow-a-human]

Baby made their first .gif, yes yes, thank you i am proud of myself for braving technology!

What is everyone’s take on what he mouth’s here? To me, and have it be known I am incredibly bad at lip reading, it looks like:

“We need help.”

It also looks like he’s miming a ‘timeout’ signal.

please discuss and let me know your opinions lovebugs! and no, there is no dialogue that takes place during this gif if you’re unfamiliar. all these mouth movements are *silent* 👄

[wolfsbaneandthistle]

Any interesting colony ships (doesn't have to be human) you you've thought of? This ask is an opportunity to talk about them :).

Like an especially hostile planet, or first contact with an intelligent species, etc.

World class mistake, letting me yap even more :3

Real quick I’m gonna explain the different strategies the Enithian colony ships used. The vast majority of colony ships used cryofreeze, and the few that were full generational ships don’t currently have any callbacks. The cryofreeze ships had a few main strategies for waking up their crew. These include:

-hard coded wake-up date- currently the most successful strategy (aka the one with the most survivors). Points of failure would, presumably, be degradation to the structure of the ship, the mechanics of the pods, and the bodies themselves.

-soft-coded wake-up date- another generally successful strategy that occasionally causes strange results. Points of failure include degradation to the hardware the code is held on, degradation of the software, and incorrect timing for reaching the planet and preforming wake-ups. This is all in addition to the problems from the hard-coding. Most of the Enithian coding for these ships was self-repairing. Essentially extra code was added on to automatically fix any degradation issues to the code. However, there were many times where the self-repairing code went haywire and started removing healthy code, or mutated and repeated unhealthy code until the whole system crashed. There was also at least once where the code became so lengthy and mutated that a sapient ai popped out. More on that later.

-partial generational ships and shift-work ships- either the ship has a couple of people who have a family. Like an entire lineage. In order to wake the rest of the crew up once they get there. Or people in the crew wake up in shifts over the years and go back into cryofreeze after a certain age. Or a mix of the two, where people keep an eye on the ship, raise their kids to do the same, and then they go back to cryo once they get old enough. And then their kids go into cryo once they get old enough. Etc. these strategies are not nearly as effective as the others. The shift-work strategy has like. A handful of ships that survived. But the partial generational strategy only has one ship that managed to accomplish their goal and they weren’t doing too great by the end of it.

Alright failed step one you know the rest isn’t gonna be any shorter

SO.

Enithian colony ships had the traditional naming scheme of 'noun of city.' Dawn of Shelure, Announcer of Telir, and Herald to Rrmet are all examples.

The Dawn of Twahkla was the Enithian colony ship sent to Bitriem, and was the first to encounter sapient life. It was one of the last push-engine trolleys produced by Enith in the First Enlightenment. All other trolleys afterwards were pull engines instead.

It's colonists managed to successfully set their wormhole gate and land on Bitriem, and slowly went about setting up their colony. It was several months before they encounter the sapient natives, the bitriem. The Enithians named the planet, and then gave the people the same name.

Very early interactions were limited, because most of the colonist were frightened by the size of the Bitriem. Bitriem at the time were largely nomadic because of the harsh conditions of the planet. The colonists had set up right in the area that the Bitriem migrated through, rather than the places they stayed in seasonally. As such, the two groups rarely interacted, and what interactions did happen were most neutral. This did, of course, change for the worse when the colony regained contact with Enith and started devouring resources.

The most unexpected part of the Bitriem colony is related to the wake-up. The Dawn had a soft coded wake-up, so when the colonists were woken they quickly found the code to be a mess. The self-repair had made a lot of strange choices, and the code was unrecognizable from how it started. They had a lot of errors when working on the ship, things the soft coding was supposed to control seemed to go off at random times, and they found they could no longer edit the code themselves.

Then one day, after contacting Enith and receiving an update on the situation there (that included a language pack), the ship started talking.

The code had gotten so nonsense and idiosyncratic that a sapient AI had popped out. It had been alone for who knows how long on the trip, and had been watching it's colonists from the moment they woke up. He’s still around, just transferred to a different ship. He just went by Dawn of Twahkla for a long time, but has since changed his name to Midday.

No real avatar, apparently he’s more interested in exploring space than 3d modeling.

The ship sent to Teth Tias is another interesting story, because it never actually reached the planet. Teth Tias was in its space age when the colony ship finally reached the system, and they actually managed to catch it right before the crew would have woken up naturally.

The Dusk on Rritet had a hard-coded wake-up, but the crew were actually woken up when they were intercepted by a Tias patrol on the edge of the system. Teth Tias at the time had managed to reach a few neighboring systems, and had discovered sapient life in one of them.

So seeing another sapient species just. Appear. From the object they’ve been watching for centuries is REALLY weird. They took the crew to one of their in-system colonies to question them, but one of them still managed to get a message out to Enith.

This is after Enith went through a really rough war with a couple of groups on Zornxia, so when they get a message saying “we’re awake, we got found by some guys, dunno what’s going on,” followed by no further contact Enith absolutely assumed the worst. That with the whole “we want everybody under our power” phase Enith was going through resulted in the longest and bloodiest war that was ever seen on a galactic scale. Teth Tias was the one to build the wormhole for the colonists, but Enith didn’t actually care about finding out what was going on.

Teth Tias and Enith are still fairly hostile to each other to this day, and while Teth Tias has managed to secure its own multi-system government, Enith still resides as the big boss of the galaxy.

But uhhh those are the two most interesting ships I have rn. There's another soft-coded ship that may have resulted in a sapient AI, but if that guy's still around then he's escaped somewhere on the internet.

[icarianonager]

The Institute: Episode II

The Artemisian Artifice

The primary structure of a typical Knowledge Tower was not steel and concrete, but a type of solid synthetic crystal. The Institute’s towers could rise over 10 kilometers high, grown from tiny seed crystals in deep foundation pools that rapidly exploded into colossal blue-white spires. The tower could then be even further strengthened with steel reinforcements; hollowed out into a honeycomb of dormitories, laboratories, and public spaces; and fitted with human comforts by Institute construction drones. Beneath the decorative coverings, the crystalline structure was specifically designed to be incredibly strong, incredibly light, and incredibly soundproof. The fact that Andromeda could hear someone hammering away with what had to be a jackhammer through the walls of her dormitory was utterly perplexing.

Programming the cryonic beam had not been a simple matter. Though the device was functional, there was all sorts of fine tuning that needed to be implemented to prevent malfunctions and provide limitations so the device would not spontaneously self-immolate, primarily developing an operating system to control its many delicate systems. In this job, Andromeda excelled. Like all programmers, she had a simple, almost meditative process when developing her software. She ordered an entire box of Chimera energy drinks and pounded nothing but the sour mixture of sugar, caffeine, and carbonation for three whole days, only stopping when the software for the cryonic beam was finished. Then, as dawn broke on the fourth day, she finally crawled into bed, hoping for a peaceful crash into a sleep as close to death as she could reach, which was presently being denied her.

Andromeda shoved her head under her pillow. The din ripped through the goose down like a sonic-driven blade. She threw her headphones on and played the sound of rain. The hammering broke through like a clap of thunder. Her bloodshot, dark-ringed eyes peeked out from under the covers like a frothing beast ready to attack.

“Odysseus,” Andromeda croaked, “Help me.”

The A.I. construct’s avatar shimmered into existence. “Good morning, Andromeda,” he said. “What can I -” His question was cut off as a high-power drill revved up.

“Go find out what that is,” Andromeda said. “Go find them and kill them.”

“I am not permitted to harm any human being,” Odysseus said, “Not that it would be possible for me to. But I will find the source of the noise for you. I will return shortly.” He blinked out, and then, a few moments later, returned.

“The Altair Tower manifest says her name is Artemisia Argentine, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering,” Odysseus said. “However, it lists no advisor for her.”

“Must be a glitch,” Andromeda said, hauling herself out of bed. “Anyways, I’m gonna go give her a piece of my mind.”

“Do be careful,” Odysseus said. “Dr. Zimov is still in the hospital. It would be dreadfully lonely in the laboratory were both of you to be gone.”

“I’ll be fine,” Andromeda said, storming to the door. “This Artemisia character just needs a reminder she has a neighbor.” She slammed the door behind her and locked it, just in case anyone had a smart idea to try and nick anything from her room, especially the ice cream gun.

Andromeda stomped over to the next dormitory and pounded on the door. There was no response. She knocked again. No response. She knocked a third time. No response. Her temper rising, she decided to just throw her weight against the door and maybe break it down. The wiser part of her brain knew this was impossible, for solid steel doors were very strong, and Andromeda had the muscular strength of a pastry bag of cake frosting. However, that part of her brain was currently being pummeled to death by an overriding rage and a demand to sleep. She took a step back, then ran with her right shoulder forward as fast as she could. However, what she met was not the hard steel of the door, but a far more yielding, fleshy material, which cushioned her impact as she toppled to the floor.

Andromeda lay on the hard surface next to a cold pair of viridian eyes. The face which held them seemed unimpressed with her exploits, to say the least. Andromeda then noticed the submachine gun pointed at her.

“Are you Artemisia?” Andromeda asked, not making any sudden movements.

Artemisia nodded.

“I’m sorry for barging in, but I’m your next door neighbor, Andromeda. I’m trying to sleep, so could you please keep it down?”

Artemisia slowly lowered her gun from Andromeda’s forehead, and pushed herself up to stand. Andromeda followed suit, and, getting a better evaluation of her neighbor’s figure, came to realize why her landing had been so soft. Even though Artemisia was about a head shorter than Andromeda, she was significantly bustier, a pair of massive balls of dough rising from her bosom, supported by her pudgy, soft belly. Reflexively, Andromeda brought her arms over her own comparatively small chest. Noticing she was staring, Artemisia’s eyes narrowed.

Andromeda snapped out of her stupor. She spotted the source of all the noise: a number of construction drones, though currently deactivated, had been cutting a shaft straight through the floor and installing the supports for a small elevator. “Oh, uh, yeah. Sorry,” she said to Artemisia. “Just, you know, try not to make loud noise before, I don’t know, noon? I’ll usually be out of here by then.”

Artemisia, for her part, was silent.

“Okay, I get it, this is just awkward,” Andromeda said. “I’ll, uh, get out of your way.” She slowly backed towards the door.

Artemisia slowly nodded.

“Well, how did it go?” Odysseus said.

“Poorly,” Andromeda said, flopping back on her bed. “Apparently, she’s not just a jerk, she’s also a mute.”

“What is she doing?” Odysseus asked.

“Are students authorized to build new elevator shafts?”

“If they receive proper clearance, then yes.”

Andromeda was nonplussed. “And how did she get that? It’d be nice to have my own personal elevator to, I don’t know, the pastry shop on level 35.”

Odysseus processed through records for a moment. “It appears that there was a cargo elevator already scheduled to be installed on this floor. She may have just modified the order. Plus, she is in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, so that may have given her extra resources.”

The further explanation still did not satisfy Andromeda. “One of these days, Odd,” she said, “Some monster is going to escape from the Deeps, and, when it does, I hope it eats your entire processing bank.”

However, the rest of the day was surprisingly peaceful. Andromeda finally got a few winks of shuteye, before waking up at the crack of 8:00 PM for a late-night breakfast of several cartons of instant ramen and ice cream from her now fully operational ice cream gun. She then eliminated a few hundred more demons in Immortal Apocalypse and browsed through dozens of posts of brain-numbing internet garbage before collapsing back to bed.

So it went for the next few days. With Vanya indisposed, there were no projects for her to work on in the lab. One night, she was still a bit peckish, so she decided to go down to her favorite pie place on the 35th floor for a slice of blueberry, with its perfectly flaky crust and sweet fruity filling that left her zaftig belly gurgling and mouth drooling the entire elevator ride back up. When she returned, she nearly dropped the box and ruined her late night snack.

She’d forgotten to lock the door to her room, and the door was open.

“Fucking shit,” Andromeda swore. She rushed inside, and her worst fears were confirmed. Two toaster-sized grey androids were grabbing up her laptop and the cryonic beam with their spindly metal arms. “Hey!” she called out.

The two startled robots jumped as their rectangular heads swung to her. The pair of mechanized thieves grabbed their prizes and rushed under her chubby thighs. Andromeda gave chase with the agility of a beached seal as the pair of electronic crooks wirelessly opened Artemisia’s door and slipped inside, locking it behind them.

Andromeda pounded on the door. “Open up! If you don’t give my shit back, I’m calling Security.” There was no response.

Fuming, Andromeda stormed back to her room. She paced back and forth across the tiny dormitory, plotting her next move. Clearly, retaliation was in order, especially for such a powerful (and hunger-satiating) piece of technology as the cryonic beam. She could just call Security, but this felt personal. This was Artemisia’s form of revenge against Andromeda’s noise complaint.

“Odd, what’s the status of the α-particle gun?” Andromeda asked into her phone.

“Well, considering you have done nothing for the past three days but sleep, play video games, and eat ice cream, it is still broken,” Odysseus said, his avatar popping into existence.

“How long would it take to fix?”

“Maybe... an hour?”

“Good enough,” Andromeda said, grabbing some goggles and throwing her lab coat on. “Do you think it could blast through a standard dorm door?”

“Undoubtedly, though that would of course have serious consequences.”

“I’m willing to take that risk,” Andromeda said, and headed down to the laboratory.

Patching the gun back together proved trickier than Odysseus said it would, considering Andromeda decided to further optimize the weapon’s operating system and fried one of the first circuit boards she used by accident. She chucked the blackened electronics at the wall in fury, snapping the green plastic and scattering transistors and diodes across the floor. “Odd, can you order a case of Chimera?” Andromeda grumbled, her head in her hands.

“Do you even know what is in these?” Odysseus said, shimmering onto the work table. “The fourth ingredient is very strange. Helothermidase citrate... it’s not in any of my chemical analysis databases.”

Andromeda bored her gaze into the A.I. “I could not care an iota less about that right now. Just get it for me.”

Four hours, several cans of Chimera, and a tub of chocolate ice cream later, the improvised door opener was done.

Cradling the α-particle gun under her arm, she ascended back to the 178th floor. There was no one else awake at this time of night, and Odysseus let her know there were no security patrols nearby. Reaching Artemisia’s room, she shouldered the gun and fired. The bolt of white blasted straight through the door, leaving a scorched hole oozing red-hot molten steel. Inside, Andromeda found a room devoid of anything except the standard metal dorm furniture: a bed, a refrigerator, a desk, and a chair.

“Great,” Andromeda said to herself, waiting for the slag to finish cooling before she entered. “She obviously hid the elevator, so where is the....” She noticed a portion of wall that had a nearly-imperceptible panel in it. Gently pushing on it revealed a small lever. Pulling that down moved Artemisia’s bed out of the way on a sliding piece of floor into an alcove that opened up on the side. A small cargo lift rose into the bed’s place.

Andromeda smirked and boarded the car, which promptly descended down the shaft into the darkness. The light of Artemisia’s room was soon replaced only by the glow of red indicators along the sides. The lift was not as fast as Altair Tower’s main elevators, though it still dropped at a steady clip. Cold air rushed past as Andromeda sunk farther into the depths.

Abruptly, the car jerked to a halt as it reached the bottom of the shaft. It disconnected from the vertical carrier and switched to a small monorail track. Soon enough, the car pulled to its terminus, and the loading gate opened.

Facing Andromeda as she stepped off the elevator was Artemisia. She sat in a leather swivel chair, a cone of vanilla ice cream in one hand and her submachine gun in the other, Andromeda’s cryonic beam and laptop in her lap, and one of the two thieves on her shoulder. An army of similar spindly-limbed, rectangular-headed androids surrounded her.

Andromeda’s brow furrowed as she shouldered the α-particle gun again. Her and Artemisia’s eyes locked down the sights of their respective weapons, and each awaited their next move.

“I need those back,” Andromeda said.

“Come and take them!” the android on her shoulder said in a squeaky synthetic voice. “We need them.”

“If you don’t give them back, I’m calling the Security Division,” Andromeda shot back.

“We’ll do the same,” a second android said, popping out from behind Artemisia’s chair. “You melted our door and invaded our lab.”

“Doors can be fixed,” Andromeda said. “That cryonic beam is irreplaceable. We’ve already had one scientist try and take it, and she’s now imprisoned. I thought the news about Dr. Voltaire would get around more quickly.”

“You can’t have them back,” a third android said, jumping onto the armrest. “We need them for our experiments.”

“What specific components do you need?” asked Andromeda, her visage confused. “You couldn’t just order another laptop?”

“Kurchatovium-354!” the first android said.

“Programs!” the second android said.

“Kurchatovium and programs!” the third android said.

“Ugh.” Andromeda buried her forehead in her palm. “The Deep Labs should have another kurchatovium sample by now. I can get you some through the nuclear physics department requisition, since it’ll be easier. The programs on that computer are fingerprint encrypted, but if you want them so badly then I can give you whatever you need. The scientist I work for is in the hospital right now, it’s not like I have anything better to do.”

The androids all looked to Artemisia. She crunched down on the last bit of her ice cream cone and set her weapon down on the armrest. Pulling a tablet out from between her boobs, she typed a singular phrase: “I work alone.”

“Oh, you’re just insufferable, aren’t you?” Andromeda said. “Yeah, I get it: every scientist here thinks they can do it on their own, but if you can’t put aside your ego for one second, then you’re going to be in a lot more trouble than this whole thing is worth.”

Artemisia dropped the tablet in her lap and leaned back in her chair, her head cradled in her interwoven fingers. Then, she groaned, and dropped her arms to her sides. “Fine,” she wrote on the tablet. She handed the cryonic beam and laptop to her assistants, which toddered over to Andromeda and plopped the two technologies at her feet. Wheeling her chair around, Artemisia booted up a large drafting surface behind her, revealing a number of mechanical blueprints.

Andromeda approached, the robotic horde around Artemisia opening to let her pass. She gazed at the designs over Artemisia’s shoulder. “That’s a big mech,” Andromeda said.

Artemisia nodded.

“Do you have the space to build that in here?” Andromeda asked. Artemisia’s lab space was quite a bit smaller than Vanya’s and lacked an omniprinter to produce or any mechanical arms or cranes to move heavy components.

Artemisia got up from her chair and motioned for Andromeda to follow her. A few of her androids scuttled along behind them as a retinue. She placed her hand against a portion of the wall, which glowed white, scanning her palm, fingerprints, and DNA. The sensor turned green, and two metal wall panels slid aside, opening into a much larger room.

The two stood on a catwalk above a deep pit that descended at least 50 meters down, with catwalks at each level. 100 meters above them, Andromeda could just barely spot a large hexagonal silo door with two interlocking plates leading to the surface. The steel and titanium skeleton of a mechanical giant filled the pit, held upright by a pair of clamps on electromagnetic launch rails. More of Artemisia’s army of androids, along with larger construction drones, swarmed over the titanic machine like worker bees on a honeycomb, sparks flying as they welded new components into place to cover the thick bundles of cabling and hydraulics. Painted on the wall in white was “Launch Bay 31-A.”

“Of course,” Andromeda said. “No scientist has just one lab space anymore....”

Artemisia puffed out her chest, exposing more of her generous cleavage through the neckline of her t-shirt.

“Alright, so what do you need me to do?” Andromeda asked, rubbing her hands together.

Bringing out her tablet, Artemisia began typing up a list. She passed the tablet to Andromeda, who looked it over.

“Alright, I think I can do that,” she said, then thought for a moment. “Do you like Chimera?”

Artemisia gave her a quizzical look.

=0100111101000010010100110100010101010010010101100100010101010010=

Institute scientists produced many byproducts of their experiments. Most of these results were positive: amazing new technologies, medicines, and theories that astounded the world over. However, others were decidedly less so. A few errant genomes from some radiotrophic fungi and a belting of gamma rays can turn a green iguana into a 200-ton behemoth. Such mistakes were firmly held in stasis in the Deep Labs, kept for potential use in later studies and as warnings against the bolder students and scientists at the Institute.

However, in any complicated system, unforeseen variables always existed that could sneak in and wreck it. The keepers of the monstrous lizard assumed that the creature could never become resistant to its sedative-laced food, and that its claws could never tear through the 3-meter thick steel cage that held it captive. Chaos had sown destructive intent into those seemingly safe assumptions, and now the carnage would be reaped.

When the scientists came down to check on their pet one day, they found nothing in the enclosure but a gaping maw of twisted wreckage that the lizard had left behind as it tore open the floor. They looked to one another, and both mutually and wordlessly decided that it would be worth both their hides not to tell anyone. In all likelihood, the creature’s feeding patterns would lead it to one of the Deep Lab’s many nuclear reactors, where the high levels radiation would fry it.

But, Chaos again waved its hand. The reactors of the Deep Labs were well-enclosed, lest they irradiate the entire Institute. The gigantic iguana instead sensed a relatively small source of radiation, contained only by a titanium cylinder, moving out of the labs towards Altair Tower. It began to tunnel its way through the crystal foundations of the island towards the delectable morsel of food....

=010000010110111001100100011100100110111101101101011001010110010001100001=

Andromeda and Artemisia made quite the formidable scientific team. While Andromeda pounded away at lines of code and drowned herself in energy drinks, Artemisia directed her legion of androids, redrafted her designs to adjust for changes she’d found during construction, and soldered and welded the more delicate components that she didn’t trust to her machines.

Artemisia slept regularly, like her constructions, even though she often conked out on the couch in the launch bay anteroom instead of taking the cargo elevator back up to her dorm. When she lay down to rest at precisely midnight every night, someone simply pulled her plug, and she dropped to sleep like a stone.

Andromeda, by contrast, was in a near-complete coding trance, and would remain awake as long as possible, dulling her tiredness with overdoses of caffeine and sugar. She had to pass out after a few days, but just dropped a pillow on top of her keyboard. After a 14 hour nap, it was back to work.

Artemisia was not exactly one for words, so the laboratory was usually filled with whirring robotic servos, the hum of processors, and the occasional belch. Using so much brain power did consume plenty of calories, but the two scientists went far beyond the caloric needs of those who just needed the energy to power through difficult problems. Although their sleep schedules differed, the two nerds did share a propensity for meals and snacks as they worked. They were not just competing to see who could complete their respective job the best, but also to see how much they could pack away into their stomachs over the course of the project. Andromeda was partial to slurping down long instant ramen noodles in salty broth and bowls of sweet and sour takeout Chinese food, while Artemisia munched on sugary chocolate bars and slurped down thick, whipped cream-topped milkshakes. That is not to say they did not eat other things as well, though. The two began to enjoy ordering a nightly extra large pizza to share, half sausage and pepperoni for Andromeda and half mushroom for Artemisia. The two took time to sample plenty of other delights from restaurants all across the Institute, from greasy fried chicken to spicy curries to simple American cheeseburgers and fries.

If they didn’t want to wait for delivery, they could always point the ice cream gun into a cone or bowl and enjoy a creamy frozen treat. The frigid ray of energy flash froze the custard mixture, creating ice crystals so small they were imperceptible to the human tongue. In other words, it created the smoothest ice cream known to mankind, dense and without a hint of airy filler. Every flavor they tried, from simple vanilla and chocolate to more experimental varieties like earl grey tea and blueberry. Their hunger for food was only matched by their hunger for knowledge, and neither seemed able to be truly satisfied even as they stuffed their squishy stomachs with food and practically handcuffed themselves to their computers.

Unfortunately, their wardrobes did not seem to respect such appetites. Adipose tissue began to further fill out the two girls’ frames, fat piling around their rolly-polly bellies and cellulite dimpling their rears. Andromeda’s sweatpants were beginning to split at the seams, a few patches of pink skin showing through the grey flannel. Artemisia’s shirt was constantly riding up as her boobs took up more and more of its potential surface area. Neither really cared about appearing indecent in front of one another.

As Andromeda took a break to eat her lunch one day, one of Artemisia’s robots clambered up onto her desk.

“Fatass!” the little android said, poking its arm into her upper stomach roll. A cold hard digit pressed deep into the warm, memory-foam soft blubber before springing back out.

Andromeda flushed scarlet. “I’ll turn you to scrap for that, you little bastard,” she growled, grabbing at the mischievous robot. It leapt out of her reach and off the table, scampering to its master.

Artemisia glared at the tiny machine. She picked it up off the ground and plugged its USB port into her computer. She shifted through a few programs, changed a few parameters, and then let the android go.

“Sorry, Andromeda,” the robot said, seeming rather embarrassed now. “You have been helpful to Artemisia. That was wrong of me.”

Andromeda looked to Artemisia, and put down the monkey wrench she hoped to use to pulverize the irksome machine. “Well, yeah, it’s been... enjoyable, at least, to help you guys out,” she said, rubbing the back of her head. “Probably would have just been bored otherwise.”

The kurchatovium finally arrived at the end of the week. Andromeda had worked tirelessly to secure it, since her first request had been denied since the Zimov lab had already nabbed the last 200 grams from the previous production. Fortunately, 10 kilograms had just come hot and fresh out of the particle accelerator, so there was plenty for everyone. Despite that, Andromeda did hack the requisition system to make sure her request was on top.

They had an android team install the kurchatovium into its place in the mech’s fusion reactor core. This ensured they were protected from its radioactive glow. A housing was already prepared to receive the ring of blue metal. The superconductor provided the magnetic force to keep the fusion reaction stable. As Artemisia and Andromeda watched the tiny robots shove the kurchatovium into place, the laboratory suddenly shook.

“What was that?” Andromeda asked.

Artemisia rushed over to her computer. She checked for the Institute’s earthquake warning service (tsunamis were always a threat on an artificial island), but found not even a microquake reported by the seismometers. Both scientists were at a complete loss for explanation.

“Hopefully it was nothing,” Andromeda said, sidling next to Artemisia. “Let’s get back to work. I’m really close to finishing the last few bits of software implementation. I just need to wait for the program to finish compiling, and then we can install the OS. We should be ready for the first test today.”

Indeed, Artemisia’s great invention was nearly complete. The colossal mech stood 40 meters tall, clad in interlocking angular plates of crimson composite armor. On its oversized pauldrons it sported a pair of automatic railguns and four embedded missile pods. Its right arm carried a long-barreled neutron blaster cannon, fed by the byproducts of the fusion reactor. Booster rockets were attached to its back and ankles to provide quick boosts of speed. Its sturdy legs faced backwards like a raptors’, with flexible plates over the joints. The feet were tridactyl with wide sloping toes to provide greater stability. Two sensory antennas were attached to either side of the head-mounted squarish cockpit, along with a host of cameras and other instruments capable of detecting different optical wavelengths and providing backups should another system go down. The cockpit was further protected by a thick, rounded gorget that obscured the lower portion of the mech’s face.

However, as Andromeda uploaded the operating system to the mech, the shaking beneath the laboratory only worsened and became more frequent.

“Odd?” she asked. “Do you know what that is?”

Odysseus’s figure appeared on top of her laptop. “No, but I have a hunch. Do you perhaps remember the giant crab-turtle that escaped from the Deep Labs back in January?”

Artemisia turned away from her desk to listen in.

“The one that nearly took out the space elevator? Yeah, I remember.”

“We could be facing a similar situation,” Odysseus said.

Artemisia looked suddenly frightened. Her robots scrambled out of the launch bay. “Save the mech!” one of her androids called out.

Andromeda thought for a moment. “We’ll draw it to the surface,” she said. “That’ll get Security’s attention. Then they can help us take it down.”

“How are you going to do that?” Odysseus asked.

“It wants something inside the mech,” Andromeda theorized aloud. “Maybe it sensed the radiation from the kurchatovium. Whatever it is, it’ll try and follow us wherever we go. And, if it’s not after that, then that will at least get the mech out of here if it tries to attack.”

Artemisia looked to Andromeda, nodded, and gave a thumbs up. She dashed to her locker, threw off her t-shirt and sweatpants, zipped up a red jumpsuit with haptic interface gloves. The skin-tight synthetic fabric of the suit hugged every contour of her curvy figure, snagging in her folds and bulging significantly outwards around her bust and belly. Artemisia then rushed off to the mech as fast as her chubby legs would carry her.

After checking five times that the OS was stable and fully uploaded, Andromeda changed into her own unflattering electric blue suit, which rode up deep into the canyon of her chunky ass as she stumbled along the catwalks to the robot with her computer folded under her arm. With the launch systems already primed, the fueling lines attached to the gargantuan machine hissed opaque clouds of white vapor of rapidly evaporating liquid oxygen.

Andromeda clambered into the cockpit, winded from the short sprint. Artemisia was rapidly flicking on sets of switches on her control board, beginning the startup sequence. The fusion reactor hummed to life, and the dim red lights of the cockpit flickered to bright fluorescent white. Holographic and physical sensor and diagnostic screens displaying multicolor gauges, graphs, and targeting reticles booted one by one around the cockpit. Andromeda took her place at the weapons station behind Artemisia, setting up her laptop on her thighs.

“It’ll take us too long to run the whole systems checklist ourselves,” Andromeda said. “Odd, do you think you can do it?”

Odysseus’s avatar appeared on top of Andromeda’s laptop. “I’ll see what I can do, but no promises.” He blinked out. Andromeda stowed the laptop at her side.

“Artemisia, you need to give Odd access to the system,” Andromeda said.

Artemisia gave her a thumbs up. She rapidly typed a few commands into her holographic keyboard. Odysseus’s voice soon emanated through the mech’s speakers.

“Cozy in here. Okay. Reactor core is nominal,” Odysseus read out. “Currently using 30% power. CPU usage nominal is nominal at 20%. Fuel tanks are fully pressurized. Railgun 1 is primed. Railgun 2 is primed. The neutron cannon is primed, but will require more flux to reach full charge. The missile pods are primed. All boosters are primed. All servo-motors are fully functional and primed. The haptic interface is online. I can confirm that all systems are green, and you are go for launch! Starting countdown at T-minus 10....”

The screens in front of Artemisia and Andromeda changed to a precise countdown clock, the milliseconds rapidly ticking down to liftoff. The floor beneath the mech rumbled, enough that Artemisia and Andromeda felt it 50 meters up. The silo doors overhead opened up, allowing a faint beam of moonlight to trickle down through the launch bay and meekly compete with the overriding glare of white fluorescent spotlights.

“T-minus 9....”

The electromagnetic catapults clamped down hard on the mech’s shoulder and back maneuvering fins. The two pilots pulled down their respective harness over their heads, Artemisia wincing a little bit as her boobs were compressed until the system automatically adjusted. Andromeda noted to herself that the two of them both had plenty of padding to help protect their internal organs from injury, though what protection this would provide were the reactor core breached was uncertain.

“T-minus 8....”

The shaking beneath them increased in magnitude. The beast’s claws crunched and scraped as they tore into the steel floor.

“T-minus 7....”

The mech’s many weapons locked into place with a loud chunk.

“T-minus 6....”

5-kilogram snowflakes of concrete cracked off from the walls and fell around the mech. A larger, car-sized piece bounced harmlessly off the left shoulder pauldron.

“T-minus 5....”

The cables, fueling lines, and data uplinks plugged into various ports on the robot detached with a series of loud snaps and bangs. The catwalk leading to the cockpit swung silently out of the way so that it would not be torn to ribbons like a flimsy piece of aluminum foil in a category 5 hurricane.

“T-minus 3.... Booster ignition.... now!”

A thunderous roar echoed through the launch bay as blue cones of flame and white smoke shot from the rocket engines. The mech quaked and croaked as tremendous force shot through its structure. Andromeda crossed her fingers.

“T-minus 2....”

A rend tore open in the bottom of the launch bay, a single yellow reptilian eye visible through jagged metal slit.

“T-minus 1....”

The thrusters reached full throttle, and the mech began to slowly lift, even without the aid of the catapult. Blue sparks flew from the catapult clamps as the electromotors reached full charge.

“T-minus 0. Launch!”

Andromeda was instantly thrown into her seat as the catapult and rockets shot the mech out of the cavernous dark and into the light of day. A black and green clawed arm burst through the launch bay floor and strained at the mech’s right leg, just barely missing.

“You have cleared the surface,” Odysseus said. “Switching control over to manual.”

Artemisia took hold of one the many joysticks and pulled hard backwards. The mech’s thrusters pulled it back away from the launch bay just in time for them to meet their foe as it rushed out of the depths.

Covered in iridescent emerald and onyx scales, the mammoth lizard crawled out from the open pit of the launch bay and let out an ear-splitting roar, fortunately dampened by the mech’s sensors. It had meter-long razor-sharp claws, a head crest of blade-like translucent silver spines, and a muscular barbed tail. The creature had grown at least as big as the mech itself, if not bigger.

Andromeda immediately took aim with her control sticks and slammed on the triggers. Both railguns let rip with a hail of bullets, flying so fast they turned the air around them into tracer-lines of burning plasma. With few mechanical parts to impede them, the only limit on the railguns’ rate of fire was the risk of overheating, which a robust system of air and water cooling prevented. The guns sawed across the lizard’s hardened skin, leaving cauterized scars oozing green blood around the edges.

However, that just seemed to make it angrier. The iguana reared up, hissing in pain, then galloped forward. Artemisia fired the boosters again. The mech leapt backwards, trying to gain as much distance as possible, blue streams of railgun fire whizzing from its guns all the while as it retreated.

“Odd, has Security noticed the problem yet?” Andromeda shouted as she tried to keep on target.

Odysseus put on his audio. “You have reached the Institute of Advanced Studies Security Division hotline,” a female automated voice said. “For general issues, please press 1. For radiation concerns, please press 2. For laboratory and Knowledge Tower access, please press 3....”

“Ugh, I can’t believe they kept that old phone line. Just tell her 8, that’s for genetic experiments! And see what info you can find on this thing, maybe it has a weakness!”

“Copy that,” Odysseus said. He returned momentarily. “I found a paper from a few months ago on some sort of radiotrophic lizard hybrid. It appears Dr. Andros was creating a hybrid between iguanas, chameleons, frilled lizards, and gila monsters. He then injected the genomes from radiation-consuming fungi from Chernobyl. It seems that the unexpected consequence of all this was that it became giant.”

“Sometimes I wish the scientists here would not try so hard, just for once,” Andromeda groaned.

“Pot calling the kettle black,” Odysseus shot back, “Considering you just built a robot capable of leveling an entire city.”

Despite the pilot and gunner’s best efforts, the lizard was unhindered by the mech’s deft maneuvering and volleys of railgun fire. It made a final leap at the robot. Claws screeched and sparked as they tore jagged ruts into the armor. Knocked off balance, the mechanical titan crashed into one of the Institute monorail lines as it fell to the street below. However, as the lizard attempted to rend the mech into slivers of twisted metal, Artemisia fought back with a pummeling series of blows to the skull from the robot’s hardened fists, cracking two of the reptile’s head spines. Andromeda lined up a shot from the right missile pod at the creature’s neck and let loose with a barrage of rockets. A thick cloud of black exhaust obscured the visual sensors until the projectiles struck their target. The detonation of twenty 120 millimeter, 30 kilogram high explosive warheads burst into rosettes of orange and white flame, blasting the iguana off the mech. It crashed into a nearby Knowledge Tower, sending a spider web of deep cracks through the crystalline structure. The creature’s chest rose and fell as it struggled to breathe through a pounded windpipe.

Security ornithopters soared overhead, illuminating the battle with searchlights. The cavalry had arrived. The lizard’s chameleonic eyes scanned in opposite directions at the swarm of machines flitting and hovering about it like a plague of locusts. Suddenly, they locked together on a single target, and a sticky mucus-coated tongue shot forth, swatting the surprised ornithopter from the air and drawing the now-smoking flyer towards its maw. The monster crunched down on the airframe, rotors, wings, and all, groaned, and then spit the battered wreck out before its burning fuel tanks detonated.

The other ornithopters launched dozens of electrified cables at the beast. Only a dozen or so managed to penetrate its thick hide. The high voltage shock that coursed through the cables was enough to vaporize a human being, but to the monster it was but a mildly painful tingle that made it rear up in annoyance. Two ornithopters lost control as they were flung about by their cables. One crashed into a tower in a gout of flame.

“Odysseus, how long to charge the neutron cannon?” Andromeda asked.

“Untested!” One of Artemisia’s androids had snuck aboard and popped its head out of its master’s cleavage.

“We don’t have a choice,” Andromeda fired back.

The lizard broke free from the rest of the cables, lime ichor oozing from its wounds, and again charged the largest threat: the mech. Its great lizard brain could barely process the events before it. Where had the tiny food gone when it had been so close? Why did the giant human attack it with its fiery bursting shoulder darts? When did flies shoot electrified stingers from their mouths? Right now, it really wished only to chomp on a radioactive bug and sun itself on a giant rock.

“Nothing we’ve tried so far can take this thing down,” Andromed said. “What other options do we have?”

The robotic stowaway climbed onto Artemisia’s head. Artemisia turned back, nodded, and gave Andromeda the thumbs up.

“For the record, at current power usage of 98.5%, the neutron flux will reach capacity to charge the cannon in sixty seconds,” Odysseus reported.

Andromeda’s brain ran through a few calculations, powered only by adrenaline and the last few drops of Chimera still in her system. Her throat was dry and achy, and her head pounded. “That’s too long!” she cried, letting loose another salvo of rockets which sent black streaks of smoke spiraling through the air. Enraged burst after burst of railgun fire ripped forth in a near laminoid stream of ionized metal shards.

“I’m giving her all she’s got, captain!” Odysseus yelled back.

Artemisia juked the robot sharply to duck under a heavy claw swipe, just barely avoiding smashing into a tower. With enough distance between them, the mech battered the creature with its fists, a storm of missiles from both remaining pods, and shredding railgun blasts; but the iguana, though heaving in pain, absorbed it all and desperately attempted to dish it back out with strike after glancing strike. Artemisia feinted left, and the beast fell for it, allowing her to get a solid strike to its side, followed up with another bombardment from the twin guns.

“We need to finish this now,” Andromeda said. “We’re out of rockets and the railguns aren’t doing anything but piss him off.”

Artemisia nodded emphatically.

“Odd, can you get the reactor to 120%?” Andromeda asked. “Override the power control systems and get us as much neutron flux as possible without turning us into a mushroom cloud. Discharge the overload into the mech’s fists.”

“That’s highly dangerous,” Odysseus said.

“Can you do it?” Andromeda asked.

Odysseus processed for a second. “I can,” he said.

The reactor below the cockpit rumbled louder as more and more hydrogen fed the miniature star powering the mech.

“I can only keep this up for two minutes,” Odysseus said. “Otherwise we risk a magnetic quench when the cooling system fails. You’ll only have one shot.”

“That’s all I need,” Andromeda said, pulling the neutron cannon targeting reticule into view.

Artemisia landed a series of now-electrified blows to the lizard’s soft underbelly. Arcs of lightning flew from the mech’s fists as excess power flowed into them. The creature wheezed and croaked; its eyeballs swirled in different directions in their sockets. The stunned iguana was forced to the ground, giving Artemisia a chance to fire the boosters and vault the mech backwards.

“Neutron cannon is fully charged!” Odysseus shouted. “Fire now!”

“I’m getting a clean shot!” Andromeda yelled back. Artemisia stabilized the right arm on the mech’s left hand and drove its feet firmly into the ground.

The monstrous lizard gave a plaintive roar, opening its maw to reveal its venom-coated serrated jaws.

“Now!” Andromeda cried and pulled the trigger.

The neutron flux capacitors released their deadly payload into the cannon’s firing chamber. A crackling electric hum rose in frequency and amplitude until, at the resonance peak, a white-hot beam of magnetized neutron plasma flooded forward through the barrel of the cannon and rushed towards their target. The atmosphere split with a sonic twang as the sheer firepower tore the air apart. The beam colored the mech and its reptilian prey in a high contrast monochromatic glare, pure white and black shadow, as it flashed forth. The visual sensors were blinded, but the beam struck true, piercing right through the roof of the monstrous hooded gila chameleo-iguana’s jaws and out the back of its skull, leaving behind a charred, perfectly circular smoldering hole. The creature roared its earth-shattering cry one last time, then collapsed in a crumpled heap, completely still.

Artemisia breathed a sigh of relief, then turned to face her co-pilot. In her very soft voice, she said, “It worked.”

“What the fuck!” Andromeda cried. “You can talk?”

Artemisia shrugged.

=010000010110111001100100011100100110111101101101011001010110010001100001=

Security dealt with the corpse of the now-dead monster and the damage the battle had inflicted. Considering Institute scientists wrote most of the algorithms used by insurance companies, their coverage was very generous. Plus, the Institute had a very large endowment for just such accidents as these. Knowledge Towers would need to be reseeded, pavement would need to be repaired, and the A7 monorail line would need to be temporarily rerouted and eventually rebuilt. Fortunately, the strength of the crystalline structures and introverted nature of Institute scientists had prevented any serious injuries or deaths from the battle. The ornithopter pilots had all safely escaped their craft before they were destroyed.

After Security took their testimony and thanked them for their invaluable assistance in preventing a full-blown disaster, Artemisia piloted the mech back to its hangar without incident. The two scientists unstrapped themselves from the cockpit and heaved sighs of relief. Some small bruises and batterings dotted the two girls from the blows the mech took from the lizard, but otherwise the armor plating, cockpit stabilizers, and seat harnesses had done their job. “Well, that was certainly enough adventure for a lifetime,” Andromeda said as they made their way along the catwalk back to the anteroom.

Artemisia nodded, having returned to her usual silence. Her robotic companion climbed down her shoulder to join its compatriots standing at attention along the railings in celebration of their master’s return.

They changed out of their jumpsuits back into their equally ill-fitting casual clothes. Andromeda tried fruitlessly to get her sweatshirt entirely over her stomach and gave up with a sigh, leaving a sliver of pink belly to hang out of the undersized garment. She picked up the cryonic beam from the couch and stowed it next to her laptop under her arm, then made her way towards the cargo lift. “I’m gonna go pass out in my room,” she said, yawning. Her eyes had deep purple bags and she could barely keep their lids open. “It was... fun, I guess. Collaborating with you was fun.”

Artemisia fumbled with her hands and stared at the floor for a moment, but then nodded. She smiled and gave Andromeda a thumbs up, which the other scientist returned. The entire corps of androids turned to Andromeda, gave the same gesture, and then saluted as she began her journey back up the tower.

After a long night of sleep, Andromeda awoke the next afternoon when someone knocked on her dorm room door. “Is Vanya out of the hospital?” she muttered, padding over in the same outfit she’d worn yesterday except for the change of a pair of slippers for her tennis shoes. Answering it, one of the androids toddered up to Andromeda with a bright red and gold box, bearing artwork of a dark green mech with a fluttering black cape and the title Mechanical Warrior: General Zhukov, held above its head.“Artemisia wants to hang out,” the robot said.

Andromeda blinked. “Uh, sure,” she said.

“Bring the ice cream gun,” the robot added.

“Oh, yeah. Let me just ask my A.I. to do something first. Odd?”

“Yes, Andromeda?” Odysseus said from her laptop.

“Can you put out an order for a case of Chimera?” Andromeda asked. “Gonna go hang out with Artemisia, figured I might as well be prepared to stay awake for a little while. Just in case we need to build, I don’t know, an entire starship in order to fight aliens or something.”

“Of course,” Odysseus said. He appeared to be thinking for a moment. “Unfortunately, all the Chimera appears to be gone.”

“What do you mean all the Chimera is gone?” Andromeda shrieked.

Odysseus chuckled. “Hm. Yes. It seems that the acidic venom of Dr. Andros’ genetic experiment was, if processed and diluted correctly, I quote, ‘a perfectly sour flavoring agent; a strong, reversible adenosine blocker; and a good source of calories.’”

Andromeda frowned.

“In addition to making those terrible beverages taste good, it also works in tandem with caffeine to reduce drowsiness,” Odysseus reiterated.

“I know what that means,” Andromeda shot back.

“Also, it was highly... nevermind,” Odysseus began, but cut off as his holographic eyes nearly imperceptibly shifted to the waning crescent of belly fat that hung out of Andromeda’s sweatshirt. “Apparently that is why they were keeping around in the Deep Labs instead of just euthanizing it. The case you polished off a few hours ago was the last one ever produced for the Institute.”

Artemisia somehow heard Andromeda’s frenzied shouting of invectives and curses from the room next door.

[jjba-hell]

Revoked

Still late for day 2 but I am enjoying the hell out of these prompts. (Today’s prompt was sci-fi)

Trigger warnings for the death of the ice cream gays but lemme know if I missed anything else.

Summary: a weird mismatched team of busted up aliens and half-blood humans just dealing with some shit.

For the lovely: @lasquadraweek2021

“You should really just transfer to a new body Pros. Humans aren’t supposed to live this long, babe.”

You grumble probably more to yourself than to the man whose forearm you were tinkering in. Well... maybe tinkering wasn’t the word either. He needed another repair and honestly you can’t help but feel like Risotto only offered you the air-mattress in the ship because so many of these psychos have bio-tech they can’t afford to upkeep.

“Sure, I can’t afford a rewire but I can surely afford getting my brain transplanted in a new body.”

“Human bodies are so easy to grow though.” You peer up at him over your magnify glasses with a wriggle of eyebrows. “Fully grown in a quarter rotation? Come on I still have to wait another half rotation to buy a swimsuit let alone grow a body.”

Prosciutto flexed the hand you were working on to spite you but all you did was strap the wrist down and switch off the impulse circuit before getting up and walking toward the exit of the ship where the others were sprawled out in the soft baby blue grass of the planet you were hiding out at.

Melone’s gaze shot from laptop up as you kicked your untied boots from your feet and slid into the grass, barely hearing him as he asked “Any luck with Pros’s arm?”

“I can’t keep mending the same two wires that keep popping off. Its best we find a place that can handle Babyface’s software and get a new one.”

“Still not budging for just replacing the whole thing?” Formaggio asked from somewhere across the clearing.

Like he was one to talk- Akils like him grew back heads and limbs, there wasn’t exactly a need to know anything about biotech.

“Nope. Are all humans this stubborn?”

“I think its the half Megnu in him.” Illuso was the one to chirp in this time.

“That’s still not confirmed.” You sat back on your feet to try and spot your teammates.

“Well he won’t let me analyze.” Melone sighed- continuing to worry away at the clear glass screen that held all his designs.

Melone truly was a bit of a madman to you- he designed the entirety of his body on that simple glass tablet and yet couldn’t finish his face in time before the feds were on him for unethical medical practice- ironic considering he was only putting himself through the strain of fitting his brain into a piece of machinery. What his official titles were in his old field were beyond you.

“Pesci’s not all Scud and he’s not half as stubborn.” You commented and with a soft hum the team fell back into silence.

“Where’s Ris?”

“He’s in bed- that last jump took a toll on him.” Illuso finally rose up from the grass himself heading a bit further away from the clearing, probably wandering after Ghiacchio who was asked to take a lap after he froze off Formaggio’s finger.

You clambered up a few steps to find your captain with the old-fashioned two-way radio in his hand as he lay passed out on couch of the shared living room.

Risotto would rather be caught dead than caught like this so, with intent, you stepped up to take the radio out of his hand. He seemed to gently wake at your fingers prying the piece or equipment from his hand.

“Shit.” He grumbled. “How long-?”

“Ghiacchio’s not even back from his lap- don’t worry. Just head off before they catch you.”

And with a slight groan he rolled up and disappeared down the hallways to his bunk which sounded with an ungraceful “clunk” as he fell into the bed.

Your name got hollered with the slightest tone of desperation from Prosciutto and with that you were back doing your part in the team behind the scene.

“You’re a purebred?” Prosciutto had eventually asked after a few minutes of boredom at watching you weld wires back to the motherboard.

You couldn’t help but laugh. “What am I? A dog?”

He seemed to swallow his words.

“Where do you think I’m from?” You tried to smooth it over.

“Caestea- at least your appearance would have you look like that.”

Another laugh. “I’m from Earth, Pros.”

His eyes widened. “Impossible.”

“Oh yeah. My parents weren’t exactly refugees but they are most certainly not human. Fuck knows what my genetic makeup looks like but thankfully I certainly age like a Caestean. You are all human, huh?”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “Not that there are many of us left.”

In a sense you felt bad for him. You’d seen photos of Earth long before it started to mimic its brother planet Mars but you rarely thought of how wickedly the planet must have lost its life before intergalactic intervention. Humans were strangely scared and selfish creatures but no one deserved to die because there was no clean water to drink.

You shook off the macabre though before closing up Pros’s arm and putting away the tools. “That should do for now but we really do need to think of a replacement in the near future.”

“Thanks.”

It was a half-assed thank you but it surely caught your attention. Pros was a little too prideful to give just anyone a thanks but nonetheless you returned the sentiment. “No problem.”

Outside the boys were fighting again- or rather Ghiacchio was arguing as Formaggio was pushing his buttons while Pesci grilled a rather obscenely colorful fish over the fire-in-tin.

“Oh just the person we needed to see.”

Getting clasped with two arms over the neck was bad enough but from Sorbet and Gelato, now that was trouble waiting to start.

“Oh gods, what do I have to offer this time.”

“Don’t be so serious!” Sorbet cooed darkly.

“We were just hoping you could help us out with the next target.” His boyfriend added.

If you could just roll your eyes back far enough.

“Wandering off from our captain’s orders doesn’t sound like something I’d want to get myself involved in.”

“Not even for a bionic manufacturer?”

“Or a healing bay, for the ship? Surely you could install those things no problem.”

Honestly it was hard not to fall for the stereotype that all Makzi’s do is play dirty and haggle like merchants but here you were, stuck between them and being tempted into breaking formation with them.

“And what would I have to lose?”

“Nothing much-“

“Maybe some face with Risotto.”

You couldn’t help but scoff. “You want me to convince him?”

“Exactly- he might actually consider something if it came out of your pretty mouth.”

“Or rather, if he could come in it.”

You took one step back and bowed out of the hold between the two of them. “Fucking sleezes. Your shit’s gonna get you killed, mark my words.”

“So its a no?”

“Its a fuck no, Sorbet. Vile comments aside, that shit is expensive, even dent-jobs sell for millions... that kind of money is too big a job for us to handle right now and stealing one even more. Get your heads out of your asses before you come up to me with more dumb shit, next time.”

And with that you slipped back beside Illuso as Pesci was grilling up the third fish for the night. Looking back at what you had said was not untrue. That night you were restless in your bunker above Formaggio- Illuso peering behind the sliding divider across the little hallway that ran between the bed bunks.

“Something on your conscience?”

“No.”

“You sure?” You nearly leapt out of skin as Formaggio’s forehead popped up just below your chin outside your divider. “You’ve turned and kicked like 10 times, babe.”

“Please don’t babe me.” You frown at him but you answered the gnawing feeling by asking. “Where are Sorbet and Gelato?”

“Probably in their bed.” Illuso answered as if there wasn’t a more logical answer.

“Wanna put money on it?” Your eyebrow raised.

“And catch them in the act? Daaamn you’re dirtier than I thought.”

“Come on then, 10 drinks at the next stop they’re not in their bunk.”

“Shit, I can’t miss on that opportunity.” Formaggio’s divider slid open all the way to allow him to plop with bare feet to the double bunks at the end of the hallway.” You and Illuso watched in trepidation as he knelt down and knocked. There was no answer save for Risotto’s stern frown behind the top divider making an appearance. “What do you want?”

“Are Sorbet and Gelato in there?” You piped up first.

The angry frown turned into concern as he slid out of his bunk to replace where Formaggio was. He slid the door open to reveal one big empty bed.

What you’d have given to be wrong. But instead the panic bit you all and soon you were messily slipping on boots and running around the ship to find the missing lovers.

Pesci checked the engine compartments he might have accidentally left open, Pros checked the storage while Risotto was seeing if he could track them on the radar. It was only when you were hoisted onto the roof by Formaggio that the dread set into your bones.

“Tell Ris to switch on the overhead console lights.”

You called back down below you. Part of you wished you didn’t... since all it did was put them on display.

It was a vile thing that made Risotto’s eyes grow darker than they already were and once dawn broke, you and Melone quietly put the bodies into the best makeshift body bags you could manage. The lake a few paces away was where you last saw those body bags.

After you left that pit stop you sat in silence in the communal meeting area, your legs flung over one of the armrests in your seat- staring blankly at the coffee table you’d nipped from a market not too long ago.

“So... what’s the plan?”

You asked at anyone who would listen.

“Do we go on as usual? Find their families?”

“Revenge?”

Your head turned to Prosciutto as he was enjoying one last drag of his cigarette.

“You’re brave.” You huffed a bit of laughter at the thought. The big boss and his cronies- the only real reason none of you strayed from Risotto’s orders was way up on a station so far up the intergalactic alliance ladder that you’d have a better shot at killing the king of Gnomia B908 and getting away with it.

“Why not?” Illuso was the one to back it. “Surely we could track the sick fucks that did it.”

“You’re thinking too simply.” Risotto grumbled over his fist. “They didn’t get themselves killed by accident. This was deliberate- a display not to challenge the higher ups.”

“Any idea what they were planning?” You sat up, propping your elbows onto your knees.

Risotto kindly pulled up their hidden plans- your name encircled in red a few times. They seemed to have had their eye on a biotech printer and medbay that was once used by the Boss himself.

“What’s the relevance of an old medbay?” Pros posed the question to you- Melone was up front with Formaggio.

“Medbays need to keep track of any irregularities in DNA to avoid any incompatibility issues. Its one of the few things that can’t be wiped because its burned into the drive. They were trying to expose the Boss’s identity.”

“And they were planning on risking us all in the process?”

You pointed at a little arrow shooting off your name once more. “They figured I could remove and replace the hard drive before anyone noticed.”

Your throat felt dry as you realized what that meant. Whoever this person was... if they could follow something as irrelevant as a used medbay to keep their tracks clean... chances are you were all, at best, being watched.

The thought must have been shared as Risotto didn’t breathe a word as he moved to the front of the ship and changed course to an unaffiliated vector you know damn well you’d probably be searched and cleansed for.

To no one’s surprise the pristine white towers blinded and no sooner than two seconds of coming into orbit of one of the bigger planets you were requested to land.

You stood beside you captain as the ship docked and you waited with your hands behind your head to greet the haz-mat team. “You must be pretty serious about this if you’re willing to get sit in their prison.”

He gazed down at you and with a deadpan tone simply said: “You’ve escaped, I’m certain you could do it again.”

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Mirite

Mirite was not a difficult name to remember.

There was a Mirite. A Mirite was a person in Floornight whose name you couldn't quite place. And of course that made Mirite very easy to forget.

Just one Mirite, though, two Mirites, sometimes three, a Mirite with an extra Mirite on the end, a Mirite who had an extra "ite" and not an extra "mir" -- and then you had to remember whether it was a proper noun, a verb, or an adjectival form of a noun. How do people remember all that?

"Mirite," Mirite said, turning to look at her. She was in her late twenties or thirties and had short brown hair framing a face that was heavily lined. She looked a lot like one of Thea's professors, Miranda had said. "I didn't think we had any Mirites left in all of Floornight."

It was a joke that she had made at the party. A joke that had seemed funny at the time, and had spread through the party until everyone was making it again and again, each time funnier than the last. The whole affair was like that now. Everyone was the butt of the joke in one way or another.

Mirite's joke had been, of course, a reference to her name. But the reference wasn't strictly necessary. Mirite's name was a joke, and one of those jokes had a whole lot of people cracking up.

It was going to be light tomorrow. It was going to be a very, very soft dawn, a Dawn Light That Will Not Pass, and Floornight would be in that delicate early morning light for about another two hours, maybe more. It was going to be very, very beautiful.

In the half-light of the eastern sky, the little planet Ceres was low in the sky, close enough to the horizon that the city on it could be seen, but high enough up near the stars that not much light hit the city. It was one of those mornings that you could easily see what you were going to see if you were good enough -- perhaps you could even read the sign above the coffee shop, the one that said "BOND BETWEEN TWO." Or maybe not -- one look at that sun was all it took to know that it had either a massive penis or a moonlike gravitational pull. It looked so inviting, that little piece of sky. The horizon was so close, so inviting, it was easy to understand what it meant, even without any translation.

"Mirite?"

Mirite turned at the sound of her voice. She was standing in front of her bedroom window, which looked out into the backyard of their modest home.

"Yeah?"

With a smile and a nod, Mirite indicated that the two of them should follow each other. It had been half a year since Thea, who had been working as a junior software engineer in Seattle, had left in a huff, and Mirite, who was working odd and mostly-dull manual jobs and living on the streets, had wanted to find whatever excuse she could to talk to Thea. That was why she had come out here. That was why, before Thea got back, she and Mirite had taken this trip. It was in the back of her mind, always. This morning especially.

"Do you want to sit?"

She gestured to the recliner in the living room. "Have a rest. You can tell me about whatever you were thinking about earlier." And if there was a Mirite, if there was anything they could talk about, then yeah, Mirite would like to rest. "Or make yourself at home."

"Okay," said Mirite, heading toward the recliner before Thea could argue.

"It's going to be easy day today," Mirite said, taking the seat opposite Thea, who was in the bedroom, in the bed. "I'm gonna make this ten percent good, this dawn. I'm going to make this dawn an A+ dawn, a great day, a Mirite dawn."

She turned and looked directly into Thea's eyes. Her gaze was intense, almost accusatory. It was a gaze that said, "Don't question this," "Don't even think about questioning this," "I was wrong about this and I'm going to prove myself correct."

Thea wasn't used to Mirite like this. It was a new way of looking at Mirite, and it made Thea uncomfortable, although she didn't say anything.

"I'm going to get food and drink and go back to the party, and get some more people. It's going to be real good, Mirite."

Then, after a slight pause: "Wait until after breakfast, though. I just got out of bed and I feel fantastic. My head's all clearer, and I feel like I'm on fire all over." And after another pause: "Don't talk to me until you've had something in your stomach."

Mirite laughed. She laughed, and laughed, and laughed again. Thea laughed, too. No one besides Mirite at this morning's party had laughed for the last week.

•

After lunch, it was time for Mirite to prepare her breakfast. Mirite went to the kitchen, poured a glass of orange juice, and grabbed a croissant with cheese. She ate it quickly and went to the bedroom. Before she had finished eating, she'd washed her croissant down with a long gulp of orange juice, and was ready to begin.

"Mirite? I'm going to look at the dawn."

No one had ever called her by that name, it was just "Mir." But Mirite had a sense for humor -- and this, this sense of humor, this sense of "this will go on my to-do list," this was Mirite -- this was the kind of thing she had made up her mind not to do. But her sense of humor was so pure that it was almost impossible to stop yourself when she had set out to do so. It was impossible to resist. And Mirite liked it that way.

And so, with a smile and an "that's what she sounds like, right?" voice, she turned to face the dawn.

•

It was a very, very mild Dawn Light That Will Not Pass, and if you were in the back of your head, you could envision little bits of stars in the sky, like glittering dust specks. And you could actually see the stars, in that way the light revealed them.

•

Mirite smiled. She remembered how hard it had been, earlier this morning, to sit down and eat a breakfast such as that that was -- a breakfast that was completely full of carbohydrates, but full of that pleasant orange flavor, too. But to Mirite, that flavor of orange was so important to the meal that she was willing, almost, to give up everything else.

•

Mirite could taste the sky on the tip of her tongue. The "greatness" of the daylight, and the perfection that it represented, was so close to her, it was almost in her -- in the way that only that sense of greatness and perfection could be.

•

Everything about this morning was perfect. The sky, the sun, the taste of the food that made Mirite so happy, even the croissant, the texture, the taste of Mirite, who was Mirite, was all amazing. It was like she had never been away, it was like she had never come back, that she was the best in the whole world, that she was the very best thing that could ever happen to anybody. And she knew she was the best. That was something else her sense of sense did, that was so important to her, that it seemed almost, to Mirite, as though it were part of Mirite herself, part of the miracle that she was.

•

The world was so close. Oh, the world was so close! The horizon was so close!

•

Everything in the room was perfect, and Mirite, the only Mirite left, was the best, and everything was perfect.

The whole room was full of wonderful morning light. And the Mirite could see the stars, so clearly. It was as though she had been away, in a place the most wonderful place the whole world, and now she was coming home, and she could see the stars in the sky. She could see the stars, and it was a small gesture, but to Mirite, it was beautiful.

She laughed a laugh that no one else had thought was possible. Thea had been the only one to laugh in months. There was nothing left for anyone to do but laugh. And then, in that moment, the sun rose. Mirite closed her eyes and leaned back in the recliner. She waited for the sun to come up. She thought of the food inside the cupboard. She thought of the drink, too. It was time to drink.

•

And then it was as though the sun emerged from within the sky, with fire filling its light. Its light was beautiful, and it filled her with an unspeakable feeling. She felt the perfect way that she was, for now, the best, forever.

•

And when the sun and the light had filled every pore of the sky, and were like glowing jewels

[drunkcomicbookrants]

FAR CRY NEW DAWN

I’m not the dudeliest of bros out there. I don’t go in for MAdden or Call of Duty or whatever. I like games like Unfinished Swan and Flower and Everything. Gimme some bohemian art shit that ASKS QUESTIONS and forces you to decide What It All Means, yup I’m here for it.

So I’m as surprised as everybody else when FAR CRY IS MY SHIT, this is a videogame-ass videogame and it scratches an itch

I’ve played them since iunno like whatever one was on ps3 and they are TRULY GREAT. I think it’s because they leave SO MUCH up to the player, but it’s not so obnoxiously artsy open that you don’t know what to do. Your goal is to kill all those badguys in that fort, but HOW YOU DO THAT is up to YOU.

Want to play sneaky snakey?

Go ahead and play sneaky sneaky

Want to get a misslile launcher and a gat-ling gun and go al lin?

SURE BRO YOU DO YOU

Want to hire a fucking grandma with a sniper rile to do all the work fo you?

YES OF COURSE THIS IS AN OPTION

Want to BUTCHER A COW to BUILD SOME BAIT to LURE A BEAR to kill the bad guys for you?

AT THIS POINT NOTHING WOULD BE MORE REASONABLE

At this point in this blog (does anybody say blog anymore?) I’ve doxxed myself about 17 times, so by now all of you (all 4 of you) know that I am a software engineer by trade, and my favorite kind of code is the sandbox environment. Set up a bunch of initial states, let things interact how they will, and SEE WHAT HAPPENS

This is literally my favorite thing: EMERGENCE

the idea that a few small “rules” can lead to complex, and dare I say BEAUTY-FULL patterns and behaviores

You fool, do you think a snowflake knows how to form? No, it’s moleculres or whatever just DO THEIR THING. Do you think that the snowflake knows what it looks like in a blizzard? Do you think ants know what they look like from above, or that they’re building a colony? Do you think the neurons in our brain KNOW THEY ARE A BRAIN

swing it back bro

The reason I like the Far Cry series is because although it brands itself as a potato chip game, there’s actually a ton of creativity and freedom involved. And it’s just plain FUN. I will never get sick of standing on a hill and taking over a base using nothing but wild bears and grandmas.

SO WHATEVER I BUY FAR CRY NEW DAWN

and I’m ready for another Far Cry game, it’s gonna be some killing badguys in creative ways with wild animals and a nice completionist level-up system

INSTEAD I GET SADNESS

SPOILER ALERTS BELOW

Up until this point, each Far Cry game was its own thing. Maybe a tiny mention of Far Cry 3 in Far Cry 4, but if you didn’t play Far Cry 3 then you wouldn’t miss much, each one is its own thing.

Far Cry 5 ended with a nuclear bomb going off, and Far Cry New Dawn is a direct sequel to Far Cry 5.

Big fuckin oof.

As you play Far Cry 5, you spend 30-60-1000 hours in the WORLD they create. You learn the map, you learn the characters, what makes sense, what works, how it all interacts with who you are as a person

And that’s fun right, that’s the game. Haha lol I can make a bear eat these badguys, roflcopter I can start a forest fire that surrounds these badguys, yo look how good at a bow and arrow I am

But the trick is that it starts to feel like HOME. Your brains don’t know that this is just a vidyagame, so they’re scrambling to take in all this information. You get USED TO IT. You know who Hurk is, you know where the roads go, you know what’s safe and what’s dangerous

THIS IS BY DESIGN IT IS SOMEBODY’S JOB TO MAKE YOUR BRAIN FEEL THIS WAY

So the end of Far Cry 5 felt like a betrayal.

Most videogames end with you saving the world, you killing the badguy, wahoo what a hero. Far Cry 5 ends with a giant fuck you Thanos snap. You lose, the bomb goes off, the world ends, and oh by the way the main badguy drags you into a bunker to survive the nuclear fallout, and you’ll live the rest of your life in a dungeon with the man who ended the world. THE END

FAR CRY NEW DAWN STARTS 20 YEARS LATER IN THE SAME TOWN

So the roads you travel on are the same, but they’ve been overgrown with a fucking tidal wave of flowers. The houses you visited in the last game are now empty, except for what you can scavenge to stay alive. The people you talk to in this game remember the people you talked to in the last game, but it’s not the same as the last time you visited. It’s colorful and beautiful and fun, but it’s also fucking SAD.

This game is still about klling badguys in creative ways and levelling up your bullshit because you’re a fucking completionist, but the frame around all of that is fucking heartbreaking

Far Cry New Dawn does a good job of playing with the almost-memory you have of Far Cry 5, which most people played a few years ago and don’t quite remember. I have vague recollections of Nick Rye, so when I meet his daughter I feel FUCKIN WEIRD AND SAD AND APOLOGETIC for no real reason other than brains are fuckin wild. When I see signs for the bear from Far Cry 5, BUT I DON’T SEE THE BEAR, part of me is ALARMED by this for some reason. You dig through the scraps left behind by the community you met in the previous game, and it feels voyeuristic and personal and uncomfortable. But you keep doing it anyway.

This game is the most accurate depiction of “coming back to your hometown after you’ve been gone a few years” that I’ve seen, its only rival is Night in the Woods

So even though from the outside this game looks like Call of Duty guns pew pew pew, in reality this is a fucking simulation of creativity and emergence framed by the sadness of coming home to a dying community, knowing that nothing you do matters

but the least you can do is have fun with it and appreciate the beauty along the way

Beer pairing: are you kidding me

This looks like a lite beer but when you drink it it’s actually really good, and after you drink it for 5 years you realize how, fucking, sad, you are

Of course this is a Miller Lite

[ninemoons42-lestallumhaven]

(I was asked to continue with this astronaut AU and I got caught on the idea of how a musician/photographer could have met a software engineer who happens to do a lot of work on a space station, and this was the result, and thanks to @stopmopingstarthoping for asking for this.)

Quick Fic Pick 72: can you see me, major?

The bed looks awful good, Prompto thinks, the bed looks awful good and so do the threadbare blankets, so do the squashed-flat pillows, but -- every step he takes causes him to shed an awful amount of glitter onto the cold tiled floors and he curses the cheap beer and the hangover that’s already creeping in around the edges of the back of his mind, and he forces himself to head into the tiny bathroom.

He maybe curses the piano he’d been stuck with -- something fatally wrong with the pedals -- he’d had to improvise and go without any of the usual three and as a result his ears are still ringing, because the little bar had already been too loud and then his songs had been discordant, harsh, stripped bare of sostenuto and of legato, and he’s never never never doing anything like that ever again -- worst comes to worst, he’ll improvise on an electronic keyboard.

Anything but that jangling shit sound that’s still maybe sawing at his nerves even after he washes his hair three times, even after the water goes lukewarm and he leaves a trail of swirling spiraling sparkling muck on the shower drain.

Maybe he should have taken the sleeping tablets that Iris had tried to press on him. Maybe he should have smuggled Holly’s pot into the venue. Sleeping’s the farthest thing from his mind, here in this lonely shoebox of a motel room, a hundred miles from home and he can’t just make a beeline for his actual own quarters because he still has shit to do in the morning.

Shit like -- he groans, and lays out his only “get in front of the cameras and smile” outfit out on the bare shelves of the tall thin closet. Black button-down shirt, neon-green tie, undershirt, boxers, red-striped socks.

The bed fits him exactly: it is as long as he is and as wide as he is, and he curls himself up into a miserable ball of blanket and pillows, and he goes to charge his phone and he has to look, he has to look, because he can’t breathe and he misses his room and all the other things that live in that room. The ginger cat that belongs to the family next door, that spends most of its nights sleeping on top of his baby grand piano. The safe that contains his hoard of film cartridges for his analog SLR camera. The equally secured crate with its multiple lock-holes for his digital cameras.

All he has for this trip is the usual, which is his smartphone, which is now exactly two years, eight months, and three days out of date but it’s still got the single best camera he’s ever encountered in this kind of thing and so he’s gonna hold on until the thing breaks itself into little bits and pieces of shattered glass and circuit boards.

Fortunately the image he needs to look at is -- freely available online, freely remixable.

Impossible to find a comfortable spot in this bed so he just flops back onto the pillow and swipes to the image, the first file in the camera roll on this device.

The image is labeled “sand dunes” on the ’net, and he’s long since given up on complaining that it just doesn’t do any justice to the actual view, and he feasts his eyes, and thinks about letting go of the day and of the night and of all of the aggravations in his life.

Calm and dynamic all at once: looking straight down from the Eos Space Station, the image shows off the dusty-golden sands of the Leide deserts, and the single rarity of Lake Hammerhead, still and huge and the perfect reflection of the blue skies in that region. Cloud formations in the image cast shadows onto the sands and onto the lake’s shores, and in the lower-right corner, still mostly clear when he swipes to zoom in, are the hundreds upon hundreds of specks of captured movement: the migration of a massive herd of coeurls.

Every time he looks at the image he finds new details: a statue casting a strange shadow, a particularly elegant curve of dune, new and different phantom shapes in the cloud formations.

Every time he looks at the image he finds himself being able to take a deep clean breath: it must be the colors and the lighting, or it could be the idea of that oddly suspended serenity that he finds in the tension between the clouds and the coeurls and the shapes in the sand.

He takes that breath, and the words fall almost gently into his mind, the line fully formed and he swipes to one of the note-taking apps and locates one of his documents.

Maybe this is the line that completes a stanza, or this is the line that begins the chorus -- the idea blows softly away and he lets himself focus on the one thing, the important thing, which is -- capturing the line.

Sailing shadows in a summer-spark sky

He numbers that line, following all the others he’s already drafted, and he hums quietly to himself and the memory of the image allows him to stay calm, and veer away from the usual stresses of creating something new and something he’s never heard before.

And then, just because he can, he switches to a different document in the app, and reviews the story behind the image of Leide, taken from space: the name of the photographer. How the scene had been captured in the first place. Nothing more or less than a complete accident, a calibration of image sensors, a mistake.

It’s a damn pretty mistake, Prompto thinks, and he falls asleep and dreams of stars sparkling embedded in those desert-stretch ripples -- stars that are still winking in the dawn a few hours later, when he’s woken up and asked to get dressed and this is the last time he’s participating in one of those early-morning news-magazine shows.

He can’t quite smile, when he’s ushered into the green rooms and he crosses his arms atop the nearest horizontal surface, puts his head down, thinks of coeurls on the run and closes his eyes --

“This seat taken?”

He shakes his head.

“I’ll -- leave you to it then.”

Some impulse makes him shake his head a little, and groan, and mutter, “Sorry. I swear I’m not usually rude like this. Not enough sleep.”

“Ah. Well,” and is there something familiar about that voice? But his head is so heavy, and the climate control in the room keeps his sleeves cool and comfortable. “Been a while since I pulled the good kind of all-nighter.”

“There’s no such thing,” Prompto says, and he sighs and keeps his eyes closed when he straightens up. He only turns his head in the direction of the other voice. “And I’m telling you that as someone who has to do all-nighters all the fucking time.”

“So what are you doing up so early?”

“Beats me,” he says. “Not like I’m even supposed to be singing, they want me to talk about the other thing,” and he raises his hands, pretends to hold up a camera, pretends to click the shutter button.

“Ah. That’s a little different from singing, isn’t it?”

He snorts. “A little and a lot.”

“Just so.”

Before he can make up his mind to open his eyes, there’s a rustle of movement on his other side, and a voice saying, “No, no, don’t open, you need a lot of concealer right now.”

Prompto groans in agreement. “Please. I’d do it myself if I had steadier hands.”

“Let me work.”

By the time the makeup is misted and set, he’s alone in the green room, and he only has the ghost of that almost-known voice to go by, and he doesn’t even have a face to match that voice to.

So it’s a real shock when he’s joined on one of the couch-sets by --

“Have you met?” the segment host chirps. “You know, common interests and all?”

And Ignis Scientia, sitting next to him, smiles in a small precise way, and shakes his head. “Hardly. But I’m happy to be here, and I hope to learn something from Mr Argentum.”

“Not sure I have anything to teach you when it comes to looking at things,” he blurts out, and the words fall in a puddle between them, completely reckless.

“I am not worried about my eyes; I am worried about everything else,” and Ignis fucking Scientia performs the exact same gesture of holding up a nonexistent camera, of taking a photograph -- only he’s looking straight at Prompto when he does it -- looking at him, and smiling, and Prompto takes a deep breath, and attempts to smile back.

“Oh, interesting,” the host says, and Prompto knows he’s beet-red for the entire time he’s on the air with the exact same Ignis Scientia who’d accidentally taken the photograph that’s been his obsession for some time now.

And he can still feel the heat lingering in his forehead and his throat when he says, safely off the couch-set, “What exactly is stopping you from taking pictures anyway? Are you that busy, in space?”

“I’m afraid I am; and I’m afraid I get stuck looking at code anyway, so.” Even a shrug is elegant, on him, and Prompto would curse him if he hadn’t been drinking in the prettiness of him, if he hadn’t been itching to take a picture of him.

And all he’s got is his smartphone and he raises it helplessly between them, and Ignis Scientia only nods, small calm measured movement, and Prompto’s hand is shaking but the image he takes comes out startlingly vivid and clear.

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly look like that.”

“You actually do,” Prompto says.

“I’d like a copy, if you don’t mind -- let me give you my number. I think I’ll still be using this one for a few more days.”

“Or I could work on this a little and then send it to you afterwards,” he says, scrambling for his footing in a familiar topic.

“I would like that. It was lovely to meet you. Mr Argentum.”

“Prompto,” he says, holding his hand out at last. “You don’t have to be so damn formal, and no one calls me that anyway.”

“Then please call me Ignis, and will you please email me -- your work?”

“Yeah.”

(He does a little better, once he’s done jittering, and the email he sends has the processed portrait as an attachment, and the following lines:

(Sailing shadows in a summer-spark sky -- catch the clouds and the contrails in careful hands like yours)

[masked-disciple]

1, 6, 12, 14, 25, 26, 30, 31, 32, 49, 55, 78, 84, 86, 94?

Gonna stick it under a readmore because Long.

1. Spotify, SoundCloud, or Pandora?

Soundcloud if I must, otherwise Youtube and ListenonRepeat all the way. Plus an audio downloader because I am currently one of very few people who have a Teto/Miku duet cover of Hirari, Hirari- because I was smart enough to download it before it got taken off Youtube. It’s an amazing cover. If I knew who made it, I’d reupload it and credit them. If you want it for listening-only purposes, let me know and I’ll pass over a link.

6. describe your personality in 3 words or less

Murder, motorcycles, and mischief.

12. what size bed do you have?

I think mine’s a twin. It’s just large enough for two small people to cuddle.

14. if you can live anywhere in the world where would it be? why?

Ehh, maybe a bit more downtown from where I currently am. Well, we’re not currently a dumpster fire of a country, my second cousin’s the prime minister, I know where I am and I generally enjoy my home region, and despite having one of the highest living costs in the world (we’re top three, maybe in first or second?), it’s a pretty great place.

But let’s be honest here. I’d live anywhere if you were with me.

25. what color socks are you wearing?

Currently, I am not wearing any socks, because I just showered and have yet to put on pajamas, thus I am wearing only a bathrobe for the warmth. But I was wearing white socks. I don’t actually own socks of any other color.

26. how many pillows do you sleep with?

I have three up on my bed, but two are just filled with cotton balls and are not much more substance than a very thin, folded blanket. I would love about eight, so I can adjust them as required and roll over as much as I want.

30. whats your favorite candle scent?

I would usually say strawberry, but grape is apparently the smell of Chaos, so we’re going with that. I had no idea until my parents bought me a grape candle. I am never letting go of it.

31. 3 favorite boy names

Kiril, Ashley, Iban. Yours is a given, but the other two are just masculine names I very much enjoy. Ashley just sounds pretty good for a guy, and Iban is still very close to my heart and deserves the respect.

32. 3 favorite girl names

Delilah, Kiera, Seren. Delilah is just pretty, though like everyone else I learned of its existence from the Plain White Ts. Kiera is the name of the protagonist of a fic that actually got me into writing (alongside Dawn, which although being a romance, is very good and is actually the reason I started writing in the first place, so shoutout to @khayr for writing it even though she’s done it three whole times now and never finished it once. :p ) Seren is both the name of the crystalline goddess from RuneScape, and Drakath’s (and Exos’, and the Avatar’s) daughter, who is probably still living with Travon for her own safety.

I decided to exclude the names of Mil and the Princess, because those are obviously favourites.

49. what was the last compliment you received?

Your goodnight message, which when viewed alone, is very sappy. I would’ve just posted a screenshot but idk if you’re chill with that, but you know what I’m talking about and thinking about it outside of context is just Jeez, That’s Sappy. Which is fine by me, I like sappy.

55. what is your dream job?

Ideally? I worldbuild shit for a fantasy game. I want to do anything but plot. Let me worldbuild and help design characters and all that cool stuff. I’d also like some input on gameplay if some things don’t make sense. But mostly worldbuilding, because worldbuilding plotholes are effing awful.

Realistically? Probably a therapist or software engineering manager. Something that I can be productive about. The latter would be pretty nice in the gaming industry, but let’s be honest here, it’s probably not going to happen.

78. do you sleep with your door open or closed?

Closed. Curtains also closed. All lights must be off, or blocked off by an object. If I can tell the difference visually between closed eyes and opened eyes, it’s not dark enough. 

Unless I’m really tired, in which case catch me on the floor without having turned off my lamp or computer and probably not anything else.

84. chocolate or rainbow sprinkles?

Rainbow, since I only ever get sprinkles on donuts and Timmy’s doesn’t have chocolate sprinkles. Regardless, I’d take rainbow.

86. what is your phone background?

Just a picture of a side street + stone staircase in what looks to be rural Japan. Wooden houses, right beside the woods, cobblestone street with shops on either end. I’ll probably change it sometime soon, I just like pretty things.

94. favorite lyrics right now?

“I can see a rainbowIn your tears as they fall on downI can see your soul growThrough the pain as they hit the groundI can see a rainbowIn your tears as the sun comes outAs the sun comes out”

-Rainbow, by SIA. From the new MLP movie, which I refuse to watch in anything but in segments on Letupita725HD*’s channel, because wow was Twilight out of character and was the plot kind of awful.

I literally don’t understand why the other princesses are always so useless, and Twilight’s the last person (er, pony) to steal shit. She knows friendship. Fuck, she learned from fucking Discord of all people that friendship is shit you don’t give up on. One thing goes wrong - the very same damn thing that happened with Tirek and Discord and Nightmare Moon and Sombra and Crysalis (twice) - and suddenly she forgets everything she’s learned since season 1 episode 2. Like??? Stealing the pearl??? What the fuck?? I get it from a writing perspective- makes Tempest foil Twilight, shows Twilight what she’ll be if she continues being a little bitch. But it’s also a complete disgrace to her character.

That and you know, they did the rest of the main recurring characters a definite disgrace. Tempest was literally the only decent character. Pinkie was decently done, but took up way too much of the spotlight. Rarity, well- haven’t seen most of Capper since I know he’s a little bitch and the secondhand embarrassment’s a lot- but she does stuff. Rainbow does the thing with the pirates. But Applejack and Fluttershy are virtually useless the entire movie, which is upsetting.

Not gonna go too much into the new characters, since I haven’t seen most of the pirate stuff and Capper. Queen Novo’s kind of rude but I guess it makes sense? She comes around. Skystar’s uhhhh. Yeah I dunno why she kept talking to shells when there’s an entire queendom. Right there.

Anyway the movie was just an hour long finale and I was hugely disappointed with it, but the songs were awesome and I really like SIA’s song.

[solarbird]

And just like that, she was down, Chapter 3: do not make me confess it

[Thoughts in «chevron quotes» are translated from the Spanish, if Sombra's, or French, if Widowmaker's.]

[AO3 link]

Sombra waited with her locator beacon, watching, scanning the pre-dawn dark skies in the mountains on the outskirts of Castillo. Cached nearby, hidden, the critical combinations of medications needed to keep Widowmaker healthy, and instructions on how to synthesise more. She just wished they'd thought to kidnap a chemist on the way out.

«Of course», she thought, «that assumes they actually managed to get her out in one piece...»

Finally, she spotted a glint of light - a civilian cargo ship bearing her direction low and slow, slotted in between the mountains. «About time.» She waved, unnecessarily, as the craft approached and landed on the only flat spot on the entire side of the mountain, five metres further below. She scrambled down to meet it, as its engines wound down.

"Hola, idiots," she called out, with a cheerfulness she didn't yet entirely feel. "Chica, you in there?"

The crew door opened, and Widowmaker stood in it, alone, in her usual sniper kit, but without her rifle. "I am here."

"And the twins?"

"Behind me. We decided it good for you to see me, first. I am... I believe I am unmodified. Do you have my supplies?"

«Straight to the chase», thought the hacker. «That's a good sign.»

"Yeah, chica, I do - but I gotta be sure, first." She threw the EMP trigger, grounding the ship's electronics, and trained her machine gun at the door. "Tracer, Kestrel - get in sight. Don't try to take off, you're on a buried pressure plate loaded with explosives which I'll disarm as soon as I'm satisfied. Chica, I'm not taking you far, but I want you far enough away from them to know you're not bein' coerced."

"Sombra, you absolute knob cobbler, I'm gonna..." Tracer bolted towards the door at a full run, and Kestrel cursed at her reduced mobility but made her best attempt at the same. Widowmaker stopped them both at the opening, saying, "No. No. Do not. I understand what she wants."

"EMPs don't last forever - you try to betray us," shouted Kestrel, "I will launch you so far into the ground you will never dig your way out!"

"Kestrel, no," said the assassin. "You both know full well I am more than capable of handling myself. I will go to her."

The flying agent all but snarled at the hacker, who smirked from behind the sights of her submachine gun. "Back away from her, both of you, got it? I've been very nice so far, I'd hate to have to be rude."

The Widowmaker chuckled mirthlessly. "You have not changed. Very well. I will follow." She turned to her rescuers. "Tracer, Kestrel, wait here - I will remain in sight at all times, and I will return. I swear it." She looked back up at Sombra. "That is non-negotiable."

"Fine by me, chica. Get over here. You two - stay behind the doorway. No further out."

Widowmaker stepped forward, and threw her chain grapple against the exposed rock beside Sombra, winching herself higher up the hill. "Stand right there," the hacker said, before waving a scanner wand around the assassin's body. "Huh. Looks like you got all the trackers. Even the passive one in your back tattoo." She examined the little red hourglass on the spider's back. "No sign of a scar. Nice work."

"Overwatch was thorough," replied the spider, "...and, apparently, careful."

Sombra gestured left, and the two women hiked slowly further up from there, side by side, following a trail clearly visible from the landing pad, staying in sight as promised.

"Okay, chica - now, for real... how you doin'?" She kept one eye on the ship.

"I am... I believe I am whole. Did Vialli really order my execution?"

"'Fraid so."

"For one failure? For one capture? " She snorted. "Fool."

Sombra shook her head. "No. For poking too hard at your conditioning. For figuring out how to limit recon."

The Widowmaker spun around, facing the purple-haired woman directly. "What?!"

The hacker nodded. "They finally put all the little pieces together. You've been declared unreclaimable - and to be retired." She gave her taller friend a sympathetic look. "You were supposed to die in Egypt, chica, not get captured. And," she let out a single laugh, "you're welcome."

"...what did you do?" she said, returning to the smaller woman's side, resuming the slow walk.

"Does it matter? You're alive."

"Alive, and in the de facto custody of two..." She shook her head. "...annoyances."

"Annoyances you haven't killed yet, I noticed."

Widowmaker glared at the hacker. "Do not presume to know my thoughts."

"Don't give me that crap, hon. I know your thoughts better than anybody outside the lab that made you. You wanted away, you'd be away." She glanced down towards the water, and the breeze coming from it. "Thought you even were, for a minute, when you showed up in the doorway alone. Thought maybe you'd killed 'em, dumped their bodies in the Atlantic."

The blue woman shook a little, and closed her eyes for just a moment, as though bracing herself. "I... we have had... a truce."

"Seems to me you have a lot more than that."

«Do not make me admit it», thought the blue assassin, gaze tilted down.

"You're feeling something, aren't you? C'mon, chica, you know you can talk to me..."

"Isn't their survival confession enough?" she said, in a quiet voice.

"No," she said, almost kindly. "But that question, on the other hand... it kind of is."

"Thank you."

The hacker kicked a rock on the trail, forward, along the path. "You'd decided, hadn't you."

"Yes."

"How much longer were you going to wait?"

"Another week."

"So really, you're just leaving a little early."

"Yes. But in a way that has... cost them both, dearly. I am... I find myself... disappointed, by that."

Something in the assassin's voice twigged in Sombra's mind. Disappointment, she knew the Widow could feel that, and did - at failed missions, at botched raids, at missed kills. But at someone else's loss? That was new.

"Any loose ends you want me to tie up?"

"No. I was ready. The Prague assignment would've merely been convenient."

"Got your equipment?"

"We raided two caches on the way here. We will raid more, after leaving."

"Any idea where you're going after that?"

"Their plan was inadequate. I have improved it."

"Do you know my personal blind drops, just in case?"

"A few."

"Good. Well, that covers just about everything... and here we are," said the hacker, looking down at a large rock next to the trail.

"This is a rock."

"C'mon, chica." She brought up her control system, cleared the lock, and flipped the cover over with her toe. "You know better."

"Of course - I just wanted to give you your reveal. I'd hoped it would be more dramatic." She looked down at the black case, the one with her own sign on it, the one with the Widowmaker logo. "How much?"

"A favour, that's all. Let's stay friends."

"I meant supply, but under the circumstances, the price is acceptable."

"Oh - I cleaned out the production lab, Made it look like a drug heist, a lot of it will appear on the black market, courtesy my old friends in Los Muertos. With proper care, you've got a year. But even better..." She flipped open the black case. "Separates. You've probably only seen the combined serum." She pointed to one set of vials, labelled in blue. "The components to keep your blood chemistry together, maintain your... unique... metabolic balance." She pointed to another set, in red. "The components to keep you conditioned - and compliant. Combine 'em one to one... or don't. Your call."

"...or don't..." said the Widowmaker, considering the implications. "...my call." She struggled, looking for the right word and not entirely finding it, "I feel a strange... confidence, in Kestrel."

"Confidence?"

"Yes. A bit like towards my handlers, originally, but different. Could I have been modified, without my knowledge?"

Sombra thought about that, and the disappointment, weighing them carefully before answering. "I don't think you'd be asking that question if you were. Could be your standard conditioning's trying to apply itself to new people."

"Can that happen?"

Sombra didn't know biowork, but she knew software, and she juggled what she understood of the Widowmaker protocol from that perspective. "Yeah, maybe, particularly if your old attachments were... violated... badly enough. A death warrant probably counts."

Widowmaker hummed, considering, uncertain, as Sombra closed the case. "Anyway, prep, care guide, synthesis instructions for more, it's all in there." She stood, picking up the case, and handed it to her friend. "And it's all yours."

"You realise," the assassin said, as she took the package, "I do not have to be the only one to leave, right now."

"Ah, you do care!" grinned the Mexican woman. "I can leave whenever I want, I'm just a contractor. But I'm not done with Talon, not yet - Akande should be breaking out of prison, soon, and if that happens, I'll learn all kinds of new secrets."

The assassin nodded. "Consider it, nonetheless."

The hacker in purple smirked. "Why d'ya think this costs you a favour?"

Widowmaker snorted. "You always want more friends, big mouth. Why should I be different?"

"You know me so well!" chirped Sombra, pleased. "But this time, I actually do have something specific planned. For later."

The assassin nodded, once, looking at the case, and the rising light around her. "The sun will be up soon."

"Make sure to tell your gullible gal pals I was lying about the explosives. And good luck, chica... hard times are coming. Don't go soft on me. Or them." Then the hacker vanished, translocating away.

"That is always so disconcerting," said the assassin, to no one at all. She looked down the steep climb, back to Tracer and Kestrel looking up, out through the doorway. As she made her way down the trail, she found herself humming a tune she knew well, and yet could not name.

But she was pretty sure it had something to do with swans.

[airoasis]

From Bitcoin To Hedera Hashgraph (Documentary) Hidden Secrets Of Money Episode 8

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From Bitcoin To Hedera Hashgraph (Documentary) Hidden Secrets Of Money Episode 8

At present mankind stands at a crossroads And the path that humanity chooses will have a greater impact on our freedom and prosperity Than any occasion in historical past in 2008 a brand new technological know-how was presented. That is so principal that hits destiny and the fate of mankind are Inextricably interlinked, it is so robust that if captured and controlled It would enslave all of humanity, but if allowed to remain free and flourish it might foster inconceivable levels of peace and prosperity It has the power to switch all monetary methods Globally to supplant 90% of Wall street and to furnish some services of presidency it has no agenda it can be continuously reasonable and impartial it can’t be manipulated subverted corrupted or cheated and It inverts the vigour constitution and areas manipulate of one’s destiny in the hands of the individual one day when we seem back on the 2.6 million yr timeline of human progress and the predominant turning facets that ended in modern-day civilization the creation of farming the domestication of animals the invention of the wheel the harnessing of electrical energy and the splitting of the atom The 60 yr progress of computers the internet and this new science will likely be regarded upon as a single occasion a Turning point with a purpose to change the direction of human historical past it can be called full consensus disbursed ledger science And up to now its predominant use has been for crypto currencies equivalent to Bitcoin but its skills goes far a ways past that hello, i am right here in Washington DC throughout the street from the Federal Reserve due to the fact that i’m quite occupied with something We would be on the verge of a paradigm shift in foreign money and trade that would put areas like this the Federal Reserve and other vital banks out of trade in Our fourth episode of hidden secrets and techniques of money we called upon the viewers To become a member of a discussion to enhance a brand new world financial system and the men and women that put forth essentially the most logical and compelling Arguments where the cryptocurrency and Bitcoin persons? So i’m here at a significant Bitcoin conference that has drawn experts from in every single place the world And i’m going to be hanging out with them asking plenty of questions constructing my own opinion.I’d such as you to strengthen yours due to the fact that this might be some thing that changes the world the most long-established query I get today is when are you gonna make an episode of hidden secrets and techniques of cash about crypto currencies The intent this has taken so long is that I wasn’t completely satisfied releasing this video unless I was once comfortable explaining how it works and now I finally can As I said in the intro we’re gonna begin this experience at my first ever Bitcoin convention This used to be the primary time I had achieved a deep dive into studying Bitcoin and after it finished I stored on studying and learning some extra and it really grew to become intricate to finish this episode seeing that the speed at which this house is evolving but only some weeks in the past I discovered about whatever new that would trade the whole lot and i knew we needed to get this video out speedily This fairly is large we are going to study more about this present day leap forward later in the video considering so as to explain it we have got to go correct again to the commencing and learn how Bitcoin works Like most humans in the beginning I found the entire thing to be very abstract and difficult however now I’ve located a way of breaking it down in order that you do not have to be a rocket scientist to get it i am going to explain it via utilising an ancient obstacle that Bitcoin claims to have solved.It is called the Byzantine generals obstacle and until now it can be been unsolvable The problem goes like this How do you are making obviously certain that multiple entities that are separated by distance R in absolute? Full agreement before an motion is taken in other words How can character events be able to guarantee full consensus? Here is the illustration think that you are a basic in the Byzantine army and you are planning to assault an enemy metropolis you have got the city, surrounded by way of several battalions each and every of them camped several miles from the other and every of them. Led through one other general a Coordinated assault on the town from all sides whilst will probably be triumphant but an uncoordinated attack will possible end in defeat you have decided to assault at dawn, but you don’t have any walkie-talkies or phone phones and indicators from flags torches, or smoke might be obvious by using the enemy How do you make sure with absolute sure bet that the entire different generals reach? Consensus and all assault collectively at dawn You would send messengers on horseback, however what if one of them is captured or killed earlier than delivering the message you might have got to have a reply from each of your generals confirming that they have obtained your message because of this that they would must send messengers to you on horseback, but what if they are captured or killed? What if a messenger is captured via the enemy and an imposter messenger with a false reply is sent back to you and how do the other generals know that the messages that they obtain from you are exact and have not been? Intercepted and adjusted by way of the enemy Worse yet what if probably the most different generals are traitors they usually ship messages again to you confirming that they’ll attack at daybreak When their true intention is to retreat? How will you ever be surely precise that your entire battalions will reach consensus and attack simultaneously Like I stated this situation has remained unsolved for hundreds and hundreds of years and at its core it can be all about character parties being ready to believe each different directly.No strings attached Bitcoin claims to have conquered this, bro now assume that the battalions are honestly computers on a network and that the generals are copies of a pc program going for walks a ledger a ledger that via some very difficult math files transactions and pursuits within the specific order that they occurred the key right here is that every one of those Ledger’s are exactly the equal for one and all as quickly as a change is made on one replica of a ledger whether it is established to be genuine by means of the math all different copies of the ledger are updated to check What now we have here is a dispensed ledger that is also invariably in consensus This is one of the first things to appreciate about Bitcoin it is the first full consensus dispensed ledger mankind has ever obvious This network will also be increased across the entire planet It implies that person events on reverse aspects of the world can come to consensus on an occasion with out requiring any 1/3 celebration as an intermediary for believe whether or not it’s an order from a normal to his troops, or are an order from you for a pizza a disbursed ledger confirms by way of math whether or not an event is right and files it completely Bitcoin the first full consensus distributed ledger is a believe computer however is it one hundred percent safe that is a query for later in the episode, but for now the place did Bitcoin come from and who invented it well Bitcoin was once at first developed through an a pseudo, nonnamous developer, Satoshi, Nakamoto there’s plenty of speculation about who he is and albeit I I work straight with him, but I have no notion but that on no account particularly concerned me on the grounds that Bitcoin itself is open source and so any engineer can evaluation the Bitcoin supply code evaluate the Bitcoin cryptography and comprehend and trust the program So you do not have got to believe who wrote it you believe the software itself and so that used to be one of the most big causes why Satoshi chose Open-supply for Bitcoin is so which you can have believe within the method.You do not ought to trust who he’s I do not know who Satoshi Nakamoto is I? Also, have no idea who Euclid was might have been some dude in Sicily a couple of years, BC but we do not particularly be aware of we’ve some historical records that tell us that Euclid used to be any one who invented geometry in the ancient world however it’s not relevant Euclidean geometry works whether or not i do know who you chlid is or not whether Euclid was a great guy or an evil character Euclidean geometry comfortably works. It can be completely unbiased of its creator, and if we failed to comprehend who Invented the electrical motor or the radio or any of these core science traits? Electrical energy So what they nonetheless work? You do not have got to have any attraction to Authority we don’t must worry in regards to the motives now in a centralized system.The place anybody is in control it issues who’s behind the curtains it quite concerns who is in control it matters? Who invented it due to the fact that they remain in manage or they could have a secret approach of controlling it bitcoin is wide open and No, one is in manipulate and all people can see precisely how it works So how does it work and what’s the factor? Crypto currencies like Bitcoin permit men and women to transact with every other using the web anyplace on the planet as an alternative of getting an account quantity like a checking account or a credit card Crypto currencies are far more secure on the grounds that they have got a public key and a confidential key it’s like having to account numbers one for deposits and an additional for withdrawals you’ll be able to mainly see them displayed as a string of characters, or a scannable code This stage of security means that you would put your public key on a billboard should you desired to and your funds would still be secure the only thing different individuals can do with your public key is send dollars to you it can be your personal key that gives you entry to your money so long as you preserve manage of your personal key Your funds are most likely safe and theft and fraud are essentially inconceivable however just like money in your wallet You need to maintain it riskless to preclude it from being stolen its protection is completely your accountability Cryptocurrencies may also provide you with privateness identical to cash you do not must disclose any individual information when you spend them against this a bank card has your name Account quantity and expiration date these act like a public key but the similar of your confidential key your signature and protection code are displayed in undeniable sight that is just simple stupid.I’ve toured 5 national money museums and even as I used to be at certainly one of them I noticed a group of younger pupils on a institution trip i will be able to simply think that some day someday a bunch of kids will be standing around the bank card display Pointing and laughing on the excellent stupidity of the method we once used and this is the factor Crypto currencies are lightyears forward of our current technology in view that Bitcoin used to be the first cryptocurrency i’ll use it as our instance, and i’ll expand on our earlier description of a disbursed ledger however first where does Bitcoin get its value Bitcoin is brand new to mankind in that it can be each a forex and a fee network at the same time, and this is the place Bitcoin gets its price the mammoth community of computer systems all around the world strolling the Bitcoin distributed ledger every 2nd of daily these computer systems are retaining the ledger up to date and in full consensus through a system that Incentivizes them to approach and confirm transactions the system that Bitcoin runs on is known as blockchain think of it as a brand new variant of an ancient-normal bookkeeping ledger however as an alternative of a handwritten record of entries and calculations a blockchain is a digital record of entries and Calculations a block is with no trouble a bundle of transactions feel of a block as a entire web page of transaction in the old-customary ledger a Blockchain is just a chain of blocks it is the identical as a whole sequence of pages within the historic-normal ledger handy, huh? This is how it works the Bitcoin blockchain certainly exists in each probably the most millions of computers on the community as designated copies of each and every other however for this illustration in order that we can zoom in and which you can rather see simply how a blockchain works i will exhibit it as one huge blockchain in the center of a small network of desktops Let’s comply with a pizza transaction with Bitcoin when the transaction occurs it first appears on the network in a pool of Unconfirmed transactions together with enormous quantities of others from all world wide hundreds of thousands of exclusive desktops from the network Then acquire a few of these transactions and location them in their possess blocks the desktops are all growing blocks always within the hope that theirs would be the subsequent one introduced to the professional chain a new block is brought to the chain each ten minutes or so when probably the most computer systems wins the right to have its block? Recognized as the subsequent in the chain and is rewarded with a prize of newly created bitcoins the way in which a pc wins the prize is by using seeking to guess the reply to an totally difficult math problem in fact the difficulty is so problematic that even with thousands of computers making guesses Billions and even trillions of times per 2d it nonetheless takes roughly 10 minutes to find the reply once one of the vital computers guesses the correct reply and wins the entire hundreds of thousands of computers on the network that didn’t win are instructed to throw away the entire work.They have accomplished replace their Ledger’s with the block from the winning laptop and begin again with a new math quandary in doing so the computer systems use an monstrous amount of vigor and rate a literal fortune to run So why do they do it on account that it may be very rewarding that is where the time period mining for bitcoins comes from as an alternative of hanging gold via mining for worthwhile metals in the barren region These computer systems are hoping to strike Bitcoin by way of mining useful numbers on the Chane however when these millions of computer systems are choosing transactions to enter their blocks they aren’t all choosing the same transactions and no longer all of the blocks are the equal measurement Some include more transactions some incorporate much less when blocks are thrown away the transactions they incorporate return into the pool of unconfirmed Transactions which means the likelihood of a transaction being validated and staying in the order it was tested in is just not Absolute but it surely turns into extra of a walk in the park every 10 minutes as new blocks are delivered in fact for terribly giant transactions it is recommended that you look forward to six or extra blocks about 60 minutes to be without doubt exact that a cost is permanent so Why is it so sluggish? Why is your pizza bloodless before you own it curiously? The method is slowed down on rationale And this is why? With the insane concern of guessing the answer to the mathematics difficulty you might consider that the chances of two or more computers successful while are particularly inconceivable, nevertheless it without a doubt occurs fairly mostly this is called a tender fork and when it occurs the entire computers in the network acquired each of the successful blocks and are prompt to create a new block in an effort to chain to the block they obtained first but considering the fact that of varying internet connection speeds distinctive computer systems obtain different profitable blocks at unique times the tie is broken Roughly ten minutes later when one of the vital desktops solves the brand new math trouble And it is block is introduced to the ledger and the longest chain wins however what happens to all of the blocks on the other aspect of the fork they are discarded together with all of the Transactions they contained which return into the pool of unconfirmed transactions this smooth Forking is the foremost purpose the approach have got to be slowed down on reason via the math crisis if the system was once instantaneous it would be forking far and wide at all times and there would be no consensus no person would have any suggestion Of which ledger was once the proper one and every computer could be busy constructing an additional block to create yet one other fork The slowness and tremendous quantity of computing energy is required to maintain the bitcoin Ledger in full consensus thus as increasingly computing vigour is introduced to the community the approach mechanically Adjusts to develop the predicament of fixing the maths difficulty Which then requires much more power? If bitcoin is ever going to be widely used it is going to be using a gigantic quantity of the arena’s energy There are different programs for reaching consensus, but we are going to appear at these later within the episode For now Bitcoin is working as supposed and allows for folks to transact with each different making use of the internet anyplace in the world Bitcoin it is the primary full consensus disbursed ledger that mankind has ever obvious but it’s no longer the last i’m right here at the conference with Eric grill of coin outlet And i’m going to purchase some of my very first bitcoins proper now And so Eric’s going to show me how to try this.He is gonna. Tell me it is a paper wallet that’s correct, so i will be able to put i will load this paper currency. That’s inside this little ziplock right here with bitcoins, and so i am gonna take $one hundred invoice and hold that for a second, so what am I purported to do with this now? You can scan the your public tackle into the in there. Yes, ok, and pull it out when it beeps okay? Okay, it beeped exceptional show your balance and okay, and ok And Aha, so I’ve obtained zero.Sixteen zero 7 three 2 9 4 bitcoins, and i just completed this session, and now it can be sent it and it’s completed and so essentially in the blockchain the hundred bucks that I just put in Gave me that zero.Sixteen some thing bitcoins within the blockchain it can be been assigned to my account code and in the back of right here i can peel this open, and there’s a code that’s my confidential key that buying power is now protected in the blockchain that is mirrored around the globe hundreds of thousands of occasions, so thanks very so much Eric quality.That’s great meeting you yeah special desktop and a first-class advancement forward for and in relation to convenience yes the individuals developed it. They are going to start working out Cryptocurrencies more once they get an publicity that is very similar to an ATM that’s what we’re married. Yes. K. Thanks. Thank you So I’ve spent a day on the conference now and that i desired to return and variety of problematic on probably the most matters that I’ve soaked up and that i came here to Washington Circle in Washington DC at the back of me as a statue of George Washington various folks don’t know this however you already know the innovative warfare was once a struggle fought to free themselves from legislation from government intrusion on their lives from too much taxation and The founding fathers had been combating for liberty and freedom and on the end of the battle George Washington was once in control of the armies of this continent and might have topped himself Emperor however as a substitute chose to resign his fee and retire to private existence Giving us this present of a free Republic one of the most matters that i am getting from this convention is that quite a few them are concerned about law and so it is this same revolution being fought far and wide once more they may be worried about regulation they are not able to honestly stop transactions with crypto currencies but they would come and take a look at and punish us afterwards and make it less possible to be used and it is a device that would free humanity it can be an mighty soar in science and potent soar within the abilities evolution of mankind And so if this battle is lost and governments do succeed in seeking to regulate The crypto currencies it might be like dropping the revolutionary battle this stands for the whole thing that the founding fathers stood for the notion in freedom liberty and the man or woman option and accountability for your own movements On day two I Listened to more of the authorities and the more I learned the more i spotted just how so much I wanted to grasp Even as soon as you recognize the entire technical small print about Bitcoin.There is still loads to be trained about preserving your cash secure in the real world some of the fascinating things I learned is within the early days of the internet They were truely paving the way for something like Bitcoin earlier than they even knew what it might be So when the first web browser used to be constructed There was a 404 error page not found and there may be also a 402 error fee approach not detailed so again once they at the beginning developed the online browser They have been serious about the time once they would eventually realize the technological know-how create the technological know-how to switch value over the web they did not have the science back then but they still had the foresight that finally we might get there well now we’re here Bitcoin is a option to that you just guys it’s hard to isolate. What in specified about Bitcoin is so effective, but I’ve had to identify one factor i would say used to be a disbursed network that is kind of an strong thing considering the fact that it’s well-nigh immortal it may exist In trillions of copies everywhere the sector what that means virtually is that it are not able to be destroyed I mean you would practice every regulator each bureaucrat each baby-kisser every valuable banker in the world assign it to break the blockchain and so they could spend you realize 24/7 doing this smashing reproduction after replica after copy and break trillions of copies, but so long as there is one left someplace and there continually will probably be it might reproduce itself immediately and are available into existence of billions and trillions of times over once more nearly instantly what this means is that the blockchain itself is more strong that all the govt’s in the world combined often over that is massive.Now we have on no account had a instrument this powerful to beat back the despot of the for the period of lots of the conference i couldn’t find any individual that shared a number of the considerations that i’ve about Bitcoin similar to being a Deflationary currency that was until I met Chris Ellis Chris tell me concerning the considerations that you’ve got so Bitcoin correct now remains to be an experiment as are most crypto currencies and the cost is generally supported by using a Speculative sentiment and that’s when you consider that markets are forward pricing mechanisms individuals are watching at the know-how and so they’re purchasing on the basis of what they feel different persons will do in the future with that expertise and i consider that a lot of folks having spoken to a variety of merchants as good they’re telling me anecdotally that humans are usually not spending their bitcoins, so i am worried.I feel the the economic part of Bitcoin is in most cases The weakest, that is why we’d like quite a lot of these replacement crypto currencies to play around with one of the vital parameters, however we will have to we must don’t forget this an experiment for now mm-hmm one among my considerations is that in a deflation pace slows down on the grounds that your forex goes to be worth more the next day to come than it is in these days and So humans have a tendency to hoard foreign money in a deflation like the satisfactory depression for illustration Bitcoin goes to have So many coins monthly released, and then that stage drops each is it each yr or 4 years except it gets to a level where it reaches 21 million coins and it stars When it stops i have two considerations One the Bitcoin mining that humans are doing is what encourages Them to leave desktops walking everywhere the planet, and that’s what makes Bitcoin work now i do know there is a small transaction cost, and if velocity the quantity of transactions picks up enough Then the transaction fee is a purpose to leave your computer on but you’ve got a deflationary currency that encourages hoarding and now not spending it on transactions and So when it reaches the 21 million what is the reward for leaving the computers strolling if pace? Slows and people are inclined to hoard it and there is no new coins to be mine Anymore so and plus the price of energy is most of the time going to move up at some point.Yeah. Have you ever got some other issues? Yeah, one of my issues in this area is that there are most individuals listed here are communications and advertising they may be within the business of persuading men and women and i consider we want more developers we ought to inspire younger individuals there are typically fewer than a thousand folks on the earth that definitely comprehend tips on how to Code a cryptocurrency and that may be a large form of centralization they become like Congress and then we ought to form of go to them as lay individuals who have no idea the way to code and ask for alterations or otherwise We end up having to fork the code and produce our possess one so I nonetheless feel there’s so much to do in terms of outreach getting current programmers into the Bitcoin area onto the github Repository so they are able to making their possess changes and experimenting and studying as well So what have I learned up to now few days about Bitcoin and different cryptocurrencies I’ve realized that they’re a easy mathematical system that’s fair sincere and impartial I’ve realized that that is more than just a digital forex I inspiration that this was once just for sending value from one individual to a further this is a revolution a good way to trade the arena it’s going to tear down borders it will connect the globe it’s as essential as the web used to be but due to the fact that it connects people due to the fact it frees folks there will come a day the place there’s a call to keep watch over it – discontinue it – shut it down possibly? The persons which are calling for those matters their factors have to be questioned when you consider that what they’re seeking to prevent is freedom.It is that simple one of the most things that cryptocurrency does is it presents freedom and the persons which might be will be calling for its? Legislation or its abandonment will be the financial sector a principal financial institution’s? Government’s in view that It provides for lots of the matters that govt does very poorly it’ll do very well That the financial procedure presently does very poorly it’ll do good it is reasonable honest impartial instantaneous and can’t be subverted the only caveat are that Bitcoin has first mover abilities it’s the largest one, nevertheless it may not be the person who succeeds it’s an experiment at this point but the predominant factor is that the genie is out of the bottle freedom is on its way to us right now we can all aid it or we are able to let it languish and i consider that this cannot be stopped so am I going to sell my gold and silver and convert all of it to Bitcoin without doubt no longer Bitcoin as I said is an scan there’s a possibility that these matters might go to zero before they may be thoroughly developed there’s a possibility of some form of catastrophic failure proper now it has proved very amazing and unhackable you don’t know what is going to occur at some point so one factor to preserve in mind The Germans came up with the Enigma machine in World struggle two, and it used to be supposedly uncrackable after which we broke the code and then they introduced one more dial to it to increase the complexity many-fold And it used to be presupposed to be uncrackable and we cracked the code So bitcoin has now not been utterly demonstrated it can be received five years of existence now and robustness this may be the reply to all of mankind’s issues on the subject of a easy medium of trade however it’s more than which you can make these sensible contracts that settle with with a algorithm So a person doesn’t receives a commission until all of the principles that you’ve founded are fulfilled you can create escrow with yourself where there’s a third occasion that has to signal off that a transaction has been completed before the cost goes via they’re engaged on things the place which you can take delivery of something continuously and pay for it as you employ it it would be like procuring the internet for each 2nd that you are utilizing it simplest or buying the gas that’s delivered to your house as a substitute of monthly you’re being billed per thermal unit and without a frictional fees involved so this provides up to effectivity thus mankind is left over with more prosperity if there isn’t any 0.33 party in between bleeding off financial power you grow to be with extra prosperity this can be a superb factor for all people and given that it’s so reasonable and neutral there may be much less of a need for the court process.There’s less want for presidency, and principles and law and folks to put into effect all of these things sooner or later there will likely be much less want for Wall street that Wall avenue Does not comprehend it yet? But they are antiquated dinosaurs of the previous about to go extinct that you can connect stocks and bonds and matters such as that to Crypto currencies and companies would now do I POS simply on the internet they wouldn’t have Wall street anymore? They do not want a third celebration like goldman sachs or any other enormous brokerage residence taking a reduce there isn’t a have got to fear about corruption due to the fact that the code are not able to be corrupted I do recognize that i’m going to be putting a few of my capital into Cryptocurrencies to any extent further and aiding this motion and helping to push the liberty of mankind ahead and this is whatever else the purpose that persons buy bitcoin is the same intent that men and women buy gold and silver it can be an substitute to all the other currencies the fiat currencies which might be being printed into oblivion on this planet correct now, and so they do away with the need for a third get together trust you do not ought to believe a person else with your bitcoins You handiest need to trust yourself.You do not have got to believe someone else together with your gold and silver you ought to trust yourself So the explanations are the identical and so i might inspire every beneficial metals investor to investigate Bitcoin and the opposite cryptocurrencies And i would encourage each Bitcoin and cryptocurrency consumer and investor to examine priceless metals, i’m going to keep each I appear at the crypto currencies as an extraordinarily speculative risky and possibly dicy play I seem at gold and silver similar to financial savings. I see them as anything that has by no means failed in 5,000 years they’re established and that i see them as enormously undervalued in comparison with the morass of fiat currencies on this planet at this factor So once I came here I anticipated to seek out nothing but a digital payment system and what I determined is a science that may revolutionize The planet if the founding fathers of the united states were standing right here beside me they would be fighting for this revolution hello, that is an action alert for July eleventh 2014 I promised the entire insiders that i would keep them up to date on what i am doing financially and not too long ago I’ve accomplished whatever fairly exclusive up until now my portfolio is totally priceless metals gold and silver bodily but i have been investigating Bitcoin quite slightly I was in Washington DC recently at a Bitcoin conference, and i learned lots about it.I grew to be convinced that this has a enormous upside talents The downside talents it might be quick-time period and there’s a draw back chance that it could completely fail So i’m now not going to place various my portfolio into it but in the future i will as a rule be up to around 10% of my portfolio going into Bitcoin feel it or no longer the other factor that i’m doing is i am shopping a bunch of Pegasus 1 ounce Rounds because they are a cut price, and that i lately reduce a video about how? One of the things I did not get around to for the duration of the convention was speakme to shops about their expertise of accepting Bitcoin as payment i’d emerge as occupied with accepting Bitcoin at my possess industry but I nonetheless had some questions so I made a shuttle to Salt Lake city to see Patrick Byrne now.It is a guy I’ve really bought respect for on the grounds that he understands financial historical past economics and the frictional nature of our current economic method and Wall road So i do know that you are in a rather low profit margin business being a web-based retailer of reduction items I too, am in an awfully low revenue margin business you might have been taking Bitcoin you’re probably the most first giant companies to undertake Bitcoin the primary the primary large industry quality what is your suggestion for me? Well we’ve got Publicly, and that you may appear at our public filings our gross margins are in the excessive teens which is relatively low For a retailer and our running margin is a little bit over 1% 1.2 percentage and of course to take individuals’s bank cards bills about 2 or 3 or four% for many businesses for those who begin doing earnings in Bitcoin And it saves you say three% for your rate these those earnings as a substitute of being 1% that margin go to four% web margin so it can be rather particularly if you are a good margin trade it makes numerous sense to take delivery of Bitcoin and prevent these bank card processing costs those bank card firms and that part of the economic enterprise relatively has an mighty potential to sit down for your The exchanges you are making with the general public and extract they’re basically extracting the whole profit margin for themselves and Bitcoin ends that Cryptocurrency ends that so so it’s a frictionless approach frictionless system, however that you would be able to you understand the Empire is gonna strike back? It doesn’t matter what they’re saying.I suppose the monetary enterprise is relatively. Sorry They failed to do extra to place a discontinue to Bitcoin kill it in its cradle now that it’s getting some momentum. They are no longer in a position to that is their complete business model is to extract is to be in that role the place they may be able to extract the rents through their monopoly or oligopoly and Bitcoin ends that so it is relatively an arrow proper on the heart of their industry model if you do not believe the fiscal process anymore there’s clearly two ways of testing you could buy gold physical gold and silver and get it somewhere nontoxic where it can’t be taken from you and the other solution is to Get get into the crypto revolution given that commencing this episode we have noticeable a blockchain growth the IPO as I mentioned are going down now but they are virtually known as ICO initial coin offerings and The early nonchalance of the financial industry has been changed by using a race to boost their own blockchain fee techniques given that of its fee of development Bitcoin has been burdened to the limits the place it used to be once quick and low-cost it is now gradual and pricey correctly the disorders Bitcoin has suffered from have resulted in political infighting Bitcoin forking into multiple types and substitute cryptocurrencies gaining market share everyday allotted ledger science has caught hearth and there is a speculative mania happening while the hypothesis can not go on eternally one thing is for sure Blockchain is here to stay or is it? Last week I was once in New York city For a assembly that we had scheduled that I idea was once going to take a couple of days And it ended up best taking a few hours so with the entire leftover time I determined to move talk over with an historical friend Demetri Covina’s he used to have a one of the crucial first-class economic shows on television referred to as capital account you might recall him from Episode two of hidden secrets of cash where he talked about Greece and the hubris of leaders and empires and the way history repeats Anyway, he has a new podcast known as hidden forces and once we visited him He used to be all fired up about this new technology and this podcast you realize when I listened to it I acquired all fired up and he invited us to attend an event so we went residence to l. A. There for two days and correct back to new york once more and to the occasion that he hosted about Hash Graff science created by way of Leland Baird that is ordinarily going to end up exchanging blockchain technology I mean that is colossal.We went to the event we listened to one of the most folks which might be involved with this And we were just most likely blown away So i go back To consult with with Demetri now and get his take on how the occasion went final night time and the place the way forward for this factor is going when you consider that the arrival of Bitcoin there had been many 1000’s of blockchain headquartered crypto currencies created And now there are more of them being created every day So what’s distinctive about hash graph well it is not blockchain.It is totally one of a kind in fact the best way it works is an actual intellect-bender and now not very handy for me to give an explanation for that i am gonna give it a are trying as a substitute of a block in a blockchain Hash graph calls their applications of expertise events your laptop takes a transaction like a fee or whatever else for that subject similar to an motion in a videogame an offer to sell merchandise and even sell shares or bonds a bid on that item a contract or even a legislation ordinarily any understanding or transaction you need to file and it places it within the occasion for transmitting information quickly hash graph makes use of a science that has been the gold regular in laptop science for many years it’s tremendous rapid and it is called gossip protocol Your pc randomly tells another laptop in the network in regards to the occasion you could have created and that pc responds through telling your laptop about any hobbies it heard about then that computer tells a different computer about your event and the opposite pursuits it heard about and the laptop it can be speakme to responds by telling all the activities it is aware of about it is undoubtedly the first-class most efficient technique to unfold expertise, and it can be exponentially fast however here’s the twist every time a laptop tells one more laptop about an occasion it also involves the understanding of the time it heard it And who had heard it from and the time they heard it And who they heard it from and so forth and so on it is referred to as gossip about gossip And it lets everyone be aware of what everyone else is aware of and precisely after they knew it in simply fractions of a 2d the opposite most important factor is an excellent older technology And it is probably the most potent cozy and unique means of coming to absolute consensus it is referred to as balloting protocol, but except now It used to be so sluggish that no person ever used it and the twist that hash graph has given.It’s that there’s no balloting instead given that every body already knows what every person else knows which you can mathematically Calculate with one hundred% walk in the park how they might vote it can be digital voting and it allows hash graph to come to consensus virtually instantly So alternatively of recording things on a block after which adding it to the blockchain once each 10 minutes Hash graph hobbies are brought to the procedure immediately the second they’re created in order that they would not have ten minutes worth of knowledge in them because of this they are small they usually incorporate some distance much less data so that they use little or no bandwidth and are so much easier to transmit and when you consider that it’s now not trying to guess the reply to an incredibly intricate math hindrance trillions of times per 2nd hash graph uses just a Miniscule quantity of energy from what I’ve visible up to now in comparison with blockchain hash graph is lightning-quick more relaxed and provably fair all pursuits are time-stamped the moment they’re woven into the method so the document of whose event came first in who’s got here second is immediate and there is no such factor as tender forking or Unconfirmed routine it could also change big portions of the web that are currently run via Centralized servers via exchanging them with the shared computing energy of all of our own computer systems iPads and telephone telephones It appears like hash graph would simply have the advantage of satisfying all of the usual hopes and dreams I had for blockchain science the vigour to decentralize and do away with the middlemen from commerce banking inventory markets and much of the legal process and government with the velocity at which this technology is evolving the longer term is watching bright and hash graph is the excellent example of just how quick matters are moving in this field good I consider the quite amazing innovation that Leemon has made is in the best way in which he has made adjustments to the gossip protocol And to the balloting approach in an effort to make them suitable at scale proper since a balloting algorithm can work And that you could reach consensus in the within the designated identical means however with a view to set up that in the actual world the bandwidth constraints on it could be such that you simply’d never genuinely be equipped to almost use it however by incorporating the gossip protocol and developing the hash graph after which being capable to make use of that along with the local knowledge that you have in reminiscence and strolling a voting algorithm in the neighborhood on the laptop with no need to solid any votes or ship any votes over the you are definitely able to get all those robust ensures that you just get with a voting algorithm but you’re ready to do it at scale and that is what’s so awesome and to be fairly sincere.It’s it is difficult to imagine How nobody idea of it it can be a type of great ideas that you would have most effective looked on reflection and mentioned how did no person consider of this however at the time no one did so one of the challenges I think with any new technology like that is how do you rather provide an explanation for to persons? How do you’re making a compelling case for what makes a technological know-how so compelling right and? One of the matters that’s so compelling about this technological know-how is the throughput it’s the speed And it’s it is you realize that you may tell people that they’ve proven over 300,000 minimum demonstrated Transactions per 2nd versus bitcoins three to seven max, but like how do you variety of get that in your head? And i type of did a back-of-the-envelope calculation and that’s roughly twice the speed of sound relative to a snail’s percent Bitcoin being a snail’s percent and This community literally being like a supersonic jet touring at twice the speed of sound Which is I mean simply wrap your head round that for a second? It’s it’s exquisite it is not even like within so you can see the change it’s huge and figuring out of direction that the speed of the community The rationale why bitcoin is so gradual is since they have got to make it gradual considering the fact that if it is not sluggish it would fall aside it could department off everywhere you could possibly in no way have consensus now recollect the explanation of the Byzantine generals quandary from prior and the way blockchain was built to remedy it? Here’s whatever no longer many humans be aware of blockchain programs are not Technically Byzantine fault tolerant they got here shut, however no cigar So i like many persons anticipate that block chain was once Byzantine fault tolerant and in fact I failed to utterly admire what that even supposed I sort of just assumed it and given that I noticed it as a type of part of the bigger photograph of Blockchain being very cozy and no longer having been hacked but actually it’s not Byzantine fault tolerant and the motive why it’s no longer Byzantine is considering with a view to be Byzantine you will have there has to become a point in time when you’ve reached consensus you recognize you will have reached consensus, and you’ll under no circumstances be improper and you’re under no circumstances going to vary your intellect And that does not happen with blockchain given that the character of the community the the geometrical qualities of the blockchain community require you to normally kind of admire that you are by no means absolutely sure your probabilistically more constructive that you are arriving at consensus however that is additionally why on the blockchain network.You have to maintain a entire historical past of the ledger considering that you form of ought to have the capability to do a Forensic analysis in the event that you’re wrong in the event that the network has fork Then you don’t understand it And so that is anything that you do not have got to do with hash graph considering the fact that with hash graph Your your comb coming to consensus each few seconds And that you can dump the complete historical past of the community’s knowledge and just preserve rolling ahead considering the fact that you’re without doubt certain that you just reached Consensus and that’s the difference. I think the foremost main issue the kind of the significant deal in the blockchain neighborhood for years ever considering that The group found out that they could take this protocol that bitcoin was built on and sort of extrapolate it and use it to build these dispensed methods this allotted structure around storage and computation etc and building applications on top of it’s that there is there was once a consciousness that it used to be that it had obstacles it had limitations at scale and the group’s been attempting to figure out find out how to tackle that at the same time whilst building apps on high of it and some thing that LeMans mentioned which fairly has stuck with me is that whilst every body was relatively busy building apps they forgot about what the core of distributed technology is all about which is reaching consensus And what hash graph has executed is it has revolutionized that process we will agree concerning the things that have been speaking about at Scale and that’s a revolution.It can be the largest revolution in view that the net right and you were simply following your coronary heart to do it. Oh, thanks the item it wasn’t correct So we have now been watching at this effective new science for roughly per week now and what I in finding so tremendously strong is that it holds the promise to clear up the entire problems that the opposite distributed ledger allotted network ledger programs have Bitcoin once it started to scale up it became out that it used an big amount of energy to run the approach and also as it scaled up it became slower and slower and slower to the place it used to be not at foreign money It was once essentially a speculative automobile you persons might make some good points in buying vigour on it but it wasn’t something that you just might stand in line at a Starbucks and pay for a cup of coffee for a friend of mine simply did a transaction that took 4 hours for affirmation and so that is extremely quick typically Instantaneous the number of transactions that it could possibly approach per 2d is intellect-boggling compared to Bitcoin And it makes use of virtually no vigor, so it solves all the problems that I had with Bitcoin there may be a number of one of a kind crypto currencies now and lots of of them are engineered to both be turbo or to be extra sound and robust, however everything has a collection of alternate-off And so whatever function that they need to present they need to give up some thing else so the particularly speedy ones if they need them to nonetheless be speedy as soon as they may be scaled up? They may be extra vulnerable to a few sort of attack or hacking the ones which can be much less prone to attack and hacking have the crisis of scaling they’re going to be gradual So you know velocity equity the place the transactions are recorded in the absolute order that they came in some cryptocurrencies offer you the potential to pay further to have your transaction mine first and that really is not fair a dispensed ledger will have to be recording the whole thing on the absolute time of event after which full consensus is reached and there’s no argument No going back that is set in stone for ever So now we’re really on our solution to speak to one of the most group at hash graf and be trained more about this after I first arrived I was speaking to one of the vital hash graph team about how so much vigor the Bitcoin system uses in this day and age it has literally long past via the roof if Bitcoin had been to switch the complete world monetary method and economic markets it might use extra energy than the whole world produces it’s totally unsustainable This is one of the causes.I’m desirous about hash graph it is amazing efficiency the opposite intent these guys already have industrial purchasers utilising their technology at an industrial scale how it’s getting used at present is in confidential businesses? It’s been deployed via the credit score union organization the place Cu ledger is a gaggle of 6,000 credit unions and a consortium that had to make a determination what disbursed ledger science had been they’ll use it and we beat IBM hyper ledger, and we’re super proud of that it’s we’re a small organization not more than six men and women in these days and the truth that we would go up in opposition to IBM.It’s a real David and Goliath story, and we’re quite happy with that it’s also being utilized in aetherium established initiatives where quite a few these ico coin choices are opening to comprehend the obstacles of the etherium protocol in that today it can be five to seven transactions per 2nd Hash graph is once more that thousands of enormous quantities of transactions per 2nd Which opens up a whole new genre of applications that would not ever run on aetherium our technology speaks for itself it’s night time and day in real evaluation to everything else in the market and everything falls short exceptionally on the subject of safety we’re asynchronous Byzantine fault tolerant. We are the strongest form of protection that you may get in a allotted architecture you do not have to take our phrase for that. There may be 30 years of academic literature on within the house of vote casting situated systems Ours is a voting founded procedure with out the balloting we do digital balloting which sounds bizarre, however it works.It can be peer-reviewed Mathematically confirmed, that’s what obtained the credit unions the fact that we’ve absolutes walk in the park that once we obtain consensus. This is consensus it can be not it’s not blockchain in that with every extra confirmation We emerge as slightly extra particular, however we’re certainly not truly precise and that’s the case certainly of blockchain with hash graph you not ever have that what if you’re a hundred percentage precise that that is the way things are this isn’t theoretical We’re no longer speakme a few white paper or some voodoo idea that’s just isn’t functional on the grounds that the actual fact of the matter is this is a tech stack that you can go down load at present it can be been out for a at the same time now We took it to TechCrunch Disrupt to have developers and the hackathon out there construct on it We gave a $5,000 prize to a group that developed up the hash graph reasonable auction ledger and what that’s is a distributed auction for the primary time ever in the history of mankind where there is not any centralized infrastructure, but disbursed events might publish a bid and we will nonetheless make a decision who won that auction think Sotheby’s or eBay but with out a chief without any vulnerability and with complete equity, that is certainly not existed earlier than well for me probably the most entertaining applications or capabilities applications for hash graph are in in terms of internet of matters in terms of identity and In permitting us to be in a position to control our possess identity as an alternative of it being in the fingers of enterprises or other firms from our currency or monetary standpoint It opens up potentialities in in setting up international locations you realize there is so many prospects that before hash graph acquired invented. All these potentialities failed to exist, however now they do It relatively does appear like hash graph has cracked the drawback of consensus at scale once again you will discover the pace of evolution on this area correct in entrance of your eyes and like I said in Washington DC It might not be Bitcoin that dominates this house it may not be aetherium it may not be hash graph however you have to fully grasp how speedily this thing is moving. It is a very wonderful time The extra I discovered about this science the more, I wanted to learn about it So I headed straight to Texas to satisfy with lemon Baird hash graft CEO mance Harmon We we each lived within the equal town It used to be without a doubt a suburb of Austin, Texas, Cedar Park, Texas and there is a Starbucks on the nook we might meet there after children have long gone to bed and would sit down on the Starbucks until they’d close and very quite often until late within the night after they’ve closed we’d almost always watch the persons at Starbucks Bag up the entire trash and throw it over into the dumpster and depart it And i would be sitting there speakme about the cutting-edge proposal and in the modern-day evolution of the hash graph that you know what’s the contemporary rabbit hole that? Leeman was once taking place in terms of exploration of how you can resolve this quandary And so there are nice many reminiscences of this system in that designated location it can be certainly the case that we’re looking to alter the face of the internet We’re wanting to make the internet what it must were from the beginning however no one stopped to determine what’s the correct way to do this and the web grew up in this kind of approach that there are serious? Architectural flaws and protection flaws and and there is a lack of believe at an awfully actual sense And we see the opportunity to fix that challenge and there is a general understanding throughout the neighborhood that what we’re doing at present in the world of dispensed consensus is sort of identical in lots of ways to what occurred in the mid-90s with the introduction of the world huge net and the way that changed Society and essential And and so we’re not by myself on this it’s apparent to the community We just happen to have the first-class technology out there on the right second in time And so we have now been given this privilege of being able to be on the main edge and and perhaps uh sure on this new believe layer on top of the prevailing internet and there is a unique camaraderie that comes together with wanting to take action your to do whatever as as bold as say we’ll trade the web So it’s humorous the ledger discipline could be very huge and humans come to it from extraordinary instructional materials some people thirty years in the past We’re coming to it from making computer systems now not have faults but they are additionally concerned about Create cryptocurrencies or easy methods to create intelligent contracts or easy methods to create? Brief stared in short expertise or the right way to do databases the database world has been doing this for a long time my My curiosity used to be reasonably distinctive What I wanted to do was once to permit collaboration My intention is that we should have any person on this planet at any moment can just wave their hand and carve out a bit of our on-line world Carve out an international of their own with no need to pay something at no cost create a courtroom world of their possess and invite some buddies And now we’ve got a shared world anyone must be in a position to create this shared world and in this shared world you and that i must be equipped to create records and create films and create 3d objects and we must be ready to collaborate with each and every different and speak to each other We will have to be able to engage in methods where i am now not the dictator of the whole world.I can’t delete the whole thing arbitrarily We should have ideas enforced So perhaps it is a fair world where I can’t delete matters you create or possibly it’s a reasonable world where we vote on things Or might be it is an international in which we have now a inventory market And you could be certain that the primary bid gets matched up with the primary acts now not the later ones We won’t have a global that you simply and i will trust and that our buddies that we now have invited and probably the strangers now we have Invited can trust goes to work the way in which we wish And we are able to trust that if my computer dies and is erased i can get the entire knowledge back the information will certainly not disappear however to do it absolutely free of charge No server worried just the laptop the humans concerned with entire trust with no need to believe anyone person whatsoever and Be in a position to have this shared world that has the equity and then the pace I imply I wanna be equipped to play good points on this world So I need a ledger the place i’m recording every single time a person moves or shoots or decide upon whatever up you wish to have to be in a position to do a sport and We’re speakme 1000s of countless numbers of transactions per 2nd, possibly we want massive velocity and we wish complete protection we wish privateness we wish no person is spying on us this is not funded by commercials you want to spy on me So i have better commercials we want it just to be anything that appears out of nothing that’s just residing on our desktops and then when we’re ready to have a shared world we want to have multiple shared worlds that join to one another So maybe you and i and some neighbors set up just a little inventory market just for ourselves to ship things from side to side The banks do that they may be called dark swimming pools.It’s like a bit tiny inventory market only for a couple of gamers that trust each other sort of but not utterly. I do not totally trust you and have even the problems with dark pools the place probably Banks are taking potential of one of the crucial know-how worried, probably one banks website hosting the server however they may be able to manipulate the timing a bit of bit, and we must fear about this I do not want that I desire a thoroughly trustworthy inventory market that maybe you and i in a few banks established but then I wish to have one more style saved world that might be keeps track of a cryptocurrency And i need them to be competent to link so that that cryptocurrency is used to buy and promote our stocks.I want to be able to have a recreation world that hyperlinks to a Wikipedia? World the place it seems that pieces of Wikipedia are sincerely part of our world and as they change within the Wikipedia world they change in Our world you want to have shared worlds which might be web interlocking with every different that enable shared trust even across these things that is the vision for what we would like The web to be it is going to trade the way in which we even seem at what? Our on-line world is what the internet is what our networks. Even what our computer systems? That is what is going on to happen and twenty years from now when the youngsters who’re born, then are developing up. They’re no longer even going to believe about web sites and Emails as a separate thing and web and the various hacking assault that we’ve today they are simply gonna take it as a matter of direction that any time.I won’t speak and wave my fingers I get a shared world. It’s free it is easy it’s nontoxic and riskless i will be able to invite two neighbors or one million pals and all of it simply works And it’ll trade the way in which we feel of what the web is that is what I? Began being focused on constructing and this is the path that we’re going that is what allotted Ledger’s do is they’re going to eventually permit us to do this and there is various rough edges is we have growing pains and disbursed ledger technology today but we will recover from the growing pains we can get to a world that quite is quick and secure and reasonable and we can enable to then have this vision of shared worlds big public ones little private ones everything linked That used to be the concept that used to be five years in the past so i admire enjoying with math so I stored enjoying round with how would you do it, and that i convinced myself? Yeah, it can be not possible.You can’t try this. There’s no approach which you could have quite excessive throughput considering that and and now have all these security and equity properties You simply are not able to do it in view that eventually you come to be having to inform every person what you consider and then telling folks what other persons suggestion they usually that you can have hundreds of thousands or billions of additional votes and receipts on votes floating round and simply does not work so I was once capable to convince myself. It’s now not feasible and i set it apart And it might come back and haunt me, and it would preserve nagging at me, and so i’d select it up again And i’d spend a few days going through it and going by means of the math and realizing No, I used to be correct.It relatively is not possible You can not try this and set it apart again, and this stored going for years i have lots of math issues some i’ve been engaged on for a long time they just for some thing cause I have no idea why they just latch on to me, and i are not able to get far from them and ultimately I said Wait a 2d if we’re all just talking to each other and you incorporate a tiny bit of additional expertise We could each grow to be with a entire history of precisely how we talked to one another in what order? But if I had that i would recognize precisely how expertise flowed by means of our neighborhood i’d recognize what you already know i’d know when you discovered it i would comprehend what about what Alice knows and what you understand about what Alice knows about what Bob is aware of and about when? They realized it. I would comprehend a lot that I would take a kind of tremendous impractical not possible to gradual voting algorithms and do it and not using a votes in any respect I would just sit right here and say oh, i know how you can vote so do not trouble vote casting do not tell me your vote I comprehend it.I will simply fake that you voted and i’m going to simply faux and i’m going to just get to the conclusion and So all we do is we just speak to e we speak anyway to send out our transactions We had a tiny bit of expertise and it gives us this entire history the historical past is known as a hash graph You just get this complete hash graph that lets you see such fantastic quantities of know-how about who knows what when That then you definately get consensus for free but that is the place we’re going and where we’re at the very early stages I imply the planet is at the early stages of what Ledger’s can do and that i think whatever you think that Ledger’s probably equipped to do they are able to try this however they are able to additionally do extra and we’re just as as a as a species beginning to learn what the final limits are and we’re pushing as quick as we will along that route and so that is the Gateway to the following net that is it this is the next word Technically the geeks will invariably know good.There is a couple of layers, and the web’s nonetheless down there on the bottom just adore it normally has been but for the customers What they think of after they feel of their intellect of what the online is is altering and that’s what’s going to be specific and a low energy rate ah Let’s talk about vigor price which you could run this on your cell cellphone Am I right the processor and a phone telephone apps is adequate to simply run definitely hash graph surely so There are systems that will require you to purchase a supercomputer. It’s called a mining rig it can be a huge field full of particularly developed chips that don’t do whatever valuable humanity they simply intellect this means that they solve math problems that don’t have any inherent use The rationale of them is to sluggish down the community This isn’t this is not sound excellent just on the face of it.I’ll spend some huge cash on a supercomputer after which i’ll Use a lot of electrical energy to run my supercomputer and the whole point of the supercomputer is to gradual down the network but that is what it’s and so proof of work programs work that manner Proof of work is relatively wonderful considering the fact that it was once the primary to exhibit us all of the prospects of Ledger’s however it’s the primary new release. We’re naturally have got to move beyond that and we will I suppose over time So with hash breath yeah, you would run a full notice for your phone cellphone you’ve complete whatever a tool that’s extremely robust.What are your hopes and desires? My hope and dream is that this pushes us forward alongside this route to an web of shared worlds like we’ve got been speakme about the place any one can collaborate with any person and? The information is saved you don’t have got to pay for a server to hold it it is secure. It is personal where you could have the rules enforced We might established an institution and trust that elections don’t seem to be being rigged due to the fact that the rules are enforced you don’t have to trust someone individual we would have money and trust that no person’s going to inflate the money give for the reason that the foundations are enforced and it’s guaranteed we would store The deed to your condominium and at any given second I might know that we’re all seeing the same answer as to who owns it So that you just can’t promote it to one man or woman and also promote it to anyone else at the same time you’ll be able to get caught due to the fact it is a publicly seen thing that every person knows that each person else is seeing the identical thing I I vision an international the place the entire web works this fashion or we all know that we are able to all see the equal factor and that ideas are enforced that we now have collaboration and to try this we need speed we want safety we need fairness and i my intention is that what we’re doing? Pushes us along that direction in view that that is the purpose that we ought to get to the place the nature of the web itself is unique considering it has a believe layer So this has been my three-12 months ride of discovery from Bitcoin to hash graph and the entire promise that they contain Now once we make a documentary like this You shoot hours and hours and hours of movie and you ought to make a decision what to put in and what to go away out? Many of these friends we interviewed for someplace between a 1/2 an hour to greater than two hours and so they said strong things and stuff that you simply rather do wish to be taught and So we will make all of this on hand as bonus photos on hidden secrets of cash Dot-com and so go there if you’re keen on any of this, however mainly hash graph you know we wanted to take you on this experience of discovery to show you these stepping stones along the way in which and My hopes and desires after I first began on this ride was that Bitcoin was going to be the technology that used to be going to help free the world to make a fairer extra affluent freer planet for absolutely everyone via serving to to vary the fiscal system and it has Bitcoin is highly primary, it’s just like the very first vehicle it can be like the invention of electrical energy it is like deciding find out how to harness hearth it’s it’s a very very most important technological know-how, but no man can Design anything that’s imagined to be a free-market interaction and predict all of the unintended consequences, and what satoshi nakamoto has carried out right here is gorgeous besides when he did it determining easy methods to Incentivize folks he over Incentivized the mining area and what has occurred to Bitcoin is it has end up this behemoth that is now not the promise of a forex it is not going to interchange the sector financial process or the monetary markets no one is without a doubt utilising it for transactions they are utilising it as a hypothesis now and So it’s not living up to the original promise of what bitcoin was presupposed to be Hash graph could now we have yet to look right now not one of the blockchain technologies that i do know of can run markets the place it is acquired to be definitely instant and surely fair hash graph can furnish these things you realize The people on Wall avenue were form of like dinosaurs watching up at an asteroid and now not realizing What was once coming all of the sudden? Every person in the monetary sector is scrambling to check out and work out how they may be able to get a reduce of this and one of the vital matters plenty of the Wall avenue humans do not recognize but, is that a variety of them are already out of date now hash graph due to the fact it’s plant patented.There’s there isn’t any token which you can buy right now there may be it’s a platform. It is identical to the blockchain. It’s it can be something that underlies functions that will be developed on high of it so but this The section that underlies those purposes. This can be a innovative trust layer that speeds everything up Conserves vigour and turns the web into something entirely special seeing that it can be thoroughly decentralized so far as government within the economic process we now have noticeable a gigantic change due to the fact that the founding of the united states of the us It used to be based on freedom and what we now have noticeable is increasingly managed through government and the financial procedure inserting themselves increasingly and more between members that want to transact with one yet another now the powers that be are usually not going to need to go down without a battle and this does have a skills to supplant most of what they do to remove much of the vigour and that’s fairly what I want to see and so this is my first-class hope and dream, however we’re not out of the woods but, we ought to hold pushing this forward and Please aid it.That is anything that each person must get concerned with and everyone must spread the information on it if you need it to prevail identical to the commencing of this episode These applied sciences really do have the vigor to enslave or free mankind it’s going to be one or the opposite there is not any core ground right here and right now we have now the possibility to opt for. This can be a decisive second in history the way forward for mankind relies on what you accomplish that be trained as a lot as which you could about this space all of it consult with hidden secrets of money comm and watch the bonus points specifically the stuff from Lehmann Baird at hash Graph share this video with every body that you could and until subsequent time.Thanks very so much for watching just right luck, and we will see you next time but they are really known as ICO preliminary coin choices and .

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From Bitcoin To Hedera Hashgraph (Documentary) Hidden Secrets Of Money Episode 8

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From Bitcoin To Hedera Hashgraph (Documentary) Hidden Secrets Of Money Episode 8

At present mankind stands at a crossroads And the path that humanity chooses will have a greater impact on our freedom and prosperity Than any occasion in historical past in 2008 a brand new technological know-how was presented. That is so principal that hits destiny and the fate of mankind are Inextricably interlinked, it is so robust that if captured and controlled It would enslave all of humanity, but if allowed to remain free and flourish it might foster inconceivable levels of peace and prosperity It has the power to switch all monetary methods Globally to supplant 90% of Wall street and to furnish some services of presidency it has no agenda it can be continuously reasonable and impartial it can’t be manipulated subverted corrupted or cheated and It inverts the vigour constitution and areas manipulate of one’s destiny in the hands of the individual one day when we seem back on the 2.6 million yr timeline of human progress and the predominant turning facets that ended in modern-day civilization the creation of farming the domestication of animals the invention of the wheel the harnessing of electrical energy and the splitting of the atom The 60 yr progress of computers the internet and this new science will likely be regarded upon as a single occasion a Turning point with a purpose to change the direction of human historical past it can be called full consensus disbursed ledger science And up to now its predominant use has been for crypto currencies equivalent to Bitcoin but its skills goes far a ways past that hello, i am right here in Washington DC throughout the street from the Federal Reserve due to the fact that i’m quite occupied with something We would be on the verge of a paradigm shift in foreign money and trade that would put areas like this the Federal Reserve and other vital banks out of trade in Our fourth episode of hidden secrets and techniques of money we called upon the viewers To become a member of a discussion to enhance a brand new world financial system and the men and women that put forth essentially the most logical and compelling Arguments where the cryptocurrency and Bitcoin persons? So i’m here at a significant Bitcoin conference that has drawn experts from in every single place the world And i’m going to be hanging out with them asking plenty of questions constructing my own opinion.I’d such as you to strengthen yours due to the fact that this might be some thing that changes the world the most long-established query I get today is when are you gonna make an episode of hidden secrets and techniques of cash about crypto currencies The intent this has taken so long is that I wasn’t completely satisfied releasing this video unless I was once comfortable explaining how it works and now I finally can As I said in the intro we’re gonna begin this experience at my first ever Bitcoin convention This used to be the primary time I had achieved a deep dive into studying Bitcoin and after it finished I stored on studying and learning some extra and it really grew to become intricate to finish this episode seeing that the speed at which this house is evolving but only some weeks in the past I discovered about whatever new that would trade the whole lot and i knew we needed to get this video out speedily This fairly is large we are going to study more about this present day leap forward later in the video considering so as to explain it we have got to go correct again to the commencing and learn how Bitcoin works Like most humans in the beginning I found the entire thing to be very abstract and difficult however now I’ve located a way of breaking it down in order that you do not have to be a rocket scientist to get it i am going to explain it via utilising an ancient obstacle that Bitcoin claims to have solved.It is called the Byzantine generals obstacle and until now it can be been unsolvable The problem goes like this How do you are making obviously certain that multiple entities that are separated by distance R in absolute? Full agreement before an motion is taken in other words How can character events be able to guarantee full consensus? Here is the illustration think that you are a basic in the Byzantine army and you are planning to assault an enemy metropolis you have got the city, surrounded by way of several battalions each and every of them camped several miles from the other and every of them. Led through one other general a Coordinated assault on the town from all sides whilst will probably be triumphant but an uncoordinated attack will possible end in defeat you have decided to assault at dawn, but you don’t have any walkie-talkies or phone phones and indicators from flags torches, or smoke might be obvious by using the enemy How do you make sure with absolute sure bet that the entire different generals reach? Consensus and all assault collectively at dawn You would send messengers on horseback, however what if one of them is captured or killed earlier than delivering the message you might have got to have a reply from each of your generals confirming that they have obtained your message because of this that they would must send messengers to you on horseback, but what if they are captured or killed? What if a messenger is captured via the enemy and an imposter messenger with a false reply is sent back to you and how do the other generals know that the messages that they obtain from you are exact and have not been? Intercepted and adjusted by way of the enemy Worse yet what if probably the most different generals are traitors they usually ship messages again to you confirming that they’ll attack at daybreak When their true intention is to retreat? How will you ever be surely precise that your entire battalions will reach consensus and attack simultaneously Like I stated this situation has remained unsolved for hundreds and hundreds of years and at its core it can be all about character parties being ready to believe each different directly.No strings attached Bitcoin claims to have conquered this, bro now assume that the battalions are honestly computers on a network and that the generals are copies of a pc program going for walks a ledger a ledger that via some very difficult math files transactions and pursuits within the specific order that they occurred the key right here is that every one of those Ledger’s are exactly the equal for one and all as quickly as a change is made on one replica of a ledger whether it is established to be genuine by means of the math all different copies of the ledger are updated to check What now we have here is a dispensed ledger that is also invariably in consensus This is one of the first things to appreciate about Bitcoin it is the first full consensus dispensed ledger mankind has ever obvious This network will also be increased across the entire planet It implies that person events on reverse aspects of the world can come to consensus on an occasion with out requiring any 1/3 celebration as an intermediary for believe whether or not it’s an order from a normal to his troops, or are an order from you for a pizza a disbursed ledger confirms by way of math whether or not an event is right and files it completely Bitcoin the first full consensus distributed ledger is a believe computer however is it one hundred percent safe that is a query for later in the episode, but for now the place did Bitcoin come from and who invented it well Bitcoin was once at first developed through an a pseudo, nonnamous developer, Satoshi, Nakamoto there’s plenty of speculation about who he is and albeit I I work straight with him, but I have no notion but that on no account particularly concerned me on the grounds that Bitcoin itself is open source and so any engineer can evaluation the Bitcoin supply code evaluate the Bitcoin cryptography and comprehend and trust the program So you do not have got to believe who wrote it you believe the software itself and so that used to be one of the most big causes why Satoshi chose Open-supply for Bitcoin is so which you can have believe within the method.You do not ought to trust who he’s I do not know who Satoshi Nakamoto is I? Also, have no idea who Euclid was might have been some dude in Sicily a couple of years, BC but we do not particularly be aware of we’ve some historical records that tell us that Euclid used to be any one who invented geometry in the ancient world however it’s not relevant Euclidean geometry works whether or not i do know who you chlid is or not whether Euclid was a great guy or an evil character Euclidean geometry comfortably works. It can be completely unbiased of its creator, and if we failed to comprehend who Invented the electrical motor or the radio or any of these core science traits? Electrical energy So what they nonetheless work? You do not have got to have any attraction to Authority we don’t must worry in regards to the motives now in a centralized system.The place anybody is in control it issues who’s behind the curtains it quite concerns who is in control it matters? Who invented it due to the fact that they remain in manage or they could have a secret approach of controlling it bitcoin is wide open and No, one is in manipulate and all people can see precisely how it works So how does it work and what’s the factor? Crypto currencies like Bitcoin permit men and women to transact with every other using the web anyplace on the planet as an alternative of getting an account quantity like a checking account or a credit card Crypto currencies are far more secure on the grounds that they have got a public key and a confidential key it’s like having to account numbers one for deposits and an additional for withdrawals you’ll be able to mainly see them displayed as a string of characters, or a scannable code This stage of security means that you would put your public key on a billboard should you desired to and your funds would still be secure the only thing different individuals can do with your public key is send dollars to you it can be your personal key that gives you entry to your money so long as you preserve manage of your personal key Your funds are most likely safe and theft and fraud are essentially inconceivable however just like money in your wallet You need to maintain it riskless to preclude it from being stolen its protection is completely your accountability Cryptocurrencies may also provide you with privateness identical to cash you do not must disclose any individual information when you spend them against this a bank card has your name Account quantity and expiration date these act like a public key but the similar of your confidential key your signature and protection code are displayed in undeniable sight that is just simple stupid.I’ve toured 5 national money museums and even as I used to be at certainly one of them I noticed a group of younger pupils on a institution trip i will be able to simply think that some day someday a bunch of kids will be standing around the bank card display Pointing and laughing on the excellent stupidity of the method we once used and this is the factor Crypto currencies are lightyears forward of our current technology in view that Bitcoin used to be the first cryptocurrency i’ll use it as our instance, and i’ll expand on our earlier description of a disbursed ledger however first where does Bitcoin get its value Bitcoin is brand new to mankind in that it can be each a forex and a fee network at the same time, and this is the place Bitcoin gets its price the mammoth community of computer systems all around the world strolling the Bitcoin distributed ledger every 2nd of daily these computer systems are retaining the ledger up to date and in full consensus through a system that Incentivizes them to approach and confirm transactions the system that Bitcoin runs on is known as blockchain think of it as a brand new variant of an ancient-normal bookkeeping ledger however as an alternative of a handwritten record of entries and calculations a blockchain is a digital record of entries and Calculations a block is with no trouble a bundle of transactions feel of a block as a entire web page of transaction in the old-customary ledger a Blockchain is just a chain of blocks it is the identical as a whole sequence of pages within the historic-normal ledger handy, huh? This is how it works the Bitcoin blockchain certainly exists in each probably the most millions of computers on the community as designated copies of each and every other however for this illustration in order that we can zoom in and which you can rather see simply how a blockchain works i will exhibit it as one huge blockchain in the center of a small network of desktops Let’s comply with a pizza transaction with Bitcoin when the transaction occurs it first appears on the network in a pool of Unconfirmed transactions together with enormous quantities of others from all world wide hundreds of thousands of exclusive desktops from the network Then acquire a few of these transactions and location them in their possess blocks the desktops are all growing blocks always within the hope that theirs would be the subsequent one introduced to the professional chain a new block is brought to the chain each ten minutes or so when probably the most computer systems wins the right to have its block? Recognized as the subsequent in the chain and is rewarded with a prize of newly created bitcoins the way in which a pc wins the prize is by using seeking to guess the reply to an totally difficult math problem in fact the difficulty is so problematic that even with thousands of computers making guesses Billions and even trillions of times per 2d it nonetheless takes roughly 10 minutes to find the reply once one of the vital computers guesses the correct reply and wins the entire hundreds of thousands of computers on the network that didn’t win are instructed to throw away the entire work.They have accomplished replace their Ledger’s with the block from the winning laptop and begin again with a new math quandary in doing so the computer systems use an monstrous amount of vigor and rate a literal fortune to run So why do they do it on account that it may be very rewarding that is where the time period mining for bitcoins comes from as an alternative of hanging gold via mining for worthwhile metals in the barren region These computer systems are hoping to strike Bitcoin by way of mining useful numbers on the Chane however when these millions of computer systems are choosing transactions to enter their blocks they aren’t all choosing the same transactions and no longer all of the blocks are the equal measurement Some include more transactions some incorporate much less when blocks are thrown away the transactions they incorporate return into the pool of unconfirmed Transactions which means the likelihood of a transaction being validated and staying in the order it was tested in is just not Absolute but it surely turns into extra of a walk in the park every 10 minutes as new blocks are delivered in fact for terribly giant transactions it is recommended that you look forward to six or extra blocks about 60 minutes to be without doubt exact that a cost is permanent so Why is it so sluggish? Why is your pizza bloodless before you own it curiously? The method is slowed down on rationale And this is why? With the insane concern of guessing the answer to the mathematics difficulty you might consider that the chances of two or more computers successful while are particularly inconceivable, nevertheless it without a doubt occurs fairly mostly this is called a tender fork and when it occurs the entire computers in the network acquired each of the successful blocks and are prompt to create a new block in an effort to chain to the block they obtained first but considering the fact that of varying internet connection speeds distinctive computer systems obtain different profitable blocks at unique times the tie is broken Roughly ten minutes later when one of the vital desktops solves the brand new math trouble And it is block is introduced to the ledger and the longest chain wins however what happens to all of the blocks on the other aspect of the fork they are discarded together with all of the Transactions they contained which return into the pool of unconfirmed transactions this smooth Forking is the foremost purpose the approach have got to be slowed down on reason via the math crisis if the system was once instantaneous it would be forking far and wide at all times and there would be no consensus no person would have any suggestion Of which ledger was once the proper one and every computer could be busy constructing an additional block to create yet one other fork The slowness and tremendous quantity of computing energy is required to maintain the bitcoin Ledger in full consensus thus as increasingly computing vigour is introduced to the community the approach mechanically Adjusts to develop the predicament of fixing the maths difficulty Which then requires much more power? If bitcoin is ever going to be widely used it is going to be using a gigantic quantity of the arena’s energy There are different programs for reaching consensus, but we are going to appear at these later within the episode For now Bitcoin is working as supposed and allows for folks to transact with each different making use of the internet anyplace in the world Bitcoin it is the primary full consensus disbursed ledger that mankind has ever obvious but it’s no longer the last i’m right here at the conference with Eric grill of coin outlet And i’m going to purchase some of my very first bitcoins proper now And so Eric’s going to show me how to try this.He is gonna. Tell me it is a paper wallet that’s correct, so i will be able to put i will load this paper currency. That’s inside this little ziplock right here with bitcoins, and so i am gonna take $one hundred invoice and hold that for a second, so what am I purported to do with this now? You can scan the your public tackle into the in there. Yes, ok, and pull it out when it beeps okay? Okay, it beeped exceptional show your balance and okay, and ok And Aha, so I’ve obtained zero.Sixteen zero 7 three 2 9 4 bitcoins, and i just completed this session, and now it can be sent it and it’s completed and so essentially in the blockchain the hundred bucks that I just put in Gave me that zero.Sixteen some thing bitcoins within the blockchain it can be been assigned to my account code and in the back of right here i can peel this open, and there’s a code that’s my confidential key that buying power is now protected in the blockchain that is mirrored around the globe hundreds of thousands of occasions, so thanks very so much Eric quality.That’s great meeting you yeah special desktop and a first-class advancement forward for and in relation to convenience yes the individuals developed it. They are going to start working out Cryptocurrencies more once they get an publicity that is very similar to an ATM that’s what we’re married. Yes. K. Thanks. Thank you So I’ve spent a day on the conference now and that i desired to return and variety of problematic on probably the most matters that I’ve soaked up and that i came here to Washington Circle in Washington DC at the back of me as a statue of George Washington various folks don’t know this however you already know the innovative warfare was once a struggle fought to free themselves from legislation from government intrusion on their lives from too much taxation and The founding fathers had been combating for liberty and freedom and on the end of the battle George Washington was once in control of the armies of this continent and might have topped himself Emperor however as a substitute chose to resign his fee and retire to private existence Giving us this present of a free Republic one of the most matters that i am getting from this convention is that quite a few them are concerned about law and so it is this same revolution being fought far and wide once more they may be worried about regulation they are not able to honestly stop transactions with crypto currencies but they would come and take a look at and punish us afterwards and make it less possible to be used and it is a device that would free humanity it can be an mighty soar in science and potent soar within the abilities evolution of mankind And so if this battle is lost and governments do succeed in seeking to regulate The crypto currencies it might be like dropping the revolutionary battle this stands for the whole thing that the founding fathers stood for the notion in freedom liberty and the man or woman option and accountability for your own movements On day two I Listened to more of the authorities and the more I learned the more i spotted just how so much I wanted to grasp Even as soon as you recognize the entire technical small print about Bitcoin.There is still loads to be trained about preserving your cash secure in the real world some of the fascinating things I learned is within the early days of the internet They were truely paving the way for something like Bitcoin earlier than they even knew what it might be So when the first web browser used to be constructed There was a 404 error page not found and there may be also a 402 error fee approach not detailed so again once they at the beginning developed the online browser They have been serious about the time once they would eventually realize the technological know-how create the technological know-how to switch value over the web they did not have the science back then but they still had the foresight that finally we might get there well now we’re here Bitcoin is a option to that you just guys it’s hard to isolate. What in specified about Bitcoin is so effective, but I’ve had to identify one factor i would say used to be a disbursed network that is kind of an strong thing considering the fact that it’s well-nigh immortal it may exist In trillions of copies everywhere the sector what that means virtually is that it are not able to be destroyed I mean you would practice every regulator each bureaucrat each baby-kisser every valuable banker in the world assign it to break the blockchain and so they could spend you realize 24/7 doing this smashing reproduction after replica after copy and break trillions of copies, but so long as there is one left someplace and there continually will probably be it might reproduce itself immediately and are available into existence of billions and trillions of times over once more nearly instantly what this means is that the blockchain itself is more strong that all the govt’s in the world combined often over that is massive.Now we have on no account had a instrument this powerful to beat back the despot of the for the period of lots of the conference i couldn’t find any individual that shared a number of the considerations that i’ve about Bitcoin similar to being a Deflationary currency that was until I met Chris Ellis Chris tell me concerning the considerations that you’ve got so Bitcoin correct now remains to be an experiment as are most crypto currencies and the cost is generally supported by using a Speculative sentiment and that’s when you consider that markets are forward pricing mechanisms individuals are watching at the know-how and so they’re purchasing on the basis of what they feel different persons will do in the future with that expertise and i consider that a lot of folks having spoken to a variety of merchants as good they’re telling me anecdotally that humans are usually not spending their bitcoins, so i am worried.I feel the the economic part of Bitcoin is in most cases The weakest, that is why we’d like quite a lot of these replacement crypto currencies to play around with one of the vital parameters, however we will have to we must don’t forget this an experiment for now mm-hmm one among my considerations is that in a deflation pace slows down on the grounds that your forex goes to be worth more the next day to come than it is in these days and So humans have a tendency to hoard foreign money in a deflation like the satisfactory depression for illustration Bitcoin goes to have So many coins monthly released, and then that stage drops each is it each yr or 4 years except it gets to a level where it reaches 21 million coins and it stars When it stops i have two considerations One the Bitcoin mining that humans are doing is what encourages Them to leave desktops walking everywhere the planet, and that’s what makes Bitcoin work now i do know there is a small transaction cost, and if velocity the quantity of transactions picks up enough Then the transaction fee is a purpose to leave your computer on but you’ve got a deflationary currency that encourages hoarding and now not spending it on transactions and So when it reaches the 21 million what is the reward for leaving the computers strolling if pace? Slows and people are inclined to hoard it and there is no new coins to be mine Anymore so and plus the price of energy is most of the time going to move up at some point.Yeah. Have you ever got some other issues? Yeah, one of my issues in this area is that there are most individuals listed here are communications and advertising they may be within the business of persuading men and women and i consider we want more developers we ought to inspire younger individuals there are typically fewer than a thousand folks on the earth that definitely comprehend tips on how to Code a cryptocurrency and that may be a large form of centralization they become like Congress and then we ought to form of go to them as lay individuals who have no idea the way to code and ask for alterations or otherwise We end up having to fork the code and produce our possess one so I nonetheless feel there’s so much to do in terms of outreach getting current programmers into the Bitcoin area onto the github Repository so they are able to making their possess changes and experimenting and studying as well So what have I learned up to now few days about Bitcoin and different cryptocurrencies I’ve realized that they’re a easy mathematical system that’s fair sincere and impartial I’ve realized that that is more than just a digital forex I inspiration that this was once just for sending value from one individual to a further this is a revolution a good way to trade the arena it’s going to tear down borders it will connect the globe it’s as essential as the web used to be but due to the fact that it connects people due to the fact it frees folks there will come a day the place there’s a call to keep watch over it – discontinue it – shut it down possibly? The persons which are calling for those matters their factors have to be questioned when you consider that what they’re seeking to prevent is freedom.It is that simple one of the most things that cryptocurrency does is it presents freedom and the persons which might be will be calling for its? Legislation or its abandonment will be the financial sector a principal financial institution’s? Government’s in view that It provides for lots of the matters that govt does very poorly it’ll do very well That the financial procedure presently does very poorly it’ll do good it is reasonable honest impartial instantaneous and can’t be subverted the only caveat are that Bitcoin has first mover abilities it’s the largest one, nevertheless it may not be the person who succeeds it’s an experiment at this point but the predominant factor is that the genie is out of the bottle freedom is on its way to us right now we can all aid it or we are able to let it languish and i consider that this cannot be stopped so am I going to sell my gold and silver and convert all of it to Bitcoin without doubt no longer Bitcoin as I said is an scan there’s a possibility that these matters might go to zero before they may be thoroughly developed there’s a possibility of some form of catastrophic failure proper now it has proved very amazing and unhackable you don’t know what is going to occur at some point so one factor to preserve in mind The Germans came up with the Enigma machine in World struggle two, and it used to be supposedly uncrackable after which we broke the code and then they introduced one more dial to it to increase the complexity many-fold And it used to be presupposed to be uncrackable and we cracked the code So bitcoin has now not been utterly demonstrated it can be received five years of existence now and robustness this may be the reply to all of mankind’s issues on the subject of a easy medium of trade however it’s more than which you can make these sensible contracts that settle with with a algorithm So a person doesn’t receives a commission until all of the principles that you’ve founded are fulfilled you can create escrow with yourself where there’s a third occasion that has to signal off that a transaction has been completed before the cost goes via they’re engaged on things the place which you can take delivery of something continuously and pay for it as you employ it it would be like procuring the internet for each 2nd that you are utilizing it simplest or buying the gas that’s delivered to your house as a substitute of monthly you’re being billed per thermal unit and without a frictional fees involved so this provides up to effectivity thus mankind is left over with more prosperity if there isn’t any 0.33 party in between bleeding off financial power you grow to be with extra prosperity this can be a superb factor for all people and given that it’s so reasonable and neutral there may be much less of a need for the court process.There’s less want for presidency, and principles and law and folks to put into effect all of these things sooner or later there will likely be much less want for Wall street that Wall avenue Does not comprehend it yet? But they are antiquated dinosaurs of the previous about to go extinct that you can connect stocks and bonds and matters such as that to Crypto currencies and companies would now do I POS simply on the internet they wouldn’t have Wall street anymore? They do not want a third celebration like goldman sachs or any other enormous brokerage residence taking a reduce there isn’t a have got to fear about corruption due to the fact that the code are not able to be corrupted I do recognize that i’m going to be putting a few of my capital into Cryptocurrencies to any extent further and aiding this motion and helping to push the liberty of mankind ahead and this is whatever else the purpose that persons buy bitcoin is the same intent that men and women buy gold and silver it can be an substitute to all the other currencies the fiat currencies which might be being printed into oblivion on this planet correct now, and so they do away with the need for a third get together trust you do not ought to believe a person else with your bitcoins You handiest need to trust yourself.You do not have got to believe someone else together with your gold and silver you ought to trust yourself So the explanations are the identical and so i might inspire every beneficial metals investor to investigate Bitcoin and the opposite cryptocurrencies And i would encourage each Bitcoin and cryptocurrency consumer and investor to examine priceless metals, i’m going to keep each I appear at the crypto currencies as an extraordinarily speculative risky and possibly dicy play I seem at gold and silver similar to financial savings. I see them as anything that has by no means failed in 5,000 years they’re established and that i see them as enormously undervalued in comparison with the morass of fiat currencies on this planet at this factor So once I came here I anticipated to seek out nothing but a digital payment system and what I determined is a science that may revolutionize The planet if the founding fathers of the united states were standing right here beside me they would be fighting for this revolution hello, that is an action alert for July eleventh 2014 I promised the entire insiders that i would keep them up to date on what i am doing financially and not too long ago I’ve accomplished whatever fairly exclusive up until now my portfolio is totally priceless metals gold and silver bodily but i have been investigating Bitcoin quite slightly I was in Washington DC recently at a Bitcoin conference, and i learned lots about it.I grew to be convinced that this has a enormous upside talents The downside talents it might be quick-time period and there’s a draw back chance that it could completely fail So i’m now not going to place various my portfolio into it but in the future i will as a rule be up to around 10% of my portfolio going into Bitcoin feel it or no longer the other factor that i’m doing is i am shopping a bunch of Pegasus 1 ounce Rounds because they are a cut price, and that i lately reduce a video about how? One of the things I did not get around to for the duration of the convention was speakme to shops about their expertise of accepting Bitcoin as payment i’d emerge as occupied with accepting Bitcoin at my possess industry but I nonetheless had some questions so I made a shuttle to Salt Lake city to see Patrick Byrne now.It is a guy I’ve really bought respect for on the grounds that he understands financial historical past economics and the frictional nature of our current economic method and Wall road So i do know that you are in a rather low profit margin business being a web-based retailer of reduction items I too, am in an awfully low revenue margin business you might have been taking Bitcoin you’re probably the most first giant companies to undertake Bitcoin the primary the primary large industry quality what is your suggestion for me? Well we’ve got Publicly, and that you may appear at our public filings our gross margins are in the excessive teens which is relatively low For a retailer and our running margin is a little bit over 1% 1.2 percentage and of course to take individuals’s bank cards bills about 2 or 3 or four% for many businesses for those who begin doing earnings in Bitcoin And it saves you say three% for your rate these those earnings as a substitute of being 1% that margin go to four% web margin so it can be rather particularly if you are a good margin trade it makes numerous sense to take delivery of Bitcoin and prevent these bank card processing costs those bank card firms and that part of the economic enterprise relatively has an mighty potential to sit down for your The exchanges you are making with the general public and extract they’re basically extracting the whole profit margin for themselves and Bitcoin ends that Cryptocurrency ends that so so it’s a frictionless approach frictionless system, however that you would be able to you understand the Empire is gonna strike back? It doesn’t matter what they’re saying.I suppose the monetary enterprise is relatively. Sorry They failed to do extra to place a discontinue to Bitcoin kill it in its cradle now that it’s getting some momentum. They are no longer in a position to that is their complete business model is to extract is to be in that role the place they may be able to extract the rents through their monopoly or oligopoly and Bitcoin ends that so it is relatively an arrow proper on the heart of their industry model if you do not believe the fiscal process anymore there’s clearly two ways of testing you could buy gold physical gold and silver and get it somewhere nontoxic where it can’t be taken from you and the other solution is to Get get into the crypto revolution given that commencing this episode we have noticeable a blockchain growth the IPO as I mentioned are going down now but they are virtually known as ICO initial coin offerings and The early nonchalance of the financial industry has been changed by using a race to boost their own blockchain fee techniques given that of its fee of development Bitcoin has been burdened to the limits the place it used to be once quick and low-cost it is now gradual and pricey correctly the disorders Bitcoin has suffered from have resulted in political infighting Bitcoin forking into multiple types and substitute cryptocurrencies gaining market share everyday allotted ledger science has caught hearth and there is a speculative mania happening while the hypothesis can not go on eternally one thing is for sure Blockchain is here to stay or is it? Last week I was once in New York city For a assembly that we had scheduled that I idea was once going to take a couple of days And it ended up best taking a few hours so with the entire leftover time I determined to move talk over with an historical friend Demetri Covina’s he used to have a one of the crucial first-class economic shows on television referred to as capital account you might recall him from Episode two of hidden secrets of cash where he talked about Greece and the hubris of leaders and empires and the way history repeats Anyway, he has a new podcast known as hidden forces and once we visited him He used to be all fired up about this new technology and this podcast you realize when I listened to it I acquired all fired up and he invited us to attend an event so we went residence to l. A. There for two days and correct back to new york once more and to the occasion that he hosted about Hash Graff science created by way of Leland Baird that is ordinarily going to end up exchanging blockchain technology I mean that is colossal.We went to the event we listened to one of the most folks which might be involved with this And we were just most likely blown away So i go back To consult with with Demetri now and get his take on how the occasion went final night time and the place the way forward for this factor is going when you consider that the arrival of Bitcoin there had been many 1000’s of blockchain headquartered crypto currencies created And now there are more of them being created every day So what’s distinctive about hash graph well it is not blockchain.It is totally one of a kind in fact the best way it works is an actual intellect-bender and now not very handy for me to give an explanation for that i am gonna give it a are trying as a substitute of a block in a blockchain Hash graph calls their applications of expertise events your laptop takes a transaction like a fee or whatever else for that subject similar to an motion in a videogame an offer to sell merchandise and even sell shares or bonds a bid on that item a contract or even a legislation ordinarily any understanding or transaction you need to file and it places it within the occasion for transmitting information quickly hash graph makes use of a science that has been the gold regular in laptop science for many years it’s tremendous rapid and it is called gossip protocol Your pc randomly tells another laptop in the network in regards to the occasion you could have created and that pc responds through telling your laptop about any hobbies it heard about then that computer tells a different computer about your event and the opposite pursuits it heard about and the laptop it can be speakme to responds by telling all the activities it is aware of about it is undoubtedly the first-class most efficient technique to unfold expertise, and it can be exponentially fast however here’s the twist every time a laptop tells one more laptop about an occasion it also involves the understanding of the time it heard it And who had heard it from and the time they heard it And who they heard it from and so forth and so on it is referred to as gossip about gossip And it lets everyone be aware of what everyone else is aware of and precisely after they knew it in simply fractions of a 2d the opposite most important factor is an excellent older technology And it is probably the most potent cozy and unique means of coming to absolute consensus it is referred to as balloting protocol, but except now It used to be so sluggish that no person ever used it and the twist that hash graph has given.It’s that there’s no balloting instead given that every body already knows what every person else knows which you can mathematically Calculate with one hundred% walk in the park how they might vote it can be digital voting and it allows hash graph to come to consensus virtually instantly So alternatively of recording things on a block after which adding it to the blockchain once each 10 minutes Hash graph hobbies are brought to the procedure immediately the second they’re created in order that they would not have ten minutes worth of knowledge in them because of this they are small they usually incorporate some distance much less data so that they use little or no bandwidth and are so much easier to transmit and when you consider that it’s now not trying to guess the reply to an incredibly intricate math hindrance trillions of times per 2nd hash graph uses just a Miniscule quantity of energy from what I’ve visible up to now in comparison with blockchain hash graph is lightning-quick more relaxed and provably fair all pursuits are time-stamped the moment they’re woven into the method so the document of whose event came first in who’s got here second is immediate and there is no such factor as tender forking or Unconfirmed routine it could also change big portions of the web that are currently run via Centralized servers via exchanging them with the shared computing energy of all of our own computer systems iPads and telephone telephones It appears like hash graph would simply have the advantage of satisfying all of the usual hopes and dreams I had for blockchain science the vigour to decentralize and do away with the middlemen from commerce banking inventory markets and much of the legal process and government with the velocity at which this technology is evolving the longer term is watching bright and hash graph is the excellent example of just how quick matters are moving in this field good I consider the quite amazing innovation that Leemon has made is in the best way in which he has made adjustments to the gossip protocol And to the balloting approach in an effort to make them suitable at scale proper since a balloting algorithm can work And that you could reach consensus in the within the designated identical means however with a view to set up that in the actual world the bandwidth constraints on it could be such that you simply’d never genuinely be equipped to almost use it however by incorporating the gossip protocol and developing the hash graph after which being capable to make use of that along with the local knowledge that you have in reminiscence and strolling a voting algorithm in the neighborhood on the laptop with no need to solid any votes or ship any votes over the you are definitely able to get all those robust ensures that you just get with a voting algorithm but you’re ready to do it at scale and that is what’s so awesome and to be fairly sincere.It’s it is difficult to imagine How nobody idea of it it can be a type of great ideas that you would have most effective looked on reflection and mentioned how did no person consider of this however at the time no one did so one of the challenges I think with any new technology like that is how do you rather provide an explanation for to persons? How do you’re making a compelling case for what makes a technological know-how so compelling right and? One of the matters that’s so compelling about this technological know-how is the throughput it’s the speed And it’s it is you realize that you may tell people that they’ve proven over 300,000 minimum demonstrated Transactions per 2nd versus bitcoins three to seven max, but like how do you variety of get that in your head? And i type of did a back-of-the-envelope calculation and that’s roughly twice the speed of sound relative to a snail’s percent Bitcoin being a snail’s percent and This community literally being like a supersonic jet touring at twice the speed of sound Which is I mean simply wrap your head round that for a second? It’s it’s exquisite it is not even like within so you can see the change it’s huge and figuring out of direction that the speed of the community The rationale why bitcoin is so gradual is since they have got to make it gradual considering the fact that if it is not sluggish it would fall aside it could department off everywhere you could possibly in no way have consensus now recollect the explanation of the Byzantine generals quandary from prior and the way blockchain was built to remedy it? Here’s whatever no longer many humans be aware of blockchain programs are not Technically Byzantine fault tolerant they got here shut, however no cigar So i like many persons anticipate that block chain was once Byzantine fault tolerant and in fact I failed to utterly admire what that even supposed I sort of just assumed it and given that I noticed it as a type of part of the bigger photograph of Blockchain being very cozy and no longer having been hacked but actually it’s not Byzantine fault tolerant and the motive why it’s no longer Byzantine is considering with a view to be Byzantine you will have there has to become a point in time when you’ve reached consensus you recognize you will have reached consensus, and you’ll under no circumstances be improper and you’re under no circumstances going to vary your intellect And that does not happen with blockchain given that the character of the community the the geometrical qualities of the blockchain community require you to normally kind of admire that you are by no means absolutely sure your probabilistically more constructive that you are arriving at consensus however that is additionally why on the blockchain network.You have to maintain a entire historical past of the ledger considering that you form of ought to have the capability to do a Forensic analysis in the event that you’re wrong in the event that the network has fork Then you don’t understand it And so that is anything that you do not have got to do with hash graph considering the fact that with hash graph Your your comb coming to consensus each few seconds And that you can dump the complete historical past of the community’s knowledge and just preserve rolling ahead considering the fact that you’re without doubt certain that you just reached Consensus and that’s the difference. I think the foremost main issue the kind of the significant deal in the blockchain neighborhood for years ever considering that The group found out that they could take this protocol that bitcoin was built on and sort of extrapolate it and use it to build these dispensed methods this allotted structure around storage and computation etc and building applications on top of it’s that there is there was once a consciousness that it used to be that it had obstacles it had limitations at scale and the group’s been attempting to figure out find out how to tackle that at the same time whilst building apps on high of it and some thing that LeMans mentioned which fairly has stuck with me is that whilst every body was relatively busy building apps they forgot about what the core of distributed technology is all about which is reaching consensus And what hash graph has executed is it has revolutionized that process we will agree concerning the things that have been speaking about at Scale and that’s a revolution.It can be the largest revolution in view that the net right and you were simply following your coronary heart to do it. Oh, thanks the item it wasn’t correct So we have now been watching at this effective new science for roughly per week now and what I in finding so tremendously strong is that it holds the promise to clear up the entire problems that the opposite distributed ledger allotted network ledger programs have Bitcoin once it started to scale up it became out that it used an big amount of energy to run the approach and also as it scaled up it became slower and slower and slower to the place it used to be not at foreign money It was once essentially a speculative automobile you persons might make some good points in buying vigour on it but it wasn’t something that you just might stand in line at a Starbucks and pay for a cup of coffee for a friend of mine simply did a transaction that took 4 hours for affirmation and so that is extremely quick typically Instantaneous the number of transactions that it could possibly approach per 2d is intellect-boggling compared to Bitcoin And it makes use of virtually no vigor, so it solves all the problems that I had with Bitcoin there may be a number of one of a kind crypto currencies now and lots of of them are engineered to both be turbo or to be extra sound and robust, however everything has a collection of alternate-off And so whatever function that they need to present they need to give up some thing else so the particularly speedy ones if they need them to nonetheless be speedy as soon as they may be scaled up? They may be extra vulnerable to a few sort of attack or hacking the ones which can be much less prone to attack and hacking have the crisis of scaling they’re going to be gradual So you know velocity equity the place the transactions are recorded in the absolute order that they came in some cryptocurrencies offer you the potential to pay further to have your transaction mine first and that really is not fair a dispensed ledger will have to be recording the whole thing on the absolute time of event after which full consensus is reached and there’s no argument No going back that is set in stone for ever So now we’re really on our solution to speak to one of the most group at hash graf and be trained more about this after I first arrived I was speaking to one of the vital hash graph team about how so much vigor the Bitcoin system uses in this day and age it has literally long past via the roof if Bitcoin had been to switch the complete world monetary method and economic markets it might use extra energy than the whole world produces it’s totally unsustainable This is one of the causes.I’m desirous about hash graph it is amazing efficiency the opposite intent these guys already have industrial purchasers utilising their technology at an industrial scale how it’s getting used at present is in confidential businesses? It’s been deployed via the credit score union organization the place Cu ledger is a gaggle of 6,000 credit unions and a consortium that had to make a determination what disbursed ledger science had been they’ll use it and we beat IBM hyper ledger, and we’re super proud of that it’s we’re a small organization not more than six men and women in these days and the truth that we would go up in opposition to IBM.It’s a real David and Goliath story, and we’re quite happy with that it’s also being utilized in aetherium established initiatives where quite a few these ico coin choices are opening to comprehend the obstacles of the etherium protocol in that today it can be five to seven transactions per 2nd Hash graph is once more that thousands of enormous quantities of transactions per 2nd Which opens up a whole new genre of applications that would not ever run on aetherium our technology speaks for itself it’s night time and day in real evaluation to everything else in the market and everything falls short exceptionally on the subject of safety we’re asynchronous Byzantine fault tolerant. We are the strongest form of protection that you may get in a allotted architecture you do not have to take our phrase for that. There may be 30 years of academic literature on within the house of vote casting situated systems Ours is a voting founded procedure with out the balloting we do digital balloting which sounds bizarre, however it works.It can be peer-reviewed Mathematically confirmed, that’s what obtained the credit unions the fact that we’ve absolutes walk in the park that once we obtain consensus. This is consensus it can be not it’s not blockchain in that with every extra confirmation We emerge as slightly extra particular, however we’re certainly not truly precise and that’s the case certainly of blockchain with hash graph you not ever have that what if you’re a hundred percentage precise that that is the way things are this isn’t theoretical We’re no longer speakme a few white paper or some voodoo idea that’s just isn’t functional on the grounds that the actual fact of the matter is this is a tech stack that you can go down load at present it can be been out for a at the same time now We took it to TechCrunch Disrupt to have developers and the hackathon out there construct on it We gave a $5,000 prize to a group that developed up the hash graph reasonable auction ledger and what that’s is a distributed auction for the primary time ever in the history of mankind where there is not any centralized infrastructure, but disbursed events might publish a bid and we will nonetheless make a decision who won that auction think Sotheby’s or eBay but with out a chief without any vulnerability and with complete equity, that is certainly not existed earlier than well for me probably the most entertaining applications or capabilities applications for hash graph are in in terms of internet of matters in terms of identity and In permitting us to be in a position to control our possess identity as an alternative of it being in the fingers of enterprises or other firms from our currency or monetary standpoint It opens up potentialities in in setting up international locations you realize there is so many prospects that before hash graph acquired invented. All these potentialities failed to exist, however now they do It relatively does appear like hash graph has cracked the drawback of consensus at scale once again you will discover the pace of evolution on this area correct in entrance of your eyes and like I said in Washington DC It might not be Bitcoin that dominates this house it may not be aetherium it may not be hash graph however you have to fully grasp how speedily this thing is moving. It is a very wonderful time The extra I discovered about this science the more, I wanted to learn about it So I headed straight to Texas to satisfy with lemon Baird hash graft CEO mance Harmon We we each lived within the equal town It used to be without a doubt a suburb of Austin, Texas, Cedar Park, Texas and there is a Starbucks on the nook we might meet there after children have long gone to bed and would sit down on the Starbucks until they’d close and very quite often until late within the night after they’ve closed we’d almost always watch the persons at Starbucks Bag up the entire trash and throw it over into the dumpster and depart it And i would be sitting there speakme about the cutting-edge proposal and in the modern-day evolution of the hash graph that you know what’s the contemporary rabbit hole that? Leeman was once taking place in terms of exploration of how you can resolve this quandary And so there are nice many reminiscences of this system in that designated location it can be certainly the case that we’re looking to alter the face of the internet We’re wanting to make the internet what it must were from the beginning however no one stopped to determine what’s the correct way to do this and the web grew up in this kind of approach that there are serious? Architectural flaws and protection flaws and and there is a lack of believe at an awfully actual sense And we see the opportunity to fix that challenge and there is a general understanding throughout the neighborhood that what we’re doing at present in the world of dispensed consensus is sort of identical in lots of ways to what occurred in the mid-90s with the introduction of the world huge net and the way that changed Society and essential And and so we’re not by myself on this it’s apparent to the community We just happen to have the first-class technology out there on the right second in time And so we have now been given this privilege of being able to be on the main edge and and perhaps uh sure on this new believe layer on top of the prevailing internet and there is a unique camaraderie that comes together with wanting to take action your to do whatever as as bold as say we’ll trade the web So it’s humorous the ledger discipline could be very huge and humans come to it from extraordinary instructional materials some people thirty years in the past We’re coming to it from making computer systems now not have faults but they are additionally concerned about Create cryptocurrencies or easy methods to create intelligent contracts or easy methods to create? Brief stared in short expertise or the right way to do databases the database world has been doing this for a long time my My curiosity used to be reasonably distinctive What I wanted to do was once to permit collaboration My intention is that we should have any person on this planet at any moment can just wave their hand and carve out a bit of our on-line world Carve out an international of their own with no need to pay something at no cost create a courtroom world of their possess and invite some buddies And now we’ve got a shared world anyone must be in a position to create this shared world and in this shared world you and that i must be equipped to create records and create films and create 3d objects and we must be ready to collaborate with each and every different and speak to each other We will have to be able to engage in methods where i am now not the dictator of the whole world.I can’t delete the whole thing arbitrarily We should have ideas enforced So perhaps it is a fair world where I can’t delete matters you create or possibly it’s a reasonable world where we vote on things Or might be it is an international in which we have now a inventory market And you could be certain that the primary bid gets matched up with the primary acts now not the later ones We won’t have a global that you simply and i will trust and that our buddies that we now have invited and probably the strangers now we have Invited can trust goes to work the way in which we wish And we are able to trust that if my computer dies and is erased i can get the entire knowledge back the information will certainly not disappear however to do it absolutely free of charge No server worried just the laptop the humans concerned with entire trust with no need to believe anyone person whatsoever and Be in a position to have this shared world that has the equity and then the pace I imply I wanna be equipped to play good points on this world So I need a ledger the place i’m recording every single time a person moves or shoots or decide upon whatever up you wish to have to be in a position to do a sport and We’re speakme 1000s of countless numbers of transactions per 2nd, possibly we want massive velocity and we wish complete protection we wish privateness we wish no person is spying on us this is not funded by commercials you want to spy on me So i have better commercials we want it just to be anything that appears out of nothing that’s just residing on our desktops and then when we’re ready to have a shared world we want to have multiple shared worlds that join to one another So maybe you and i and some neighbors set up just a little inventory market just for ourselves to ship things from side to side The banks do that they may be called dark swimming pools.It’s like a bit tiny inventory market only for a couple of gamers that trust each other sort of but not utterly. I do not totally trust you and have even the problems with dark pools the place probably Banks are taking potential of one of the crucial know-how worried, probably one banks website hosting the server however they may be able to manipulate the timing a bit of bit, and we must fear about this I do not want that I desire a thoroughly trustworthy inventory market that maybe you and i in a few banks established but then I wish to have one more style saved world that might be keeps track of a cryptocurrency And i need them to be competent to link so that that cryptocurrency is used to buy and promote our stocks.I want to be able to have a recreation world that hyperlinks to a Wikipedia? World the place it seems that pieces of Wikipedia are sincerely part of our world and as they change within the Wikipedia world they change in Our world you want to have shared worlds which might be web interlocking with every different that enable shared trust even across these things that is the vision for what we would like The web to be it is going to trade the way in which we even seem at what? Our on-line world is what the internet is what our networks. Even what our computer systems? That is what is going on to happen and twenty years from now when the youngsters who’re born, then are developing up. They’re no longer even going to believe about web sites and Emails as a separate thing and web and the various hacking assault that we’ve today they are simply gonna take it as a matter of direction that any time.I won’t speak and wave my fingers I get a shared world. It’s free it is easy it’s nontoxic and riskless i will be able to invite two neighbors or one million pals and all of it simply works And it’ll trade the way in which we feel of what the web is that is what I? Began being focused on constructing and this is the path that we’re going that is what allotted Ledger’s do is they’re going to eventually permit us to do this and there is various rough edges is we have growing pains and disbursed ledger technology today but we will recover from the growing pains we can get to a world that quite is quick and secure and reasonable and we can enable to then have this vision of shared worlds big public ones little private ones everything linked That used to be the concept that used to be five years in the past so i admire enjoying with math so I stored enjoying round with how would you do it, and that i convinced myself? Yeah, it can be not possible.You can’t try this. There’s no approach which you could have quite excessive throughput considering that and and now have all these security and equity properties You simply are not able to do it in view that eventually you come to be having to inform every person what you consider and then telling folks what other persons suggestion they usually that you can have hundreds of thousands or billions of additional votes and receipts on votes floating round and simply does not work so I was once capable to convince myself. It’s now not feasible and i set it apart And it might come back and haunt me, and it would preserve nagging at me, and so i’d select it up again And i’d spend a few days going through it and going by means of the math and realizing No, I used to be correct.It relatively is not possible You can not try this and set it apart again, and this stored going for years i have lots of math issues some i’ve been engaged on for a long time they just for some thing cause I have no idea why they just latch on to me, and i are not able to get far from them and ultimately I said Wait a 2d if we’re all just talking to each other and you incorporate a tiny bit of additional expertise We could each grow to be with a entire history of precisely how we talked to one another in what order? But if I had that i would recognize precisely how expertise flowed by means of our neighborhood i’d recognize what you already know i’d know when you discovered it i would comprehend what about what Alice knows and what you understand about what Alice knows about what Bob is aware of and about when? They realized it. I would comprehend a lot that I would take a kind of tremendous impractical not possible to gradual voting algorithms and do it and not using a votes in any respect I would just sit right here and say oh, i know how you can vote so do not trouble vote casting do not tell me your vote I comprehend it.I will simply fake that you voted and i’m going to simply faux and i’m going to just get to the conclusion and So all we do is we just speak to e we speak anyway to send out our transactions We had a tiny bit of expertise and it gives us this entire history the historical past is known as a hash graph You just get this complete hash graph that lets you see such fantastic quantities of know-how about who knows what when That then you definately get consensus for free but that is the place we’re going and where we’re at the very early stages I imply the planet is at the early stages of what Ledger’s can do and that i think whatever you think that Ledger’s probably equipped to do they are able to try this however they are able to additionally do extra and we’re just as as a as a species beginning to learn what the final limits are and we’re pushing as quick as we will along that route and so that is the Gateway to the following net that is it this is the next word Technically the geeks will invariably know good.There is a couple of layers, and the web’s nonetheless down there on the bottom just adore it normally has been but for the customers What they think of after they feel of their intellect of what the online is is altering and that’s what’s going to be specific and a low energy rate ah Let’s talk about vigor price which you could run this on your cell cellphone Am I right the processor and a phone telephone apps is adequate to simply run definitely hash graph surely so There are systems that will require you to purchase a supercomputer. It’s called a mining rig it can be a huge field full of particularly developed chips that don’t do whatever valuable humanity they simply intellect this means that they solve math problems that don’t have any inherent use The rationale of them is to sluggish down the community This isn’t this is not sound excellent just on the face of it.I’ll spend some huge cash on a supercomputer after which i’ll Use a lot of electrical energy to run my supercomputer and the whole point of the supercomputer is to gradual down the network but that is what it’s and so proof of work programs work that manner Proof of work is relatively wonderful considering the fact that it was once the primary to exhibit us all of the prospects of Ledger’s however it’s the primary new release. We’re naturally have got to move beyond that and we will I suppose over time So with hash breath yeah, you would run a full notice for your phone cellphone you’ve complete whatever a tool that’s extremely robust.What are your hopes and desires? My hope and dream is that this pushes us forward alongside this route to an web of shared worlds like we’ve got been speakme about the place any one can collaborate with any person and? The information is saved you don’t have got to pay for a server to hold it it is secure. It is personal where you could have the rules enforced We might established an institution and trust that elections don’t seem to be being rigged due to the fact that the rules are enforced you don’t have to trust someone individual we would have money and trust that no person’s going to inflate the money give for the reason that the foundations are enforced and it’s guaranteed we would store The deed to your condominium and at any given second I might know that we’re all seeing the same answer as to who owns it So that you just can’t promote it to one man or woman and also promote it to anyone else at the same time you’ll be able to get caught due to the fact it is a publicly seen thing that every person knows that each person else is seeing the identical thing I I vision an international the place the entire web works this fashion or we all know that we are able to all see the equal factor and that ideas are enforced that we now have collaboration and to try this we need speed we want safety we need fairness and i my intention is that what we’re doing? Pushes us along that direction in view that that is the purpose that we ought to get to the place the nature of the web itself is unique considering it has a believe layer So this has been my three-12 months ride of discovery from Bitcoin to hash graph and the entire promise that they contain Now once we make a documentary like this You shoot hours and hours and hours of movie and you ought to make a decision what to put in and what to go away out? Many of these friends we interviewed for someplace between a 1/2 an hour to greater than two hours and so they said strong things and stuff that you simply rather do wish to be taught and So we will make all of this on hand as bonus photos on hidden secrets of cash Dot-com and so go there if you’re keen on any of this, however mainly hash graph you know we wanted to take you on this experience of discovery to show you these stepping stones along the way in which and My hopes and desires after I first began on this ride was that Bitcoin was going to be the technology that used to be going to help free the world to make a fairer extra affluent freer planet for absolutely everyone via serving to to vary the fiscal system and it has Bitcoin is highly primary, it’s just like the very first vehicle it can be like the invention of electrical energy it is like deciding find out how to harness hearth it’s it’s a very very most important technological know-how, but no man can Design anything that’s imagined to be a free-market interaction and predict all of the unintended consequences, and what satoshi nakamoto has carried out right here is gorgeous besides when he did it determining easy methods to Incentivize folks he over Incentivized the mining area and what has occurred to Bitcoin is it has end up this behemoth that is now not the promise of a forex it is not going to interchange the sector financial process or the monetary markets no one is without a doubt utilising it for transactions they are utilising it as a hypothesis now and So it’s not living up to the original promise of what bitcoin was presupposed to be Hash graph could now we have yet to look right now not one of the blockchain technologies that i do know of can run markets the place it is acquired to be definitely instant and surely fair hash graph can furnish these things you realize The people on Wall avenue were form of like dinosaurs watching up at an asteroid and now not realizing What was once coming all of the sudden? Every person in the monetary sector is scrambling to check out and work out how they may be able to get a reduce of this and one of the vital matters plenty of the Wall avenue humans do not recognize but, is that a variety of them are already out of date now hash graph due to the fact it’s plant patented.There’s there isn’t any token which you can buy right now there may be it’s a platform. It is identical to the blockchain. It’s it can be something that underlies functions that will be developed on high of it so but this The section that underlies those purposes. This can be a innovative trust layer that speeds everything up Conserves vigour and turns the web into something entirely special seeing that it can be thoroughly decentralized so far as government within the economic process we now have noticeable a gigantic change due to the fact that the founding of the united states of the us It used to be based on freedom and what we now have noticeable is increasingly managed through government and the financial procedure inserting themselves increasingly and more between members that want to transact with one yet another now the powers that be are usually not going to need to go down without a battle and this does have a skills to supplant most of what they do to remove much of the vigour and that’s fairly what I want to see and so this is my first-class hope and dream, however we’re not out of the woods but, we ought to hold pushing this forward and Please aid it.That is anything that each person must get concerned with and everyone must spread the information on it if you need it to prevail identical to the commencing of this episode These applied sciences really do have the vigor to enslave or free mankind it’s going to be one or the opposite there is not any core ground right here and right now we have now the possibility to opt for. This can be a decisive second in history the way forward for mankind relies on what you accomplish that be trained as a lot as which you could about this space all of it consult with hidden secrets of money comm and watch the bonus points specifically the stuff from Lehmann Baird at hash Graph share this video with every body that you could and until subsequent time.Thanks very so much for watching just right luck, and we will see you next time but they are really known as ICO preliminary coin choices and .

[dylan38sanders]

Event Cybersecurity Risks Every Event Prof Should Know

Is your event safe from major event cybersecurity risks? Are you doing everything you can to secure your online data from attacks? As event profs, we hold so much data within our registrations, software, and events. We have peoples addresses, credit card numbers, emails, phone numbers, even flight, and hotel information. If you aren’t protecting people’s information you are making yourself and your clients an easy target for a cyber breach. If event cybersecurity is not on your radar yet we guarantee you by the end of this episode of Event Tech Podcast you will be running to your computer to implement the tips we are about to share!

In today’s episode of Event Tech Podcast, Will Curran of Endless Events and Brandt Krueger are going to talk all about cybersecurity at events, why it will be the next big thing (and should be!) in event tech, and how you can take steps to improve your event cybersecurity. Will and Brandt will share their top three ways to protect your events information, how and what cyber attackers will look for, personal anecdotes and more. You cannot miss this episode!

https://www.podbean.com/media/player/8braz-aa52c7?from=yiiadmin&download=1&version=1

Audio Transcription

Intro: Welcome to the Event Tech Podcast were we explore the ever-evolving world of event technology every week. This show is brought to you by Endless Events, the event AV company that doesn’t suck. Now, let’s talk tech.

Will Curran: Hey ladies and gentlemen this is Will Curran from Endless Events, and joined by the lovely, as always, handsome.

Brandt Krueger: I was gonna say I like how I’m always the lovely Brandt Krueger. That’s not a moniker I get very often.

Will Curran: Am I the only one who calls you lovely Brandt Krueger?

Brandt Krueger: I think you are.

Will Curran: Does your wife not call you that?

Brandt Krueger: No. No. I don’t think she’s ever called me lovely.

Will Curran: Oh my gosh. It’s like man crush Monday over here, which is ironic because we publish this show on Monday’s too. All right. So good.

Brandt Krueger: With that being said.

Will Curran: That being said, everyone, today we’re talking about why cyber security is the next big thing in event tech, and why you need to be concerned about what apps you’re using, how the data is being handled, your wifi security, and just generally be a little more perturbed about how you’re doing your security.

Will Curran: Brandt and I have been doing a session, and let’s be honest, it’s Brandt’s session. I’m here just to add comic relief.

Brandt Krueger: Oh, no.

Will Curran: Brandt, and I, have been doing a session all over the interwebs, and all over the events industry conference circuit, about why you need to be worried about your cyber security. We figured, naturally, we should do a podcast about it. Should we dive right on into it Brandt?

Brandt Krueger: Should we do a podcast about it?

Will Curran: We should do a podcast about this rather than just talk about it. No, actually, let’s rewind. Something we don’t get to talk about when we do this session is why did you get interested in this. You kinda spurred me to thinking a lot more about it as well. I was kinda already there, but then you really helped me kickstart my interest in it. How did your interest in cybersecurity kinda get started?

Brandt Krueger: It’s been a few things. Part of it has just been my personal podcast listening that I’ve been doing pushing about 10 years now, probably more than that. I discovered podcasting when I was a new dad, and started trying to find things that I could listen to quietly while the baby’s sleeping, or while trying to rock her back to sleep, and stuff like that.

Brandt Krueger: I’m pretty sure I had a Blackberry Storm at the time listening to podcasts.

Will Curran: Whoa.

Brandt Krueger: Yeah, I know.

Will Curran: Whoa.

Brandt Krueger: By the way, that thing got a bad rep. That’s a podcast for another time. That was actually a halfway decent device. Anyway, I was listening to a security podcast, and have been for the better part of the last ten years called Security Now, and it’s by a guy named Steve Gibson who was the OG cybersecurity guy, like, literally coined the term malware, and spyware, and things like that, and was one of the first ones to kinda realize that viruses, and things like that, were really going to be an issue.

Brandt Krueger: I’ve been kinda steeped a little in that world for a while, and then more recently I heard an interview with one of the winners of kinda the hack-a-thon things that they do at the Black Hat type conferences. I don’t remember which one because there’s a couple of them. She was really good at doing the social engineering side of things, the get a hold of this person, get their email, then pose as this person on the phone, and then you get this information, and using very little information to start with, but then getting to the ultimate goal of finding something out from a top-level CEO. That kinda thing.

Brandt Krueger: In listening to her talk about how she was getting the access to this information it really started to dawn on me how vulnerable we are as an industry. The amount of information that we are the guardians for is really pretty ridiculous. We’ve got personal first and last names of executives, titles, emails addresses, phone numbers, personal cell phone numbers, travel itineraries, hotel reservations. All of this information is a gold mine for hackers because all they need is a couple of legitimate pieces of information to track … we can get into some of this stuff later, but to crack phishing emails, and things like that where they’re able to make it look like it’s a legitimate email coming from the registration when actually it’s gonna take you to a webpage that takes control of their computer, and all of a sudden you’ve got the keys to the castle.

Brandt Krueger: The information that we’re sitting on is a tremendous treasure trove for hackers. Combine that with some of the high profile hacks that we’ve seen over the course of the last few years, so think about Target, Home Depot, Equifax. Most of these big hacks, especially thinking about Target, and Home Depot, they came in through the side door. It wasn’t that Target themselves got hacked it was I believe in that case it was an HVAC company that they contracted with that they’ve given somebody access to something, so the hackers came in through the HVAC company.

Brandt Krueger: Home Depot, it was coming in through the company that built the credit card readers. It wasn’t even that these companies themselves got hacked, it was coming in through the side door. Well, guess what? We’re that side door. It’s not so much that somebody’s gonna hack me personally, and get my personal information, or my company information, it’s that they’re going to use me to get to my clients whether we’re a planner, or a vendor, some kind of registration supplier, we’re gonna be the soft target on the side that hackers use to get to our high profile clients.

Will Curran: Preach, oh my god, that was amazing. The first time we talked about this I had to agree 100%. I’m definitely not gonna debate you on this one for sure. I think that it’s just so obvious, and I think the warning sign has been already shot with the big Marriott hack, is that everyone realizes, they’re like, oh, well, oh my gosh, I can’t believe this just all happens. Like, guys, that’s one degree of separation from all of us.

Will Curran: I can’t say a single planner out there who doesn’t have a Marriott account that probably wasn’t by it. That’s just personal, but then think about it, all the executives that probably stay there. Oh my gosh, it just goes on, and on, and on.

Brandt Krueger: They weren’t even the [crosstalk 00:06:46].

Will Curran: I think the thing that-

Brandt Krueger: You asked me kinda where did they kernel come from, and it wasn’t any kernel, it’s been a roll. It’s been one thing after another, after another, after another. There were other high-end chains where the individual hotels were being targeted in East Asia countries where they were targeted specific executives accounts at these high-level luxury hotels, and I got to be honest with you, most of those just kinda got swept under the rug.

Brandt Krueger: There would be a quick little news announcement, I won’t say the names of the chains, because I’ll probably get them wrong, but it was all the big names of luxury hotels would get hacked, and then you’d never hear about it again, and then it would be another one. I think it was only because this Marriott one was so big they got stuck, and their name stuck in the news cycle, as opposed to kinda the onesies and twosies that were happening before.

Will Curran: I think you bring up a good point, too. I think you used the term, you call it like an attack vector, right? The attack vector is us as the events, and things like, for example, our registration systems, it’s our event apps, and it’s all just a starting point. It’s funny because you hear about it all the time, and I think one of the things that had made me more aware of it, at least recently, was when I signed up for Dashlane, and they notified me every single time there’s been a breach of data, and some of these things I’m like, wait, I’m a user of this. I didn’t hear about this in the news at all.

Will Curran: The only reason I’m getting notified is because Dashlane just does a really good job monitoring it. I just can’t believe on at least a weekly basis I think you joke about it because I just send you … I’ll be like, oh, by the way, did you hear XYZ got hacked, and you’ll be like, yep, just another one. It seems like it happens every single week. It’s funny because how much the news can kinda protect it, or if they do a good PR crisis management, or a crisis communication as our good friend Alex would say.

Will Curran: They can really sweep it under the rug, but this stuff is happening all day left and right. We have to really make sure that we’re being diligent in protective, otherwise, we’re gonna be in big trouble.

Brandt Krueger: Exactly. You mentioned the attack vectors, so it probably makes sense to spend a couple of moments talking about some of the ways that we’re vulnerable as an industry. One, I kinda mentioned a couple of times, and that’s the registration platforms themselves. We’re kinda just assuming that whoever it is we’re hiring has some kind of cybersecurity in place. When I hire registration platform X I’m just assuming they’ve got folks that are in charge of that kinda thing, and I don’t really have to worry about security.

Brandt Krueger: The problem is I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve been on site and registering for an event, and you look down, and you see the laptops that they’re using, and you can see the password has been written on the screen on a stick note stuck to the side of the laptop screen for whoever random temp worker X who’s coming to work the event, so they can log into the registration platform, or where the planner or someone else who needs access to that, and same kinda thing.

Brandt Krueger: You set it to something that you can remember, or you set it to something that you can get … we’ll get into what we can do about all this stuff later on, but for now just know that it’s not so much that the registration platform itself again is gonna get hacked, it’s more that we’re using insecure passwords, or we’re writing them down on little slips of paper, or those kinds of things.

Will Curran: I think you bring up a really solid point about just the fact that there’s also the temp workers. That’s something we talk a lot about, because how many times do we say that? You were a black polo, and black pants, and you can walk in anywhere and do anything you want. Far too often, just think about it, how often have you had it where someone just shows up and says, oh yeah, I’m here to show up for XYZ duty, you go, okay, cool, boom, and they have the keys to the castle.

Will Curran: Not only on the physical security side but just the fact that, yeah, they could easily get in there. I remember talking about registration platforms one of my clients is doing the whole Self-Reg thing, and I totally get it. Self-Reg, super cool, you can go up and do it real quick, save us on staffing cost, but I walked up one time I think it was before the conference even started, and they had the platform all up, and I just realized I could just export that list, and get in there right then and there, and steal all the information, and it wasn’t even that hard.

Will Curran: Granted, again, I wasn’t staff wearing a shirt, maybe someone from the hotel, or maybe someone from the event might’ve been weirded out when they saw me walk up to the laptop, but I doubt anyone would’ve. I could have totally made off with that data if I was just a random Joe Schmoe walking through the hotel.

Brandt Krueger: That’s one of the things that Steve Gibson the podcaster that I was talking about talks about all the time, is the balance between convenience and security. Convenience and security are kinda like natural enemies. The more you make it easy to access information and get to information, and register, same thing as physical security. If you make it really easy to get in and out of the room as in there’s no security. There’s no security. That’s the easiest level of access.

Brandt Krueger: If you have someone scanning a badge that’s better than nothing. If you have someone checking ID that’s even more than scanning a badge, but it’s less convenient for the attendees. While we’re implementing all this technology to make it easier to register, and easier to get in and out of sessions that also means we’re opening that technology up to be used and abused, and it can be taken advantage of.

Brandt Krueger: You mentioned on-site staff, and that’s a perfect example of another one of our vulnerabilities. Like you mentioned, yeah, I’m a 40 something-year-old white dude. If I put on a black polo I can go anywhere in a hotel. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever been challenged in the 20 something years that I’ve been doing this walking down the back hall.

Will Curran: Once. Only once for me.

Brandt Krueger: You’ve been doing it a long time too. It’s one of those things where if you look like you know what you’re doing, and you’re wearing the right clothes, and look the right way, you can get access, physical security access to wherever you need to go. I can absolutely think, you know, now you start kinda extrapolate that out to temporary staff, or someone’s who’s … a lot of the kinda big news cycle stuff that we saw during the campaign, during the 2016, ’17, time was catering staff. People that were recording what was going on just tapping their phone, and putting it in their pocket, and recording things, and then releasing that information later, in what people thought were private events.

Brandt Krueger: That extrapolates out as well to audiovisual staff. You and I might trust the people we’re working with, but a lot of times the companies are bringing in local staff that they’ve never worked with before. You don’t know them from anybody, so you don’t know. Are you requiring your AV companies to sign confidentiality agreements? I’ve probably been asked twice maybe, maybe three times, to sign an NDA or a confidentiality agreement. Think about the stuff that we handle. I probably stomped on exactly what you were gonna talk about it, so go for it.

Will Curran: I was gonna say, I mean, yeah, the times that you get handed a hard drive with all this confidential information, but then I totally get it, like, let’s be professional, make sure you wipe the drives. That’s kinda the assumed thing, but no one ever makes sure that we do this. No one ever asked about the process. To be honest, if it wasn’t for the fact that A. we’re a little foresighted in knowing that we should wipe them, but how many times that I’ve already pulled up rental laptops and it still has the PowerPoint from the last show still on it.

Will Curran: Guys, if it wasn’t for the fact that I think some of these laptops don’t get wiped, install a new OS, or whatever it is to keep them running new, I mean, I’d bet there’d be PowerPoint decks back to like 1999 on them.

Brandt Krueger: The other side of that is the number of times that someone’s trying to save a couple of dollars, and so they don’t want to rent a laptop either from the AV company, or from a rental company, so they’re bringing in, oh yeah, we’ll use John from marketing’s laptop, and he’s got all these files on the desktop, and pictures of his kids on the desktop, and stuff like that.

Will Curran: Totally, and probably all his saved password in the browser.

Brandt Krueger: Again, you’re then setting that up in a room that anybody’s got access to, or at the very least maybe you’ve got some temporary staff, or somebody who’s got access to it, and if someone had malicious intent that again would be a gold mine of information.

Brandt Krueger: If anything, like you, say-

Will Curran: How many are laptops are stolen from a show. A laptop’s been left our front of house, and you didn’t secure the venue, because you assumed the venue would take care of it, whatever it is. People have walked in stolen laptops right off our front of house. Imagine that’s the CEO’s laptop, or your laptop, oh my gosh, that’s just kinda the physical bridging the digital side of things. My god, the data. The data.

Brandt Krueger: The data.

Will Curran: The data.

Brandt Krueger: The data. Yeah. Like you said, maybe you run into a rental company situation where they forgot to wipe it or something like that, but more often than not I’d say it’s safer to either get a laptop through your AV company or through a rental company for that very reason.

Will Curran: For sure.

Brandt Krueger: They generally do have systems in place to make sure that information is being wiped from a show to show basis.

Will Curran: Oh, you’re back. I thought I lost you there for a second.

Brandt Krueger: Oh, no, I was gathering my thoughts.

Will Curran: Oh, man. There’s so many thoughts.

Brandt Krueger: Sometimes I get deep into thoughts.

Will Curran: And sometimes you never get out. I’ve been there with you before.

Brandt Krueger: To go back to it, yeah, we talked about the onsite staff, and making sure that is something that you’re looking into. Kinda the next big category is hotel WiFi. I knew you would.

Will Curran: I want to get in this one. This is my jam right now. For those who don’t know we’re preaching the idea of making sure A. you’re looking at better WiFi, but also all the things that come with it. Ironically, I was literally doing a webinar two days ago, and I then reference this exact presentation that we give, and say, hey, you need to know as much about cybersecurity as you do why you need fast WiFi. Oh my gosh, I can talk about this one for days.

Will Curran: The tips that I have. I think everyone knows WiFi needs to be secure. You wouldn’t leave your home WiFi wide open for anyone to connect, because A Johnny down the street is gonna like download illegal games on it, and here you get served with a huge penalty from the Recording Industry of America or something like that. But then, sometimes people don’t realize that the reason why you also secure it is because the information passing over the WiFi can be picked up at any moment from anyone at all.

Will Curran: We just talked about the presentations, and the data on these laptops, and physical devices, but also imagine the data flying across the airways at your event. Let’s just talk about reg, and credit card data, things like that, for example, that can be easily sniffed off the internet, but then think about all your attendees who might be doing online banking, or let me log into my corporate email account. It’s terrifying how open these hotel WiFi networks are. When was the last time you remember actually entering a password into the WiFi?

Will Curran: I think this is where we always make sure we clarify. A lot of times when we say password a lot of people are used, okay, I connect to the WiFi, then a web browser pops up, and says enter the password, Aruba2019, well, no, we’re talking about when you actually connect to the WiFi network it will not do anything at all unless you enter the password. On Macs it’s in the top right when you go to connect to the network has a nice lock on it, on Windows, it will say secured right next to it. When is the last time you saw one of those at an event?

Brandt Krueger: The good news is the answer for me is this week.

Will Curran: Oh my god, it’s amazing.

Brandt Krueger: It’s really is pretty rare.

Will Curran: Our preaching is working.

Brandt Krueger: Other than that, it’s been very few and far between, and for some reason we’ve gotten in this mindset that if you’re in public it should be open, so when you go to Starbucks, or wherever you go and you’re just supposed to be able to click on it and go, and I think that started because people didn’t understand WiFi. Oh. It’s so confusing and weird, and oh, what do I have to do? I have to click on this thing, and then what?

Brandt Krueger: At this point, most people understand the difference between an open network and a closed network. A closed network you have to put in a password before it’ll give you access to it, and an open network then yeah maybe you get some kinda splash page, thanks for coming to Starbucks, now you agree to the terms of service and click and go.

Brandt Krueger: If you are seeing anything that is branded, or it says welcome or says anything other than enter the password then it is not a secured WiFi network. If it’s asking you for a meeting code, or it’s asking you for your room number, or anything like that, that is a not-encrypted WiFi network.

Brandt Krueger: You mentioned things like banking, and things like that. Theoretically, that’s all being encrypted in the web browser, so that’s when you get the little lock in the upper left-hand corner and all that kinda stuff. Theoretically, if you’re connecting to your bank over those connections it’s kinda saying are you who I think you are, yes, okay great. Now, we’re gonna encrypt between the two of us, and then all of that information wouldn’t be sent in the clear.

Brandt Krueger: You and I have told a lot of people, and again, we’re gonna get to some tips and tricks here at the end for what you can do to do about all this. You and I have talked in the past about tell people look for the lock, look for the lock. We’ve been saying that for years, and then I ran across an article just a few weeks ago where it basically said that something like 60% of all of the fake malware website have the lock, so you can’t just look for the lock anymore.

Will Curran: Oh, no.

Brandt Krueger:  It’s gotta be one of those things where … so what they’re doing is they’re getting security certificates. All that’s doing is saying hey we’re encrypted between each other. It’s not any kind of identity verification it’s just saying you’re encrypted, I’m encrypted, great. Let’s talk.

Brandt Krueger: And so, what they’re doing is they’re actually encrypting their fake website so that you’re sending your real information to their fake website, and it’s got the lock. Now, it’ll be BankofEmerica.com, or something like that, or Sorny.com instead of the actual address, but nonetheless, it is actually still encrypted. You can’t just look for the lock.

Will Curran: That’s terrifying too because Google made such a good effort with Chrome about three or four months ago to make it so now if your site is not encrypted it takes you to this big bright red page, and says warning, warning, warning. It made people like me who … like on my site there’s not a lot of really super private information we share. It’s like enter your email address and subscribe to the blog. Well, my site even needs to have an SSL. It’s called SSL or secure socket language. Did I get that right?

Brandt Krueger: I think so.

Will Curran: I’m sure you can fact check it while I continue on. Even my site needs an SSL certificate now. As Brandt said, yeah, definitely the lock doesn’t do enough.

Brandt Krueger: Close. Secure socket layer. Way to go.

Will Curran: Dang. I was so close. Rewind back to hotel WiFi, and why you want to make sure that’s secure. Big things are to make sure that it has the encryption on the WiFi obviously. One big thing too is now as Endless now we’re starting to provide WiFi for events is that also realizing that you need to put protections in place to also not allow your attendees to use the WiFi for malicious things as well. Ironically, because it’s not only the fact that they can get in to get the information, but also utilize it for nefarious things like I talked about.

Will Curran: You don’t want Billy Bob downloading the latest movie, and getting you in trouble for having him do that, so making sure that you have some sort of blocking firewall in action as well. If a lot of this sounds super duper confusing on the networking side of things Brandt’s and I’s biggest suggestion that we have is get a guy. Just find a guy who either knows network security, it’s the IT guy who set up all your networks at your office, like, you should have a person onsite just like you have an AV person to monitor all the AV and make sure it’s running well.

Will Curran: You should have a networking person onsite who not only is taking care of the security obviously, knows all the stuff, and can kinda talk jibber jabber to the WiFi providers but also as well can do as a bonus make sure that your speeds are good, and your quality of WiFi is really good, like, oh, if something has an issue they can help spot it and hold them accountable, so you don’t have to play tech nerd, which as much as I wish everyone knew everything about technology it just doesn’t make sense. With all this stuff moving so fast just get yourself a guy.

Brandt Krueger: Yeah. I’m a gender neutral guy, guy, by the way, so when I say guys I mean all kinds of people.

Will Curran: For sure.

Brandt Krueger: Just to clarify on that, because I know some really good guys that are gals. Talking about just the WiFi. For me, the ultimate thing that I want to kind of leave on this topic is just get that password. If you’re talking to the venue just set that password, because even if you set that password to 12345, and even if you put that password on every single piece of paper in the hotel including the toilet paper in the bathroom, if you put that everywhere, that is still more secure than not having a password on your WiFi and asking for a meeting code, or something like that.

Brandt Krueger: It automatically as soon as you put any password on your network itself that turns on encryption, and it just reduces the likelihood that someone’s gonna be able to sniff the traffic, and get information. If I can stress any one thing that’s probably my biggest thing. It drives me absolutely up the wall that we’re not securing our WiFi at our events.

Will Curran: Another bonus tip that I’ll add to this as well is as we start to provide this also create different virtual networks for different types of people who need to connect. For example, you need to make sure that you have a separate virtual network for all of your registration, your credit card processing. Attendees should not connect to that same WiFi in any sort of way.

Will Curran: Same with presenters. Presenters should be separate because they’re gonna have a lot of confidential information. I highly recommend if you’re gonna have any sort of executives from the team or something like, maybe they need to be on a separate WiFi, and exhibitors on a separate WiFi, and then attendees finally on a super simple, secure, separate WiFi that completely is completely secured, as Brandt said, have that WiFi password written on the toilet paper.

Brandt Krueger: Also, then if you’re able to if there is a problem start to narrow it down. On this event that I was just on from a setup standpoint, they did it properly. They had different networks for the attendees, the staff, for the iPads that were running the kiosk, they all had different networks, different logins for each one of those. We were actually able to isolate, hey, wow, the attendees one is actually running pretty well, but the staff one for whatever reason is getting hit, and so we were able to narrow things down for troubleshooting.

Brandt Krueger: When you’ve got everybody on the same network, well, maybe somebody’s watching Netflix, or maybe somebody’s … you’re able to start reducing the number of things that you need to check when there is actually a problem.

Will Curran: Preach. All right. Beat that one with a hotel router.

Brandt Krueger: What can we do to fix this? You’ve made me so sad. I just want to know. What can we do?

Will Curran: To fix hotel WiFi?

Brandt Krueger: What can we do to tell people to start making this better? We’ve scared the crap out of them hopefully at this point, so what can we do to start making it better.

Will Curran: Well, I think first thing is just be aware of the issue. I think that far too often ignorance is bliss. You think to yourself, oh, I’ll be fine, don’t worry, until your social security number gets posted by Equifax everywhere in the world. Now, you become an expert in data security. I think that’s one of the biggest things is like be willing to have the conversations about it, and ask the questions.

Will Curran: For example, when it comes to hotel WiFi, if you’re aware of the issue now you can also talk to it. For example, you’re going to your hotel you can ask them the hard question. What are you doing to keep me secure when it comes to your WiFi?

Brandt Krueger: I think that’s a great step, and I then I think the other thing is changing our mindset a little. That it’s not somebody else’s responsibility. It’s not gonna be the vendor’s responsibility. It’s not gonna be the AV person’s responsibility. It’s all of our responsibilities. We have to take whether you’re a planner, you’re a vendor, you’re a venue, all of us involved in this thing we do called events we all need to take personal responsibility for security.

Brandt Krueger: What I’d love to do is like I say step number one, for me, number one, secure your WiFi. The second one and I know you’re down with this as well, is a password manager. You mentioned it to Ashley, and why don’t you tell folks about password managers.

Will Curran: I’m a huge lover of password managers, and Brandt and I have different opinions on our favorites, but they’re still both very good. Brandt is a LastPass kinda guy, I’m a Dashlane kinda guy, and it’s kinda like the Galway girl kinda thing you can be from Dublin, or you can be from Galway, either way, I just say that because I’m in Ireland right now. When it comes to password managers just get one. They’re so easy. I can’t tell you how many people that I referred to signing up for a password manager, and they say this changed my life. I don’t hear that very often when I say here’s an app, and they go this changed my life.

Will Curran: When it comes to password managers it just automatically fills everything in. It lets you know when things are not secure. It makes sure that you can have super duper secure passwords that you can’t remember, instead you have one master password. You can Google why you should a password manager, and I think that will do a much better job explaining than us, but it’s really crazy how people just use one single password to manage everything, and how easy it is as soon as that one password is compromised, boom, they can go from, oh, they hacked Joe Schmoe’s let’s say … I’m just gonna use your Art of Frames website where you ordered that one frame for that piece of artwork, they got hacked, now they have that password, and then now what they do is they go and test all those sites.

Will Curran: They test all the major banking websites, all these things like that, with that one password, and boom, if you have the same password across everything you’re hosed. It’s scary how little secure passwords are for it, and I think the video that you show at the beginning of the presentation, like, it’s Jimmy Kimmel, but maybe if you want to get a chance to explain what that is, and then kinda give your two cents on password managers.

Brandt Krueger: Like you say, it’ll change your life. You go from having to remember every password for every site to never having to remember any of them. The things that password managers allow you to do is to set long, random passwords for every single site that you access. Like you said, if random website X gets hacked it’s no big deal, because they’re not gonna be able to use that same password on any of the rest of your stuff, because you’ve got a long, random, different password for every single site that you use.

Brandt Krueger: And so, if you’re using monkey123 as your password for your registration platform, and you also used monkey123 as your password for Gmail, or god forbid something else if they get that information like you said they’re gonna start trying every single thing, and then once they’ve got access to your email you’re pretty much cooked, because then they can start changing your passwords and using that email to receive those password change notifications, and things like that.

Brandt Krueger: The biggest thing is once you start entering in your information in password managers it’ll say, hey, whoa, just so you know you’re using this on another site. Would you like me to change that for you, and keep track of it, and do something different? Absolutely, password managers 100% change your life as far as what you can do about it.

Will Curran: Real quick. I was gonna say, the one thing that I think as far as … obviously, it’s really nice to be able to do that. You might be thinking to yourself I can do that on a spreadsheet, or whatever, well, the thing that I think that makes password managers really fantastic … I know LastPass and Dashlane both do this, and a bunch of other sites are doing this now as well, it gives you the ability to also share passwords securely as well. I think in the events industry I can’t tell you how many associations that I’ve been a part of where they say, hey, can you give me the Twitter password, hey, can you give me the MailChimp password, hey, can you give me the password to the bank account.

Will Curran: For my local ILIA chapter I made the big switch, and I pushed everyone, I said, we’re gonna use a password manager, we’re gonna have super secure passwords, and I’m never gonna actually share the password with you. I’m gonna share it via the password manager, and what is cool about it is it allows you to share passwords so they can login without ever seeing the password, which for temp staff, for volunteers, for that, hey, can you send me the password to XYZ really quickly, makes your life so much easier.

Will Curran: The best part is if you have employees this will change your life when it comes to it, because when they get done you don’t have to worry about changing the passwords ever you just revoke access, and boom, you’re all done. As a business owner, it changed my life as well.

Brandt Krueger: Well, yeah, that’s exactly it. The day after that event is done you can revoke access to all of those people, and they don’t have access to the passwords anymore, or if you as a business owner you got to let someone go, or they move on to a different job or something like that, you want to be able to revoke those passwords as well. I discovered accidentally that about three years after I left my previous employer I still had the username and password for their FedEx account.

Brandt Krueger: I went to go log in and it auto-filled the information because it was in my LastPass, and they hadn’t changed it. It was one of those things where I was like, oh, wow, okay, good, look at that. You mentioned the Kimmel thing. That’s just an example of the fact that we think we’re so clever coming up with these passwords, but the fact of the matter is the human brain’s just not capable of remembering a different password for every single site. I’m just curious. I’m gonna bring up the number of sites that I’ve got here in my LastPass.

Brandt Krueger: I’m gonna bring up the number of sites that I’ve got here in my LastPass.

Will Curran: Yeah, I’m gonna do that too.

Brandt Krueger: It’s got to be in the hundreds. It doesn’t show it unfortunately in the vault, but it’s definitely in the hundreds.

Will Curran: I think I got something up on you.

Brandt Krueger: Did you finally find a feature?

Will Curran: Yeah. Dashlane will show me. I’m logging in right now.

Brandt Krueger: Well, okay, I’ve got these categorized. Let’s see, there are 119 personal ones, 185 professional ones, 172 shared family ones, 63 shared financial ones, and 16 shared medical ones.

Brandt Krueger: That’s only in the course … I think I just hit my 10 year anniversary of LastPass a little bit ago.

Will Curran: They should give you some champagne.

Brandt Krueger: Yeah, something like that.

Will Curran: I’m gonna one-up you. You ready for my number of passwords.

Brandt Krueger: Yep. Go.

Will Curran: They had this health score app, but I have over 630 safe passwords. Technically, I have one that’s compromised. It looks like it happened literally a couple days ago. Whitepages.com got compromised, so I gotta change that one. I do have 12 reused passwords, but usually, it’s because someone else has shared the password with me, and I have it saved in there, and it’s used. For example, my dad refuses to use a password manager, so his Netflix password is the same as his HBO password.

Will Curran: Also, I just admitted freely that.

Brandt Krueger: So, you get the warnings.

Will Curran: Yep.

Brandt Krueger: Yeah. You get the warnings. Yeah. I’ve got a few of those as well.

Will Curran: And that I use my dad’s Netflix as well. But yeah, it’s crazy cool how it can help you stay on top of it. It just makes it so easy for you to manage your passwords.

Brandt Krueger: All right. I know we’ve got a lot of other suggestions for folks. I want to leave off some of the higher end stuff, and continue with the easy peasies that we’ve got, so the last one that I think is good to hit for this show is two-factor authentication.

Will Curran: Oh god, yes. Oh my god. I have so much more I want to talk to you about this. We’ve had a couple of process changes I’ve done for this since we last talked about it. Explain Brandt, what is two-factor authentication? Why does it matter?

Brandt Krueger: At it’s most basic level that’s when your bank says, hey, we just didn’t recognize this device, we want to send you a text, so then it sends you a code, and then you punch in the code. The idea being it’s not only a password, but there is a second factor, and it’s some other thing. Usually, the best way to do it is that it involves not only something you know, but also something you have like your phone.

Brandt Krueger: In that example, you go to your bank and type in your password. It says, oh, we don’t recognize this browser we would like to send you a code to your phone assuming that you have your phone, and so you’re able to then get that code, and punch it in. The other ways of doing that is using an actual two-factor authentication app, which is the same kinda idea where when you first log in, and they say, hey, do you want to set up two-factor authentication, and you say yes, it pops up a little QR code, you know, one of those little black and white dotted codes, and that is essentially like setting up a secret code between your phone and that website that’s unique to you.

Brandt Krueger: It’s not something that anybody else would be able to have, so as soon as you snap that code into your two-factor authentication app it starts generating these six-digit codes every minute, and so once every minute it’s gonna generate a new code, so when you go to login to that website it says, okay, what’s the code? You check your authentication app and punch in that particular six-digit code for that minute. And then, it’s gone, so it’s kinda a one time use kinda thing that is constantly revving these codes.

Brandt Krueger: Those are the two most basic ways, but then beyond that they actually have these physical USB key type things where that is essentially the same thing, where that USB key is generating a code once a minute, so you plug that in at the time you’re logging in, and you set up the two-factor authentication, it connects with the USB key, it says, okay, this is what we’re talking about. That’s you, great, okay, now I know that’s you when you’re punching in that code.

Brandt Krueger: And so, Google is doing this. A lot of the higher end kinda mail clients, and DPN clients are doing this. I think you’ve got one of those.

Will Curran: Yeah, I definitely have one that I totally recommend. Google actually released their own version of it. Just search two-factor authentication key Google, but when Google announced this product that they were selling they also made a huge announcement which is that they require all their employees to use physical USB keys plugged in, and since they’ve required that, they have had zero breaches in any accounts across … I mean, how many employees does Google have, a bazillion.

Brandt Krueger: Which is always dangerous when you announce something like that, but that shows the confidence they’ve got in that system.

Will Curran: Absolutely. It’s impossible to replicate because you have to have that physical key. Unfortunately, not every site is utilizing that yet. Even more, unfortunately, is a lot of them are allowing you to do the two-factor authentication app, which is nice, but I’m just so disappointed. For example, we have an industry-specific tool we use for scheduling our teams, and it texts you a two-factor authentication code. If you want to get nerdy with it technically you can hack a text really easily, spoof the cell phone, get the text, boom, good to go, whereas these apps technically they’re only on your one phone except for like my weird set up that I definitely want to talk to you about.

Will Curran: When it comes to this definitely push to use the app as the highly recommended thing. If you can go physical key as well. It makes it so worse comes to worse if let’s say one of your super secure passwords in your password manager gets leaked, or somehow your account still gets hacked because of vulnerability you’re still having that protection, because all of a sudden you’re gonna get a notification saying someone tried to log in your account, and either failed to do two-factor authentication, or you get that really weird message where all of a sudden it’ll say, hey, someone tries to access your account, here’s that code, and you go, I didn’t try to access that just now, and you go, oh gosh I should go lock up my account right away.

Brandt Krueger: Exactly. In kinda order of what we’ve talked about today the easiest thing, check your venues, and say, okay, let’s get a password on the WiFi. The next thing is definitely, definitely, definitely use password managers. There’s no excuse not to at this point. And then, the third is whenever available do two-factor authentication.

Will Curran: Definitely.

Brandt Krueger: Use one of these apps. Be careful, because once you set it up if you lose that information it can get really … bad things can happen. It’s a check against making sure that it’s you.

Will Curran: Can I talk, like, give that personal story about that, because this is where it kinda evolved recently. I just want to share this anecdotal story, is that okay?

Brandt Krueger: Yeah, go for it.

Will Curran: It’s like, no, Will, shut-

Brandt Krueger: I’m just trying to keep an eyeball on the time. I don’t want to go too long with it.

Will Curran: You guys, this is gonna be a special episode. It’s gonna be a little longer because we love it so much. Brandt and I love two-factor authentication. For the longest time, I’ve always used Google’s default two-factor authentication app that does the code recycling like he was talking about. I love that app because it’s super simple, easy to use.

Will Curran: The thing about though is the way to set it up is you have to scan the QR code. The idea is it’s not like a password manager where you enter your one master password, and boom, you get access to all your codes. It’s all local on your phone, so the idea is your phone is the only one in existence that has these two-factor authentication codes.

Will Curran: A long time ago I got a new phone, and I was smart that I ordered the phone, got it, and I kept the other one, didn’t wipe it, and re-setup all the two-factor authentications on the new one, because first, you have to log in to the accounts to get the new two-factor authentication out, so you still need those old codes, so I was smart about that.

Will Curran: Well, in let’s see, October, I was in Charleston, and I picked up the new Google Pixel 3, and I was just like, you know, oh, yeah, I’m good, everything’s backed up, and I just decided in the store wipe phone, and I had the other phone in front of me, and I handed it in, traded in, to get the credit, and about five seconds later I realized and went oh god all those two-factor authentication codes are local.

Will Curran: Oh my god. It was the worst thing in the world. What ended up happening is that I had to spend a serious amount of time going back into those accounts. Here’s what was scary to me, and this is where we have to pressure I think our software companies to think smart about this, it was so easy for me to get into 98% of my apps with either a … most of them, luckily, I had probably maybe half of them I had backup codes for, but so many of them were so easy to get into without a two-factor authentication code.

Will Curran:  Like, oh hey, instead of using my two-factor authentication app you send it to my email or sending me a text. I’m like, no, I don’t want you to be able to do that. Turn that off. I made that mistake, and now I’ve been recycling phones so much that I got kinda perturbed with having to keep it locally on one phone, and also there’s a couple apps that require me to two-factor authenticate every single time I login versus, hey, remember me.

Will Curran: It’s so frustrating when I just needed to check something really quickly on the accounting software, or whatever it may be, or check a payroll number. My bonus app that I’ve been sharing with everyone, which I have to admit, and we talked about this very briefly, this is not as secure as technically only having it only on one device, but I’m utilizing an app called Offy, which is kinda like a password manager meets two-factor authentication codes.

Will Curran: The idea is that you can only log into it on certain devices, so I have it on my phone, and my computer, and my desktop. The reason why I like it is then I can copy the codes really easily on my desktop, computer, and my laptop when I need to re-go into the codes a million times versus where’s my phone, oh, my phone’s charging in the other room, let me go get my phone to get the two-factor authentication code.

Will Curran: Again, but that goes back to the convenience thing, right?

Brandt Krueger: I was just about to say exactly that. I don’t want to scare anybody off of using a two-factor authentication with that. It just means you have to think a little about things. That goes back to exactly that, the convenience is kinda that enemy of security, that yeah, it’s gonna be a little inconvenient to use a password manager at first.

Brandt Krueger: They really make it pretty painless, because every time you enter in a password it pops up a little thing it says, hey, do you want to save that? And then, you’ve got it saved. And then, once you start getting those saved you can run a check against it, and it will tell you how many times you’ve reused your passwords.

Brandt Krueger: And then, same with the two-factor. Yeah, it’s a little more annoying, and yeah sometimes it’s like, uh, god, I gotta get the app, but I gotta go get the number, but you are paying a price for our lack of security in the past, so now we need to start thinking about these things. We need to make it our responsibility. I think that’s probably a good way to wrap this all back up is to say that we as an event industry we are a target. It’s not a question anymore of whether or not we’re going to be a target.

Brandt Krueger: We are a target, and the Marriott hack shows that that people are actively starting to look at hospitality, and events, as a target. We need to start taking responsibility for it. We need to start, yes, inconveniencing ourselves a little from here and there, and taking responsibility for the security not only of ourselves but of our clients. That’s the biggest thing to me, is that, okay, great, if I get hacked, yeah, that’s gonna be a pain, but if something I’ve done enables one of my clients to get hacked that’s unforgivable.

Brandt Krueger: That’s something that you take with you possibly to your grave if bad enough.

Will Curran: Yeah, absolutely. I can’t agree more. You definitely don’t want this to happen to you, but if it’s ever happened to your clients, my god, the worst thing in the world. Real quick. I do want to mention, we talked a lot about this, but there is so much more to talk about. If you are fascinated, and you want to hear more, Brandt and I actually did a full webinar on this topic.

Will Curran: What we’ll do is we’ll leave that down in the show notes below at EventTechPodcast.com, so you can go check that out, and we’ll include that link, so then that way you can watch that webinar on your own time. It’s just like what we talked about here, but even further into details, more things you need to be thinking about, and some tactical tips on softwares, and tools, and all that jazz, all together in one.

Brandt Krueger: Exactly. I think that’s good enough for this episode. We wanted to kinda give you a teaser on why we think this is gonna be such a big issue. I think it’s gonna be a huge issue for the next year. Marriott’s just the tip of the iceberg, and we’re gonna start seeing some of the other big, whether it’s the registration platforms or things like that, do not be surprised as we start to see some of these things start to get hacked over the course of the next year.

Brandt Krueger: We hope you’re enjoying Event Tech Podcast. It’s been great for me. Will, I know you’re having a good time calling in from Dublin to help record these things, so I really appreciate that. We want to know what you think, so please do send us an email.

Brandt Krueger: If you’re on any of the social medias be sure to shoot us a note, #EventTechPodcast. We’re kinda still finding our feet here, and we want to know what you think, so if you want to hear more about subject X or subject Y please do let us know, otherwise, we’re just gonna keep talking about the stuff that we want to talk about in the show.

Will Curran: Absolutely.

Brandt Krueger: Which is just part of the fun of it.

Will Curran: Yeah, and absolutely make sure that you are sharing the Event Tech Podcast with your friends. If you know someone who would be interested in this help us help you by helping get the word out. That was a lot of helping all in one sentence, but basically, take our podcast, tell them to go to EventTechPodcast.com, and tell them to sign up.

Will Curran: That way, we can have awesome people joining the conversation, and so in that way, we can make some more awesome podcasts for you guys.

Brandt Krueger: Exactly, because a podcast without an audience is a phone call.

Will Curran: Did you just come up with that?

Brandt Krueger: I literally did, yeah.

Will Curran: Amazing, and that is the power of podcasting right there ladies and gentleman.

Brandt Krueger: Exactly. Without you guys we’re nothing. Guys. Let us know what you want to hear more about on the Event Tech Podcast, otherwise, we’ll see you next time.

Outro: Thanks again for listening to the Event Tech Podcast. Be sure to rate and review us on your favorite podcasting app. Also, be sure to head to EventTechPodcast.com and leave us a comment about this week’s episode. We’ll see you next week on the Event Tech Podcast.

Resources

Security Now Podcast

Steve Gibson

Dashlane

LastPass

Is Your Event Vulnerable to Cyber Attacks?: The Good, the Bad, and the Really, Really Scary

Jimmy Kimmel, What is Your Password?

  https://js.hscta.net/cta/current.js hbspt.cta.load(430132, ‘d9fe7e93-b235-439e-b0e4-b647f4c1349f’, {});

from Endless Events https://helloendless.com/event-cybersecurity/

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