Light list this week. Lots going on at home, and one of these links leads to a 2 1/2 hour video that took up a big chunk of my reading time this week.
- The Line Goes Up - The Problem with NFTs: Let’s start with the length: almost 3 hours. It’s not a light watch, but it’s worth it. Blockchain tech, for me, falls into that bucket of “there’s something there, but not any of the things out now.” NFTs and Web3 more broadly are all meh ideas to me. I’m happy some artists I follow are getting to make, in a few cases, life altering amounts of money from their work via NFTs. I’m also truly intrigued by the implications of some of the underlying trust and threat models solved by the blockchain and surrounding products. @foldablehuman makes a compelling case that none of that actually matters, and that I’m falling for the grift of many NFT true believers. This is accessible enough for anyone. It’s well put together and should make everyone pause before dropping a lot of money into crypto or NFT/Web3.
- Introducing Garage, our self-hosted distributed object storage solution: One of my hobbies is home automation, largely relying on Home Assistant. Home Automation is pretty invasive from a data standpoint - for example, imagine a location triggered automation like “turn on the porch light if it’s getting dark and at least one person isn’t home.” This means the service needs to track your location, which generates an entire pool of data that can be monetized. I’d prefer to self host this stuff, hence Home Assistant. When I see software like Garage, that aim to solve practical storage problems in ways that allow a different model where self-hosting is an option, I’m intrigued. The Hacker News thread was also illuminating.
- Skädis pegboards from Ikea: Another sabbatical project: clean up my workshop so I can use it more often. Found these cheap pegboards from Ikea that look good and actually seem really functional. Lots of fun little attachments that are available. It’s also widely supported by the maker community. I was inspired to look into these by this really nice looking set of filament spool holders on Thingiverse. If you need a peg board (not a message board), this looks nice and is relatively inexpensive.
