I wanted to share some thoughts on the significant fees we currently pay to companies like Stripe, PayPal, and Visa/Mastercard, which run into billions annually.
These fees are largely due to the complex infrastructure and intermediaries involved in traditional payment processing. However, the Bitcoin Lightning Network offers a promising alternative.
The Lightning Network is a decentralized, second-layer solution built on top of Bitcoin, allowing for near-instant transactions at a fraction of the cost.
It eliminates many of the intermediaries that drive up costs in traditional systems, potentially saving businesses billions in fees.
Additionally, it supports micropayments and offers enhanced security and privacy, making it a viable option for reducing our reliance on traditional payment processors.While there are challenges in adoption and regulation, the Lightning Network could become a strong competitor to these established players within the next decade, offering a more efficient and cost-effective solution for processing payments.
I write an email with my poor language skills, bad grammer and autism and paste it into the text box and prompt chatgpt to "rewrite this message in a concise and friendly manner: <email>"
With regard to my linguistic aptitude, grammatical proficiency, and autism, I compose an electronic message in a substandard manner. Subsequently, I transfer this message into the relevant text box and proceed to prompt "chatgpt" to efficiently and amiably revise the content of said message.
Avoid the banks, governments and middlemen and use bitcoin. You'll save a ton of time and money by avoiding transaction fees and bureaucracy. Every person with a cellphone can accept the donation.
> Avoid the banks, governments and middlemen and use bitcoin
Somewhat tangential. Some years ago, I was in a meeting where we were trying to solve a really thorny business issue. It was quite a small group but included some of the most knowledgeable people, in the company, on the problem at hand. We couldn't find a solution, even in theory.
As we were breaking up, one of the participants said that, although we hadn't found a solution, it was alright because the new system being built would solve it. The only identifying feature of that system at that time was that it was written in Python. Around the group there were a number of sage nods as they departed the conference room.
Statements like the Bitcoin one, remind me of that meeting. There's pretty much nothing about the nature of Bitcoin that helps this problem. In fact, one of its defining features (pseudo-anonymity) makes it worse than useless at trying to ensure everyone gets their allocation and just their allocation. And yet, with all seriousness, it can be proposed as a "solution". As if it has some kind of magic property that allows it to solve unsolvable problems. Like Python.
How do you avoid the mid afternoon slump? My afternoon are pretty much a write-off until the early evening. I have tried avoiding carbs and sugars for lunch and have a pretty good bowl of oats for breakfast. Ive just come to accept that its my Circadian rhythm and such plan my productive hours around the early mornings.
I switched to drinking tea instead of coffee, all day long. For the most part, I've noticed that I don't experience the afternoon slump as much. On the occasions that I do, a half cup of coffee usually overcomes it.
I've also experimented with intermittent fasting, only eating between noon and 8pm. That also, for me, helped eliminate the slump.
For me, it used to be bad. Watery eyes, lack of focus, nodding off while staring at the screen.
After I started morning exercise, I almost never get the afternoon doldrums, and if I do, it can be attributed to either poor sleep or poor diet. I feel solidly productive for the entire day now; though on lazy weekends, I'll take a solid long nap.
For more context, at a minimum I do 3 days of CrossFit at a competitive gym (meaning it can be a bit more than what you would typically find for that kind of exercise programming), normally at 5:30am. Food typically starts off with overnight oats and/or eggs, bacon, spinach, cottage cheese, and the like. Lunch bounces around, but often includes salad and/or rice and some meat. Dinner is usually similar but of better quality compared to lunch. And I try to be asleep before 9pm.
Snacking (or binging) on junk foods or lack of good sleep can sometimes bring afternoon slumps, but not very often. If those do hit, working from a different spot helps. Maybe standing instead of sitting, working from a couch instead of a desk, or working in the kitchen with coworkers milling around.
Nothing beats a short nap after lunch to let the body (and mind) reset the system for a great afternoon. Many companies now days have special nap rooms, with mats and blankies. :)
I've taken to simply sitting with my eyes closed for ~10 minutes around 2-ish. It's a very pronounced feeling of shedding all the accumulated 'cruft' on my brain from the morning's work. I also plan less 'smart work' in the afternoon, so things like catching up on email or reading literature/learning.
Don't eat pizzas or anything with too much carbs for lunch, never ever. If you did try eating half a teaspoon of cinnamon. (google cinnamon and sugar processing).
Yousician (https://yousician.com/). It's like an interactive guitar teacher, offering backround tracks, and evaluating how you play. The really surpsising thing is how well it works.
This is a far more common reality than the media reports. I too have had this problem and had to resort to finding cheap wifi just for updates. While internet access is fast and cheap in large dense populations in africa, there are still millions of people with limited or expensive internet access.
Majority of people who write these articles aren't in touch with what is happening in the rest of the world. Where I stay, it is fast but expensive. Lack of competition keeping prices artificially high.
No sports is huge in Africa, Specially the Premier League. Most people only have a subscription to Multichoice because of the sport package that's included with the subscription. Having said that, it is possible to stream the Premier league - if you already have a Multichoice subscription.- South African.
Football (Soccer) is so much bigger globally than American football, it's not even close. The Super Bowl attracts 100 million viewers, a Real Madrid vs Barca game attracts 400 million viewers (a regular season game, not even champions league).
These fees are largely due to the complex infrastructure and intermediaries involved in traditional payment processing. However, the Bitcoin Lightning Network offers a promising alternative.
The Lightning Network is a decentralized, second-layer solution built on top of Bitcoin, allowing for near-instant transactions at a fraction of the cost.
It eliminates many of the intermediaries that drive up costs in traditional systems, potentially saving businesses billions in fees.
Additionally, it supports micropayments and offers enhanced security and privacy, making it a viable option for reducing our reliance on traditional payment processors.While there are challenges in adoption and regulation, the Lightning Network could become a strong competitor to these established players within the next decade, offering a more efficient and cost-effective solution for processing payments.