The working title of the book Jan and I are writing is “Spin the Bottle”. It is about a young, beautiful (naturally) psychiatrist who has lost both parents and, in their place, has created an imaginary brother. They often talk. Her mother killed her father. The mother committed suicide awaiting trail. The psychiatrist has an unusual attraction to blood, specifically the menstrual blood of young teenage girls. Here is a short cutting from the beginning, one must start somewhere.
“Black on the edges of movement, distorted figures without faces, turning to the side … need to lie better, blood smells like iron, blood smells like red rust heating in the sun
She was dressed in panties and a t-shirt, as she walked out onto the third-floor balcony. Her butt leaned against the railing and then she bent backward and went over. Her wings failed. The dawn paused.”
Her name is Fiona Butters. She is suffering, perhaps, from the Electra Complex, fantasizes of being a vampire, has a split personality, or is actually a vampire. We are going to explore each one as the plot unfolds.
***
Recently I have become interested in crypto coins. (A. Mole, you can help me out here.) If you don’t know much about them, here is my take. There are two kinds of coins, the memes and the ones with utility. Memes are cultural movements designed to fuck the man and make money, nothing more than that. Utility coins, on the other hand, are about what can the coin do and make in the way of goods and services. Utility coins are normally backed by computer engineers and mathematicians trying to make a blockchain better. A blockchain is a group of computers used to authenticate all kinds of shit. These blockchains use either “proof of work” or “proof of stake”. The former is centralized computation, while the latter is a network of computers linked all over the world. “Proof of work” is bad for the environment, “proof of stake” is much better, like a lot better. An example of a coin’s utility might be the security of transactions. Programming code is necessary to make transactions secure. So, in short, meme coins are essentially utility free, while utility coins have some obvious point to their existence (unlike say people in rural Texas). However, making money is essential to attracting buyers to both memes and utility coins.
One of the first rules of crypto investment is don’t tell anyone about it. Family and friends will hit you up for money, local governments might take interest, and hackers now have you as a target. I know people who have invested in Shiba Inu coin. Shiba is in a dog fight with Doge coin. Elon Musk favors Doge. Fuck him, although there is much good in other things that he does. Shiba has, perhaps, the all-time record for a “good investment”. A little over one year ago, somebody bought $8,000 dollars’ worth of Shiba. Today that investment is worth around six billion US dollars. The volatility of the crypto market is legendary. Again, I know someone who gained $17,000 in less than ten minutes and then lost it in half the time. At the bottom of this post, I am putting up a crypto meme about the Crypto Gods, the Bogdanoff Brothers. This video will give you a good idea about what it is like to trade crypto.
Okay, back to “Spin the Bottle”.
tin hats 
LikeLiked by 1 person
Blockchain is a great tool for validating authenticity of “stuff”. Usually digital stuff. Non-Fungible Tokens are secured by blockchain.
Cryptocoins leverage blockchain to ensure transactional authenticity.
There’s an artist blogger I’ve followed for years who has decided to create digital “cards” and sell them using the NEAR protocol Here’s some of his stuff https://paras.id/search?q=fictionspawn NEAR Tokens are kind of neat as they’re both a crypto and a transactional currency. Most of the others — nobody would ever use them as money.
I’ve not traded any crypto. I downloaded the code and “mined” btc in 2011 when it first came out. But dismissed the whole thing as a fad. I still think the world is going to come crashing down on these fiat-replacement currencies. But, my investment advice has generally sucked over the years. Etherium 2.0 may be the one to watch.
LikeLiked by 1 person
What do you think about El Salvador’s move to crypto?
LikeLike
That ‘tuber has some good blockchain content.
The video referenced points out how simple a blockchain can be.
Blockchain is the future — and prolly cryptocoin, too, as long as there IS a future. As soon as the grid dies, no more electricity, no more digital currency. “I’ll trade ya my dead USB drive full of crypto-hash-keys worth a billion USD for a couple of shotgun shells.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
I lost a long reply to you, so I will just say thanks. It mostly was about depression, the end of things, dead fish, glaciers, fire, war, pandemics, etc. and how isolated I feel and how funny it is that a sweet little Swedish girl on the spectrum is the smartest person on the planet. There was a long section about how naïve people are when the superstructure of their lives is changing. WWI was only meant to last two months, etc. Another part about where specifically I thought all of this was going. Oh well, who the fuck cares? Love. Duke
LikeLike
I lost one to you, too. Must be the Coronal Mass Ejaculation. The Sun is spewing jism all over the Earth and we humans go out and revel in the Aurora Semenalis.
Being on the Spectrum is where it’s at these days. All the cool kids are there. ‘Fraid I can’t join ’em, too erratic/sporadic in my thoughts.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, the link on Paras was a shock for me. It seems to be the realization of what I was just beginning to understand about NFTs. In order to get what the “Paras Market” was, I found this link to Near, whatever that is, https://near.org/case-studies/paras/ Near, I guess, is the owner of Paras or at least providing technical supporter for Paras. The price of digital art on Paras is usually in the penny range. I actually do like some of the art. Have you purchased anything on it? Thanks. Duke
LikeLike
In order to get setup in crypto, any crypto, it seems, you have to hand over all your PII, personally identifiable information. I just can’t get behind that release, regardless of the fact that I know there’s no such thing as privacy these days.
So, no. I would like to support FictionSpawn though. He’s been creating his art for years and I’m not sure he’s ever made much from it — until now, one assumes.
(LittleFears was another blogger-artist I used to follow until he shut down… I’ll have to see what happened to him.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
yes, that is it exactly. all the personal stuff to whom exactly? i keep thinking about that old Ray Bradbury short story about the kids with the big plasma screen with the African savanna and how they fed their parents to the virtual lions.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m high right now and this is messing with me, may be a good sign
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’m not high but definitely lost. I probably got swept up into that plasma screen.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I sent you a “private” message. Ha. Yes, Jan, we are a few years behind, but this thing is sweeping over us and I don’t see a really great outcome for most of the world. That is why the experiment in El Salvador is so important. Here is a email from Bila. He is married to a woman from ES and he owns a bit of land and house there.
Mi cuate Duke, Yea, Ortega imprisons opposition candidates, shits on the Constitution, and gives sanctuary to 2 former Salvadoran presidents and other government officials who stole mega millions. I just got back from El Sal, where the buses run you down, this morning, here’s my report on lo que pasa…
I really enjoyed the visits in El Sal- the government and people have done an extraordinary job of controlling the spread of COVID, # 1 in Central America, one of the top five of all 22 Latin American countries. 99.9% of people wear masks everywhere, even in the great outdoors, over 60% have been vaccinated, economy on the rebound(Moody’s predicts a 9 % growth in the economy next year, second only to Panama’s 10%). The news up here is that the President, Nayib Bukele, is another nefarious dictator, like Ortega of Nicaragua, Obrero(bien lo sabes) of Mexico, Bolsonaro of Brazil, and our wannabe Trump, seizing power of the legislature, the judicial system, the army, and police, and violating multiple terms of the Constitution. He changed the term limits to allow himself a repeat candidacy in the next elections. He is distancing himself and the country from the US and is ‘dancing the bump’ with China which is donating mega millions to build a super library downtown by demolishing the original historic library and 3 adjacent buildings.
However, when you consider that the 4 former presidents are all in exile(one is ‘presumed dead’) to avoid prosecutions concerning huge thefts of government funds, 3 of these corrupt thugs together stole over a billion dollars from a country whose total annual budget runs about $70 billion, it is easy to see why 75-84% of the people support Bukele. He is promoting pension reform to raise the benefit from 30% to 70%(imagine making $1000 a month then retiring on $300), he built a top-notch hospital to deal with COVID, there are 4 major road projects underway to ameliorate the HORRIBLE traffic congestion, a plan to build 60 modern multistory, glass-walled buildings throughout the country called CUBOS(several are already in operation) which are educational centers with computers and libraries open free to the public, vast improvements to the water purification and distribution systems, a Salvadoran owned and operated airlines (Volaris, already operating), and the establishment of BITCOIN as legal tender everywhere which has so far run into some problems but has also created many economic opportunities for people who have been marginalized from involvement in economic well-being and development. The homicide rate has dropped drastically; however, disappearances are on the rise. He has cracked down on the privileges previously given to incarcerated gang members such as cell phones, TVs, prostitutes, etc. I saw a lot of signs pointing to positive, people-oriented initiatives brewing, as well as change from the kleptocracies that typified previous governments. Of course, there is plenty of criticism from the other political parties which only cite Bukele’s autocratic tendencies, but this self-pronounced ‘cool dictator’ might actually be what El Salvador needs.
Estamos en veremos, Bila
LikeLike
Bila’s message proves the point that many people here in the states have been making. If Trump and his gang hadn’t been stupid idiots, the US would no longer be a democracy. This country is definitely primed for becoming a dictatorship.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The interesting thing to me was the stuff on crypto and computer training for the poor of ES.
LikeLike
No matter how times and how slowly it is explained to me, I will never understand this subject of NFT and crypto blockchain whatevers.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Think of it as people buying and selling “the future”. All of the “purpose” or “utility” cryptos have a different vision of what that might be. You read about the expected future outcomes the coin represents and then if you think that is the way we are headed, you buy the coin. Others might agree with the vision and also buy the coin, the price rises and one day, you sell and make a profit. The company behind the coin receives most of your money and then implement their ideas. Check out the company behind Jasmy coin. Easy to google and read about it. Also, check out El Salvador’s effort to use crypto coins as a national currency. This is allowing poor people to participate in the economy more than they ever have before. I’m also sending you this video. Watch it all the way through and try to keep up with the subtitles. It is Japanese and only has a slight, vague, philosophical relationship to crypto. Mostly about what the future holds for this “conductor”.
Love. Duke
LikeLiked by 1 person
Money is more an idea accepted by a group of people. Early ideas of money provided “utility” to people. Why? Because they agreed to invest value in sea shells, stones, turquois, etc. For money to work, everyone needs to agree that it has “tradable value”. It is much easier to walk around with shells than say stacks of firewood that you want to trade for cut blocks of granite. Better to pay with sea shells and get the stone mason to delivery the rocks. Anyway, crypto coins are electronic in nature. Maybe that is why you are having trouble. But again, most people today don’t buy with paper money, they pay with their phone or credit card. How weird is that? Well, no more so than paying with electronic crypto coins. Someone was recently in the Houston International Airport and about half the stores there accepted Bitcoin for payment. The stores, evidently, have a “electronic wallet” that a buyer can deposit a small amount of Bitcoin into and pay for the product. The payment is electronic and usually made on a phone, just like you would pay with a debit account from your phone or a card. Easy Pezzy, right? No, wrong, wrong, wrong. Sorry. Duke
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s hopeless, Duke. Anything involving $$$–electronic, seashell, or otherwise–is completely lost on me. I had a whole statement about how it’s just for rich people who are in-the-know to get richer and then you tell me the poor of El Salvador are using it. Don’t waste another breath on me.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hmm it’s a real lot actually and was really helpful. Thank you
LikeLiked by 1 person