Beyond Rational Thought
Daily Ramble
I was talking to my wife about an upcoming decision and she complained that I wasn’t being rational — and she was right. Let me explain. I’ve realized there’s an important distinction in the realm outside of rational. It’s one that took me a lot of years to understand and is still a work in progress to discern. The first area outside the rational is an emotional state. Ever been angry? Yeah, pretty sure I’m not the only one who’s either said or broke something in that state and afterward thought, “that was pretty stupid”.
The other state is less known and harder to discern — intuition. Intuition is a sense of “knowing in your bones”. When I was younger, I would immediately dismiss that “knowing” sense for some rational reason. Then, after I’d ignore the “knowing” and head down a rational path, I’d discover the “knowing” was the way to go.
An example by way of a short story: I used to sit down at a restaurant, look at a menu, and find my eye caught by an entree. I’d ignore it, go through the entire menu, decide something else was better, and order. My order would show, and I’d instantly regret the decision. Now, if I catch my eye hooking into something on the menu, I don’t bother to look at the rest of the menu. Just order and get on with it. Intuition trumps rational thought, to my benefit. Winning.
So yeah, now if my wife says I’m not being rational, and I know I’m not emotional, I have no shame in proudly holding my ground. Intuition works on the menu of life too.
Favorite Thing on the Interwebs Today
Filed under the, “just plain wild” category. If you’re male and wincing just reading the video title, don’t watch.
Bitcoin Price Update
Yesterday’s price range prediction: $17.2-$18.7k
Today’s predicted price range: $16.8k - $18.5k
Despite the Wall Street Journal reporting the purchase of $100M in Bitcoin by MassMutual, an insurance company, the bears retained control of the price action yesterday driving the price down from a high of $18.5k to $17.9k. Currently, the price is around $17.8k and ranging. If it doesn’t find a hold here, $17.2k is the next likely stop. Price predictions are not a scientific fact, but there’s a good chance we’ll at least see a bounce at $17.2k if we get there.
Bitcoin Ed Bite
Yesterday we went over how a new block is added to the Bitcoin blockchain, building on the history and hashing knowledge I shared earlier in the week. Today, let’s talk about the “math problem” that I intentionally ignored. First, recall that the next block in Bitcoin’s blockchain is constructed by a miner who takes waiting transactions, the previous block’s hash, and uses it to solve a math problem. The miner is rewarded in Bitcoin for being the first to broadcast the block to the network.
What is this math problem? Hashing. More cowbell… err hashing, please!
The miner takes all the data for the block (Bitcoin transactions and the previous block’s hash) and hashes it all together. Data in —> Hash out. Now here’s the secret sauce: the resulting hash of the block data must start with a 0 for the miner to win the competition, broadcast the block, and be rewarded with freshly minted Bitcoin. Since each set of data creates a unique hash, it is random if the hash starts with a 0 or not. If the hash didn’t start with 0, then the miner makes a small change to the data and tries again. Over and over again, hashing the data, using energy, until the resulting hash starts with a 0.
On Monday, I’ll explain how miners change the block data. It’s clever and key to how the Bitcoin protocol self-regulates. Confusing, I know, but stay with me and read this again if it didn’t make sense. It will.
Thanks for reading,
Kent
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