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Our guest this week is Andreas Antonopoulos. Andreas is an acclaimed author, speaker, educator, and one of the world’s foremost Bitcoin and open blockchain experts. Andreas makes complex subjects accessible and easy to understand. Andreas is also the author of one of my favorite books about bitcoin and blockchain technology called The Internet of Money.

 

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Show notes:
 

Bose QuietComfort 35 (Series I) Wireless Headphones, Noise Cancelling ($329)
“One of the reasons I love these noise-canceling headphones, is because if I want to sleep I can’t really tolerate earplugs for too long. Like, I can do it for an hour, but if I have earplugs in my ears for eight hours, I get really sore. And so, one of the things I love, is there’s an app called Atmosphere, which you can get on, I think pretty much every platform, that plays various background sounds- white noise, fans, bubbling brooks or babbling brooks and rain sounds and things like that. So you can just pop these in an eight hour flight and sleep and not even notice you’re wearing them … these charge through a micro USB port, and the charge lasts for 10 – 12 hours easily.”
 

Atmosphere app (iOS, Android)
“There’s an app called Atmosphere, which you can get on, I think pretty much every platform, that plays various background sounds — white noise, fans, bubbling brooks or babbling brooks and rain sounds and things like that. So you can just pop [the Bose headphones] in an eight hour flight and sleep and not even notice you’re wearing them.”
 

Google Fi as international phone plan
“It’s worked beautifully. I get 4G in dozens of different countries so far. I mean I’ve tried it in 15 or 16 countries just in the last year, and gotten 4G service. With one or two exceptions, like they don’t support Vietnam yet. … Google Fi is basically primarily a data service. They also do voice and messaging and it’s free for National, but you know, who uses a phone as a phone anymore? I don’t. So for me, it’s only data, that’s all I care about. It works in the US, 4G, LTE, everywhere no problem.”
 

TP-Link AC2600 Dual Band Wi-Fi Range Extender ($100)
“My background is in security, and one of the things that I handle in my life, in my professional life, but also in my personal life, is managing risk and understanding risk. And what risks are important and what risks are not important. I don’t let my security be anybody else business but mine ….So, the funny conversation you have at Airbnb is, they say things like, “And our router password is …” And I’m like, “Oh, thank you dear. I will not be using your router.” I don’t know where that router’s been. Also, it’s probably badly configured, and keeps dropping packets and I need communications here. So what I do is, [This] gets plugged in directly to the back of their internet, or wherever I can get a hard connection, or piggy backs off their provider’s router, and then it’s my communication network. And it includes VPN technology in it, but so do all of my devices.”

12/22/17