Anansi Boys- Weird but Wonderful Book by Neil Gaiman
Gaiman manages like no other to combine the modern world with that of the (ancient) Gods and leave you wanting more and more. You might know Gaiman from his book American Gods (also a series now), which was already an amazing book I could not put down. But Anansi Boys is just as good and contains more mythical background then American Gods does.
The Story: No Spoilers
So we start our story with Fat Charlie, living in London, who grew up with a rather unusual father: a man who loved to sing, never worked a day in his life and was always surrounded by the ladies. But though Fat Charlie was embarrassed by his father, he never realized that his dad was really the god Anansi and that he has a brother, both things he finds out after the death of his father.
From that moment Charlie ends up in a whirlwind of events, triggered by ending up too close to the Gods (they bring a lot of drama...) and Charlie will have to do things he never thought about before in order to make it out...
As we travel from London to Florida all the way to the Caribbean we encounter humans, birds, tigers and lots and lots of spiders...
Anansi
For those of you not familiar with the myth: Anansi is a god from West-African folklore that travelled to the Americans with the slave trade. Anansi, the story teller was known as the trickster god, the one that always manages to out-smart and trick the other gods. This of course, makes him loved by people, but not by his fellow deities. His most common form is that of a spider and you will meet many spiders in this book...
Neil Gaiman
What makes Gaiman such an amazing writer in my opinion is that he manages to integrate the real world of his novel with the world of the gods and he does so in a way that makes it incredibly fun to read, but also shows you a world that no longer exists. As a historian, I praise the research he does on his deities, but he goes much further then just looking up the facts because he actually manages to make them come to life for the reader!
Anyway, I really really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to everyone! Have you been reading anything good lately?
June Earnings of a Small Fish
Hi all, for all of you that are sick of the big whales going "oh I made another couple grand this month on staking interest" I thought I would share what small fishes like you and I can achieve in just a month time!
So last month was pretty good for me, in May I made just under $40 in free crypto even though the market has been slumping a bit. I'm currently holding around $420 of crypto in wallets so I guess I am a really tiny fish in the ocean of crypto! So here are my earnings for June:
**Hive: $40.68** Still my biggest earner and increasing! Very happy with the past month, I have been engaging more, reading really interesting things and getting nice responses to my posts. I really love this platform so don't mind putting time and effort in.
**Noise.Cash: $12.63** I have started Noise.Cash this month after being told by people to check it out and no regrets! It's been earning really well but it's also lots of fun. I have been really active in a chamber on the Euro Cup. Talking about football and getting tips: what is not to love?
**Coinbase Earn: $6** There were two quizzes for $3 each. I immediately converted what I earned in Polygon and that's been going pretty steady so yay. If you want to check Coinbase out this: https://www.coinbase.com/join/smolde_q8?src=android-share is my referral link.
**Reddit Moons: $4,94** I have been really enjoying being active on Reddit and getting moons for it makes it even better. For now I am just keeping them as moons, might convert some later but not now.
**Read.Cash: $2.02** After checking out Noise.Cash I have been dabbing with Read.Cash as well, but can't seem to get the hang of it. The website itself is horribly slow and I haven't managed to find a good rhythm yet. I will keep trying. If anyone has any tips let me know!
**PublishOx: $1,36** So PublishOx came with the news of reducing tips and no longer giving tips in Ether, but since I am mostly lurking and not producing that much at the moment it's not too bad. Hope when I have more time I can be more active there. If you want to check me out go here: https://www.publish0x.com/understandable-crypto
**FaucetCrypto: $0.76** About the same as last month while I was hoping for a rise, but not yet. I like this one because it pays out quickly and is easy to use. Check it out here: https://faucetcrypto.com/ref/1060402
**Celsius: $0.46** I have just started in May with this and since I am a very small fish and the market went down it's not that much. But it is great to stake and get free crypto for crypto without doing anything! If you want to join check it here: https://celsiusnetwork.app.link/1196075cd9
**Betfury: $0.09** So this looks pathetic but I finally made enough BFG tokens to get free income and it can only go up from here, so I am pretty excited with this small win! If you want to try it check it out here: https://betfury.io/?r=6087d788143ea74a39144327
Total Earning June: $68.88!
I am really happy with this actually as it means a $30 increase from last month. Would be great if I could keep increasing by that much every month!
**Goals for July:** I want to keep interacting lots on Hives and get more active on PublishOx and Noise.Cash. I hope to get cracking on Read.Cash and figure out how it works and how I can grow something there. Hopefully I can increase my holdings on Betfury and make some more there as well.
So basically what I am saying is, everybody including all us small fishes in the sea can make free crypto with a bit of effort and mostly interaction! If you have more tips for me of things to try out or to have a look at please let me know. Best of luck with your crypto endeavors in the beautiful month of July!
Requiem for a Dream: A True Masterpiece [Movie Review]
Usually on Saturday night my partner and I build a pillow fortress on the living room carpet and watch a movie together. This time was no different and after spending considerable time scrolling through all our options we landed on Requiem for a Dream. We had both never seen it, but heard lots about it. And let me tell you: what a movie!
I think the best way to describe it is a combination of one of the weirdest/most intense movies I ever saw, but it was really good!
The movie
The movie is from 2000, but based on a book from 1978 by Hubert Selby Jr. The movie shows different types of addiction and the people that get caught up in it. As the movie and their drug use progresses over time, they end up more and more in the drug induced dream world, only to come crashing down in reality.
The main characters are Sara and Harry Goldfarb, mother and sun. Harry (played by Jered Leto) uses heroin with his best friend and girlfriend and spend their days trying to find ways to finance their drug abuse.
Sara, Harry's mother, is a woman who spends her days alone in front of the television after the death of her husband, Harry's father. When she gets selected to appear on one of the TV shows she watches, she feels motivated to lose some weight to appear on TV in her favorite red dress. A doctor prescribes her amphetamines to lose the weight, which helps but also mean she ends up with an addiction and is quickly losing her grip on reality.
The role of Sara is played incredibly well, earning Ellen Burstyn, the actress a nomination for an academy award. The paranoia she experiences really becomes clear to the viewer.
Cinematography
However, the real highlight of the movie is the way it was filmed. The director has decided to use something called "Hip-Hop Montage" meaning the movie has about two times as many cuts as an average movie. The result is a rapid succession of cuts with music, these cuts are so short that the viewer only has the time to recognize what they see (a lighter, some drugs etc) before the next image in shown. This means the audience doesn't have time to digest the images, feeling what it is like to be a drug user.
I thought this movie was incredibly made by director Darren Aronofsky and would really recommend it. The theme of the movie might be intense, but it really sucks you in and spits you out at the end of the movie. A true masterpiece
Hello everyone in this Read.Cash community. I wanted to introduce myself here. I am Pauline, a history teacher from the Netherlands. I have only just been active here and hope to read a lot of interesting information on read.cash and learn more about this platform! Any help and suggestions are always welcome and I hope we will see much of each other in the future.
A Critical Note on BTC in El Salvador
The past week the crypto community nearly took the streets dancing: El Salvador, as the first country in the world will allow BTC as legal tender! People were shouting: mass adaptation is here! BTC will replace fiat money!
Now as much as I want BTC adaptation to happen, I think we should be a bit careful declaring El Salvador as the event in which it happens.
I voiced my rather unpopular opinion in short on Reddit, but I would like to give a bit more explanation about why I think we should view this event with some caution
1. El Salvador currently is in shambles
The Salvadorian economy is currently so bad that they had to abandon their own currency in favor for the American Dollar due to inflation. The current GDP of the whole nation is currently only $27 Billion (https://www.coindesk.com/el-salvador-bitcoin-legal-tender-markets-ignore) and most people don't own a bank account (50% of population) or internet (30% of population). Why is this a problem to the BTC hype?
As most citizens have no means of sending or even purchasing crypto they would also have little chance of increasing their economic opportunities. On top of that, those who would have the means to do so would have to pay the BTC fees, which for a country that already has little to spend means a bit ledge to start. It would have been more sensible to have adopted a fee-less instant crypto like Nano or BCH in my opinion...
2. The idea to draw investors is not very viable
The idea of the president of El Salvador is to offer citizenship to all those who invest at least 3BTC in the economy of El Salvador. Great, you think, let me pack my bags! But wait....
Crime rates are really high in El Salvador. I mean this is not really the country you would want to bring your family to live during your crypto adventure. Read more about it here: (https://www.osac.gov/Country/ElSalvador/Content/Detail/Report/b4884604-977e-49c7-9e4a-1855725d032e)
If you wanted citizenship you don't need to bring the crypto. El Salvador is one of those countries country where you can just purchase citizenship. And still the beaches of El Salvador are not teeming with people, because ehm yes it's unsafe and the economy is pretty bad
3. The president is getting praise he shouldn't
Before we all erect statues in our backyard for the man that made BTC legal tender in his country let's please remember:
He is turning El Salvador into a dictatorship which has arrested and interned over 16.000 people and who is trying to change the presidential and justice systems to make himself immune to justice. Read more about it here: (https://english.elpais.com/usa/2021-03-02/profile-nayib-bukele-and-absolute-power.html)
- He has no interest in the average El Salvatorian. He is called the cell-phone president, he never visits his population and cares more about how many followers he has on twitter.
My point being: this man has no interest in bettering his country with real solutions and real-life crypto adaptations. He wants to up his popularity by talking about projects that will give him fame but will help his people very little.
Does that mean it's all negative? No, maybe this will be a first step for adaptation. But let's get excited when crypto gets adopted to actually help people or by a country that makes these decisions because they help them to advance, not just to get more twitter followers. Please people, always be critical as well!
Why am I so stubborn?
As a picture and title say more than a thousand words, you might be guessing now that I am really, really **really** stubborn. I like how in English the expression is ' Stubborn like ox', but in the Netherlands we say: stubborn like a donkey haha. Well anyway, that is me and it baffles me sometimes, why am I this stubborn? And what do I gain from being this stubborn?
Let's start at the beginning
Back when Pauline (that's me!) was still a little Paulinetje I was stubborn as could be already. Apparently as a child I refused to wear the color pink and would squirm my way out of any pink clothes. Also my mother tells me that since I was a baby I refused to eat certain foods and when left at the table by my exasperated mother who would leave me there with the words: ' you can't leave the table until it's finished!' I would still be sitting there hours later stubbornly refusing to eat my now cold food. This picture is me at one of those endless table sessions haha:
But wait, it gets worse!
So you are now already thinking why the hell would you spend all that time just bothering yourself really? What did you gain from it? But it gets even worse! Because I will remain stubborn even when I know I am wrong! Crazy right? Oh and I would get really cranky too. I found this hilarious photo of grumpy me because I didn't want a photo taken of me.
Now you think, well all kids can be like that. But I am afraid not all has changed. I ended up in a long discussion last week with my boyfriend about a large construction crane that has been posted outside our flat for a couple of months now. The discussion? Which way the crane was facing that day..... To save you the whole discussion: I was wrong. He was right. But I still have not been able to admit this to him! Why? Why am I like this? I think it might always remain a mystery....
What about you? What about yourself do you not understand?
https://noise.cash/u/Plint
Introducing myself!
Hi read.cash! I thought it would be nice to introduce myself here before I get started. I'm Pauline, 30 yo female from the Netherlands. I am a history teacher in high school and I love hiking, caving, climbing and all things outdoors but have also appropriated some indoor hobbies during the pandemic such as baking, knitting and blogging. I also love to read. The picture below was taken in Oman, a perfect country for those who love outdoor sports! I'm hoping to be able to travel again soon, as the Netherlands is nice, but not the perfect place for people who enjoy mountains and climbing haha.
I have started getting interested in crypto this year and kind of tumbled into blogging as well and turns out I really enjoy the blogging thing! I've been making regular posts on my Hives: https://ecency.com/@plint as well as starting a crypto blog on PublishOx: https://www.publish0x.com/understandable-crypto when somebody told me about noise.cash and read.cash I thought it sounded like something I would like to check out as well. So here we are!
I hope to see many interesting things here, learn lots, contribute with my own posts and just have some fun really! If you want to know more don't hesitate to ask I'm always happy to talk!
@Plint
