HH69_mixdown.mp3

Antonio: [00:00:16] All right, let's take this off. I know her pride is going to be mad at me if I don't introduce the artists of Data science properly, right? If you guys are interested, I actually started hosting the builders of Web three. And it's right now. It's on Tuesdays, 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time. We are open to changing the different times if more people are interested. But I know like this one is on Friday. So Harpreet has like the prime time I can be like that thing in the middle of the week where if you guys have anything else to do, you can. You can join and just we we hang out. And it's literally the same format, very open. We just mostly we we talk about anything Web3. It could be crypto. It could be NFTs. It could be anything on the blockchain. But as you guys, as this conversation goes, everybody is just interested about NFT games and things like that. So the conversation does always just goes towards NFT, which we're OK with. On that note, Harpreet Sahota has a new episode today. One half of Liz and Molly he released. It's an episode released with Liz Gosselin, coauthor of No Hard Feelings, so go check that out. I wanted to give a shout out to Marc because he's the one who set up the the client and the author for for her pre. But he's not here right now, so we'll make sure to document that Marc is slacking and not joining us today. But yeah, so go check that out and thank you everybody for being here, giving me a chance to to spend this next hour and whatever time with you guys.

Antonio: [00:01:57] This is the artist of Data science. I'm sure somehow, [00:02:00] someway will find a way back to NFTs, but I wanted to kick it off a little bit with something I've been dealing at work and that is everybody's favorite topic, I think, which is documentation and by documentation. I mean, like basically how much of your time as a data scientist? Should you? And what in reality happens like planning versus doing from a personal perspective, why I wanted I was interested in this topic in my career. I spent very little time previously at other companies like Verizon, U.P.S. documenting, and I found myself a lot in meetings. And Google has a very documentation heavy culture, especially because I work in like trust and safety now, and I do like investigations and stuff, so everything has to have proof and documentation. But it's a skill I'm definitely not good at, and I'm always like being asked, like, what did you do? And I'm like, Oh, it's right here. And they're like, No, that's not acceptable anymore. So so how I would love to hear any tips or like how to do that. Like because the more you plan right, the more you document, the less time you have to do stuff. So I'll open it up the floor and basically just share your experience if you want. And what do you think is like a good tips? So who can we kick it off? Maybe we'll start with. We'll start with Vin is Mr. Strategy, so I like it.

Speaker2: [00:03:28] So my code. It's really difficult to write should be really hard to figure out to. So I don't read any documentation at all.

Antonio: [00:03:38] Job security.

Speaker2: [00:03:39] Yeah, exactly. You know, keep me around forever. I think with documentation, you start out in every kind of small company not doing any of it. And then something horrible happens and you start doing a little bit of it and then everybody forgets why. And then something else horrible happens. And it's like this this cycle where [00:04:00] and then the company gets big enough and you have to start onboarding people. And this is kind of the startup cycle is as soon as all of a sudden you start scaling and you have to scale rapidly and your first three engineers and data scientists have to spend their entire time onboarding and teaching, and they get no project work done. And then all of a sudden it becomes a little bit important. But like if I could say anything, you know, just be reasonable about what you document. You know, you're not Google. So don't try to be. Don't try to be, you know, one of the top companies for documentation out of the gate. Just build what you need, you know, kind of with those things in mind, tragedy. You want to avoid somebody leaving the company and no one having any idea what to do. Because I remember it and I'm not going to say what year, but it was a long time ago. There was one guy working at one of the first tech companies I worked at where he could. He was the only one that was allowed to touch one library. And so you'd never want that.

Speaker2: [00:05:00] You don't want to be afraid that that person is going to leave because the company might go under. So document to avoid that document, to avoid some sort of crisis happening because people forget what they did and all of a sudden a defect comes up and no one, you know, and it's a week outage. I've seen that, too, where a company literally had one of their products down for a week straight because they couldn't fix a bug because nobody understood that part of the code that, you know, so it's those major catastrophes that you want to document around. And then for onboarding, really, that's going to be your biggest, you know, driver of quality documentation is what would you need to bring somebody on board in less than two weeks? Well, how about less than one week? How about they can start, you know, writing code or at least fixing bugs in the first week and you start getting better and better at documentation and then have somebody come in and teach you how to do it because [00:06:00] then you kind of go to that next step of, Oh, OK, so we have documents and we had documentation, but it wasn't really that great. And now it's getting better and it's actually useful. And so, you know, like I said, just be reasonable, go through a progression, don't feel like you have to be Google, but also don't like put yourself out of business because you don't have any documentation.

Antonio: [00:06:20] Yeah, no, thanks for sharing that that was definitely because when I started, you know, or other companies, if you don't have great documentation and it's definitely like going to take a lot longer to do on board, I appreciate that. Can you have your hand raised?

Speaker3: [00:06:35] Yeah, I sort of have a question and a couple of comments that I'm still trying to parse out in my brain, so the first is that there's different types of documentation, right? So some is like your code, documentation, your versioning, some is what you're actually doing. If you're using a ticketing system like you have a bunch of tickets, you have an epic in those types of things. And I think it's important to differentiate and parse those things out, like with the ticketing system. I think you can actually over document like if you're talking about your your projects and and like the statuses and updating and what's going on. I also think that, for example, with the ticketing system, you can also outsource some of that to a project manager or something along those lines. Right. They're supposed to be some hand off if they don't understand what's going on in your project. Probably not a very good project manager to begin with, right on the code side. I find it really interesting and I've my the best way I've been able to consistently document is to build it into like the iteration project of what I work on. So like the first pass through, I basically document only the places where I mess up and like I need to work on further. The second pass through my work, I go through like, I have to clean it all up anyway. I start actually like making it legible for someone else and then I do a final pass and pretty much everything that I do so that make sure that I understand and make sure other people understand it in code review. So I think it's like, [00:08:00] really interesting to look at those two things independently rather than looking at them together. And I'm interested in what specifically you meant by documentation. Is it like one of those one or the other about?

Antonio: [00:08:12] Yeah, I think it's kind of like I was kind of talking about, but one is like, Oh yeah, when you're let's say you're writing SQL, go right? Sometimes I've heard from people like 50 percent documentation, 50 percent like code. I personally don't do that. I think it's a good practice. But when you I think when you get caught up in the thing and you're trying to get things done, it's easy to like, all right, somebody else will figure it out later. It's easy to do that. But then at the end, like been is saying like, you leave and then it becomes kind of like, Well, I don't know what you call. We used to call it tribal knowledge because it will be like only one person who's been part of the tribe for 20 years knows that. And then everybody else is like scrambling. So that has been like a very big learning experience for me. And then also, yeah, I mean, part of the code, right, we usually with the code, you're trying to work on some project. So usually the other part of the documentation I was thinking about that I'm trying to get better is kind of like, OK, I'm writing this and this is my analysis and basically a step one.

Antonio: [00:09:07] I did this step two. I did that like step three, and I do find it. I mean, it's right. I'm working from home and I have like a little boy at home, you know, so I want to spend time with him and then like, all right, I'm like, I'm done with this project. But now I have to spend the next year, like half an hour or whatever it is like trying to, like, write all this down stuff. So. And I think because as data scientist, I thought it was going to be a good conversation because a lot of people when they start right, nobody expects that. Everybody thinks we're just going to jump in. You look like you're just going to be doing machine learning and you're all doing all this cool stuff. But at the end of the day, as I think as a professional, you have to kind of do that dirty work where you're either cleaning Data, you build this much machine learning and the rest of the time you're like writing things or documenting things or. So I think that's why I wanted to to bring that up as a is a good like, eye opening. So thank you guys for sharing that. Anyone [00:10:00] else? Alyssa, Alexandra, Nisha, Nisha.

Speaker4: [00:10:09] I'm going to comment on that, if I may. Yeah, yeah, so documentation, I think, is important. And I think there are ways to iterate the way you document. So say as you're actually going through the process, if you're on the habit of commenting your code and recording maybe shorthand commentary about what you're doing that you can then turn into long form formal commentary after that may help your final round up process. And if you've not been in the habit of doing that kind of documentation and commentary, don't expect it to go from zero to 100 straight away. Go through some iterations, as Ken was saying before you start, you know, kind of loose and short form and you revise the documentation as you get through to the to the finality of the project, but also not only for, say, documentation for onboarding and and records, but for your own sanity. You know, I think it's good to keep a record of what you're doing in the case that there's an unexpected loss or a breakdown. It's very useful to be able to go back and understand where you were at the time by using some records you've made rather than trying to recall. And in some kind of a reverse fashion for those that you know, aren't involved with Data analysis or data science, think in terms of computer game, video game, you know, if you've if you save or if you don't save regularly and the the console or the computer crashes and you have to pick up from a save that was maybe only two hours ago, but you've done a lot in the meantime, trying to remember each step you went through to rebuild to where you were [00:12:00] just two minutes ago after the save is incredibly frustrating. So think of it in those terms, you're kind of protecting your ability to reproduce something in the event of a serious loss.

Antonio: [00:12:13] Yeah, no, that's really good, and I think what made me think of it also, as you said, it is sometimes you do an analysis and when you have to write things down, you think you know what you're doing and then you don't know how to explain it to your own self. You're like, Wait, do I really know what I'm doing or am I just going through these motions? But yeah, it's also fun when you you look back at your sequel and you're like, I have no idea why I did this. So I've definitely had those those moments, too. Hey, Mark, are you here with us? Thank you for joining us.

Speaker5: [00:12:42] I am. I'm trying to set up.

Antonio: [00:12:46] All right. I guess he hasn't set up his thing, so we'll give him his shot out later. I don't want to get in trouble. Anyone else want to chime in on this or do you guys want? Tanisha says. I definitely try to have documentation for complicated codes like calling of some special macro functions that work to some created niche. Do you want to elaborate on that and share your experience with us?

Speaker6: [00:13:08] Yeah, so. Yeah, so I try to have documentation because I've been in the position of having to move the legacy code to current or to make it more appropriate when database changes and all the stuff I am right now in the middle of one such project. There are some documentation, but not much. So it's mostly to me trying to understand those, but my style of coding is essentially I definitely make sure that the complicated code logic, I kind of document it as a comment right there in the in the file itself. So anyone looking at the code doesn't have to go to some other document, but from a business perspective, trying to understand as to how things flow, there's overall pictorial documentation that [00:14:00] essentially I do just use a ratio or something like that. So I know how the things flow that is more easily understandable by even a non code person. That's what I personally do. Not everybody in my team does that. That's just my personal preference. I like documenting. I come from an academic background. I like writing up stuff. So I do that and I do. I have spent days where I've stayed late just to make sure that I've documented things. That's just my personal opinion, though.

Antonio: [00:14:32] Yeah, I love to work with you. Yeah, so that was my thing. I think where I was getting a little bit intimidated, I work was I have a couple of colleagues who come from their research background. And I mean, their thing is like a nice essay and you read it and like, and then you look at mine and it's like this much and it just says, like two sentences. So I definitely have to to get better at it. But it's not a competition, right? So, mark, just to bring you up to speed, we're talking about documentation, how much you like planning versus versus doing write important. Um, and then we wanted to give you a shout out Harpreet, who just left for a wine tasting. He said give a big shout out to Marc because he set up today's episodes of one half of Liz and Molly. So I don't know. Maybe he'll bring you some wine from California, or maybe he's just going to be an empty shout out. But hey, whatever. It's still a shout out accounts, but yeah, welcome with us today. So if you want to chime in on this and then afterwards, we can go with Russell.

Speaker5: [00:15:33] Yeah, for sure. And also like Liz, my colleague at home, and she's such a cool person to talk to and work with. I highly recommend checking out the show and checking out her, her book and illustrations because they just really get the court as being human in the workplace. So it's really cool stuff. And then for the question regarding commenting code, it's weird. Like I have two different mindsets, like when I do analyzes, I'm typically an [00:16:00] R. How I comment it's way different than when I'm writing like production code and Python, because in our know, a lot of it's more analysys and like iterative. And so I'll probably have like those block lands like the hashtag sign, whatever it is, the pound sign. Keep on forgetting the actual name and like leaving comments like that in there. But when I'm writing Python code, you know, I'm thinking like, this doesn't go into our production to code base. So actually, a lot of my comments and commenting is actually not the the commented out code. It's actually like my logging, my variable names and my function names and then where I'm creating functions because I'm doing oriented programing. All my functions in classes have description, text under them. And so that's how I'm really documenting a lot of my stuff because when you're working in a production code base, you don't see the function you're using directly. And so if I'm in vs code or something like that, I can just hover over the function. I get all the documentation I need to really understand what's going on and also won't let me merge my code into production without those.

Speaker5: [00:17:10] So I just got into my habit now. And whenever I'm writing in Python, writing a function, it's do all this anyways. There's just so ingrained in me now and it's helped out a lot and it's really been me in the butt because I've done projects where I haven't merged yet and I get pulled into other things and I come back to the code a month ago and I did add my logging or anything like that. I'm like, Mark, what the hell are you doing? And so now I have to add an extra hour figuring out what I was doing. And while I'm doing that, I'm like adding the logging stuff like that. And what I've realized is when you add that type of documentation that's like in your code itself, it helps so much when you're debugging, too, because then I'll run it in my terminal and I'll get all my my logs and I can see like, OK, this worked, this work. Oh, it's stopped here and go, check my logs. I'm like, Oh, that's that's what's happening. I know instantly what's what went [00:18:00] wrong? As for, ah, that one's a little bit trickier because they don't have a native logging package or anything like that. I do a lot of printing for that. But. Our oxygen to documentation, that's super helpful and getting kind of a similar effect.

Antonio: [00:18:18] It's awesome, man, look at you, I mean, you guys are colleagues, I want to have you document everything, then I won't have to. Russell, you have your hand raised, you have a question or do you want? Do you have a comment?

Speaker4: [00:18:32] I was just a follow up comment, actually, and to tie a couple of streams of other comments here. So when I was talking about the difference between kind of short end and long hand commentary and documentation, I'm I'm one of the most vocal people about commenting code, even though I'm not a great adopter of it. You know, one of the loudest voices in the quiet, but I don't follow my own rules always. But when you're when you're commenting in the code because you don't want to make the code too cumbersome to read, you can make that kind of short form, but then put some kind of a reference in it that will relate to a longer form description in the actual documentation to go along with it. So some kind of concise description that you can then go into a lot more detail in the actual formal documentation that goes with it. But one other benefit that comes from good commentary and good documentation is you can form a library of like fragments of code snippets, basically. So you can say, you know, this is good for X function and put it in a in a library and coded up code is the wrong word, but you fill it up with some kind of a grouping system. So if you're creating some other code from scratch and you're wanting to replicate something, you can go back to your library and cut and paste your pre [00:20:00] written fragment of code and put it in rather than write the whole thing from scratch. So it gives a good topology of different elements of code functions that you can then piece together and, you know, like a recipe for food. You know, pull something out of a different recipe and try try another one and see how it goes. And you may find that it tastes better than the than the the traditional ingredients. Do you know what I mean? And I like to experiment with different forms of code like that. And so keeping that library of those little. Snippets, so it's quite a useful thing.

Antonio: [00:20:39] Pretty cool, that's a good practice, and Nisha said also something about using somebody else's production code, trying to fix something. So I want to ask you, would you rather write code from scratch or trying to fix somebody else's? Because me, for my experience, when you tell me like, Oh, can you use my code and just add onto it? I I don't like that. I'm like, Can I just start from scratch because I have been in shaking his head? I mean, it seems like a nightmare, just like you're trying to read somebody else's stuff and you're like, Oh my God, this is taking longer than writing it from scratch.

Speaker6: [00:21:12] It does take longer than writing from scratch. I am in the same boat currently, but you know, people say there's already code written. If I have to write it from scratch, that's a whole new thing. So try to get in their mind. That's my that's my go-to place when I'm trying to troubleshoot it. And it does happen that sometimes temporarily you need to fix somebody's code and you I leave, edit so that they can track us what I did, what I did, but I just put my initials and have it on the top of the whole file so they know which way to track that. I do that as well, trying to make it easy for the actual person who created the whole thing.

Antonio: [00:21:56] Yeah, that's very nice of you. Not everybody does that. So [00:22:00] I know Mark says he's volunteering to share some documentation if we want. So I don't necessarily want all of you guys. Does anybody have any question? Do you guys want us to continue this? Learn about documentation today or does anybody have any other questions or whatever you guys prefer? That's what we're here for, to learn and have fun together. I'm having fun with documentation. I don't know about you guys. All right. So from now on, let's go mark. Show us some lessons. And then afterwards, we'll talk about NFTs.

Speaker5: [00:22:32] Yeah. Well, this is a perfect Segway because this is the NFT code.

Antonio: [00:22:36] So yes.

Speaker5: [00:22:37] Oh yeah.

Antonio: [00:22:38] Mark is actually also part with me of our web builders of Web3 office hours on Tuesdays. So feel free to drop in whenever and and join us. Yeah, we're also working on some cool stuff and we're all learning together, so.

Speaker5: [00:22:54] Also ahead, Mark. Yeah, so this is I'm now on my work computer today, so I actually show the public, but essentially we're we're plotting a lot of cool data from on chain Data and Twitter Data. And so I created a helper function because I kept on plotting over and over again. And so just the generalizable function to pull in our data. That's related. And so here's the function, how it is. And for context, and R, I want to highlight like what I mean by documentation. Typically, you'll see documents where like, I'm adding a comment right here. But this goes a step further because now if you want star gains occurring, creating your own R package, this are oxygen to documentation. Now can you run DevTools document and it'll take all this information and turn it into a whole bunch like metadata and stuff like that that you can load. So when you go in, are you kind of get like these helper things? This is all our oxygen tube documentation that creates this. And so essentially, you know, I have my name, I have my main title. But here's a description. So this is a type of documentation I add [00:24:00] to a lot of my code. Maybe it seems intense for some things, but you know, I give a clear definition. If I'm doing some Data transformations, I'll put examples of like what the data looks like for that, other components and then all the arguments. So the params here, I'll add information regarding that. And then, you know, if I'm maybe using API or something like that, I'll make sure to add a link to that as well. And so this ensures that when other people are joining in on this project because multiple people on this project, they can clearly understand without having to ask me, how is this function work and how do I implement it? And it just makes things move a lot faster because there's no back and forth in our in our Discord channel. People just know from just looking at this how to approach using this.

Antonio: [00:24:44] That is awesome, and I thank you for that, because it's definitely helped me, especially trying to play catch up. Man, you guys are all superstars when it comes to documentation. Every worker was like the companies will be so much more efficient. That's ridiculous. So I think from that standpoint, I think I want to ask you, a lot of you I know can mark. I don't know Vin, how involved. Well, actually, you did ask once a question about NFT marketplaces and stuff. So going beyond like the hype and the stuff, what got you guys interested in that in that space, like just the whole blockchain world right outside of NFT stool or crypto? Do you think there's anything that's attracting you just because you're in this Data science field or so? Or like, what is it? Because every like Data person I know or like a lot of Data people I know are getting interested in this space. And then also, I guess as a second part we can talk about later is more of like, do you think a data scientist in like, let's say, three to five years would need to like understand the blockchain to at least a certain extent in order to be successful at their job? So I'll open up the floor who wants to take the first part of kind of like what what made you interested in this whole like Web three world? [00:26:00] All right. Mark.

Speaker5: [00:26:03] I've talked a lot, so if anyone has their ideas, please go ahead first, Ken, go.

Antonio: [00:26:07] All right, we're here from Ken first and are you sure?

Speaker3: [00:26:10] Mark, I talk a lot too.

Speaker5: [00:26:11] So you're allowed to pass five minutes ago?

Speaker3: [00:26:15] Fair enough. Fair enough. So for me, I think. Almost globally, data ownership, data privacy, how we handle those things are going to become increasingly important. And I think that the blockchain and NFTs crypto, in some sense, those all contribute to the future of ownership of Data. Right. And and, you know, individual ownership, company ownership, whatever that that is. And to me, as data scientist, we should really care about where that data is being stored, who has access to it, whatever it might be. So not understanding it, not reading into it, I think, is going to be a little bit of an oversight for the future of what the world could become. I I think right now all of these things are still in their infancy. I think that there's a lot of room to grow. I think that there aren't a lot of applications that. That truly leverages these technologies that well, and what interests me and projects is utility. So the projects that I'm most focused on, most excited about are OK, how do how does. An NFT, for example, become something more than just a digital good that I own. How does it create a community? How does it create entertainment? How does it create some function? So a lot of the things a lot of the projects that I've been focused on are directly related to things that I to where I see them having an impact.

Speaker3: [00:27:46] Again, like I've talked a lot about Zadran and digital horses, right? But to me, like these horses can race like I can turn a profit if I use Data correctly in the right way, and there's a marketplace for this. That, to me, is so much beyond just ownership [00:28:00] of a good right. You know, a lot of the projects that I invest in are very similar to that. They're gamified order might be. And I look at games as one of the first ways that NFTs or really have really have mainstream utility. So I'm so excited for the transition from just like concept to basic utility, probably entertainment utility to like true functional utility in the business world. Do I think that in five or 10 years, a data scientists will have to understand how the blockchain works to succeed? Absolutely not. I think that there's going to be a huge niche for data scientists who really do understand how the blockchain works and how, and probably in multiple programing languages, multiple specific query tools for exclusively working with blockchain data. But I don't think that that's going to be a prerequisite. It could be a really cool, lucrative space, though.

Antonio: [00:28:55] That's all good. Thanks for sharing. Yeah, and what I like about it, I mean, the Data is public and I know. So Ken is actually releasing soon. I think you said next Monday and analysis doing with another fellow member and LinkedIn influencer, Avery Smith. So they're working on a cool analysis of NFTs. I know Mark is working and Mike, Mark and I actually working together on a project for NFTs, so I think that's what it's good. It's, you know, you're able to go on the blockchain and just extract Data. You know, it's like before it is. I just used to go on Kaggle and see whatever somebody else posts. You know, now I can actually go and see actual financial transactions, and it's real Data out there. So what? What about you, mark? What what got you into this, into this world? I know you've been spending a lot, a lot of time into this. Initially, you said, Oh, I'm going to do this for like an hour or two a week, but I see you on this court a lot more than that.

Speaker5: [00:29:56] I spent a lot of time in this world now, so [00:30:00] much so that I bet it my kind of side business on the mark Data on on practicing NFTs, you know, so all my time outside of my day job is working towards, you know, trying to understand and really build products in this space because I think it's aligned with the direction I want to go building Data products. And I think the blockchain really helps with that vision. And so for me, I kind of have a three point thesis as to why I'm diving into this. Is that one? I genuinely believe that the technology behind NFTs are a game changer going beyond just the profile picture and art entities. That's just like one facet of this space, and it's just the one that's most hype right now. But intentionally, entities provide digital scarcity on a digital platform that we just haven't seen before that people can use in very interesting ways. And so for for me, you know, I think NFTs are a game changer. Number two businesses are going to create revenue streams based on NFTs, and a digital way is not going to replace everything. It's just different revenue stream. But if you're a digital native brand, I see them shifting towards entities and you're already starting to see this. And then finally, because it's a revenue stream as me part and part of the business, people are going to pay top dollar to understand how that revenue stream is working. And the reason why that aspect is so important is that anything about the web to kind of what we have right now Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, all these different things.

Speaker5: [00:31:36] We don't have access to that data. Maybe they give us an API and we can pick and choose what's available. For the most part, we don't access everything and web three and blockchain with NFTs, we have access to all the data available. And so you can do some really cool things that you know, this level of openness for a data set I haven't seen really ever. Maybe like the like 100 [00:32:00] many images, right, that you'll see like that. But even then, besides with the blockchain we're going to is going to be dwarfs, those mega kind of datasets. And so, you know, I think as a data scientist, you don't have to be all gung ho about like three being the future and stuff like that. There's a whole spectrum of buy into this. But as a data scientist, I would strongly encourage you to consider it because it's a very rich, real world dataset if you want to sink your teeth into a real dataset or potentially drive value for our community. The data is there, and it's easy to access through various websites and you can start today. And then if you are interested, I have a cool project to really illustrate these revenue streams, but I'll hold off for other people to talk, but I'm happy to share a project that I really believe in.

Antonio: [00:32:51] Yeah, and Mark also has a great article recently released on Medium about how to get Sara into that space. I mean, there are some websites that I mean, I'm sure they still do it, but you can practice your sequel and they pay you like they actually give you money to, like, solve like blockchain, like little like puzzles and issues and stuff. So that's good for anybody who wants to kind of learn more about that space. I'd love to hear from you. You have your hand raised.

Speaker2: [00:33:21] Sorry, I just showed exactly how well I spell when I'm in a hurry. I don't even know how to say that word that I just put down there in the chat. Yeah, I got into like I got into blockchain a really long time ago because I was at an IBM conference and they asked me to put something together for blockchain and Data and supply chain. And I was like, Wait, that's really a thing. And so I've been casually following it for what's it been like six or seven years? And now it's actually something. But I think it was it was compelling to start thinking about putting an entire supply [00:34:00] chain on a blockchain or putting the movements of physical assets is pigeon dunks. Yeah. I got a couple of dunks. Yeah, like more than a yeah, it's kind of I don't want to talk about it. I feel like I need rehab. Every time I talk about sneakers, somebody is going to be the next intervention episode is me walking into a hall and people like, Yeah, you need to go somewhere. It's too many shoes. But yeah, I mean, I think it's compelling when you start looking at physical assets that are moving from person to person, place to place or entity to entity being stored on a blockchain that everybody can get access to, that's completely transparent. That helps you find problems that you couldn't have, because blockchain is kind of an interesting way to store dynamic data. And so there's a lot of there's like a lot of old school traditional use cases for blockchain.

Speaker2: [00:35:00] And when you start talking about NFTs and you start looking at cryptocurrency, I mean, the one thing I've always been interested in with blockchain is and this was suggested, this isn't like my idea just suggested a long time ago, but it could be the way that autonomous agents end up coordinating. Collaborating with each other is using a blockchain to basically delegate out tasks and figure out which agents get what value based on the contribution, you know, to a particular activity or to a group or or to playing some kind of video game or achieving some sort of goal. I mean, like, those are the compelling things that I see happening on the blockchain and in the crypto space because, you know, if you were going to pay a bot. We're paying some sort of autonomous agent, you would do it, encrypt it, like that's the one use case for crypto that makes a lot of sense to me versus a whole lot, you [00:36:00] know, a lot of the trading bitcoin or ether, dogecoin or was a Shiba Inu. Now we got we got we got some entities that are broad NFTs that are not so bored. Apes have a hard time keeping a scam NFT straight from like a legitimate. This has value. There's a reason why we put this on an NFT and not just, you know, because it's an NFT and it's cool and it's trendy. And so I think that's what we're like. That's where we are right now.

Speaker2: [00:36:30] And I think data science, machine learning, I think you're going to start seeing us as we give bots and as we give autonomous agents more more to do more latitude, more leeway, and they're going to have to start communicating with each other. They're going to have to start collaborating with each other, they're going to have to start paying each other. And, you know, people are not going to be involved in these processes because bots, they they work at a different speed than we do. And there's no way that we can be approving every transaction or that we can be, you know, auditing or doing some sort of oversight in real time. And so when you look at blockchain and you even look at like NFTs, the work products created by an AI ideas created by an AI or content created by an AI agent, you know, destroying the use of AI. But, you know, forgive me for that. But you know, having one of them create something and then how do you track the value of that thing and who owns it in reality? Like I said, it's just all of these different things that we haven't figured out yet that I think crypto, NFTs, blockchain, it's got some legs, and I don't think you're going to be required to understand the blockchain. But at some point, I think all data scientists are going to be working with it in one way, shape or form, whether it's directly or through some sort of abstraction.

Antonio: [00:37:51] Oh, yeah, I think there's definitely, like you said, a lot of kind of like solutions or what was a solution looking for a problem right now. But [00:38:00] I guess that's how it starts. So from you, from personally that you're in rooms with executives, things like that. Do you get to like, Hey, Vin, like, forget about this. A strategy like how do we get into this crypto blockchain world? Is that are those conversations happening at higher levels, anything you can share any hype?

Speaker2: [00:38:18] I cannot explain to you how many times it last year, like so far, it's kind of died off now. But last year, every single client, every single one of them, I had two or three people from the C-suite like, All right, so I need you to break down like crypto. What is bitcoin? What is that a scam? Should I buy bitcoin or should I buy ETH? Or do you think I should diversify as like, Well, I'm not an investment advisor. I have no idea. I don't know. You know, I don't think these things are worth anything, to be completely honest. In real world dollars, I think they're worth something like they have value, but it's different than anything that we've really started exploring. But yeah, you would be amazed, like the C-suite and like, they don't know who to ask. And so they are asking the most random people. Like, I got asked a ton of questions. I was unqualified to answer. But talking about like blockchain, when you go back to that was that's been talked about for five six years. And CEOs, see, you know, especially CEOs really interested in what is it, actually? Is it ready? So yeah, a lot of conversations, a lot of questions getting asked about that and how do we use it? You know, how do we make money off of it? Because every company right now is looking for growth there? I can't tell you how many companies are scared to report earnings at the, you know, around summertime or the end of this year. There is a lot of companies afraid of their earnings calls and they're all looking for, you know, like, what can I say? Is there something here?

Antonio: [00:39:54] So you got to be like MicroStrategy, put all your money in bitcoin and then your company value just skyrockets. [00:40:00] And so, you know, you go to the Moon, you got to be. So, yeah, I think I'm very fascinated with this space as well. You know, I'm just still learning about it. I definitely love, I mean, like some of the things that are possible, like, so this is not like politically motivated or anything. I just saw it like Melania Trump was trying to sell an NFT, right? A piece of art. And then it's sold for like a bunch of money, right? But the thing is that she didn't figure out or whoever was running the project. Everything is public. So when they traced it back, they were able to see the D address that listed the NFT as the address that actually bought the NFT. You know, so it was like, right, you just bought your own NFT, you know, so now there's people like looking into that, but that would have been possible. You know, that happens a ton in the art world where you list an NFT, you get your friend from down the street or somebody or like you list you with art projects or in museums, at auctions and stuff. And you never know. But now, I mean, it's you still could kind of like scam, right? If you're motivated enough. But it definitely makes things a little tougher. So that was like one story that people can kind of like. It's easily like, OK, this was actually like a use case for it. Ken, what do you want to say?

Speaker3: [00:41:14] So I have a little out there kind of sidebar that's related to NFT, mainly to crypto, though. So my background initially was in economics, and I think financial markets are fascinating. I also think global cycles are very interesting, and I recently read this book called Principles of Dealing with the Changing World Order by Ray Dalio.

Antonio: [00:41:35] I got to read that book because everybody who reads it afterwards, I hear they're like, I'm terrified or what's happening. I don't know if he's just that scary or in that book or something, but people are getting like scared afterwards.

Speaker3: [00:41:46] So I think it probably oversimplifies a little bit and the rate that technology is advancing. Probably disrupts some of the stuff that he says. But the idea is that there are these somewhat timeless cycles in the world that happens [00:42:00] particularly with financial markets, and that we're seeing a period of inflation right now. What does that mean? It usually means that the financial system collapses. You go back to some sort of backed standard, like a gold standard and then the markets reset, debts are cleared. People are worse off. Some people are reset. I think that that's really interesting from the perspective of cryptocurrency. It's like, frankly, bitcoin is a true global currency and that it is not hedged from individual countries inflation. But it's it's a different type of store of value that we haven't seen historically. Right. It is some it is fixed, probably even more fixed than gold is. And in times of distress, in times of kind of challenge challenges associated with, like largely debt. At least reading between the lines, Dalio doesn't talk about crypto at all, but it seems like it's a very. Practical. It would be very logical for a lot of people to to put a lot of resources into it when the global landscape is changing relatively rapidly. So that's I am by by no means an investor making any financial recommend.

Antonio: [00:43:21] Do your own research.

Speaker3: [00:43:22] But, but yeah, I mean, it's really interesting to think of these in the perspective of like rising empires, falling empires, China, which like, you know, illegal AIs bitcoin, but the rest of the world. I mean, the U.S. dollar is a reserve currency is is a very interesting phenomenon. And frankly, I don't know if it's going to be that way forever. And so just thinking about. Not just the technologies, but the global repercussions of these technologies. I think we'll look back at some point in time in the next one years and say that maybe even just the currency aspect was something that was a transformational change in how [00:44:00] we we live our lives and how countries rise and fall and how economics are done.

Antonio: [00:44:05] Yeah, I mean, if you're interested in that, I was actually listening today to a podcast and Ukraine actually legalized crypto. And like, it's it's I mean, I think what's intriguing to me is like, All right, they're getting they're getting ready to be attacked, right? I'm imagining a scenario. They're ready, the Russians are waiting, they're going to attack, and all of the Ukraine politicians are in the room. They're like, All right, should we legalize bitcoin or what? Like, you know, they're spending time. So that's how it tells you that they're preparing. They're probably like, I should probably put some. I should probably buy some bitcoin before I like all my assets, like frozen or something. I mean, that's an interesting conversation. And then also, Canada is froze like a bunch of assets from truckers who were like protesting over there. That's another I mean, the thing about the crypto world is anybody who's looking to get in it if like you, you sleep through the night and you wake up in the morning and there's a ton of news, there's a ton of drama every day. So it's definitely has been an investment on my end to try to keep up with everything and you'll never going to be able to do that now. But definitely interesting. So we'll continue talking about this. But I want to hear from somebody who's like, not too much into this world or kind of like, what's holding you back? I'm sure you've heard about it. Anyone who hasn't spoken or who is like, I might want to get into this, but I really haven't gone into it because of X, Y or Z, like we have anybody on this call or we or we all like, Let's go crypto. Alexandra, Lisa, Mikko, Nisha.

Speaker6: [00:45:38] So I'll admit, I don't know too much about blockchain or crypto or anything, and

Speaker7: [00:45:45] I am interested to learn about it. I think it's just finding the time and the resources to learn about it. And I think one thing that has been hesitant is in the work that I do like no one's mentioning blockchain and no one's mentioning Web3. No one's mentioning [00:46:00] all that where, what space I'm in. So right now, I just don't know how related it is. But like, I am curious to learn about it because it does seem like that's the way things might be heading towards.

Antonio: [00:46:15] Yeah, that makes sense, yeah, and I think for me also, it was like once you hear about it, they're like, Oh, get a wallet and you're like, Wait, I have a wallet. Like, what is this? And you know, it's like a whole different thing and you sign up on the browser and all of a sudden you can put money in there. So it was definitely a transition for me. Thank you for saying that. I think you definitely need better education and on boarding experiences for people. And then eventually people are going to say I bought for my wife like an etherium domain and stuff, and even for my little for my son, who was four months old. He has his own Ethereum address, so you can like if you want to send him money, he he's. I am Damian. And you can just if you guys want to send them some money. Go ahead. I'm not going to complain to the college fund. That's going to be his college fund. Bitcoin and Ethereum. If it goes up or if it crashes, then he's not going to be going to college. But that's another story. Another interesting thing that I saw today from I think there might be useful for some of you guys and girls who are doing like courses and education. There's this thing called bank list, and they're launching a bank list academy, so it's going to be like university for stuff. And the idea is that you're going to have this tokens behind it. So when you complete a course right or you complete this university program instead of getting a diploma, it's going to be a token on your online digital wallet. And then if it becomes a reputation, right, so maybe eventually you get a thing from Harvard, right? Instead of giving you a a diploma or alongside with a diploma, you get like a Harvard token, let's say, for example, and people can go and see you're talking like, Oh, this person like went to Harvard or they went to this accredited thing.

Antonio: [00:47:51] So I think I definitely recommend for somebody who is like, if you're an online course creator or something like that to definitely like just thinking about something small [00:48:00] projects like that I hate somebody finishes my course or somebody watches like 10 of my kanji videos on YouTube. Like you get like some special token that you, you know, you hang out with Ken or something. And that would be, I don't know, Ken, if you could. I'm sure there's going to be some way around how somebody sells it for you at the next price. So that's going to be an interesting thing, but I wouldn't be surprised if that happens in like, you know, like 10, 20 years and you're getting all these like tokens that are just accessible and anybody can can just see your your your public chain and see what you're doing. Because right now, I mean, I make up stuff on my resume all the time, right? Oh, do you know? Of course I know, like all that good stuff. Maybe one day we won't be able to to lie about it as easily. So that's a pro and a con, I guess depends which side you're on. So I see a lot of conversation in the chat. I'll leave it open. Do you guys want to add anything anybody? Have any comments on this or another topic? Let me know. I know Mark is always ready to talk about all of this stuff. So if you guys don't have any questions, I'll let mark speak.

Speaker5: [00:49:18] But regarding what was the question I was, there's no question

Antonio: [00:49:21] Marks, just tell us something cool about the blockchain and 50's or anything.

Speaker5: [00:49:28] Yeah, yeah, I guess I can just share my screen again real quick of a cool project that will hopefully show kind of like a utility component. So I'm a huge fan of this group called selection of the fan of like ten years, and they were really big in the SoundCloud era. If anyone knows all that stuff of like really driving the music and the sound at that time. And now they just shows all over the world and like, they have a whole bunch of followers now they're jumping into NFT land. For context, they they're really [00:50:00] into music NFT. So they've been really focusing on this project for the past year, and they're going to release in five days. But why I think is really cool about it is that Joe was the founder of this. He's been doing these radio show episodes every single week for 10 years, and only he's really getting paid. But he has a lot of other people on his roster that he wants to get involved in this as well, beyond just like giving exposure or giving them into a concert and stuff like that. And so they created this radio episode that he does every single week, but now. He now has all the performers and the producers and everyone involved on this contract, so the people who buy this NFT instantly, everyone will get paid based on their breakdown from their wallet through their smart contract, so they have three hundred and thirty of them going on sale.

Speaker5: [00:50:49] I'm one hundred percent going to buy one of these. And so three hundred and thirty three times zero point one eith split among everyone involved. And the reason why they're doing that is that they're really focused on independent labels. And so this provides a model for the creators to get paid as quickly as possible from an indie component without having to go through labels and deal with all those contracts. And in addition, every resale these entities, the creators are going to get involved as well. And so it just shows kind of a way that people are thinking about NFTs as a way to again, a different revenue stream for artists. For these creators, especially if you're a connector and you bring a lot of people together for a project. This makes it really easy. So now Joe Kay, who's driving all this, he doesn't have to think about payroll or paying all these people or all these contracts every time something sold. It just happens automatically. He doesn't think about it, and he set up his friends really well.

Antonio: [00:51:49] That is really cool, I haven't heard about that one. But. Man, that is that is very interesting. Well, one thing I'm interested about is how did they get the percentages breakdown of [00:52:00] each one? I guess it's probably like pretty determined based on the people that are working on this project, like the produced by right, everybody gets a different percentage.

Speaker5: [00:52:07] Yeah, I imagine it's probably like in some contract and they all agree upon what, what, what it is.

Antonio: [00:52:13] I wonder if you can sell that like, OK, I own 11 percent of this project. I'm going to sell it to somebody for, like, I don't know, like a fixed sum of like $100000. And then you kind of like you speculate whether you're going to make more money off of it or not. But that will be. Or maybe that's like a future thing. But I mean, I love this use case. Yeah, like you're saying just 80, it's not going to be happy when they don't have to. They're not going to write checks. That is really cool, man. Yeah, you got to come down to the builders of three and share these things you're working on, Mark, I know because your West Coast, so it's a little bit difficult for you whenever you can. Definitely, definitely drop by. All right, Russell, you've been relatively quiet. You're usually very fired up about NFTs. I think the sneaker game got you a little quiet today.

Speaker4: [00:53:08] Yeah, I've been frantically trying to research some, some rare sneakers I once tried to get. I'm about to post something in the chat here for Ben and Mickey. Go to have a look, probably have a laugh at. But then it's easier. You know, I'm keen to see how that develops. I mentioned something in the chat about Nike bundling NFTs with the trainers and their attire, their apparel. And as I understand it, I might be wrong on this, but I think you bought some limited edition apparel, either shoes or t shirts or something of the lake, and it came with an NFT. And then once you open the NFT, there was a chance to get some quite limited assets that were worth more value than the actual item of apparel you bought. So [00:54:00] as I understand it, please, if anybody knows better, do correct me. But that was also then why I commented about NFTs having somewhat of a loot box strategy. At the moment, it seems that a great deal of the NFT that I see marketed at the moment or the purchasing strategy for them is by buying a box that has a certain number in and there's a chance you'll get a rare one, which seems just like loot boxes in computer games. Does anybody have any better insight on that?

Antonio: [00:54:34] You will have experience with this, or I would.

Speaker5: [00:54:36] I'll give it a shot for this, but I think at the end of the day, it comes down to the founding team and what kind of leader tokenomics they want to create because at the end of the day, the way they structure a smart contract, whether it's a token and a T, wherever it may be, they're baking in assumptions and economic games into that in the day. Like the reason why you have these tokens is to facilitate transactions. And so with those transactions on the day is money and there's different incentives for four different things. And so I think and the builders of Web3 kind of show, I went to the first one and something that Carlos brought up that was really interesting a song about NFT games to pay, to earn games and how they can actually create like bad economic incentives because you can kind of create like internet serfdom, where you have people from very poor countries really trying to grind at the game to maybe get five or ten dollars, right? And so now you've created like colonialism online, right? And so thinking about that, there are decisions of creator makes when putting that out there. And so if they want to have a box style thing, they can totally do that. You know, there's different rarities for things, but also, [00:56:00] you know, you can skip away from rarities and said, Actually, you know, I'm creating like social daos where like, you won't get into this party or get into these online events unless you have our NFT. And it's the same NFT for everyone except for like just showing who owns it. And so I think to push back, you can totally have loot boxes, but that's a decision by the creators to have a loop loop loot box like experience. And so that was very hard to say. So. Take that for what it is, I'm still learning in the space as well.

Antonio: [00:56:39] Thank you, Mark. Vin, where are you going to add anything to that?

Speaker2: [00:56:44] I was just going to say on the Nike side, like they've taken a couple of different courses and I don't think they figured it out. They've got like the one thing that I've bought into is, you know, they've got online basically in in the metaverse, you're going to be able to wear sneakers in different metaverse, in different worlds and you'll be able to equip your avatar or clip your player like that's the kind of thing that I would look at and buy into. Is that sort of thing as if I ever got in, you know, if I could pick a metaverse and decide to go in with that? Yeah, that would be something I would want, like the the digital equivalent of my wall. And that would be an interesting way for a company like Nike to monetize this because there's so many of us that are dork. I mean, excuse me, you know, also into the online world who who are sneakerheads as well and kind of getting old, too. So these are the kind of like nostalgia things that we like, and it would be interesting to be able to get a pair like that you can't get anymore because there is a ton of shoes out there where there isn't any dead stock left. And so it'd be cool to be able to have like a piece of that or some sort of nostalgia associated with that. So yeah, I think that's where they want to go with it. But right now they're trying like the [00:58:00] loot box approach where you you buy one, you might get something better. You might get like a drop, you know, randomly, you get dropped another NFT, you or another pair of sneakers they've tried selling them with like, you buy a sneaker, you get an NFT. They've tried like a bunch of flavors. I don't know that they figured it out, though yet.

Antonio: [00:58:17] No, I definitely think it's early, and I think also another point you have to figure out is is pricing right? Like how do you price that? I saw somewhere on LinkedIn somebody said like. And if these are not going to be as mainstream until like, you can buy it like them for like less than like $5, right? Because right now, I mean, if you're buying something, I mean, I'm going to pay more. I know that too. You know, like we say that now and then, you know, some cool outfit or some cool shoes drop and you want to have and so you'll pay more. But even right now, I mean, if it's on the Ethereum blockchain, you can just pay like sixty seventy dollars just in fees, you know? So I know there's a lot of solutions that are coming up, but there's definitely a lot more to to figure out. So I know we're past the hour time or we're here around here, so I think this is a good place to stop. Thank you, everybody for joining us today. I know I'm not as cool as her pre and I don't have a Hawaiian shirt, but her pride, actually. Unfortunately, today he is. Well, fortunately for him, he's in California. Unfortunately, he had some plumbing trouble in his back, in his house, and a lot of his equipment has been ruined, so I'm going to be hosting for him again next Friday. I think he said a pipe burst or something while he was on vacation and there was like two feet of water. And then from what I saw and one of the chats, I think Mark is going to be hosting after that in March. So I'm going to be the opening act. And then afterwards in March, I'm going to let Marc do his thing and be the star of the show. So thank you guys again for joining and. Something was similar [01:00:00] to what her pride says. You have one life, so why not build something cool in an PhD so that it lasts forever on the blockchain? So thank you, everyone, and I'll see you again next week, hopefully.