Writing as a battery

I just read an interesting article talking about Bitcoin as a form of battery. At face value… the idea made no sense to me. By the end of the article, I’ve found myself thinking in a different direction. The premise is that mining Bitcoin somewhere that has cheap renewable energy is an alternate way to export that energy… for example, there are many great places for wind farms that don’t have nearby energy customers.

This has me thinking about things I’ve said or written over the years. I’ve often shown my work to close friends or coworkers who perhaps don’t have the time or open mind to understand… and then it dies in a folder nobody ever sees. Perhaps I should be putting my ideas out publicly first, even regarding somewhat private matters at work. That’s the battle I run into: people I work with may not value or understand what I have to say, but history has shown other people often do. Perhaps there’s a debate to be had about propriety and fairness, but I’m wondering…

Just say for instance, at my work I’m pretty sure our customers want specific things. No, I can’t show any email where they clearly state these things… however, I can see plenty of evidence in the world which indicates what they probably want. My coworkers often press this matter: “where did the customer say that?” and then ask me to show them. I waste a lot of time on that. Perhaps I should be exporting my ideas in the open where people can see them, instead of wasting time trying to convince people around me. It’d be more efficient at least: I could just link customers and say “hey, is this something you want?”

Many of the people around me clamor for things that don’t benefit the wider world. Just for instance, one extremely vocal coworker constantly wants small updates to internal software to make his job easier… but few of those updates benefit anyone other than him. He’s just really loud about it, and when he struggles to complete tasks it’s always the software’s fault (eg. my fault). The only wider benefit to solving his needs is often that he’ll stop interrupting everyone’s day with his negative vibes. That seriously detracts from my time and everyone else’s, which we could devote to more productive things that help more people.

I’m just sort of putting this out here for posterity, and I’ll see where it leads from here. The overarching purpose of this blog might change significantly from here forward.