Thank you for the reply! And I’m really glad to be back. I’ll be collecting ideas for the text topics and posting them here.
Also, where can I see the English For You project? With the number of messages in this topic, it can be a little hard to navigate it. Combing through the website hasn’t really helped much for now. I’d love to see us all bouncing ideas off each other!
Sumejja, I agree with you, the thread has become a little long and difficult to navigate. I’ve been thinking about what exactly I need to do in order to get every single one of you to start communicating with each other so that we become a team rather than working as separate individuals. Do you have any suggestions?
So! Here are the five topics I’d like to cover in the next few days. Let me know what you think, if you have any other suggestions etc.
Blockchain Criticism - From Lack of Trust to Overengineering
Blockchain and Gaming, Part 1 (because this is a great topic for several parts, but I can also leave it as one if preferred)
Should There Be One Blockchain to Rule Them All
Cryptocurrency: Coins vs Tokens
Blockchain and Stem Cell Research (from this fascinating article: [How Blockchain Technology Can Accelerate Stem Cell Research
As for communicating with each other - I’m honestly not sure. Is there a possibility of creating a Slack workspace in which we could pitch new topics, discuss previous ones and share off-topic stuff?
Hi Sumejja, I like all of the five topics you have suggested and really look forward to reading the texts and comprehension questions.
Yes, we can start using additional external communication channels such as Slack as soon as we reach a certain level of momentum. At the current stage we are still in this very early ‘jelling phase’ where it’s not clear yet whether or not there actually will be team. As of now, communication is 99% between a content creator and me. An exchange of ideas and thoughts among all members of our group hasn’t started yet but I’m working on it …
Good morning everyone! @Torsten This “Babies” documentary is super interesting and I’m learning so much about how these tiny humans learn and grow. I’m afraid that I’ll have more than 10 articles written up by the time the series is done. Feel free to say no, but I’d like to continue writing on the topic of baby development until the last episode (there are eight 50-minute episodes in total). I’ve gone through two episodes and I’ve already pulled enough information for 6 articles!
Hi Tamar, about 1.5 years ago I listened to ‘Everybody lies’, a book by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz (I listened to the audio version instead of reading it). I found the entire book fascinating and I remember how he described the concept of a ‘Doppelganger’ (partly because the word ‘Doppelgänger’ is German).
Here is a quote from the book: One of the more interesting applications of big data is the ability to predict someone’s behavior through the use of a “doppelgänger”–a well-matched individual for whom extensive information is already available.
Now, what this means is that if there is one person (in our case that’s you) who finds a topic interesting and valuable, the likelihood that there is at least one more individual who is as interested in the same topic as this first person is very high.
In other words, if you find that the “Babies” documentary provides enough information for an entire series of articles/exercises then by all means please do continue writing them
This story is exciting for a number of reasons. First of all, it’s about what is happening in Nairobi, Kenia as opposed to Palo Alto, California. African countries have so much potential and their economies and societes have started developing much faster than those of many west European ones, especially Germany where stagnation and resistance to change is getting stronger by the day.
Secondly, it’s a story about small local startup companies rather than yet the IPO of yet another unicorn born in Silicon Valley.
Thirdly, it’s about electric powered urban micro mobility which helps speed up the process of democracatizing technology as well as society. Many thanks for your great work, Kelly
Hi @Torsten. You’ll notice I recently added a 6th batch of texts to our shared Google Drive folder. Though, I still need to tidy up some of the texts before we post them. Thank you
Hello @Andrea , thank you very much for creating the exercise about the bionic jellyfish. Can you imagine suddenly being able to swim three times faster yourself ?
Thank you @Torsten! Again sorry, my alerts all came buzzing through at once just now; no idea what happened there!
I like the idea that small local startup companies can be part of the huge wave of changes we’re going to need to implement to make our world a better place. I think that is very hopeful; don’t we always say things like ‘journeys start with a single step’ and ‘be the change you want to see’ and ‘just because you are an individual doesn’t mean you can’t change the world’. I think it must be hard, if you are an investor and profit driven to then turn your focus entirely to helping rather than earning, but I also think that we, as citizens of this world, have to start looking at the bigger picture outside of what we can do for ourselves. I won’t pretend I have any answers but yes… this electromobility starting to be implememented with small startup companies seems like a great step in the right direction to me!
Hi @Tamar! I just had to drop in to say, I love your topic! I have a 9 month old of my own and I’ve been told by my Facebook mom group that this Netflix documentary is super interesting, but I have been putting off watching it because they also say it will make me cry. A lot. What do you think? Is it more matter of fact or an emotional rollercoaster? I’m debating internally whether to start watching it, but my baby will get freaked out if I hug him tightly and cry, lol.
Ugh, I’m catching up on everything you guys have been doing lately, especially @Andrea’s jellyfish and @KellyW’s electromobility, and now blockchain seems like a boring old concept, lol. I’m not complaining, but I’m so happy we have such varied topics here!
Hi @Sumejja! I don’t think blockchain is boring at all! We have so many technologies evolving all the time, it’s fascinating to watch all the directions they may go in and also great to read about from a number of perspectives! nerdling alert