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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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An excellent article on Portugal's (relatively) successful "war on drugs". Simply make them legal.
Read it here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/opinion/sunday/portugal-drug-decriminalization.html
Now, like it or not, there's a lot that we - Canada and the US - can take away from this model. Why haven't we?
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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An interesting video series contrasting the differences between homelessness in Tokyo and Japan VS homelessness in North America.
I find this interesting because - if you're North American - and Canadian especially - homelessness is generally a "lifestyle choice" whereas in Japan it's generally a matter of unfortunate circumstance. In Calgary, the last 10 years, street people have raised their visibility by tenfold easily, in no small part due to the lack of policing and the new custom (paralleling India) of wandering into traffic to solicit change. When I lived in Calgary my route to work took me through 3 intersections that were "owned" by beggars - professionals - the same people year after year feeding their addictions and mental illness off the well-intended donations of Good Samaritans. In Nelson it's much the same - not the traffic wandering, but there's a high visibility of migrant homelessness that move here to prey upon the goodwill of tourists and hippies. Their "homeless" status is generally a choice reflecting their refusal to work and conform in any remedial respect to social norms. When I visited Japan I was impressed not only by the low visibility of the homeless, but by the lack of begging - in a city where the cost of living is easily double that of Calgary and the opportunities half.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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I mean my Blue-Jay is pretty sharp, but these birds are passing tests a lot of people couldn't:
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Curious as to what alternatives there are to BitCoin and Ethereum, the two main cryptocurrencies that are priced somewhat out of my league, and so I'm doing a little research.
Is it worth investment? Will it survive? Proof of robot work, the calculation of lengthy and intensive - and, on the surface, meaningless problems (larger and larger prime numbers, for example), investment capital, the future belongs to those who own the most machines, or robots, and this is the sign of the Armageddon...
There's a coin for every flavour - 9 alone that pandered to those interested in porn - groincoin, sexcoin, wankcoin, etc, most of which have failed. There's Potcoin - to facilitate the buying of pots I'm guessing, and there's quite a few others - many of which can, at the moment, be bought into for fractions of the cent. Low initial investment with the possibility of great returns - however unlikely it beats the lottery, and while I've never been known to make a good investment it just might be time to start...
Links: Wikipedia on Cryptocurrencies
Not without their perils: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mbjyk4/heres-how-traders-lost-millions-in-the-first-ethereum-flash-crash
Ideas:
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
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I was aware it existed, but didn't know it had a name...
Mumblecore. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumblecore