TWID Jan 15, 2018

This is a post detailing some stuff I did, learned, posted and tweeted this week, I call this TWID (This week in Denis). I am doing this mostly for myself... a kind of an online journal so that I can look back on this later on. Will use the label TWID for these


Finished the blockchain pluralsight course this week and started on the Github course

Should be done with the Github course by tomorrow

Watched Hell or High Water,  the movie was really good and I especially like the music. The music is by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis and it's I guess Western music?


Started to listen to the King of Kings podcast from hardcore history, I think this is the third time I am listening to it. Such great stuff!!

This Week I Learned

Merkle tree
While watching the Pluralsight course Blockchain Fundamentals I learned about a Merkle tree

In cryptography and computer science, a hash tree or Merkle tree is a tree in which every leaf node is labelled with the hash of a data block and every non-leaf node is labelled with the cryptographic hash of the labels of its child nodes. Hash trees allow efficient and secure verification of the contents of large data structures. Hash trees are a generalization of hash lists and hash chains.

The concept of hash trees is named after Ralph Merkle who patented it in 1979

More about Merke Tree here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkle_tree


White Plague
Heard about this on the Lore podcast episode 77. White plague is also known as consumption or tuberculosis, never heard it called white plague before. Tuberculosis I know very well, my grandfather died from it, he was 23 years old and when he died my father was only a month old. It was a rough time for my grandmother having to raise 3 kids on her own in the 1950s past war time frame.


Iron
Heard about the different kind of iron on the How it began podcast episode: Mastering Metals: From Sticks & Stones to Cars & Computers
Wrought iron... this is produced by putting the rock on a fire and then manipulating the iron by banging on it
Cast iron...  this is produced by using ovens and melting the iron.. it is however brittle
Steel... this is produced by removing carbon and it is not brittle like cast iron

This Week I Tweeted

A Vast, 430-Year-Old World Map, Full of Places and Creatures, Real and Imagined

The map shows a lush, highly personalized take on the world, with a surprisingly large collection of real and fantasy beasts carousing and cavorting on land and sea. Rumsey’s scan and digital assembly of the cartographic puzzle represents the first time that Monte’s work has been seen in its full glory: It is the single largest world map of the 16th century, and one largely forgotten or overlooked by cartographers and scholars.

Some interesting stuff, would be nice to have this hanging on the wall


Royal Mail’s Game of Thrones Stamp Collection available to order

These stamps look great.

Twitter, Snapchat tie up with Fox to provide coverage of FIFA World Cup

Twitter Inc is partnering with Twenty First Century Fox Inc’s Fox Sports to stream a live show on the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament set to be hosted in Russia later this year.  

Who is going to watch this on crappy telephone screens?

Some cool stuff you might enjoy

Good block chain material from ycombinator: http://blog.ycombinator.com/building-for-the-blockchain/

Small sample

• The official Solidity docs are a good place to start.
• The Truffle Framework is one of the best solidity frameworks.
• See how tokens and token sales are developed in the zeppelinOS repo, one of the most trusted libraries to build dApps.
• Blockgeeks also provides an in-depth Ethereum token guide with code samples and high-level concepts.
• You can even learn from Crypto Kitties and create your own digital game on the blockchain.

In addition, the developer communities are remarkably receptive and helpful. Check out:

• /r/ethereum
• /r/ethdev
• https://blockgeeks.com/

Find more here: http://blog.ycombinator.com/building-for-the-blockchain/

Some pics I took

Eight feet of snow.... will take a while to melt.

Use Purse.io to shop on Amazon and pay with bitcoin

A couple of years ago I mined some bitcoin with ASIC Antminers. This bitcoin amount was still sitting in my bitcoin wallet until now. I needed some stuff from Amazon and decided to see how I could use some of this bitcoin I had to pay for these items. Amazon doesn't take bitcoin as a payment but there is a 3rd party site you can use. This site is Purse.io

The way it works, you create a wishlist or add the items. Then you can add a discount, I tried 11% for the 4 items and someone accepted

Sweet, 11% on top of the low Amazon price is not bad at all. The way it works is that the people who buy the items for you will get the bitcoin.  Once the order accepted, the amount is put into escrow and when it is delivered and acknowledged by you, the amount goes out of escrow into the buyer's wallet

Not sure if this is the right way to do it, it worked for me and maybe it can work for you as well. Let me know if you tried Purse.io and if it worked out for you as it did for me

TWID Jan 07, 2018

This is a post detailing some stuff I did, learned, posted and tweeted this week, I call this TWID (This week in Denis). I am doing this mostly for myself... a kind of an online journal so that I can look back on this later on. Will use the label TWID for these


Skipped last week, so here is a bunch of stuff from two weeks combined


Made a whole bunch of chicken broth from the leftover bones I saved up over the last couple of weeks



I use this as a base for lentil soups, vegetable soups, risottos or I just have it as is to warm me up.


Finished: The Russian Revolution: A New History by Sean McMeekin

This was pretty good, if you like history I recommend this book

Blueprint for Armageddon

Since a lot of podcasts took a hiatus or had a best of episode, I had some spare time. I decided to listen again to the fantastic World War I podcast episodes Blueprint for Armageddon by Dan Carlin. I think this is the 3rd of 4th time I have listened to it.


Cold spell is still going strong in the Northeast. Worked from home Thursday and Friday. For some reason there was a Comcast cable above ground. The first snow cleaning truck that passed by clipped that cable right into pieces. There went cable and internet. Used the hotspot on my phone to continue working. Comcast had the cable repaired within 2 hours so that was not too bad

Went to pick up some eggs and cheese at the farm and saw these cows drinking water.
The water was frozen in the container on the right side so these cows were pushing each other to get to the water in the container on the left side. The cows seemed contend, not sure how because it was bitter cold. Maybe now if you mil them, you get ice cream instead of milk  LOL




I finally watched Downfall
The movie is well known as the inspiration for "Downfall parodies". One scene in the film, in which Hitler launches into a furious tirade upon finally realizing that the war is lost, has become a staple of internet videos. In these videos, the original German audio is retained, but new subtitles are added so that Hitler and his subordinates seem to be reacting instead to some setback in present-day politics, sports, entertainment, popular culture, or everyday life

I highly recommend this movie, although you know the outcome, if was interesting to see Hitler as a broken man suffering from Parkinson's Disease and still thinking that the war could be won. The human treatment of Hitler raised some concerns by critics

This Week I Learned

kebeb case
Snake Case

In Snake Case, all words are lower-cased, then all spaces between words are replaced by underscores.
So you would get

then_all_spaces_between_words_are_replaced


Kebab Case is similar except that the first letter of each word is capitalized, and hyphens are used instead of underscores:
So you would get

Then-All-Spaces-Between-Words-Are-Replaced

More here: http://blog.greglow.com/2017/12/29/sdu-tools-converting-t-sql-strings-snake-case-kebab-case/

bombogenesis
Bombogenesis, a popular term used by meteorologists, occurs when a midlatitude cyclone rapidly intensifies, dropping at least 24 millibars over 24 hours. A millibar measures atmospheric pressure. This can happen when a cold air mass collides with a warm air mass, such as air over warm ocean waters  https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/bombogenesis.html


Who comes up with these words?

This Week I tweeted

As drone demand soars, New Jersey poised to bar drunken droning

U.S. drone sales in 2017 topped $1 billion for the first time ever, but don’t raise a glass too quickly if you are in New Jersey, where lawmakers are poised to outlaw drunken droning next week.

Drunk droning is the new drunk driving...


Christopher Nolan on the power of the people and why '2001' should be required preschool viewing

I understand you showed “2001” to your children when they were very young, like 3 or 4?
I did. I think they’re able to absorb it on the most important level at a young age. That’s what happened to me. I saw it when I was 7 years old, and that’s the level I think it works the best — pure cinematic spectacle. I was extremely baffled by it, but excited by it.

When people talk about the age of people watching a film, part of what they’re asking is, “How does a 7-year-old parse the content?” And if you look at “2001” and you think about it, you can’t parse it anyway as an adult. The experience is the thing.

Interesting... most people I know say this is the best movie ever or a very boring movie

Some cool stuff you might enjoy

Listen to live Bitcoin transactions: http://btclisten.com/ 

Listen to live Wikipedia updates: http://listen.hatnote.com/


 Smells Like Teen Spirit’ music video auto-tuned to major chord

Nirvirna - Teen Sprite from Sleep Good on Vimeo.

Wow this really is uncanny valley territory

Some pics I took

Trail near my home, looks cold but it is actually very nice to run on snow.


Went to pick up some eggs and cheese at the farm and saw these cows drinking

Series I watched in 2017

After the Movies I watched in 2017 post, it is time for the series I watched in 2017 post. I watched 33 seasons in 2017. Here is the complete list with links to IMDB, I also gave a 1 sentence blurb below each season.

Best 2 seasons I watched this year

The leftovers season 2
GoT season 8


I have 4 seasons that would tie for 3rd place so I decided to spare you from that.....


Here is the list


Title: Twin Peaks Season 1
Channel: Showtime
Day watched: 1/25/2017

I watched this back in the 90s but when I heard that they were doing a new season, I decided to rewatch the original series. Still great and confusing as ever.

Title: The Affair Season IV
Channel: Showtime
Day watched: 1/29/2017

This is a show that I watch with my wife, the first couple of seasons were better.


Title: Vikings Season V
Channel: History Channel
Day watched: 2/2/2017

Love this show, it is too bad that a major character died

Title: Timeless Season I
Channel: NBC
Day watched: 2/22/2017

This is ok, it got cancelled and then it did not get cancelled after feedback. If you like history you will probably like this



Title: Twin Peaks Season 2
Channel: Showtime
Day watched: 2/24/2017

Rewatch to prepare for season 3


Title: Shameless Season IV
Channel: Showtime
Day watched: 3/15/2017

This is a great show with over the top scenes, the manage to insult everyone on this show. It's great


Title: Planet Earth II
Channel: BBC
Day watched: 3/26/2017

Spectacular cinematography


Title: Big Little Lies
Channel: HBO
Day watched: 4/2/2017

Fun mini series


Title: The Walking dead Season VII
Channel: AMC
Day watched: 4/2/2017

The best character for me is Negan, he makes the new season

Title: Shameless Season V
Channel: Showtime
Day watched: 4/7/2017



Title: Homeland Season VI
Channel: Showtime
Day watched: 4/10/2017

Was better in the earlier seasons but still worth watching


Title: The Expanse Season II
Channel: SyFy
Day watched: 4/22/2017

This is a good SyFy I mean SciFi series. Because of this show I also read the Leviathan books


Title: Billions Season II
Channel: Showtime
Day watched: 5/7/2017

This was a good season especially the big twist at the end.

Title: Shameless Season VI
Channel: Showtime
Day watched: 5/9/2017



Title: 12 Monkeys Season III
Channel: SyFy
Day watched: 5/27/2017

I am not impressed with this season. I will not watch the enxt season if they create it

Title: Shameless Season VII
Channel: Showtime
Day watched: 8/5/2017



Title: Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
Channel: Nat Geographic
Day watched: 8/12/2017

Watched this with my season, it was good and entertaining

Title: Game Of Thrones Season 7
Channel: HBO
Day watched: 8/28/2017

What can you say about this show that has not been said already. One more season and can't wait for it to arrive...would also be nice if the books would come out as well

Title: American Gods
Channel: Starz
Day watched: 9/3/2017

I like this show a lot, right after I finished the show I picked up the book and read that as well


Title: Twin Peaks Season 3
Channel: Showtime
Day watched: 9/5/2017

You want weird? Then watch this... soo many WTF did I just watch moments. Some great episodes


Title: Preacher
Channel: AMC
Day watched: 9/11/2017

It's ok, more or less the same as season 1, not sure that I will watch season 3.


Title: The Strain Season IV
Channel: FX
Day watched: 9/18/2017

I never watched the first 3 seasons but this was interesting. I like how the vampires are fast and they have this crazy mouth (almost like in Blade 2 but better) The most annoying part of the show is that kid Zach.



Title: Ballers Season III
Channel: HBO
Day watched: 9/27/2017

Fun 30 minute show with The Rock


Title: The Leftovers Season I
Channel: HBO
Day watched: 9/28/2017

Great show.. you must watch this

Title: Battlestar Galactica Season 1
Channel: SyFy
Day watched: 10/4/2017

Having watched the original series in the 80s it was excited to watch this. I still like the mettalic Cylons better and wished they left them like that


Title: The Leftovers Season II
Channel: HBO
Day watched: 10/11/2017

Probably the best show I have watch on tv this year, great drama, great characters and great music, everything is perfect


Title: The Leftovers Season III
Channel: HBO
Day watched: 10/16/2017

Perfect ending to a perfect show


Title: Fear Of The Walking Dead III
Channel: AMC
Day watched: 10/16/2017

Much better season than the first 2 seasons


Title: Ray Donovan Season 5
Channel: Showtime
Day watched: 10/30/2017

I can watch this just to see what Mickey is up to, what a great character


Title: Black Mirror Season 1
Channel: Netflix
Day watched: 11/5/2017

Some good episodes, make sure to check out episode The Entire History of You it's a must see


Title: Black Mirror Season 2
Channel: Netflix
Day watched: 11/11/2017

Very good episodes in this season as well


Title: Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 9
Channel: HBO
Day watched: 12/6/2017

Whenever I see and hear Larry I want to punch him in the face, how can he get so annoying, it's incredible. Great season


Title: Mr Robot Season 3
Channel: USA
Day watched: 12/15/2017

I started watching this show with season 2. The finale was fantastic. You should check this show out

The movies I watched in 2017

These are all the movies I have watched this year, 58 movies. This means that I watch a little more than 1 movie per week. A couple of these movies I have seen already:  2001, A Space Oddysee and Prometheus.


The five most interesting ones from this list are

The Death of "Superman Lives": What Happened?
I never knew that they were going to have Nicholas Cage be Superman... sorry I just can't see that. Interesting documentary however especially where people claim the never said certain things

Rise and Rise of Bitcoin
The hype started back then and it is still real today, interesting documentary. One of the guys that went to prison got out recently

Neon
Documentary about the Neon industry and the demise after LCDs made neon obsolete

A Cure For Welness
I really liked the cinematography on this one, kind of a creepy film, if you liked Shutter Island, you will like this one as well.


Space Between Us
Interesting story about the first person born on Mars who then travels to earth and has to deal with gravity among other things. I guess in the not so distant future this could become reality


Here is the full list

Title: Blue Velvet
Year: 1986
Minutes: 120
Director(s): David Lynch
IMDB Score: 7.8
Day watched: 1/1/2017



Title: We Love Paleo
Year: 2015
Minutes: 93
Director(s): Caroleen Moise
IMDB Score: 6.6
Day watched: 1/3/2017



Title: Rise and Rise of Bitcoin
Year: 2014
Minutes: 96
Director(s): Nicholas Mross
IMDB Score: 7.3
Day watched: 1/4/2017



Title: Now You see me 2
Year: 2016
Minutes: 129
Director(s): Jon M. Chu
IMDB Score: 6.5
Day watched: 1/15/2017



Title: Neon
Year: 2015
Minutes: 84
Director(s): Lawrence Johnston
IMDB Score: 7.6
Day watched: 1/16/2017



Title: Saw IV
Year: 2007
Minutes: 93
Director(s): Darren Lynn Bousman
IMDB Score: 5.9
Day watched: 1/20/2017



Title: Saw V
Year: 2008
Minutes: 92
Director(s): David Hackl
IMDB Score: 5.8
Day watched: 1/22/2017



Title: Burnt
Year: 2015
Minutes: 101
Director(s): John Wells
IMDB Score: 6.6
Day watched: 1/28/2017



Title: The Death of "Superman Lives": What Happened?
Year: 2015
Minutes: 104
Director(s): Jon Schnepp
IMDB Score: 7.1
Day watched: 2/4/2017



Title: Love The Coopers
Year: 2015
Minutes: 107
Director(s): Jessie Nelson
IMDB Score: 5.7
Day watched: 2/5/2017



Title: 2001: A Space Odyssey
Year: 1968
Minutes: 149
Director(s): Stanley Kubrick
IMDB Score: 8.3
Day watched: 2/9/2017



Title: Central Intelligence
Year: 2016
Minutes: 107
Director(s): Rawson Marshall Thurber
IMDB Score: 6.4
Day watched: 2/15/2017



Title: Prometheus
Year: 2012
Minutes: 124
Director(s): Ridley Scott
IMDB Score: 7.0
Day watched: 2/25/2017



Title: Captain America: Civil War
Year: 2016
Minutes: 147
Director(s): Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
IMDB Score: 7.9
Day watched: 2/26/2017



Title: The Shallows
Year: 2016
Minutes: 86
Director(s): Jaume Collet-Serra
IMDB Score: 6.4
Day watched: 2/27/2017



Title: Suicide Squad
Year: 2016
Minutes: 123
Director(s): David Ayer
IMDB Score: 6.3
Day watched: 3/1/2017



Title: Blood Father
Year: 2016
Minutes: 88
Director(s): Jean-François Richet
IMDB Score: 6.4
Day watched: 3/14/2017



Title: Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
Year: 2008
Minutes: 105
Director(s): Chris Bell
IMDB Score: 7.6
Day watched: 3/15/2017



Title: Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates
Year: 2016
Minutes: 98
Director(s): Jake Szymanski
IMDB Score: 6.0
Day watched: 4/1/2017



Title: Doctor Strange
Year: 2016
Minutes: 115
Director(s): Scott Derrickson
IMDB Score: 7.7
Day watched: 4/5/2017



Title: The Purge: Election Year
Year: 2016
Minutes: 109
Director(s): James DeMonaco
IMDB Score: 6.0
Day watched: 4/9/2017



Title: Independence Day: Resurgence
Year: 2016
Minutes: 120
Director(s): Roland Emmerich
IMDB Score: 5.3
Day watched: 4/10/2017



Title: Event Horizon
Year: 1997
Minutes: 96
Director(s): Paul W.S. Anderson
IMDB Score: 6.7
Day watched: 4/12/2017



Title: The Gift
Year: 2015
Minutes: 108
Director(s): Joel Edgerton
IMDB Score: 7.1
Day watched: 4/13/2017



Title: Chef
Year: 2014
Minutes: 114
Director(s): Jon Favreau
IMDB Score: 7.3
Day watched: 4/17/2017



Title: Mechanic Resurrection
Year: 2016
Minutes: 98
Director(s): Denis Gansel
IMDB Score: 5.6
Day watched: 5/6/2017



Title: White House Down
Year: 2013
Minutes: 131
Director(s): Roland Emmerich
IMDB Score: 6.4
Day watched: 5/7/2017



Title: The Wizard Of Lies
Year: 2017
Minutes: 133
Director(s): Barry Levinson
IMDB Score: 7.2
Day watched: 5/23/2017



Title: Alien Covenant
Year: 2017
Minutes: 122
Director(s): Ridley Scott
IMDB Score: 6.9
Day watched: 5/24/2017



Title: Passengers
Year: 2016
Minutes: 116
Director(s): Morten Tyldum
IMDB Score: 7.0
Day watched: 6/2/2017



Title: Jason Bourne
Year: 2016
Minutes: 123
Director(s): Paul Greengrass
IMDB Score: 6.7
Day watched: 6/10/2017



Title: The Accountant
Year: 2016
Minutes: 128
Director(s): Gavin O'Connor
IMDB Score: 7.4
Day watched: 6/15/2017



Title: Inferno
Year: 2016
Minutes: 121
Director(s): Ron Howard
IMDB Score: 6.2
Day watched: 6/20/2017



Title: Space Between Us
Year: 2017
Minutes: 120
Director(s): Peter Chelsom
IMDB Score: 6.4
Day watched: 7/4/2017



Title: Army Of Darkness
Year: 1992
Minutes: 81
Director(s): Sam Raimi
IMDB Score: 7.6
Day watched: 7/8/2017



Title: Spymasters: CIA in the Crosshairs
Year: 2015
Minutes: 120
Director(s): Gedeon Naudet
IMDB Score: 7.5
Day watched: 7/15/2017



Title: Dunkirk
Year: 2017
Minutes: 105
Director(s): Christopher Nolan
IMDB Score: 9.0
Day watched: 7/21/2017



Title: Batman Begins
Year: 2005
Minutes: 140
Director(s): Christopher Nolan
IMDB Score: 8.3
Day watched: 7/23/2017



Title: Logan
Year: 2017
Minutes: 137
Director(s): James Mangold
IMDB Score: 8.2
Day watched: 8/16/2017



Title: Underworld: Blood Wars
Year: 2016
Minutes: 91
Director(s): Anna Foerster
IMDB Score: 5.8
Day watched: 9/15/2017



Title: The Age of Consequences
Year: 2016
Minutes: 80
Director(s): Jared P. Scott
IMDB Score: 7.6
Day watched: 9/22/2017



Title: Whitney: Can I Be Me
Year: 2017
Minutes: 105
Director(s): Nick Broomfield, Rudi Dolezal
IMDB Score: 6.6
Day watched: 9/30/2017



Title: Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
Year: 2016
Minutes: 107
Director(s): Paul W.S. Anderson
IMDB Score: 5.6
Day watched: 10/16/2017



Title: Spielberg
Year: 2017
Minutes: 147
Director(s): Susan Lacy
IMDB Score: 7.7
Day watched: 10/20/2017



Title: George Michael: Freedom
Year: 2017
Minutes: 95
Director(s): David Austin, George Michael
IMDB Score: 8.5
Day watched: 10/22/2017



Title: Life
Year: 2017
Minutes: 104
Director(s): Daniel Espinosa
IMDB Score: 6.6
Day watched: 10/23/2017



Title: John Wick 2
Year: 2017
Minutes: 122
Director(s): Chad Stahelski
IMDB Score: 7.6
Day watched: 10/26/2017



Title: Skyfall
Year: 2012
Minutes: 143
Director(s): Sam Mendes
IMDB Score: 7.8
Day watched: 10/27/2017



Title: Generation Iron 2
Year: 2017
Minutes: 106
Director(s): Vilad Yudin
IMDB Score: 6.1
Day watched: 10/30/2017



Title: A Cure For Welness
Year: 2016
Minutes: 146
Director(s): Gore Verbinski
IMDB Score: 6.4
Day watched: 11/5/2017



Title: Icarus
Year: 2017
Minutes: 121
Director(s): Bryan Fogel
IMDB Score: 8.0
Day watched: 11/19/2017



Title: Kong: Skull Island
Year: 2017
Minutes: 118
Director(s): Jordan Vogt-Roberts
IMDB Score: 6.7
Day watched: 11/26/2017



Title: Meth Storm
Year: 2017
Minutes: 96
Director(s): Brent Renaud, Craig Renaud
IMDB Score: 7.3
Day watched: 11/30/2017



Title: The Big Lebowski
Year: 1998
Minutes: 117
Director(s): Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
IMDB Score: 8.2
Day watched: 12/6/2017



Title: The Belko Experiment
Year: 2016
Minutes: 89
Director(s): Greg McLean
IMDB Score: 6.1
Day watched: 12/8/2017



Title: Office Christmas Party
Year: 2016
Minutes: 105
Director(s): Josh Gordon, Will Speck
IMDB Score: 5.8
Day watched: 12/10/2017



Title: The Great Wall
Year: 2016
Minutes: 103
Director(s): Yimou Zhang
IMDB Score: 6.0
Day watched: 12/16/2017



Title: Deepwater Horizon
Year: 2016
Minutes: 107
Director(s): Peter Berg
IMDB Score: 7.2
Day watched: 12/17/2017



And yes, I used SQL to generate this after I pasted the data from Excel in SSMS

select 'Title: '">'+ t +'

' + char(13) + char(10) + 'Year: ' + convert(varchar(20),y) + '
' + char(13) + char(10) + 'Minutes: ' + convert(varchar(20),m) + '
' + char(13) + char(10) + 'Director(s): ' + convert(varchar(200),dir) + '
' + char(13) + char(10) + 'IMDB Score: ' + convert(varchar(200),score) + '
' + char(13) + char(10)+ 'Day watched: ' + convert(varchar(200),d) + '



' + char(13) + char(10), * from cte

Through the eye of a needle... advanced to the next round of the Fantasy Premier League Cup

This week in the  Fantasy Premier League I encountered an interesting situation. Here is what the points for my team looked like after all the games were played and the points had been rewarded

I ended up with 82 points.

And here is how many points my cup opponent had.

As you can see we both had 82 points. I then started to wonder who would advance?

I looked up the rules

How the cup works Each qualifying team will be randomly drawn against another in the first round. The winner (the team with the highest Gameweek score minus any transfer points), will progress to the second round and another random draw, the losers are out! This process continues until the final round when the two remaining teams contest the cup final. If a cup match is drawn, then the following tie-breaks will be applied until a winner is found: 

Most goals scored in the Gameweek 
Fewest goals conceded in the Gameweek 
Virtual coin toss

So then I checked the goals scored. We both had 5 goals scored. I then checked how many goals we conceded. I conceded 3, while my opponent conceded 5.  I also was very lucky that his bench looked like this, there was nobody to replace his defender  :-)

The end result was this.




If this was reversed, I would have been really pissed

I am sure that I will be eliminated from the cup next week now that I made this post....  :-(

TWID Dec 24, 2017

This is a post detailing some stuff I did, learned, posted and tweeted this week, I call this TWID (This week in Denis). I am doing this mostly for myself... a kind of an online journal so that I can look back on this later on. Will use the label TWID for these


Finished Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World 
It's on okay book and I said this before, it's not technical. Sometime I think the authors live in some utopia thinking the blockchain will solve everything. The issues they list are either already solved or have no need for blockchain per se

See also this part from a review here: Only good for the kool-aid

The thing is, many of the things Tapscott claims CAN be fixed by blockchain could ALSO be fixed with a decent website. May of the problems he highlights are social, human problems that remain unsolved because they are hard and no one has rallied the will to tackle them. For example, the problem with governance isn't that there isn't a way to expose all the corrupt interactions to trace who paid for what and which parts of which bills were advocated by which legislator. It's that those in power don't have the will to build a system to expose all of that. Blockchain isn't going to magically convince governments to change how they do business any more than the ability to post their correspondence, schedules, donations, and votes on the web did.

 I had a hard time finishing the book. The *one* thing it is good for is giving the reader a sense of the insane hyperbole that many blockchain advocates spew. Tapscott drank the kool-aid, and it is useful to understand how many miracles people say this stuff will create. Not because the miracles are likely, but because making a coherent case for the actual changes that blockchain will catalyze requires understanding the entire context of the conversation that has gone before

I completely agree with that what's written in the review

Worked from home two days in a row and had a huge podcast backlog, this is just part of it

This is supposed to be a quiet period at work however one co-worker is on vacation, the other had a kidney transplant so I am responsible for their stuff while they are out till January 12th or so. So far I have been bombarded with requests by business folks.

This Week I Learned

This week I learned that the chocolate puzzle I have is really hard to finish  :-(

This Week I tweeted

Bitcoin Takes Bigger Wall Street Stage With Smooth CME Debut

Bitcoin futures started trading Sunday night at CME Group Inc.’s venue, a week after Chicago rival Cboe Global Markets Inc. introduced similar derivatives on the volatile cryptocurrency. CME is a much bigger player in futures, so many traders expected it to make a bigger splash in the nascent space.

CME got off to a faster start with more efficient pricing. Its most-active contract changed hands 221 times in the first hour versus 570 during Cboe’s debut. But that’s a win because CME’s contracts are five times more valuable -- they’re tied to five bitcoins compared with only one with Cboe’s futures.

Smooth sailing....


European Ruling Buries Uber’s Platform Myth
The European Court of Justice has ruled, without the possibility of appeal, that Uber is a taxi company, not a software one. This is the official beginning of the end of the tech industry's deceitful attempt to present its innovation as something outside previous human experience and therefore outside the scope of previous regulation.

The ruling ends a legal battle started in 2014 by a taxi drivers' association in Barcelona, called Associacion Profesional Elite Taxi. It accused Uber of unfair competition: The Uber Pop service used unlicensed drivers and wasn't authorized to carry passengers. Uber, as it always does, claimed it was just an intermediary connecting drivers with passengers

Of course it's a cab, instead of using your hand or a phone, you use an app to hail it.


Like Black Monday....

Bitcoin crashed hard on December 22nd. I decided to create a poll and ask if people thought that this was a crash or a correction., You can see the results below

A correction that was due or the start of a crash... what is your opinion https://t.co/aOGB0cFJZT #BTC #Bitcoin #CryptoCurrencies #link

— Denis Gobo (@DenisGobo) December 22, 2017

Netflix Now Supports HDR on Windows 10

We are thrilled to announce the addition of High Dynamic Range (HDR) support on Windows 10 for both the Edge browser and the Netflix app. With this update, Netflix members who have a supported device and a premium plan can enjoy amazing Netflix movies and shows in HDR. 
With HDR enabled, fans can immerse themselves in the delicious colors of Chef’s Table, the terrifying depths of the Upside Down in Stranger Things 2, and enjoy the upcoming Netflix film Bright starring Will Smith. And this is just the beginning! Today, we have over 200 hours of HDR entertainment, and in 2018 even more HDR PCs will enter the market and support the growing number of Netflix originals.

I am still waiting on 4D TV.....


Why hasn’t The Year of the Linux Desktop happened yet?

Having spent 20 years of my life on Desktop Linux I thought I should write up my thinking about why we so far hasn’t had the Linux on the Desktop breakthrough and maybe more importantly talk about the avenues I see for that breakthrough still happening. There has been a lot written of this over the years, with different people coming up with their explanations. My thesis is that there really isn’t one reason, but rather a range of issues that all have contributed to holding the Linux Desktop back from reaching a bigger market. Also to put this into context, success here in my mind would be having something like 10% market share of desktop systems, that to me means we reached critical mass. So let me start by listing some of the main reasons I see for why we are not at that 10% mark today before going onto talking about how I think that goal might possible to reach going forward.

I think Apple is the biggest reason here, all those people who might have switched to Linux, they switched to MacOS instead.  Will 2018 be the year of the Linux desktop.... answer is NO!!

Some cool stuff you might enjoy

United States of Greater Austria

The United States of Greater Austria (German: Vereinigte Staaten von Groß-Österreich) was a proposal, conceived by a group of scholars surrounding Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, that never came to pass. This specific proposal was conceived by the lawyer and politician Aurel Popovici in 1906 and aimed at federalizing Austria-Hungary to help resolve widespread ethnic and nationalist tensions.

Who knows what Europe would look like today if Gavrilo Princip didn't fire those shots that  killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914

More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_Greater_Austria

Some pics I took

Power Breakfast.... Eggs, sweet potatoes, peperoncini, arugola and spicy tomato sauce