Perspective - Pete's Newsletter - Issue #20
Photos of the Week
Art Project of the Week
Stefan Draschan's photography explores humanity within the walls of museums. His project "People Matching Artwork" bridges the gap between otherworldly pieces and their admirers.
Articles of the Week
From Bloomberg: Japan’s Prisons Are a Haven for Elderly Women by Shiho Fukada.
A fascinating view into the world of Japanese seniors who are turning to petty crime. Many choose to imprison themselves "in their search for community and stability."
“Prison is an oasis for me—a place for relaxation and comfort. I don’t have freedom here, but I have nothing to worry about, either. There are many people to talk to. They provide us with nutritious meals three times a day.
“My daughter visits once a month. She says ‘I don’t feel sorry for you. You’re pathetic.’ I think she’s right.” -Ms. O, 78
From The New Yorker: A Slightly Embarrassing Love for Jack Kerouac By Amanda Petrusich
An exploration into the enduring legacy of Kerouac in the town where he spent his final years drinking himself to death.
"Yet the way that novel is so enduring—so impervious to shifting cultural winds—seems to indicate something about how successfully it articulates a very American rootlessness. I don’t mean our seemingly inborn (and now faded) frontier instincts—a hunger to keep charging at the horizon, scouting greener pastures—but, rather, some implacable desire to be of nowhere, and indebted to nothing.
'It is the fundamental contradictoriness of the United States of America—the illogical but optimistic notion that you can create a union of individuals in which every man is king"
Podcast of the Week
In this podcast Adam Ludwin offers well articulated answers to common questions about cryptocurrencies, Blockchain and ICOs. He also touches on how crypto is more than technology- it is a movement.
Across the world, investors, developers and tech professionals have become bored of the current status quo, controlled by massive firms. Optimistic early adopters see an opportunity to use this new pathway of building products to sidestep the massive platforms and force them into an Innovator's Dilemma.
Related - with today's news, the structural weakness of the centralization of digital society comes into greater focus.
"To me, blockchain is two very different things. On the one hand, as a very simple technical answer, it’s just a new type of data structure. It’s a different type of database.
...in a much more conceptual sense it is a new internet counterculture...all the activity you see around the blockchain space is a decentralized movement to challenge the status quo in both Silicon Valley, the FANG stocks, as well as Wall Street."
Song of the Week
A good one for a rainy day.