Sunday, April 10, 2022

News: April 10: Lightning Network

What is the Lightning Network in Bitcoin, and how does it work? If scaled properly, a blockchain network can handle millions to billions of transactions per second (TPS). ....... the Lightning Network charges low fees by transacting and settling off-chain, allowing for new use cases like instant micropayments that can solve the traditional “can you buy coffee with crypto” conundrum, speeding up the processing times and reducing the expenses (energy costs) associated with Bitcoin’s blockchain. ....... Regarding malicious attacks, a bad actor could start various payment channels and close them all at once. Those channels then need to be validated which get in the way of legitimate ones, congesting the network. During congestion, the attacker could pull funds before legitimate parties become aware of the situation. ....... Off-chain channels are designed to solve Bitcoin’s scalability problem. ........ Visa peaked at 47,000 TPS during the holidays in 2013. For Bitcoin to come anywhere close to Visa’s TPS, it would have to manage eight gigabytes worth of transactions per block, which is nowhere near the capabilities of the current blockchain. ........ Lightning Network’s off-chain payment channels were created to address Bitcoin’s lack of scalability, as the channels allow for various, smaller transactions to exist without congesting the network. ........ Twitter founder Jack Dorsey ..... also plans to implement the Lightning Network into Twitter in the future. ....... The two parties can transfer funds between themselves indefinitely without telling the main blockchain. Because all transactions within a blockchain do not need to be approved by all nodes, this strategy substantially speeds up transaction times. ......... Eventually, when the two parties decide to finish transacting, they can close the channel. All of the channel’s information is then consolidated into one transaction, which is sent to the Bitcoin mainnet for recording. Consolidation ensures that dozens of small transactions spam the network at once, simplifying them into one transaction that takes less time and effort for nodes to validate. ......... Only if there is a mainchain to build off, off-chain protocols can exist. ....... The obvious pros of the Lightning Network are faster and cheaper transactions, enabling micropayments in a way that was never possible before. Without the Lightning Network, users would have to pay high fees for a simple transaction and then wait an hour or more for it to validate. ....... atomic swaps, which is the act of swapping one cryptocurrency to another without using a third party, or an exchange. ........ After funds are in the Lightning Network wallet, users must lock up their Bitcoin to create a payment channel. ......... there is over $110 million in Bitcoin locked into the Lightning Network. These could be people paying for goods and services, utilizing apps, gambling and more. .





Slack CEO: Hybrid work might just win The hybrid schedule gives "the distributed model a little bit of an upper hand," Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield told Axios. Offices and even homes could eventually be redesigned to better fit the needs of hybrid work, including more office spaces for collaboration and a “reconfiguration” of the typical set of rooms found at home. ....... In large companies, 50-60% of what employees do is communicate in some form. This strikes me as being wholly inefficient and leads to bloated companies. ...... "And then there's people like me, who have an 11 1/2-month-old. There's no 'time to get the last train to get home before he goes to sleep' or anything like that — in fact, between calls I can go downstairs and play with him." ...... I think that distinct separation (not just a door) would really improve the work from home environment as one of the main complaints from people that work from home is that its hard to disconnect from work when the work is always in view. ..... For years, IBM promoted WFH to save on office space, electricity, etc & started realizing people don't want to come to office at all. Team coordination was at its lowest, team members would be unavailable on call or office chat for long hours. Some employees even planned their family based on WFH. IBM started making WFO mandatory in 2016 & there was huge resistance. ....... I've read many counter-articles with studies that indicate that those who are working from home are working MORE hours than they did before. That's part of what has allowed some companies to maintain or even increase their productivity through the pandemic. ........ So people aren't getting out of the hamster wheel. They're still running, and responsibilities aren't necessarily getting lighter. They're just trading one hamster wheel for another. ...... I don't care where you do stuff, but you need to be able to say 40 hours is 40 hours, I'll walk away from the desk under x conditions, etc. ....... I think leaders need to understand that allowing employees to claim WFH/remote flexibility is not a license to ask for extended time, make aggressive/inconvenient requests, or increase quotas....... There are passionate people on both sides of this debate. Like too many things these days, this feels like a political debate with people unwilling to see the other side and digging their heels in deeper. ...... In fact, the President has even weighed in on the debate. In his recent State of the Union address, Biden said “It’s time for America to get back to work and fill our great downtowns again with people.” Many downtowns, like in San Francisco and New York City, have become ghost towns devoid of the hustle and bustle that they were once known for. But is that such a bad thing? ........ 75% of executives wanted to return to the office at least three days per week while only 33% of employees wanted the same. ........ For this worker that recently returned to a hybrid working environment after almost two years of fully remote work, I can tell you that I like the chance to meet and collaborate with coworkers in person, but I’m glad that I’m not doing it full time. I’m also fortunate to have a short commute and the flexibility to move my remote days around as I see fit. For those who live in bigger cities and have longer commutes than I have, I’m sure the pain of going back in would be greater. ...... Perhaps most striking is his single-minded focus on Twitter. ....... Perhaps most intriguing is why Musk is irate at Twitter’s algorithm at this precise moment. If it’s burying anybody’s posts, Musk isn’t a very prominent victim — not only is he one of the site’s most popular users, but his poll complaining about its algorithm received more than a million votes.



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