Hello, Bitcoin Cash

What is Bitcoin cash?

Bitcoin cash (BCH) is a cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrencies are digital assets that are bought and sold online. Crypto, as it’s known, can be used for a variety of things, including making payments and online transactions. Bitcoin cash is not related to Bitcoin. It was created in a hard fork.

Bitcoin cash was created by a group of developers who decided that they didn’t want the Bitcoin blockchain to have any limitations on how much data can be added to it. The original Bitcoin protocol could only process a limited number of transactions per second. This limited the size of its blockchain, which is the decentralized ledger that holds all of the transaction records for the cryptocurrency.

When the developers wanted to add more transactions to the blockchain, they couldn’t do it without increasing the block size, which would have taken years to do manually. Instead, they created a new coin with the same name, but with a larger block size.

Bitcoin cash uses an identical proof-of-work system as Bitcoin, and its blockchain size is also similar.

How can you get Bitcoin Cash?

Bitcoin cash has two ways of getting it. The first is by purchasing it directly from one of the exchanges. Exchanges will either have an order book or they can be traded on an order book. In this case, traders can put their sell order on the order book and buyers can place their buy orders on the order book. The exchange will match up buyers and sellers based on the price and quantity that they want to trade. The other way that you can get Bitcoin cash is by mining it. Mining is when you use your computer to solve mathematical problems in order to validate transactions and earn new coins.

How to Store Bitcoin Cash

The safest way to store your bitcoins is in a hardware wallet like Ledger or Trezor. This way, if your computer is infected with malware, it won’t be able to steal your coins. Your private keys are stored on a device that is only connected to your computer through a USB cable. A hardware wallet also means that if your computer gets stolen, your coins won’t be compromised.

What are the pros and cons of Bitcoin cash?

Pros:

Bitcoin cash has a larger block size than its predecessor. This means that it can handle a higher number of transactions per second. This means that transactions can be completed faster, which can make the network more secure.
Bitcoin cash was created because some developers didn’t want to see the limitations placed on the original Bitcoin blockchain.
Bitcoin cash uses a proof-of-work system like its predecessor. This means that the network will still be secured through the amount of computing power being used to mine new coins.

Cons:

The original Bitcoin protocol had been working fine. This means that there wasn’t really a need for a larger block size.
Bitcoin cash is a separate cryptocurrency from its predecessor. This means that you won’t be able to use both interchangeably on the same wallet or exchange.

What can you do with Bitcoin cash?

Bitcoin cash can be used in all of the ways that other cryptocurrencies can be used, including paying for goods and services online, transferring money to others, and investing. The biggest advantage is that it allows for faster transactions and is cheaper to transact than its predecessor. This makes it a better choice for smaller purchases or when you’re just trying to pay someone back for something.

You can use BCH in the same way that you’d use other cryptocurrencies. You can transfer it to others, invest in it, or use it to pay for goods and services.

One activity growing in popularity is using Bitcoin cash in casinos. Casinos accept cryptocurrencies as payment so that you can gamble using BCH. You’ll find that most casinos will allow you to deposit and withdraw in BCH. There are plenty of bitcoin cash casinos in operation and most of them are reputable.

Wolverine to Join Deadpool and the MCU

Big announcement for Marvel fans yesterday. There will be a Deadpool 3 movie, and it will co-star Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. Both the Deadpool and Wolverine characters will make their debuts into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in this film, which is set for release in September, 2024. So it’s going to be a two-year wait for the movie!

Deadpool is a strange franchise for Disney. The first two films got an R rating, and Disney has already said ok for an R rating for the third installment. We don’t know anything about the story for this third Deadpool movie, but it will probably be as edgy as the first two.

The arrival of Wolverine isn’t a complete surprise, since Deadpool 2 was basically an X-Men movie with Deadpool in it.

This is just another sign that Disney is serious about bringing some of their popular comic book characters into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This isn’t going to be the end of that.

As for Spider-Man, Marvel has promised that we’re going to get a new Spider-Man movie in the next few years. There’s going to be a new Venom movie as well, and that will probably be next.

I’ve been thinking about which of the more obscure Marvel characters I’d still like to see get their own movie (hint: Gwenpool!). My list of favorite Marvel characters includes the following, and most have them are already or will be in the MCU.

Deadpool – the most successful comic book anti-hero in history. His movies have made nearly $1.5 billion worldwide so far. He’s always crazy and over-the-top, but somehow his superpower of being a sarcastic wisecracker makes him likeable.
Hawkeye – Hawkeye has always been my favorite Avenger. He’s cool, but he’s not too cool. He has great comic book adventures, and he’s pretty well-known in the real world, too. His movie came out in 2012, and it was pretty good, although not as good as the original comic book.
Wolverine – Logan, or Wolverine as he’s sometimes called, has been around for a long time. He’s a very grungy character. I’d like to see him get a solo film sometime in the future, but there’s not much chance of that happening. He’s supposed to star in the upcoming Deadpool 3 movie.
Captain America – Captain America is my second favorite Avenger. He’s cool, patriotic, and he always wears his patriotic red and white uniform when he’s in trouble.
Iron Man – Iron Man is my favorite Avenger. I like Iron Man because he’s rich and powerful. I wish he had a nicer personality, though. He seems to be pretty arrogant sometimes.
Black Widow – Black Widow is the only female Avenger, and she’s pretty cool. She’s also the only one with any real superpowers, so she has to rely on her intelligence and her wits a lot of the time. That makes her a lot more interesting than the guys, in my opinion.
Thor – Thor is a pretty cool superhero. He’s a big strong guy with lots of muscles who uses his hammer to beat up evil things. The problem with Thor movies is that he’s too powerful. The villain usually gets killed by the third act of the movie, and the movie is over. That’s not really a very interesting ending for a movie. I would like to see Thor movies where the villain doesn’t die so quickly. I think that would make a lot of sense in the comic book, anyway.
She-Hulk – I think She-Hulk is a pretty cool character, but she hasn’t been around very long. It would be interesting to see how her powers work, though. She’s featured in a new TV series on Disney+

Hello, Ian

Hurricane Ian is looking very bad-ass as it bears down on Florida’s Gulf Coast. The exact predictions for landfall keep changing, but it looks like it will strengthen to Category 4 and impact the Fort Meyers area.

That’s where my brother is, staying in a cheap motel with his family. I’m not really sure what they’re going to do when Ian hits, but I’m glad they’re not in one of those tall condominium towers on the coast line.

The TV is showing the hurricane coming towards Florida. It looks pretty bad, and I hope it doesn’t hit too hard. I hope everyone stays safe and out of the way of this big storm.
Ian is already being compared to Katrina because of its size. There are comparisons with Andrew from 1992, which devastated the state of Florida.

I’m sure the news will be talking about this all week.

Mace Windu’s Lightsaber

Search Google for “mace windu lightsaber” and you’ll get over 2.1 million results. Most of them will point out that his light saber is purple. Legend has it that’s because the actor portraying him, Samuel L. Jackson, personally asked George Lucas for a purple light saber so that he could easily be spotted in a big fight scene.

But what if Mace Windu had a more common light saber color? What if Mace Windu’s light saber was red or green?

Like any great conspiracy theory, there’s a few reasons that makes some sense:

He could have just liked it better that way. He might have just felt more powerful when swinging a red saber. The Empire might be too stupid to even recognize it. He was simply standing at the right height or angle of attack and his opponents had their backs to the sun.

That’s because his color wasn’t “purple”. It wasn’t any color on the visible spectrum at all. Mace Windu’s “color” is the “color” of plasma.

“So how did that work, then?”, you might ask.

A Little Bit About Light

Like all of the other visible wavelengths (reds, oranges, yellows, blues, greens, browns), light starts out as packets of energy called “photons”. The electrons in each individual photon have a well-defined frequency.

Atoms themselves, made up of positively charged nuclei, negatively charged electrons, and negatively charged atoms called “protons” all positioned next to each other, have a more random structure that results in lower energy orbitals called the “valley” of lower energy. Electrons will “tunnel” from a higher energy orbital (the “peak”) of an atom all the way down to a valley orbital of a different atom. When a photon hits an atom in this configuration, the atom loses an electron to the photon’s high energy state. That freed electron makes for a more unstable atom in an overall neutral configuration. A molecule in that configuration is more likely to ionize, that is to lose another electron to a high energy photon. When a neutral molecule does ionize, we have a reactive intermediate, but also a strong absorption of light and a creation of heat.

So if a photon hits an atom right in its peak, the atom remains in its peak, the molecule becomes ionized, and the photon gets absorbed by another molecule. In a chain reaction, the same process is repeated through all of the other molecules until eventually all of the photons absorbed and turned into heat energy. If an energetic photon happens to be absorbed right on an orbital transition from peak to valley, or vice versa, the newly created positive or negative charge can “jump” the empty orbital gap and result in another photon being produced with exactly the same frequency, and energy, of the initial one. This process, where one photon splits into two photons that are exactly in phase, is called “fluorescence.” In other words, light with energy.

Of course, this is very technical and not much about Mace Windu’s light saber color, or why it might be red or green instead of purple.

But it should give us a good idea of how light works. It’s still just packets of energy. It doesn’t matter what color those packets happen to be. The color of something isn’t intrinsic to how that thing actually appears to us.

Mace Windu’s lightsaber probably was made to look purple. But it’s really the color of plasma. And that’s awesome.

I Bought Some Crypto. It Wasn’t So Bad.

Yesterday I did something I swore I wouldn’t do for as long as I lived. I bought some Crypto.

It wasn’t so bad.

My friends Tom and Kate have been egging me on for months. Years, even. I call them the “crypto couple” because at dinner parties and even just when hanging out, cryptocurrency is all they talk about. Not really all I guess, but enough that it seems like it.

Tom has been sending me WhatsApp messages for the past few months about something called “The Merge.” I guess anyone who’s reading this and already knows about crypto knows what this is. But I didn’t. So here’s a little explanation for crypto newbs like me.

Ethereum (symbol: ETH) is the second most popular crypto currency out there and on September 15, they completed a long-awaited change from something called “proof of work” to “proof of stake.” This is basically a major change in the way that the Ethereum system validates transactions on the network. The headline behind the headline is that it also reduces energy consumption by 99%. CNN has an explanation video that gives much more detail.

This whole change has been called “The Merge” by many and it’s been a big deal.

For me, not that big of a deal.

But because Tom and Kate have been discussing it so much lately it got me to start thinking that maybe it was finally time to start thinking about buying some crypto. And that’s what I did this week.

I opened an account at CoinBase, which T and K said was good for beginner crypto buyers like me. After going through a lot of steps for validating my account, I was ready to go. It was annoying at times to provide all the documentation that I am me but I guess they’ve got to do it and it was no more difficult than doing the same thing in person at the bank.

The next thing I did was transfer some money into the account. I’m a little shy when it comes to investing money in anything. You should see how old my car is and don’t get me started on the age of the appliances in my home. I decided to start with $250, which I deposited via credit card. It seemed like the fastest way to dip my toe into the water.

I was immediately disappointed to learn that I wouldn’t be able to buy a whole Ethereum, because even after the “Merge” one single ETH costs about $1,400. I was able to buy a fraction of an Ethereum, however. It cost me around $140 for 0.1 ETH. I was finally a crypto trader!

With the rest of my money, I bought an even smaller amount of Bitcoin. Bitcoin (BTC) costs just under $20,000 per coin, and it’s going to be a long time before I would even dream of owning a whole Bitcoin. But I’ll be happy with my tiny little fraction of a Bitcoin for now.

I considered buying some other cryptos. Some were recommendations from Kate and some were ones that just looked good to me. But because I was a little shy about all of this, I decided to wait. Also, not all of them were available through Coinbase. Tom recommended getting an account on Binance, another exchange that is even bigger, but I’m good with just one for now.

The coins on my maybe list? Well, I looked at something called Polka Dot (DOT) which supposedly helps different blockchains work better together. I’m not even sure what that means, but Kate said it is going to be a big deal in the future. The second one I looked at was called Cardano (ADA) and to be completely honest I have no idea what it does. The last one Tom and Kate hadn’t even heard of. It’s called SNACK and it’s not available on Coinbase. I had seen it on the jerseys of my favorite soccer team and thought it had a great name.

I guess it’s a good idea I’m only spending $250 on cryptocurrency!

So what’s next for me? I think I’m going to just sit back and see what happens with my crypto empire. I’ll be happy if I just don’t lose any money from my Bitcoin and Ethereum purchase. I’m not planning on being a crypto millionaire anytime soon, but it’s nice to have a piece of the action for now.

Jessica Alba in Yellow

Beautiful Jessica Alba is a notable American actress turned successful businesswoman. As an actress, she’s best known for her appearances on the TV Series Dark Angel and in several Hollywood blockbusters like, Fantastic Four and Into the Blue.

As a businesswoman, she’s best known for The Honest Company, a business she co-founded. It’s focused on selling natural household goods such as body care products and diapers.

Here she is looking captivating in yellow.

Early on in her career, Jessica Alba looked poised to take over Hollywood. She was undeniably beautiful onscreen, particularly in unflattering superhero costumes. She had proven her versatility with a strong supporting role in the brutal, gritty thriller Sin City, and then she took about five minutes away from the camera to bounce right back into good health, ready to do what it takes to keep you entertained.

Of course, the Jessica Alba movies we are looking at today is quite different. Instead of playing super heroines and taking care of super villains, she is a leading lady who plays a supporting character in a period drama about Hollywood itself. Her role is more than just that; she is also an actor with a gift for being able to give viewers what they want, at least as far as the acting skills go.

Jessica Alba’s acting isn’t perfect, but she is at least as believable as the many other actresses that you see on the silver screen. In fact, if you are looking for the best role out there, look no further than Jessica Alba, the real Jessica Alba.

Perfect in Purple and Blue

Gorgeous babes looking perfect in purple and blue.

There are lots of color combinations out there. Purple and blue convey a sense of calm and coolness that is soothing. No discord. No chaos.

Just beauty.

Beauties in Blue and Green

A collection of beautiful women portrayed in vibrant blue and green. Almost an underwater look.

And here is just one more for your enjoyment.

Margot Robbie in Blue

Beautiful blonde actress Margot Robbie in deep, dark blue. You probably know Margot best from The Wolf of Wall Street and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Leo DiCaprio in Orange

You saw him in Titanic and cried. You saw him in The Revenant and winced — that bear attack! Maybe you saw him as early as What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and thought, “That kid can act!” Leo has been in a lot of movies and he’s always very, very good. Here he is, celebrated in orange.