n-exploit

"On 17 April 2018, the final day for U.S. citizens to file 2017 tax returns, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) suffered a major system failure related to the hardware supporting its 58-year old, 20-million-line Cobol-based Individual Master File system [PDF], which is still being used today to process the vast majority of individual tax returns. As a result of the failure, the IRS extended by a day the filing due date."

Maybe that's because a decades-old system hit capacity, and has nothing to do with the system design?

Decentralized currencies.

The supposed valuation of WeWork gives us some incredible insight into the nature of "brand value" - it looks like their trying to capture the brand of the commons. I think the government is slightly complacent, given they let them trademark "We."

Global wealth inequality and social insecurity.

I'm a firm believer in real-time payment systems and its ability to quickly address issues vital issues like the above, and related issues like climate change. Markets operate in real-time, and the current banking infrastructure - which creates an artificial bottleneck via ACH delays - is an old and dying dinosaur. I imagine a world of daily paychecks is just a few years in the future.

The difference between zero and non-zero cost, no matter how low, is extreme.

If corporations want to make a real change and provide value to all stakeholders, they will need to develop a practice to systematically eliminate all negative externalities (risk) being transferred to society. Unfortunately, the current regulatory environment still makes this illegal/impossible, given that executives are still legally bound to create value for shareholders.

The thoughts and feelings of these CEOs mean nothing unless it's predicated/followed by regulatory change.

The Tragedy of the Commons 2.0™

Within the U.S. - we live in a profit-maximizing capitalist structure. Why would any economic entity give something away for free when a profit can be made?

Thank you!

Anyone have a mirror?

What can we do as computer scientists to best militate this risk and protect human life?

Now let's overlay this with heat maps that represent investment over time.

Days after the announcement of antitrust suit against Facebook, existing champions within the technology sector jump into the arena with a groundbreaking alliance.

Unprecedented industry collaboration or an overlooked antitrust risk?

What could come out of a partnership between the largest enterprise software company and the largest consumer software company?

Maybe not exactly what you're looking for, but there are some resources here.

https://chooose.today/

15.52, according to Yahoo.

I found the last sentence here most astonishing.

Zucman and Saez’s latest estimates show that the top 0.1% of taxpayers—about 170,000 families in a country of 330 million people—control 20% of American wealth, the highest share since 1929. The top 1% control 39% of U.S. wealth, and the bottom 90% have only 26%. The bottom half of Americans combined have a negative net worth.

As the Director of Technology at a non-profit organization, how am I supposed to staff software engineering resources when these pricing practices like these are commonplace in the for-profit world? How am I supposed to make an argument to the board that a single technology staff member, let alone a working team, is 5x-10x more valuable than the rest of the workforce? I'm going to admit it - it's hard to see stuff like this and not be extremely frustrated. Tech is already one of the largest cost centers in an enterprise, and it's proving to be nearly impossible to find any tech staff willing to work for, admittedly, crumbs.

The global economy is denominated in currencies without any resource backing.

Sooner or later the world will wake up and realize that the global economy, driven by fiat currency, doesnt actually reward anything other than growth.

The closer you are to the federal reserve on the economic ladder, the cheaper your cost of capital.

America likes to hyper-focus on individual, not collective wealth. The American dream is centered around this idea that every individual has the right to their own castle.

Because it's a company with at-will employment. Businesses are operational functions that maximize value for a pool of shareholders. Unless you're in the pool, you're a cost and a liability.

This is already starting to happen in China. The upper class are able to utilize air cleaning technologies to eliminate any external pollution within their living spaces, while the lower and middle classes can't afford such luxuries.

How is there not a government institution established to investigate fraud such as this?

Anyone have a mirror?

Or course, some of the most important economic data sets won't be shared.

It's almost like they want to cover up the systemic disempowerment of the American electorate.

Maybe it's time to create anew.

And the blockchain is a real time distributed ledger.

Big money is doesn't matter when its denominated in fiat.

Couldn't the same argument be made against fiat currencies? Nations don't have a great track record for trust.

I don't see why a data-backed currency wouldn't completely flip the economy. I mean, the definition of fiat currency is basically: "it has value because you say so"

I was on the Curecoin team as of last year. It's a neat project, but they weren't able to manage a working relationship with Stanford.

There is a unique opportunity here to use digital currencies to fund scientific research through the use of a reward mechanism and distributed ledgers.

Our project is hoping to take a similar idea to scale (research/project-based "work) by utilizing open datasets posted on decentralized technology. We hope to build relationships with institutions, non-profits, and the public sector to track the economic and social value of campaigns similar to the Folding@Home and Seti@Home projects, but with a capacity to on-board projects as they appear.

https://vitae.foundation

Keep your eye on HeartMath. Stanford is involved. There have been rumors of some awesome (in the true expression of the term) discoveries.