OLDaily

How the Blockchain could fix the Node.js ecosystem
Philipp Langhans, HackerNoon, 2019/01/01

We find with a lot of blockchain writing that it blends some good technical complexity with some fairly simplistic advocacy. This is a case in point. Node is a Javascript library than can be used to build websites (the system I'm studying, Electron, is based on Node). It's open source software, and like most such, depends on people contributing modules. In one case, a hacker obtained permission to upload a Node module and embedded some code that would steal the contents of a bitcoin wallet. So how is blockchain supposed to fix this? By paying the developers.

The thing is, I have seen no evidence that adding payments would make dishonest developers honest. Would it be nice if open source developers got paid? Sure. But you're just going to get OSS code consortia, where an anonymous company takes the credit and reward (that is what happened on Udemy, where the course I paid for was created by Eduonix, which just pumps them out with no quality-check or follow-up). And how do you sort out between the developers who deserve payment and those who don't? And you still have no way to stop someone who is going to write malicious code.

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Let’s Create a Secure HD Bitcoin Wallet in Electron + React.js
Michael Michailidis, Coinmonks, Medium, 2019/01/01

I haven't tried this one yet - I've been taking a course on Electron in Udemy (it cost me $15 'on sale') which I won't recommend (I've had to work my way through a number of errors) and I'm not quite ready to tackle this yet (maybe by the end of my extended holiday break). In any case, you won't be building an actual Bitcoin wallet - the project is built for 'Testcoin', which is as the name suggests, a test coin that has no value. Still, looking through it, it pays quite a bit of attention to security and explores some of the details of Bitcoin transactions. (Most of the problems in the Udemy course stem from the fact that it was recorded as a set of videos in one draft, on one platform, with no mechanism for fixing problems people may have had along the way).

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Ad Tech’s Impossible Mission
Rick Webb, Medium, 2019/01/01

It's the image that brings the most to this post as it details the many steps of the internet advertising value chain. The premise of the article is that television remains the most potent advertising force out there - " television is more effective than the internet for emotionally inspiring someone to purchase something." It is also, I would contend, the leading driver of political persuasion and of fake news. But I digress. The point of the article, then, is that internet advertising is unlikely to dislodge television. Hm. Television. The drug of a nation.

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