What Ashlee is Reading

Every intro to Bitcoin that I have read or listened to begins with an explanation of what money is. I can guarantee you've spent a whole lot more time thinking about what money can do for you than what money is. And while it seems simple enough, this book explained some things about money that I"d never bothered to think about, and what characteristics are necessary for something to be a good monetary medium. Exchanging goods directly (my apples for your fish) presents three obstacles. In order to be a good monetary medium, an object must help overcome them.  1. Difference in scale. Imagine you want to sell your house. An interested buyer can offer you wheat. Wheat is great because you don't want to starve, but in order to match the value of your house, they'd have to give you more wheat than you are able to store or know what to do with. You can't just sell some portion of your house for wheat. Your monetary mediums have vastly different scales. Now, if they could...

    I have recently developed a taste for reading non-fiction. Much like my sudden shift from liking (ok, probably more like being addicted to) Diet Coke to liking LaCroix (I know, I know, I'm a monster), this shift in my reading taste was as unexpected as it was sudden. Murder mysteries will probably always have a place in my heart and on my bookshelf, but for now my long and ever growing reading list is dominated by economics, politics, cryptocurrency, and history. These new genres brought a new challenge- information retention. If I forgot the plot of a novel, it didn't matter, the enjoyment had already been had, but if I forget things I learn about the real world, well, that's an actual loss.      I tried keeping notes about what I had read, but I can't write (legibly) as fast as I can think and it was frustrating. I tried learning shorthand but I'm pretty slow at it and not patient enough I guess to get fast at it. So I thought I'd give this a try. I can ty...