issue 008 2021-11-17

Morfternight

by Paolo Belcastro

πŸ‘‹ Hello Morftenighter!

Welcome to Morfternight, the newsletter that digs πŸ°πŸ•³πŸ•³

I have a new hobby. Well, let me put that differently, I have an old hobby, which is to learn new stuff, and it renews itself periodically into a new one when my attention shifts to a new subject.

I am also not very original, so I decided to learn as much as I can about web3 and its potential.

"web3" is a bit of a gimmicky name, if you want my opinion. Still, I'll use it because it practically regroups several concepts into a single bucket that is easier to carry around. In addition, rabbits holes are sometimes deep and uncomfortable, and having only one bucket (and a towel for protection) is more manageable.

I'll try to share my exploration on the blog and here as I go, but I promise not to annoy you by only talking about that.

For now, though, let's dive into Morfternight, the newsletter that eats carrots for breakfast!

πŸ“· Photos from the blog

Focus

Breakthrough

Votivkirche

πŸ‘“ Stuff I read and liked

Let's start with something I listened to. This episode from Tim Ferriss podcast is worth every minute spent listening to it: Chris Dixon and Naval Ravikant β€” The Wonders of Web3, How to Pick the Right Hill to Climb, Finding the Right Amount of Crypto Regulation, Friends with Benefits, and the Untapped Potential of NFTs.
I had heard of Bitcoin for the first time in my life in 2012 when we implemented it as a payment method on WordPress.com. I have since then developed a cursory understanding of the concept of blockchain. Still, I recently read the white paper at its origin, which is deceptively simple and accessible.
While we are on the subject, the Ethereum white paper is also fascinating, albeit a bit more complex. We should never forget that we live in the internet era, and the documents that gave birth to all our modern technologies are publicly available.
Last but not least, if you have always dreamed of understanding probabilities better, I found this surprisingly clear explanation of the Bayes theorem and, more importantly, of the mental model it describes. When we gather new data about a situation, that should inform and augment our previous understanding of the situation, not rebuild our knowledge from scratch.

I know it sounds boring to say that, but that's my fault. The video is actually really easy to follow:
Screenshot 2021-11-17 at 20.11.53

😳 🀯 😀 🀬 🀣 πŸ€ͺ 🀩

A section for things that tickled my brain or made me sweat, laugh, or get angry at clouds...

The first Harry Potter movie, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," was released 20 years ago, and I sincerely have a hard time wrapping my mind around that.

By the way, I never understood why the movie in France was titled: "Harry Potter Γ  l'Γ©cole des sorciers", "Harry Potter at the sorcerer's school".

πŸ––

That's it for today! You can find more of my stuff on paolo.blog, and if you think that someone you know could enjoy Morfternight, the newsletter to share, please forward it to them or send them this link to subscribe.

Cheers!
Paolo
cropped-paolo-belcastro_logo1.png

Get in touch

instagramΒ linkedinΒ twitterΒ facebookΒ emailΒ 

Morfternight, the newsletter that ends here!