I suppose this niggling  general acnowldgement that I would have to understand what crypocurrency was all about cropped up a couple of weeks back when I made a few comments on RT. 

My initial investigation led led me to make a comment that Bitcoin was a Hedge Fund. In retrospect I think I am right. It is a sophisticated form of Hedge system combined with a Ponzi scheme.

I spent most of what I consider a wasted day today investigating my hunches, because for some reason I went to bed thinking about it, and waking up decided that rather than have it niggling me any more I would invest some time following up my rather obscure thinking patterns.

The interesting thing is today that Russia has announced it will only licence accredited dealers, and treat crypto currencies especially Bitcoin in the same way a Hedge fund would be treated. They decided to classify Bitcoin as an asset not a currency.

meanwhile I got to following some of my vague thoughts. Crypto, as Bitcoin arrived on the scene in 2008, which intrigued me as this seemed a response to the big crash the banking system caused.

The system of banking that is still causing mayhem even now.

It occurred to me that Iceland was the only country to take the medicine, and within ten years has managed to change their own system they do not allow their own currency to be bought or traded as far as I remember.

However they are ideally placed with geothermal electric, and a cold climate to host blockchain mines. I see Russia has latched onto this as well! Perhaps Canada, Nepal, and a few other places might be good for massive computer plants that need to stay cool. Pipe all the heat back into exchangers and feed it back into the grid!

Anyway I suppose it's the type of brain I have that I got piqued by the name Satoshi Nakamoto. This is obviously something very simple yet complex in language terms. I suppose most of my day was spent enjoying the complexities and nuances of the word game.

Sa to shi nak am' roughly translates to 'You are welcome' oto I would read as 0+0 in this case. A recognition that currency as it is has no value other than the trust placed in it.

Another translation was 'Sitting in the rain', which was obviously a lead to look up various rain sayings. The one that made me laugh the most was that 'A banker lends you an umbrella when the sun is shining, and takes it away when it rains'..

There are various hints at Assyrian tablet keeping.

Some interesting hints to Cyrano de Bergerac, which smells of Jersey as the Bergerac series was filmed here.

there is Shinto to consider. Also the obvious Shaman's Iota. With Iota being the new fools gold.

I think for a long time I have felt the whole crypto thing has been a scam, and for the most part it seems so. However with the regulation and typifying the Russians have just given to Bitcoin, and the resulting acid comments by the devotees, I would also give it the status of a religious sect.

All in all I would sum up by saying this is an interesting development in world affairs. All the transactions are tagged, so it's also a sting.

I have decided today that it has some merits though, although not for bypassing soundly administered and regulated monetary systems.

I am Jersey after all, and when I made the connection between the Iron Bank and Crypto it was interesting to see others had come to the same conclusions.

Crypto is going to have to grow up. It has had a Nine year birthday, and now needs to become stable for it to be taken seriously. If it wasn't so volatile, it wouldn't be so attractive to gamblers and speculators.

​The pseudo-idealism behind this innovation will just have to keep on cooking it for a while. Trying to convert crypto to usable funds seems as dodgy as trying to acces a sixty day account you don't get any interest on!

​In the end it is probably going to be no more useful than an Oyster Card.

I suppose I should be talking about getting rid of sooty mold on my Olive Trees in the Mad Gardening Blog, however it struck me there are so many anologies to the world we live in I thought i would write about my anti mold strategy here.

As with so many problems that present themselves to Humanity and the Ecosystem, using a treatment for the resulting symptom will not cure the problem. I do wash off the sooty mold when I see it. I have cleverly devised a topical spray that inhibits it as well which is completely non toxic. This spray seems to be controlling the Peacock spot, which is another problem Olive Trees get.

It has taken me a year to wait for the cycle of events that unfold into the appearance of sooty mold over our winter and wet spring. 

It has also been the subject of many hours browsing online for clues, and mulling over cups of tea and a few cigarettes worth of planning.

There is a cycle of events that allows the sooty mold to get a foothold on my pristine olive leaves. You would think the sooty mold was a problem that occurs simply because its damp and not cold enough. This is where dealing with it as solely a fungal problem is wrong, it is the culmination of many other factors during the previous Summer.

To be honest I hardly thought owning five olive trees would give me such pleasure, and at the same time so many hours of concern. These were five sickly trees when I bought them. However it has been a huge learning process to nurture them back to health. What I do need is a lesson on pruning them properly though. At the moment it' a bit trial and error. Still I am slowly learning.

Back to the sooty mold. As with most things observation is the key to coming up with an understanding of the problem. Last year I found all these little crawly things eating the undersides of the leaves. Naturally I had to find out what they were. Turns out they were one of the life stages of a scale insect.

These nymphs and crawlers munch on the undersides of leaves, then excrete a sticky sugary substance onto leaves below. Yup, turns out the mold spores are always present. They wash of the upper leaves, and find a nice sugary home to bloom on in the damp spring.

I gave all the trees a good spray with green soap and a bit of sunflour oil a few times, which suffocates the crawlers if its left on for a few hours, and then rinsed off. I definately had less sooty mold this spring.

I also decided to give three of my trees a haircut this spring to see if not leaving so many leaves already infected on the trees might help stop the transmission of the mold spores during the summer months.
I have also fed the trees with liquid seaweed and intend to get into soil testing.

Now I am painstakingly hunting through my trees to find the brown scales before the nymphs hatch this year. I know I will miss some, but if and when they do hatch, I shall be spraying the trees with the green soap mixture.

I suppose I think about places like Guam which is currently in the news. Aside from the Americans completely devastating the ecosystem of the Island by not dealing with the snake problem sooner. (Perhaps Americans would rather live in a concrete jungle) due to their global policies we all have 'sooty mold'.

An unsightly, choking, stunting, condition caused by their lifecycle of crapping on people who feed their 'interests'.

I think North Korea are between a rock and a hard place. China wants to use NK as a buffer zone, and South Korea and America want to assimilate it. I also think there is a huge power play going on.

It seems the US have very few real possible ways of either deterring North Korea, or negotiating with them.

North Korea is needling and pushing the US, and it is having an interesting effect. It is polarising opinion. People are beginning to wonder what it's all about. There was no point in sanctioning NK further.

It seems the only people who stand to lose from these sanctions the US are placing on everyone are the stockmarkets and investors. The US are perhaps playing along with the game and trying to crash the world economy again.

​To which the sooty mold hits the fan and it will be the working people all over the world who will have to foot the bill for the political scabs in this world.


​

Apart from enjoying the more traditional Japanese delicacy and having learned how to make it myself, I was wondering how the seaweed technology in plastics and fuels was coming along.

I discovered that Algopack in St Malo are looking to scale up their production facilities, and that most packaging used by supermarkets could be made from biodegradable bioplastic. They even have flowerpots which can be planted with the plant and feed it while the bioplastic decomposed in the garden. I think I would try and use the bioplastic trays from the supermarket to start my seeds off, then plant them.

The whole lot can go on the compost heap and decompose in 4-6 weeks. No more packaging to recycle, fancy that. Anything traditionally made from plastic could be made from seweed, however the clear plastic water bottle has not yet been developed.

Do we really need to store water in plastic, perhaps it would be better to go back to glass and reuse the bottles like they used to with milk bottles and lemonade. Obviously worth getting the sixpence back on the bottle. It was a good system, us kids used to go looking for them and get pocket money.

The next thing I looked up was bio oil made from seaweed, this has huge benefits over growing crops on land, The land can be used for food production again.

Interestingly Rex Tillerson as head of Exxon Mobile pulled the funding for seaweed bio-oil and shut down the project.

It seems an area of sea the size of Maine would be able to supply all of the US fuel needs per annum. The release of carbon is neutral, as the seaweed only releases what it has absorbed during its growth. Just think, no more fracking, no more polluted drinking water that forces people to buy bottled water in plastic containers. No nasty oil spills, as I think the seaweed bio-oil isn't polluting. 

I think the same size area can also produce enough edible seaweeds to feed a world population of 9 Billion. The Dutch have come up with a seaweed veggi burger that is combined with soya and tastes and eats like Chicken. I can never see the point of trying to make veggi food taste and eat like meat.

All these people who keep moaning about not enough food to go round, and ever expanding populations that can't be fed are quite wrong. It's just a question of whether they want to get on with changing the world for the better.

I wonder how they will get all of that plastic out of the oceans.

It just seems as though the Americans are sore that the Mountain Pass mine got sold to a Chinese consortium. Especially as China controls the rare earths market and obviously flooded the market, dropped the price and put the mine in bankruptcy.

I suppose the real problem for the US is they have no current capability to produce the quantities of materials needed for green technology all the while they need what supplies they have for military use.

The US don't have any option other than to stay with the fossil fuel economy, and have no way to get sufficient raw materials without annexing say... North Korea.

So I suppose the US can't sign up to the Paris Accord. It's all very sad.

Meanwhile the sanctions imposed in the last few days actually push everyone towards green technologies. Restricting investment in pipelines, and fossil fuels. I notice there are sanctions about investing in railways too! The new Silk Road must have them jittery.

I wasn't aware Iran had vast rare earth reserves until I looked up this morning. The US of course is saying Iran wants to use them for weapons of mass destruction. 

I think Iran has asked Russia to protect them, or have some military co-operation.

I am am wondering if the rest of the world can stop selling rare earth stuff to the US. 

They should have bought their their own mine back. Still I am sure they can say the sale is against their interests and say the sale is not valid somehow.

Do we assume they couldn't afford it?