Codifyre

Steve Giguere

Codifyre is a podcast about emerging trends in the culture of technology, software languages, security, and skills. The aim is to create entertaining content for everyone from coders to sales gurus looking to stay clued in.

  1. 07/11/2018

    #13 - The Rise and Fall of Crypto

    Last year at this time Bitcoin was going haywire!  It was on what seems to be the never ending rise to THE MOON!   Until it stopped just shortly into 2018.  Totally unpredictable behaviour.  Stupid bitcoin!  Or is it?   There is a pattern.  Ok a few patterns but this one struck me as interesting.   If you check out the blog article or this podcast on Codifyre.com you’ll see a few graphs of bitcoin over the years.  The all time price isn’t really that interesting because the big 2017 Christmas spike kind of skews the whole thing but the idea is that it’s generally going up with basic awareness.  That doesn’t give it real value so much as real potential value.   What IS interesting is the behaviour of the price when the media gets involved and starts hyping it.  Part time thrill seekers get into the crypto band wagon and shit gets crazy.  In fact if you think last year was a bizarre anomaly, and do check out the price graph for Nov 4th 2017 to Nov 4th 2018 to get a feel for the signature of that crazy….   but then, let’s go back 4 years.   In fact I’ll even go back to the exact same dates Nov 4th 2013 to Nov 4th 2014.  That was the last major Bitcoin hullabaloo in the press.   If you check out the graph, although the pricing is almost exactly 20 times smaller, the shape of the graph can almost be overlaid on the graph from 2017/18 and it was even the exact same time of the year as Christmas approaches.   Driven by media and speculation, people react almost exactly the same and it appears that 4 years is the magic amount of time for us humans to totally forget that we already did it once and, just go ahead and do it again.   Let’s get away from Bitcoin for the moment… and talk about some of the other big ones like Ethereum and Litecoin.   I like Ethereum and while I don’t entirely understand Litecoin's purpose yet it’s definitely got a good following.   The reason I like Ethereum is it has a leader (who is real), it had a plan and it has one really critical differentiator that I think a lot of people will like and that’s the Proof of Stake system it’s got in its roadmap for the future.   Before I get into that though, the other reason I like Ethereum is because it’s not a straight up cryptocurrency.   It’s a platform for the creation of Smart Contracts.   Read the rest here...    Follow us on... Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/codifyre Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/codifyre Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/codifyre.co.uk Web: https://www.codifyre.com

    22 min
  2. 20/06/2018

    #12 - Staying Relevant in a Tech World

    Once a new technology rolls over you, if you're not part of the steamroller, you're part of the road. Stewart Brand This is one of those podcasts which isn’t the offspring of late night research, countless hours of trial and error tempered by seminars, articles and other people podcasts. This one is coming from real life… whatever that means. This one is coming from real life… whatever that means. If you’ve found yourself working in the technology arena it can be as exciting as it is challenging. Sometimes these are one and the same and sometimes they could not be farther apart. Being a GenXr myself I was there at the beginning of the home computing boom. I remember the rise of Steve Jobs, and when Bill Gates was the young genius instead of Mark Zuckerberg except of course when he famously said “640k is all the memory anyone will ever need” or words to that effect. Ok fine he didn’t say that but, thanks to the post-truth world I think it’s probably perfectly ok to attribute that statement to him or anyone else for that matter. Even better if you turn it into a meme! Getting back to the 80s and 90s when technology was “young” and when air-quotes were first invented (I was thinking some as I typed “young”). Back then I learn to program in C language, I could disassemble my PC and fix it myself, even over-clock the CPU to get more gusto from it and I was building linux kernel I got from Linus Torvalds (the OS namesake) himself because that was the only place you could get it. I will return to Linus as a flagship example of staying relevant in the technological age as he one of the most influential people in our technological era. Let’s talk about that era. We are currently in a phase of advancement which is to say the least, complex.  Check out the full blog at  https://codifyre.com/tech-skills/staying-relevant-technology-world-editorial/ Follow us on... Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/codifyre Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/codifyre Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/codifyre.co.uk Web: https://www.codifyre.com

    25 min
  3. 09/05/2018

    #10 - Machine Learning ( Real World Applications )

    Machine Learning I’ve heard the phrase Machine Learning banging around the media more intensely over the past few years and you know what that means… I’m not happy until I know what is really means. TO THE BAT-MOWER! My first conjured image is of course a lawn mower in a classroom trying to fumble its way through the shakespearean sonnet. It seems I wasn’t far off! Ok I was pretty far off. But there is a smart lawn mower that learns how to cut you lawn which is in fact machine learning. It’s the word machine which I find distracting. We’re not accustomed to speaking of computers as machines or machines as computers although the latter is quickly becoming so and hence the phrase. A few podcasts ago we discussed Self-Driving Cars and machine learning is definitely at the core of their success. We have all driven cars and would unanimously agree that no two routes are the same even if you’re driving the same route every day. There is always some element of surprise. These cars would not exist if not for some very clever learning algorithms which prioritise success paths over failures in order to adapt their reactions and even their default behaviour to new situations. Just like us human learners. What about other non-driving based applications? The mower is essentially a tiny little self-driving car that works out your lawns shape and the best route while having the luxury of not having to contend with human driven lawn mowers, drinking and just mowing all over the place. Machine learning and AI (Artifical Intelligence) are peanut butter and chocolate, ham and cheese, bacon and…. everything. What’s the point of learning if you aren’t going to use what you have learned? I could dive deep into the inner workings of machine learning algorithms but that would be a serious snoozer to the non-enthusiast and as complex and fasinating as it is, it’s more fun to try to derive the gist of what it all means by looking at the applications because without application there is no learning. Are we surrounded by learning machines who will eventually take over the world? Yes! But how? Let’s have a crack at a top 5!  Check out the podcast for the list. The shownotes for the episode are here: https://codifyre.com/technology/machine-learning-are-you-smarter-than-a-toaster/ Follow us on... Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/codifyre Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/codifyre Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/codifyre.co.uk Web: https://www.codifyre.com

    21 min
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À propos

Codifyre is a podcast about emerging trends in the culture of technology, software languages, security, and skills. The aim is to create entertaining content for everyone from coders to sales gurus looking to stay clued in.