Curtains and Doors
Daily Ramble
“I’ve got nothing to hide” is my favorite non-sensical argument about privacy. If you’re in the “I’ve got nothing to hide” camp, let me prove it to you. Why do you have curtains on your windows and a bathroom door? I mean, why waste the resources if you’ve got nothing to hide?
What I’m not saying with my silly argument is that you have something to hide. That’s not the point. I don’t care if you use your curtains or your bathroom door. That’s on you. But I have no desire to take that option from you. I’m pretty sure if we were to wage war on bathroom doors, everyone would be out on the street protesting, not because they have something to hide, but because it’s their right to handle the affairs of their home that don’t involve others.
Now we’re getting somewhere. Because the line of logic causing us to value the optional privacy provided by curtains and bathroom doors is no different than the line of reasoning to use online privacy-protection tools. I mean, you can choose to upload photos of your children to Facebook that the world can see tagged with location data that share when and where the picture is taken, but I don’t. It might just be me, but giving that knowledge to the world who may or may not exploit it, is just not worth the risk. I’ll choose to keep that door closed, thank you.
Ok, but if everyone leaves their bathroom door open, there’s nothing to hide, yeah? Wrong. We now know the unintended consequences of everyone leaving their doors open through the rise of social media. Initially, we naively thought we had a great tool to connect socially online. But in truth, we were unwittingly also becoming the tool for social media networks to marionette-doll us for advertising dollars. Again, your right to exploit yourself, but I’ve closed that door as much as possible.
So these days, when I hear someone say, “I’ve got nothing to hide,” my response is, “Great. I’ll help you sell your curtains and bathroom doors so we can make a quick buck together.”
Favorite Things on the Interwebs Today
Got ya jokes never get old!
Bitcoin Price Prediction
Yesterday: $58k - $62k
Today: $57k - $62k
Weekend: $55k - $65k
It’s been a slow upward grind for Bitcoin as it works to clear $60k, a price that’s become a massive fight zone for bulls and bears. How can I tell? Because the price has closed flat the last couple of days. Consolidation leads to expansion, one direction or the other. At this moment, I am anticipating the expansion to be upwards, but yesterday evening, I was expecting downwards. That means is that it’s a good place to sit and watch. All told, nothing has changed much from what I described yesterday, except we have not experienced even a small intraday pullback. As long as we stay above $57k, a push to $62k and beyond is on the table. Ideally, the expansion happens today rather than over the weekend. Let’s see!
Bitcoin Q & A
Q: How does a miner link a new block to the Bitcoin blockchain?
A: The miner hashes the last block into the block being mined.
That’s a bit dense so let me break it down. First, recall that hashing is a mathematical algorithm where data (of any size) enters and a unique string of characters exits, called a hash.
When creating a new block, the miner takes the previous block and hashes it creating a unique hash, i.e., “last block data” in —> “unique hash for that block” out. That unique hash is then included with the rest of the transactions being mined. When the miner successfully mines the block and broadcasts it to the Bitcoin network, it is linked to the previous block. How? Because the block can only be validated by the rest of the network with the inclusion of the previous block’s hash. That’s the chain in the blockchain.
Thanks for reading,
Kent
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