What’s up today? (Part 1)

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2 Data centers in the Netherlands are using up approximately 28.000 4-person household’s worth of water.

Reports say during a hot summer this may result in drinking water shortage.

WOW! Superconductor without continuous energy input.

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Ants do social distancing when there is a disease about. Who knew?!

I’ve only watched this episode of Chris Packham’s series on animal intelligence, and it was fantastic in every segment. Really recommended.

I’m posting it here because one segment shows how ants perform various tasks with very simple strategies. Including, amazingly, how they automatically social distance when they find an ant has become infected with a fungus.

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Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70 Million Merchants

We’re trying to do two things. One is to enable the purchase of Bitcoin on Visa credentials. And secondly, working with Bitcoin wallets to allow the Bitcoin to be translated into a fiat currency and therefore immediately be able to be used at any of the 70 million places around the world where Visa is accepted.

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Adapt or become obsolete. PayPay, Mastercard and now Visa. They all want to remain the middlemen in a crypto world which may not need them. Interesting times!

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I did. If only since last week:

Eusocial insects are those insects that live in a colony with only some individuals capable of reproducing. Usually there is a division of labour with different individuals undertaking different roles, such as defence or foraging. Perhaps the most common examples of eusociality occur within the bees, ants and wasps.

This article in ‘Science’, Infectious diseases and social distancing in nature, was mentioned.

Illustration from that article:

F1

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A post was split to a new topic: What language to use for Safe dapps?

Politics got interesting again

Background: the (formerly) very safe seat in Edinburgh Central looked like a walk for parachuted in SNP grandee Angus Robertson - much to the dismay of the local party - then this happened.

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Children playing with cash that became worthless after WW1 in Berlin 1923.

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Not completely worthless. Still usable as toy. Or for heating (see Pablo Escobar).

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You still can’t do anything with Bitcoin but it is leaking into everyday consciousness.

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7 posts were merged into an existing topic: What’s wrong with Bitcoin, and can it be improved?

A post was merged into an existing topic: What’s wrong with Bitcoin, and can it be improved?

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They got 0.01% of the total votes, but… in absolute numbers 3 times more than 4 years ago. So progress is being made :slightly_smiling_face:

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