Several years ago a revolutionary technology called blockchain showed up on the scene. It’s probably the biggest invention since the creation of the Internet. The first cryptocurrency using the blockchain was Bitcoin and since then, thousands of other alternative coins arose. Blockchain has no central point of failure, so it’s very difficult for authorities and corporations to control or regulate it. In this article we are going to take a look at the inner workings of the blockchain technology, its security, ways of storing bitcoin, and the meaning of the Bitcoin halving that happened last week. Note: “Bitcoin” references the network and the payment system, “bitcoin” references the currency and the currency unit.

Blockchain

Cryptocurrencies represents a type of decentralization, which takes the power over money away from the banks. Thanks to the blockchain, no institution can directly tamper with the cryptocurrency progression. One of the primary goals of the Bitcoin blockchain is to provide people with a secure way to store money, so if another financial crisis was to come, your funds would stay safe and independent of the banking system. Blockchain is a globally distributed ledger, implemented as a chain of blocks. Each block stores the completed transactions using strong cryptographic functions in a way that it’s practically impossible to hack. Almost anything can be saved on the blockchain, and it’s possible to do so without any third parties — the value is transferred directly between people and nobody is taking any fees, at least not directly (more on that below). Everything that was stored in the blockchain will remain unchangeable and permanent due to the high cryptographic security of the blockchain. It‘s politically and architecturally decentralized, so it cannot be controlled or regulated by any institution. It’s divided into multiple computational units, typically a global network of computers. But logically it is centralized, because it behaves like a single entity, like a powerful supercomputer — doing only a single set of tasks.

Bitcoin “Halvening”

Bitcoin is created when a new block is mined. More precisely, the reward is given to the miner who found the right “solution of the block” (hash). The reward is currently 6.25 bitcoin + all of the transaction fees in the block. The reward is halving every 210000 blocks (so every 4 years (1 block ~= 10 minutes)), so next time it will be 3.125 bitcoin in 2024. Presumably the price of bitcoin will be way higher at that time. (Previous block reward was 12.5 BTC, so 12.5BTC@9395USD = 117,437 USD) The transaction fee can be specified by the user, but the miners will of course prioritize the higher fee transactions, because it means a higher reward for them. When you use a low tx fee, you can wait dozens of blocks (or hundreds of minutes (1 block ~= 10 minutes). In any case, it’s still a better score than bank payment has — you have to wait anywhere between a few days to a few weeks, considering the overseas payments. Alternative coins (altcoins), i.e. Litecoin or Dogecoin have the time on the block set to lower values, LTC is on average 2.5 minutes and DOGE a minute.

Difficulty and Mining

Solo mining is already obsolete today. The difficulty of finding one bitcoin on your own, using your hardware, is about the same as searching for one particular seed of sand on the whole Planet Earth. That is why the miners started to form groups, so-called pools, where is their computational power shared for mining bitcoins. When they are successful, the found coin is democratically shared between everyone, depending on the work done.

The current computational power of the Bitcoin blockchain is ~120 Exahash/s. That means you would need at least 60 Exahash/s super-computer to do the 51% attack.

The strongest super-computer in the world, Summit, operates on 144 Petaflops. Taken that 1 hash/s is ~12700 flops/s, you would need a few million super-computers to change ONE transaction in the blockchain.

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, or BJJ for short, is a martial art that some people call “human chess” for its complexity. It’s one of the most complex martial arts and it could take years to reach the black belt even for a skilled wrestler. I’ve never been in a real fight in my life. And so I never really learned how to properly defend myself. That started being a problem even in my professional life. There once came a moment, where I had to make a call with a CEO of a big online project, which we had to migrate to our servers. And I realized I am too afraid, for some reason, to make the call. I procrastinated with it for about an hour, even when I knew it would take only a minute. When I finally made the call, it turned out fine. No problem. Smooth. But I knew I have to change something to be more confident next time. There was no logical reason for me to be afraid, but I still was. Then I had some problems with my boss. Lot of the time I came up with a proper response to defend myself a few minutes after I needed to say it. That needed to stop. I never knew that my inability to properly physically defend myself translated so much to everyday interactions. Then, one day, a though popped into my mind: “What if I sign up for judo classes?” I had some defense training before, but it was mostly just krav maga and karate techniques, that I forgot few months after. This time I wanted to go all in. I googled some judo videos and found this beautiful montage, that made me motivated to really get into martial arts. I called the first judo instructor I found in my city, but he was irritated during the call and I felt he had some kind of a problem with answering my questions about the process. Not only that, but the phone call had an interference. That was enough of a sign for me to look elsewhere. I found only judo lessons starting in a few months, and I wanted to get in now. So I had to try something else. JIU JITSU. Yes, that’s it! I’ve heard about it before. The most complex martial art on the planet. That should even stimulate my “intellectual” needs. So I called a BJJ instructor, and he sounded all welcoming, friendly, warm and invited me to a free Sunday lesson. When I was all nervous about it, and told him I don’t have a kimono, he told me he will borrow me one of his; that all I have to do is to come and try it. And that was it. I was sold. The first lesson was amazing. 1 hour of techniques and 1 hour of sparring fights. I had my first hour of full blown jiu jitsu sparring. It was simply awesome. And I was so exhausted after, that I had to vomit. But it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was like a cathartic vomit. It felt great. I started coming in more. My fingers and knuckles were all bloody, and arms hurt from the armbars, neck and throat hurt from strangling, but that didn’t stop me. I kept coming in twice a week. I felt like Tyler Durden. Finally having a real fight. I tried some weeks where I went 3 times, but those were too damaging. It felt great to get really strangled. It felt great to fight to defend myself from it, even when the opponent had 40 KG more. I needed all of this. I became addicted to it fast. But it took me about 15 lessons to “get comfortable” with hurting others. In the first lessons I learned how to defend myself, to not get submitted immediately and to last at least to the end of the round before I rotate to another sparring partner. Then I finally started attacking and doing my first submissions. All I had to do is to keep in mind the basic techniques and defenses, and attack when there was a window to do so. It always comes with a thrill that I will get punished for my attack, if the opponent is more experienced then I thought. It’s all very complex and I see I am just at the beginning of it all. But it felt incredible to strangle an opponent into submission for the first time, with Ezekiel Choke. But after mere 50 hours of Jiu Jitsu, I can tell that I gained some considerable confidence in myself. Now I almost immediately feel when someone is talking down to me, being passive aggressive or has some manipulative intentions with me, and I can defend myself and attack back. Not only that, but my fitness level is the best I’ve ever had in my life. I always had sedentary jobs in the office and didn’t have any sports I would like. I tried some sports, but didn’t really like any. Going to the gym was just too boring and repetitive for me. I saw no meaning in it. But Jiu Jitsu? Not only is it a great cardio exercise, but it strengthens your inner Warrior archetype, reinforces your willpower and you learn how to properly defend yourself. The complexity of it ensures that you will never run out of things to learn in this sport. And as the saying goes:

“Black belts are just white belts who didn’t quit”

In this article I will analyze mythological concepts and symbols used in the Harry Potter franchise.

This is the start of a new game development series. I will be showing you basics of working with Unity game engine. Unity is used mainly in game development (games like Inside, Cuphead and Hollow Knight), movie CGI scenes and for animated movies.

Hermes in the unconscious realms Our dreams tell us about things outside of our conscious awareness. That is why they are so useful for therapy and dealing with neurosis. Especially important are dreams while you are becoming your perfect self, the individual you were always supposed to be, but are not quite there yet. There are parts of your personality, hidden in your unconscious mind, you can access only through methods like active imagination or dream analysis. The analytical psychology, created by Carl G. Jung, is heavily dependent on dream analysis. Jung himself spent years analyzing his dreams and visions (and he captured most of them in the Red Book) and even came up with the method of active imagination. Okay, but how do you actually analyze your dreams? If you are like most people you probably don’t remember your dreams. You wake up and have only a fuzzy memory, that vanishes after a few seconds. Not much material for analysis. I have been analyzing my dreams for about 2 years now, and I had whole months where I didn’t miss a single day. And that comes from someone who didn’t pay any attention to his dreams and was always forgetting them immediately. That was before I was aware of their significance. Here I will share my methods for creating the perfect conditions for your dreams to be strong and to emerge every night, methods for capturing them and the basics of dream analysis.

[ Creating the perfect conditions for the dream ]

If you follow some basic rules it is almost guaranteed you will dream every day and remember it too. First is regular sleep. It helps tremendously to have a routine and be able to wake up at the same time every day. Clean living. You need to keep the mind clean. I found, in my years of dream analysis, that when I use any substances, the dreams will not be strong enough to get close to the barrier of consciousness. If I use too much coffee — no dreams. If I smoke or take snus — no dreams. What helped a lot was an active lifestyle. This February and March I had dreams every other day, because I was doing jiu jitsu twice a week. Since the corona started, and I’ve been staying at home, in isolation, not moving much, the dreams ceased to happen that often. Then there are herbs you can take to make your brain blood circulation better. The most useful herb I know for this is Withania Somnifera, ayurvedic Ashwagandha. Its name literally means “dream-giving”. For the perfect room conditions: sleep in a room that is pitch black. Don’t use any blue light screens 2 hours before bed. Lock your room to minimize any fear of outside interference. Feel completely safe and alone. Use ear plugs if you are sensitive to noise. You can borrow some mental techniques from the lucid dreamers. Most people are only able to dream the dream, let it happen to them. Not lucid dreamers. They became so skilled in dreaming, through extensive training, that they are able to communicate with the unconscious entities in their dreams and even create the dream as they see fit. One of the basic techniques they use is this: setting intentions. Before you fall asleep, tell yourself what you want to dream about, what problem or life situation you need help with and also tell yourself that you will dream tonight.

[ Capturing the dream ]

How often did you wake up from a dream in the middle of the night, then went back to sleep and when you woke up with your alarm clock, you had no idea what you dreamt about? That happens to everyone, even experienced dreamers. What you need to do to capture the dream is very simple. Pen and paper. Place it next to your bed, on your nightstand, under your pillow, wherever. The point is that when you wake up in the middle of the night, and the message from the unconscious realm is still floating near the surface, above the consciousness barrier, and you can scribble about it on the paper. Doesn’t matter it will be hard to read, you are familiar with your writing and you will be able to read it a few hours later when you wake up again. I’ve used this method successfully and it works. Sometimes, when I have a phone nearby I write a Google Keep note. Voice recordings work only for really strong dreams (writing is better for weaker dreams, because you remember other parts of the dream as you write. Doesn’t happen with voice recordings). When there is no phone or paper, I will just grab Kindle Paperwhite and type a note on the touchscreen. If you set up your environment like this, you will be able to capture the dreams every day. The hardest obstacle is of course finding the willpower to write about the dream when you wake up at 3 AM and you can barely open your eyes, let alone hold a pen and write and don’t want to burn your eyes with the phone backlight. When you do find the willpower tho, you will more often than not find a deep meaning in the dream. I have created a tool that will help you keep your dream notes structured. I was curious if I could see any patterns in my life that I wasn’t aware of, and I also needed a tool to track my dreams, my mood, music, habits, daily journals and so on, so I created TaoTime:

TaoTime is a dream tracking software with extra features. Its development took me over a year and I developed it so I…

jilecek.itch.io

[ Analyzing the dream ]

So now you have written about your dream and it sounds like a bunch of nonsense that will not help you in any way? Realize that dreams are full of symbols, concepts and deep meaning that may not be obvious at first.

Dreams are always connected to your psychological state and your current life circumstances.

You can either love or hate the horror genre, depending on your “need for affect”. In the first case you tend to have extreme attitudes across a variety of issues, choose to view emotional movies or become involved in emotion-inducing events. In other words, you accept negative emotions as a part of life. In the second case you try to avoid these emotions if possible. That group of people will never develop into their best selves, because they refuse to see their shadow side and refuse to walk through the mud of their minds to get to the true meaning of their lives.