Risks of Food Shortages Resulting from Supply Chain Issues

The chaos and Nth order effects of the virus and the reaction to it have created risks in all aspects of life. Food is such a crucial need that we must examine any risks related to it. We are told that there is plenty of food, but what does that mean? US food supply, like all other aspects of our society is both complex and fragile. …

Decentralized Response

The Ventilator Project in conjunction with the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI) / endcoronavirus.org is moving along and we wanted to provide an update to some of the recent activities of the group. There is still a lot to be done and we are just getting started, so if you or someone you know would be able to contribute, please get involved.

The goal is twofold: 1) to support existing manufacturers 2) to help makers with specs to built parts and fully functioning ventilators that can be used in their country or region.

As more and more…

I am leading the ventilators sub group of the EndCoronavirus.org organization.

We need your help.

https://www.endcoronavirus.org

EndCoronavirus.org is an effort by NECSI, (Twitter: @necsi) The New England Complex Systems Institute, a group of scientists led by Yaneer Bar Yam (Twitter: @yaneerbaryam ) follow the account at @endcovid19

The volunteer group is heavily staffed with scientists from Harvard and MIT and others who have an understanding of pandemics, medicine, systems, risk and the key numbers and data behind this threat.

There are many fronts in this fight. One is in having the proper equipment.

Ventilators are a key piece of emergency…

This is a drill.

Should you choose to accept this challenge, following the instructions in this drill could save lives and improve your peace of mind and overall security profile.

A great piece on safety from Kraken a few years back started with a premise “Let’s begin with the assumption that within 24 hours your usual mobile phone number will be hijacked by social engineers.”

Similarly, let’s begin this article with a drill: “You have 24 hours to prepare and travel at which point you will be stuck in place for 60 days with limited access to food, medicine, electronics, comms or help.”

What do you do? What do you buy right now? Where do you go? What loved ones or pets do you need to arrange for or help? What unique medical or safety concerns do you have? What about your…

Focusing on a long term plan almost always beats a focus on charts and short term moves

Investment selection is the most important part of your financial plan. Every investor should have a written plan which covers a pie chart allocation of the major investment categories they invest in. This should be based on an overall financial plan accounting for the risk tolerance and goals of the investor.

Trading is often antithetical to sound planning and also increases the chances of deviating from long term financial and allocation plan. I’m particularly referring to day trading or short term trading. Big…

Securities make up a multi deca-trillion global industry that is here to stay. The old rails and systems used by the securities industry can be improved on with distributed ledgers. Every Bitcoin supporter should be excited about this massive use case. I don’t think there is any world where Bitcoin can become a global money standard without also being the settlement currency for a lot of securities.

If more assets in the world are digitized, digital money is a natural fit for payment. People won’t hold Bitcoin, convert to fiat to buy and sell stocks, then convert back to Bitcoin…

“Since we desire privacy, we must ensure that each party to a transaction have knowledge only of that which is directly necessary for that transaction. Since any information can be spoken of, we must ensure that we reveal as little as possible.”

- Eric Hughes, A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto, 1993

Problem

Various regulators require AML/ KYC data on customers.

This becomes a honey pot for hackers and identity thieves. Data breeches are common.

For many businesses, compliance is mandatory.

Solution

Offline or protected KYC with private tokens replacing identify.

This solution uses RVN NFT membership tokens to create offline compliance systems.

(Ravencoin is…

Smart contracts have a lot of extra complexity, in some cases this has caused critical errors.‬ We see this often.

‪Ravencoin looked to solve token issuance in an entirely different way, with no smart contracts. The protocol (a Bitcoin code fork) modifies the UTXO output to allow customizable tokens.

Users can use the wallet to create digital assets, choose the number of tokens and choose if the token is reissuable or a fixed supply. Creators/ issuers control the tokens using a special admin token which is controlled by a private key. …