Blockchain technology

Ok every company worth its salt/stock in the financial services and technology industry, has already started investing in blockchain and many big investment bank have dedicated startup like LOBs for exploiting this latest trend. Microsoft is working on “Blockchain as a Service”. So what is it? Blockchain is the foundation or concept for the hugely popular Bitcoin virtual currency. 

In my opinion (as it stands now), chances of Bitcoin being a winner in the long term is almost 50-50. Regulatory and adaptation issues being most critical factors. However, blockchain technology will certainly survive with many applications being explored already.

So, what is blockchain and how does it work?  Here’s what I know about it.

Blockchain is a distributed database of blocks (Transactions in the case of bitcoin) i.e. all the changes/transactions right from the very beginning are shared by everyone.

 

Since entire history of changes (transaction history for bitcoin) is shared anyone can validate a new incoming change using a strict set of rules.  Any change is immediately made available to the entire network. History of changes is immutable by design. Bitcoin uses Proof of work, hash chaining, Merkle trees and cryptography and hash functions to secure the transactions and history.

Blockchain offers promising potentials for not just the financial industry but also for several other industries such as :

• Property/Title management
• Copyright and IP Protection
• Criminal and public records preservation
• Digital contract management
• Records/Database of almost any kind that would require tamper resistant shared access

Technorati Tags: Blockchain,bitcoin,Fintech,Finance,Currency

Windows 10 Flash crash

 

I bought a Lenovo Flex2 laptop with Windows 8 last year. I upgraded the OS to Windows 10 out of curiosity a few months ago. Ever since I had been having problems with anything that to do with Adobe Flash. Web pages on all browsers installed on my laptop (IE, Edge, Firefox, Chrome) crashed. Some of the  games which use flash like candy crush, Microsoft card games also didn’t work.

Thinking that Flash is not playing nice with Windows 10 I used to update Flash player every time I had the issue. It used to happen every other week or so. I thought it could be something to do with my display driver and rolled back the driver update. Last couple of weeks it started happening every time flash was loaded. I started digging more and found this article. I realized my laptop has Realtek audio too and updated the driver to latest version. Voila! No more annoying Flash crash. Thank you Kazlok.

Growth and stagnancy

Thought this is deeply profound : Courtesy - The Minimalists

"Humans are happy if we are growing as individuals and if we are contributing beyond ourselves. Without growth, and without a deliberate effort to help others, we are just slaves to cultural expectations, ensnared by the trappings of money and power and status and perceived success."

As soon as we stop growing, making that deliberate effort we become stagnant. Often times trapped in our own perceptions, by our inability to let go.

Puerto Rico

Just came back from a 8 day trip to Puerto Rico. We were based at San Juan for the first 4 days and at Ponce for the remainder. A few highlights:

• Almost everyone was friendly and helpful. Even if they didn’t know the language they tried to help
• The whole island was a party town during the Christmas week. Weddings and processions in every city and town.
• Every receipt you buy with included sales tax is a lottery ticket. Lottery occurs twice a week and there guaranteed winners. Go to http://ivuloto.pr.gov/ for more information. Prices are exempt from IT and excise.
• There are so many beautiful beaches and other attractions. Reviews and recommendations are very subjective. For me La Playuela/Playa Sucia (Dirty beach) is one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever been to with breathtaking views of limestone cliffs and reefs. 
• If you are traveling with young kids and can’t kayak in the night into mosquito bay,  La parguera is a great option. It may not be the brightest,  but I think touching and feeling the water is an important part of the experience. (Hope we don’t trouble these interesting organisms too much). I got stung by some small jellyfish while in the water, but the pain went away next morning.
• If traveling back to US, baggage will need to be screened by USDA. USDA closes their screening around 10.30PM and reopen only at 12 midnight.  Plan for additional time in peak seasons, if your return flight is in the early morning.
• We dined at the following restaurants and highly recommend them:
  • St Germain – Yummy and healthy  veggie options. Not something you can find easily
  • Piu Bello Gelato – Decent breakfast and dinner options. Hazelnut cookies gelato was delicious. 
  • El Turrumote – Had superb mozarella sticks, green pea hummus and mofongo. 

43 Things Tags: Puerto Rico,PR,San Juan,La parguera,bioluminescent bay,Ponce