Recommended Reading

[70231f697a2b3c2b]

Link in the OP needs to be updated:

http://bytemaster.github.io/article/2015/01/10/Recommended-Reading/

[btswolf]

The Forbes Fintech 50

I think there are some really interesting business concepts that could be copied, decentralized and automated on the BTS chain.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/janetnovack/2015/12/09/introducing-the-forbes-fintech-50/

[liondani]

the blog should just be its own delegate, vote yourself in that way it stays free in an unfree world.

I predict that this would bring strong criticism. People would start arguing about centralization of voting power and delegates leading to use of propaganda.

I not agree! I think  he should use a delegate** to fund his blog. He is contributing to crypto community in general with his articles and not only to bitshares!
Maybe he must just handle it diplomatic and burn or donate extra funds(somewhere it make sense for bloggers/writers?) that are not needed every month for this purpose.(?)

**definitely better than using ads ,he will be a good example for newbies that:  "the block-chain is hiring"

[svk]

Then I guess I shouldn't express my opinions on vaccinations

Write a blog post on it (if you want)

Id be interested to hear your thoughts on it.

I agree with Toast, please don't! The earthing book is bad enough, I fully respect your right to believe in whatever you like, but if this is to be the official Bitshares blog this kind of pseudoscience really has no room in there like Arhag says.

While the earthing thing may be harmless, being anti-vaccination is dangerous and should not be promoted. Here's an article on the anti-vaccine movement: http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertpearl/2014/03/20/a-doctors-take-on-the-anti-vaccine-movement/

[jonny]

Thanks for your list, I am buying some of the books

[inarizushi]

Pro earthing, anti vax... sigh. Some particular vaccines may be useless/dangerous, but vaccines as a technology is what made humans reach the lifespan we have today.

Science is not a conspiracy. This is the scientific method : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPapE-3FRw, you don't need much more epistemology than that.

My own reading advices would be Ben Goldacre, an epidemiologist and psychiatrist, author of books "Bad Science" and "Bad Pharma". This poor fellow is an unsung hero, fighting on 2 fronts, against anti-science propaganda on the one hand, and against the ignoble practices of big pharma on the other hand.

[CLains]

It takes a unique belief system to hit on exceptional truths, and yet the propensity to form a unique belief system will also misfire. Skeptics are ideally suited to battle false beliefs, but when it comes to discovering exceptional truths they are generally miserable. Try looking up all the things Newton believed..

[gamey]

This brings up a good question: do we want the new bitshares.org to point directly to bytemaster's blog or do we want to copy a subset of the blog posts (the majority posts that do a really great job of explaining BitShares and what it is all about) to the "official" bitshares blog?

Bytemaster has every right to freely express himself as he wishes on his own private blog. But it does concern me when we promote it to look official by putting it as THE replacement blog on bitshares.org and give it the URL bytemaster.bitshares.org.

He's a renaissance man with lots of different interests. I think that's great, even if I don't agree with of all his opinions, and I wouldn't suggest he censor it. Maybe we can point to individual posts that are relevant and good?

We can point to whatever but the issue is with they.

[donkeypong]

This brings up a good question: do we want the new bitshares.org to point directly to bytemaster's blog or do we want to copy a subset of the blog posts (the majority posts that do a really great job of explaining BitShares and what it is all about) to the "official" bitshares blog?

Bytemaster has every right to freely express himself as he wishes on his own private blog. But it does concern me when we promote it to look official by putting it as THE replacement blog on bitshares.org and give it the URL bytemaster.bitshares.org.

He's a renaissance man with lots of different interests. I think that's great, even if I don't agree with of all his opinions, and I wouldn't suggest he censor it. Maybe we can point to individual posts that are relevant and good? 

[arhag]

To be fair, I stated that all I know is that "earthing will not HURT and might help".    I don't believe EVERYTHING in every book I recommend, I mostly recommend them because I find it fascinating and worth looking into.

What we are trying to say is that it is a bad move even if you were certain that it has positive health benefits. It makes the difference between wanting to point people to your blog vs wanting to point them at a select subset of your articles mirrored somewhere else.

This brings up a good question: do we want the new bitshares.org to point directly to bytemaster's blog or do we want to copy a subset of the blog posts (the majority posts that do a really great job of explaining BitShares and what it is all about) to the "official" bitshares blog?

Bytemaster has every right to freely express himself as he wishes on his own private blog. But it does concern me when we promote it to look official by putting it as THE replacement blog on bitshares.org and give it the URL bytemaster.bitshares.org.

[darbon]

Excellent initiative! Greetings and good reading at all.

[santaclause102]

At first I had the same doubts.
But wouldn't it be wrong to center everything about freedom and then hide your opinions because of fear how people will perceive you? Wouldn that proof, that we fail at achieving freedom even at such a basic level and yet we try at such a large scale?

To be fair, I stated that all I know is that "earthing will not HURT and might help".    I don't believe EVERYTHING in every book I recommend, I mostly recommend them because I find it fascinating and worth looking into.

I think this doesn't matter to those that want to form an opinion on you fast and not to those that seek a chance to denounce you/bitshares. This is a great opportunity to do denounce you/bitshares because it breaks a few norms that are shared by a vast majority of people especially if it comes to business and financial services (conservative realms which is reality up to now).

In the end it's a philosophical question about intention or effect driven action. I personally think there is no contradiction.

Is that a bad thing though? BitShares is all about breaking norms isn't it?
The great vision we have is probably not compatible with many people's view on things, yet we shouldn't hide it.

I sympathize with your perspective!
But ignoring reality has bitten us before and was a painful learning experience (legal reality).
In a perfect world where everyone is rational and has no ego I would agree. Equally if you wanted to ignore that governments exist regulators will have the possibility to extinct your project and let another one bloom. Now you can not eliminate regulatory risk completely but you can reduce your exposure - the same goes for this matter.

[santaclause102]

To be fair, I stated that all I know is that "earthing will not HURT and might help".    I don't believe EVERYTHING in every book I recommend, I mostly recommend them because I find it fascinating and worth looking into.

I think this doesn't matter to those that want to form an opinion on you fast and not to those that seek a chance to denounce you/bitshares. This is a great opportunity to do denounce you/bitshares because it breaks a few norms that are shared by a vast majority of people especially if it comes to business and financial services (conservative realms which is reality up to now).

In the end it's a philosophical question about intention or effect driven action. I personally think there is no contradiction.

In my opinion, anyone who decides to use ad hominem attacks against BitShares based upon a view of a single founder is giving us free press and discrediting themselves.

Do you regard this ttp://prestonbyrne.com/2014/08/17/dont-walk-away-run/ as free press?
Why do you think we are totally underrepresented on coindesk? We have a concept that is so earth shattering revolutionary but Ethereum and Counterparty are regarded as "the" crypto 2.0 projects. Why?
To make it at least a little more representative: Make a little survey among everyone you can get a hold of that has a proven track record in a professional field that has to do with marketing, Sales or PR.

[liondani]

Personally I prefer to follow somebody  when I know they are not hiding anything even if it could heart him... (I thing in the long term it will benefit them)
And I would be very skeptical when I would find out somebody is hiding things just for the sake of .... whatever!
The truth always wins at the end...

[bytemaster]

Please stay far, far away from this topic... If you write about it keep it off of anything that promotes bitshares on the same page / is a subdomain of bitshares.org

Yes.  Others have covered it well enough.  I have nothing to add

[toast]

Please stay far, far away from this topic... If you write about it keep it off of anything that promotes bitshares on the same page / is a subdomain of bitshares.org

[speedy]

Then I guess I shouldn't express my opinions on vaccinations

Write a blog post on it (if you want)

Id be interested to hear your thoughts on it.

[bytemaster]

I'm surprised someone hasn't tried to make a Steve Jobs analogy. 

Earthing reflects poorly. Like the New Age and their crystals or Jenny McArthy and her war on vaccinations.  SMH

Then I guess I shouldn't express my opinions on vaccinations

How convenient... look what is on Lew Rockwell.com today:  http://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/01/bill-sardi/i-will-never-vaccinate-my-childe280a8/

[bytemaster]

I'm surprised someone hasn't tried to make a Steve Jobs analogy. 

Earthing reflects poorly. Like the New Age and their crystals or Jenny McArthy and her war on vaccinations.  SMH

Then I guess I shouldn't express my opinions on vaccinations

[PotatoPeeler]

I'm surprised someone hasn't tried to make a Steve Jobs analogy. 

Earthing reflects poorly. Like the New Age and their crystals or Jenny McArthy and her war on vaccinations.  SMH

[bytemaster]

To be fair, I stated that all I know is that "earthing will not HURT and might help".    I don't believe EVERYTHING in every book I recommend, I mostly recommend them because I find it fascinating and worth looking into.

I think this doesn't matter to those that want to form an opinion on you fast and not to those that seek a chance to denounce you/bitshares. This is a great opportunity to do denounce you/bitshares because it breaks a few norms that are shared by a vast majority of people especially if it comes to business and financial services (conservative realms which is reality up to now).

In the end it's a philosophical question about intention or effect driven action. I personally think there is no contradiction.

In my opinion, anyone who decides to use ad hominem attacks against BitShares based upon a view of a single founder is giving us free press and discrediting themselves.   

[Frodo]

At first I had the same doubts.
But wouldn't it be wrong to center everything about freedom and then hide your opinions because of fear how people will perceive you? Wouldn that proof, that we fail at achieving freedom even at such a basic level and yet we try at such a large scale?

To be fair, I stated that all I know is that "earthing will not HURT and might help".    I don't believe EVERYTHING in every book I recommend, I mostly recommend them because I find it fascinating and worth looking into.

I think this doesn't matter to those that want to form an opinion on you fast and not to those that seek a chance to denounce you/bitshares. This is a great opportunity to do denounce you/bitshares because it breaks a few norms that are shared by a vast majority of people especially if it comes to business and financial services (conservative realms which is reality up to now).

In the end it's a philosophical question about intention or effect driven action. I personally think there is no contradiction.

Is that a bad thing though? BitShares is all about breaking norms isn't it?
The great vision we have is probably not compatible with many people's view on things, yet we shouldn't hide it.

[santaclause102]

To be fair, I stated that all I know is that "earthing will not HURT and might help".    I don't believe EVERYTHING in every book I recommend, I mostly recommend them because I find it fascinating and worth looking into.

I think this doesn't matter to those that want to form an opinion on you fast and not to those that seek a chance to denounce you/bitshares. This is a great opportunity to do denounce you/bitshares because it breaks a few norms that are shared by a vast majority of people especially if it comes to business and financial services (conservative realms which is reality up to now).

In the end it's a philosophical question about intention or effect driven action. I personally think there is no contradiction.

[toast]

To be fair, I stated that all I know is that "earthing will not HURT and might help".    I don't believe EVERYTHING in every book I recommend, I mostly recommend them because I find it fascinating and worth looking into.

What we are trying to say is that it is a bad move even if you were certain that it has positive health benefits. It makes the difference between wanting to point people to your blog vs wanting to point them at a select subset of your articles mirrored somewhere else.

[bytemaster]

To be fair, I stated that all I know is that "earthing will not HURT and might help".    I don't believe EVERYTHING in every book I recommend, I mostly recommend them because I find it fascinating and worth looking into.

[santaclause102]

I have learned a lot from you because you convincingly and rationally present a perspective on society that I did not investigate much before and which is at least not mainstream. I am thankful that this is the case.
Here are my worries: I tried to emphasize that I have no idea whether earting is valid or not. The point I was making was that 99% of people will perceive it as an indicator of incompetence which has nothing to do with whether it actually is valid or not. 99% of people do not stop at the observation and say that they just don't know whether it is valid or not. Most will form an opinion to "gain certainty". The effect (independent of your intentions!): It does the opposite of creating trust in the competence of Bitshares and people will use it to denunciate Bitshares.

What about this:

1. Set goals:
- Replace governments with software that allows for voluntary cooperation.

2. Assess circumstances:
- Competition among those that want to provide financial p2p software leading to a more or less free society. I can well imagine a more government friendly direct competitor.
- Irrational / emotional / ego driven / public attention grasping investors, commentators and competitors.

3. Set strategy to best reach set goals
-  Provide as little attack surface [1] as possible so that people that know how to play human / social psychology do not run with your ideas, concepts and software and give it a more "trustworthy" outer shell (+ legal advantages maybe) ending in a less free version of what you imagined the software could do for society.

I am with you with respect to the "mainstream bias" and I share the value of standing for what one believes in. I might disagree on how this will play out since it also is a social experiment!

[1] Attack surface / provocation can be a powerful thing. It is effective when one (person or company) is provocative but powerful. A lot of attack surface makes one vulnerable / less powerful. 

[donkeypong]

Some studies have shown modest benefits from walking barefoot, but there may be various reasons for this. Dr. Weil has an open-minded discussion of earthing on his website:

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA401221/Is-There-Anything-to-Earthing.html

[toast]

I was also super annoyed about the earthing recommendation. I promise people will use that as an argument for why you shouldn't listen to anything you have to say.

It is very different from the austrian/non-austrian perspective because 1) it is a health recommendation and 2) the authors of the book are involved in selling products based on their books.

This criticism is equally valid whether it actually has health benefits or not (edit: heck I'll even humor you and say that it has *provable* health benefits - doesn't matter). If this were anywhere but your personal blog I would demand that you take it down for the sake of bitshares. Actually I'm going to "politely request" that you think about the cost/benefit of listing it. My track record for predicting PR blunders is very good.

[bytemaster]

Hey bytemaster, I was reading through your recommendations and was intrigued that you picked sacred geometry. Out of curiosity have you come across Rodin Vortex based mathematics? It's very interesting math that you may enjoy following up on!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Never heard of it... sadly, I haven't had the time since starting BitShares to explore as much as I use to  in the past.

[bytemaster]

I enjoyed reading the list! It's also great for building trust because it is personal.
Putting an anti-scientific book about earthing up there is maybe not the strongest indicator of a solid ("scientific") project.
I don't have any clue about earthing! It may work. My point is just that someone that does a 5 minutes research (like I did) or just looks at the title of the book will get the impression that earthing is a product people are sold by pseudo science.
So all I am saying is that it doesn't serve the purpose of giving the reader of your blog confidence in that BitShares works (meets "scientific" standards). Many people won't understand exactly how Bitshares works so they form an opinion based on little indicators like this and/or trust people who tell them that it is safe to store you money with it or not.

Indeed, earthing has all the indicators of a pseudoscience, and I must say I'm disappointed this thing appeared on your reading list. Falling for scams doesn't inspire trust, and independently of whether earthing is a scam or not, it is definitively perceived as a scam by many.

If I have learned anything over the years it is that "official science" is far more likely to be pseudoscience because it often gets funded by government to produce government desired results.   Many people also consider Austrian economics to be psuedoscience because it doesn't use math like mainstream econ.

If you read the book, do the research, and try it yourself then you will realize that Earthing is not pseudoscience.   Run some experiments.   If you understand electrical systems then you know earthing is very important for the health of electronic devices such as computers.  Our bodies are huge electrical systems and earthing helps shield us from having our electric potential swung around by all of the RF being pumped around us.

I am not going to take down a book I recommend simply because it is "politically incorrect" in the eyes of some people.    After all my view of subjective reality is equally "unscientific" in the eyes of some people. 

[inarizushi]

I enjoyed reading the list! It's also great for building trust because it is personal.
Putting an anti-scientific book about earthing up there is maybe not the strongest indicator of a solid ("scientific") project.
I don't have any clue about earthing! It may work. My point is just that someone that does a 5 minutes research (like I did) or just looks at the title of the book will get the impression that earthing is a product people are sold by pseudo science.
So all I am saying is that it doesn't serve the purpose of giving the reader of your blog confidence in that BitShares works (meets "scientific" standards). Many people won't understand exactly how Bitshares works so they form an opinion based on little indicators like this and/or trust people who tell them that it is safe to store you money with it or not.

Indeed, earthing has all the indicators of a pseudoscience, and I must say I'm disappointed this thing appeared on your reading list. Falling for scams doesn't inspire trust, and independently of whether earthing is a scam or not, it is definitively perceived as a scam by many.

[santaclause102]

I enjoyed reading the list! It's also great for building trust because it is personal.
Putting an anti-scientific book about earthing up there is maybe not the strongest indicator of a solid ("scientific") project.
I don't have any clue about earthing! It may work. My point is just that someone that does a 5 minutes research (like I did) or just looks at the title of the book will get the impression that earthing is a product people are sold by pseudo science.
So all I am saying is that it doesn't serve the purpose of giving the reader of your blog confidence in that BitShares works (meets "scientific" standards). Many people won't understand exactly how Bitshares works so they form an opinion based on little indicators like this and/or trust people who tell them that it is safe to store you money with it or not.

[emailtooaj]

Hey bytemaster, I was reading through your recommendations and was intrigued that you picked sacred geometry. Out of curiosity have you come across Rodin Vortex based mathematics? It's very interesting math that you may enjoy following up on!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[bytemaster]

No particular order.  Just listed as they came to mind. 

[wasthatawolf]

So when's the first meeting of the Bytemaster Book Club?

[hadrian]

@bytemaster

I'm very pleased to see from you a recommended reading list. I have for some time wished for this, but didn't suggest it earlier because I didn't want to waste (or waist  ) your time.

It's even better than getting music recommendations from one's favorite musician, because this stuff's more fundamentally important (I think?).

Thank you for taking the time to produce this. Now I need to find the time to read some of them.

I hope others will find your list as beneficial as I expect to.

By the way, how have you ordered the list?

[bytemaster]

I really dislike micropayments

[hadrian]

the blog should just be its own delegate, vote yourself in that way it stays free in an unfree world.

I predict that this would bring strong criticism. People would start arguing about centralization of voting power and delegates leading to use of propaganda.

the blog is great, but why you started to use adsense again? it looks like you want to sell me something.

affiliatelinks on books is ok, but why adsense too? makes no sense.

It is part of my plan to create a self-funding referral system.   If I can generate revenue from traffic, then pass that revenue on to successful conversions to BitShares users then we can reach more people.   

Also, if there are no Ads then people suspect something else.  I will probably create a blog post about my strategy in time.   

I don't like the ad based model of the Internet. Why not go with micropayments? Why use ads?

Until the use of micropayments is commonplace, wouldn't this create too much of a barrier between bytemaster's thoughts and the intended audience?

[luckybit]

the blog is great, but why you started to use adsense again? it looks like you want to sell me something.

affiliatelinks on books is ok, but why adsense too? makes no sense.

It is part of my plan to create a self-funding referral system.   If I can generate revenue from traffic, then pass that revenue on to successful conversions to BitShares users then we can reach more people.   

Also, if there are no Ads then people suspect something else.  I will probably create a blog post about my strategy in time.   

I don't like the ad based model of the Internet. Why not go with micropayments? Why use ads?

[svk]

This blog post has considerable basic spelling errors. Perhaps consider writing your article in a proper editor in paragraphs?

Indeed I'm surprised no one's fixed that yet! @bytemaster I made a pull request on github for some corrections.

[PotatoPeeler]

This blog post has considerable basic spelling errors. Perhaps consider writing your article in a proper editor in paragraphs?

[eagleeye]

the blog should just be its own delegate, vote yourself in that way it stays free in an unfree world.

[monsterer]

Right now about $55 for 3 weeks, but Ad Sense has only been there for 24 hours and has earned about $1... $30 per month.    So at todays traffic levels it is a mere $100 per month; however, my plan is to grow the traffic to be 10 to 100x what it is getting right now which should ultimately produce $10,000 per month.

Have you used adsense before?

I have a blog with 1000 organic visitors per day and adsense was generating around $50 / month, so I just gave up using it.

Problem is, tech geeks hate adverts and are clinically unable to click on them, making this a non stater for my programming/tech oriented blog.

Just my 2p.

[testz]

the blog is great, but why you started to use adsense again? it looks like you want to sell me something.

affiliatelinks on books is ok, but why adsense too? makes no sense.

It is part of my plan to create a self-funding referral system.   If I can generate revenue from traffic, then pass that revenue on to successful conversions to BitShares users then we can reach more people.   

Also, if there are no Ads then people suspect something else.  I will probably create a blog post about my strategy in time.   

I wish I can create a referral program for English-Chinese translation service for your site .   
How much is the revenue from the current AD ?

Right now about $55 for 3 weeks, but Ad Sense has only been there for 24 hours and has earned about $1... $30 per month.    So at todays traffic levels it is a mere $100 per month; however, my plan is to grow the traffic to be 10 to 100x what it is getting right now which should ultimately produce $10,000 per month.

Can you post a link after every blog to discussion topic in our forum (like https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=13065)? It's will replace comments engine and bring us new valuable users.

Probably we need to create dedicated group for your blog discussion topics at our forum.

[bytemaster]

the blog is great, but why you started to use adsense again? it looks like you want to sell me something.

affiliatelinks on books is ok, but why adsense too? makes no sense.

It is part of my plan to create a self-funding referral system.   If I can generate revenue from traffic, then pass that revenue on to successful conversions to BitShares users then we can reach more people.   

Also, if there are no Ads then people suspect something else.  I will probably create a blog post about my strategy in time.   

I wish I can create a referral program for English-Chinese translation service for your site .   
How much is the revenue from the current AD ?

Right now about $55 for 3 weeks, but Ad Sense has only been there for 24 hours and has earned about $1... $30 per month.    So at todays traffic levels it is a mere $100 per month; however, my plan is to grow the traffic to be 10 to 100x what it is getting right now which should ultimately produce $10,000 per month.   

[btswildpig]

the blog is great, but why you started to use adsense again? it looks like you want to sell me something.

affiliatelinks on books is ok, but why adsense too? makes no sense.

It is part of my plan to create a self-funding referral system.   If I can generate revenue from traffic, then pass that revenue on to successful conversions to BitShares users then we can reach more people.   

Also, if there are no Ads then people suspect something else.  I will probably create a blog post about my strategy in time.   

I wish I can create a referral program for English-Chinese translation service for your site .   
How much is the revenue from the current AD ?

[bytemaster]

the blog is great, but why you started to use adsense again? it looks like you want to sell me something.

affiliatelinks on books is ok, but why adsense too? makes no sense.

It is part of my plan to create a self-funding referral system.   If I can generate revenue from traffic, then pass that revenue on to successful conversions to BitShares users then we can reach more people.   

Also, if there are no Ads then people suspect something else.  I will probably create a blog post about my strategy in time.   

[Shentist]

the blog is great, but why you started to use adsense again? it looks like you want to sell me something.

affiliatelinks on books is ok, but why adsense too? makes no sense.

[bytemaster]

http://bytemaster.bitshares.org/article/2015/01/10/Recommended-Reading/#