Thursday, May 05, 2022

News: May 5



NFT’s A New Way To Monetize Your Speaking Material

Life’s a Trip: My Journey As a Web3 Artist Thus Far With the introduction of COVID-19 the shows I was scheduled to play began to get canceled one by one, and I slowly watched everything I’d built in the last half decade deteriorate before my eyes. ........ My newly found free time led me to freelance songwriting and my interest in cryptocurrency. I poured all of my energy into researching everything I could about the space. ........ After 1000’s of hours of reading white papers, watching youtube content, and exploring discord servers, my interests started trending towards NFTs. ....... I’d heard of NFTs beforehand, but after the February / March wave of 2021 I was completely sold on the fact that many things can, and probably will be tokenized in the future. ....... As a musician, my only question was where in the world is the music? ........ Before I released a single piece of music on-chain I spent 5 months

chatting with strangers on twitter

who I had grown to be big fans of. ........... and I started participating in many conversations via twitter spaces. ........ Public speaking has never been my forte, but talking about the things I am truly passionate about has really helped me develop that skill in the last year. ........ The music sold out in under 30 seconds


The Countdown Memorandum Doubling down on the future of American industry ........ in the fourteen years since California launched its high-speed rail initiative to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles, less than 120 miles have even begun construction ........ In roughly the same amount of time, China has constructed close to 25,000 miles of high-speed rail, spanning quite literally its entire country. ....... China appears to be rapidly developing its hypersonic arsenal and is the largest outbound investor in alternative energy technologies. ........ The past century of prosperity cannot be extrapolated to the next one, and it is certainly not a given. Despite a repressive and authoritarian political system, the Chinese citizenry has experienced more than three times more economic growth over the past three decades than any other citizenry in the world and have proven to be quite capable of the type of dramatic change conducive to technological progress. ........ America is still the most innovative country in the world, with technological progress highly valued by both the private and public sector. By many metrics and surveys, America is also still by far the most desirable country for immigrants. .......

Neeraj Arora Of WhatsApp



Former Facebook, WhatsApp Employees Lead New Push to Fix Social Media HalloApp is among new companies trying to reshape online discourse



About The first real relationship network. ..... A completely new category. A simple, safe, and private place to connect and share what matters in your life, with the people who matter to you. In complete privacy.

HalloApp is a private ad-free social network from two early WhatsApp employees The app bills itself as the “first real relationship network” .... There are many parallels between HalloApp and WhatsApp: the app is designed for group or individual chats with close friends and family, the only way you can find people is by knowing their phone number, the messages are encrypted, and there are no ads...... Arora was WhatsApp’s chief business officer until 2018 and a key figure in negotiating the Facebook deal. And Donohue was WhatsApp’s engineering director for nearly nine years before he left Facebook in 2019. ...... the antidote to traditional, engagement-driven social media, or “the 21st century cigarette.” ...... Acton, who now funds the encrypted messaging app Signal, famously tweeted “#deletefacebook” during the height of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

The First Real-Relationship Network Real conversations happen in private........ As it turns out, treating people and relationships as “media” has massive ramifications. It has turned social media into digital malls. ........ Where you hoped to find your friends, instead you found ads, bots, likes, filters, influencers, followers, misinformation, and more. Where you hoped to have meaningful conversations, instead you found yourself falling down the rabbit hole of blinking red notifications and an algorithmic feed of meaningless content. Where you hoped for a safe space to keep in touch with your siblings, family members, neighbors, and friends from college, you found content from people you’ve never met before—the whole thing feeling invasive, even creepy. ......... To have private conversations with the people closest to you, your only option has been through 1:1 direct messaging platforms. In most cases, these direct messages lived on social media networks that were still “listening.” Mention cameras or going fishing and suddenly the ads in your feed would change. And while you chat back and forth, other sections of your screen light up and flicker like lottery machines, tempting you to click back into ad land and scroll just a few more times. In a best-case scenario, the platform might be a stand-alone messaging app, but would be owned by a larger social network using it to mine user data. ...... Social media, as it stands today, makes sharing real moments with real friends impossible. ...... No ads. No bots. No likes. No trolls. No followers. No algorithms. No influencers. No photo filters. No “feed fatigue.” No misinformation spreading like wildfire.