Thursday Thoughts - 12/21/2023

Here are my Thursday Thoughts, a short list of the most interesting things that I’ve read, heard, and/or watched over the past week.


helium by Stable Diffusion Dream Studio SDXL 1.0

helium by Stable Diffusion Dream Studio SDXL 1.0

What I Tried:

Helium Mobile

Helium is disrupting the telecom industry by offering a $20 per month unlimited call and data plan in the United States. They are able to achieve this low cost by using hotspots set up by households instead of building or leasing radio towers. They use blockchain technology (Solana) to pay people for setting up hotspots. It’s a decentralized approach to infrastructure.

I have been experimenting with Helium Mobile as a secondary line for about two weeks. The setup was easy and fast, download the Helium Mobile app and register an eSim with your phone.

Another benefit to using the Helium Mobile app is the Mapping feature. Mapping lets Helium know the range of their network. As with the hotspots, users earn MOBILE tokens for providing that service. All they have to do is turn on location permissions for the app.

I have earned about 40,000 MOBILE tokens during two week. MOBILE currently sits at $0.006. That means I’ve made $240 and already paid off my subscription for next 2 years!

You can use my referral code, 3J7HP5R, for $5 off your first month.

What I Made:

Ronin to Koinly Transformer

The service I used last year to prepare my Ronin blockchain transactions for taxes is no longer running. The creator of the service suggested downloading transactions from the blockchain and uploading it to the tax software.

I ran into issues because the transaction data was not in a format that my tax software accepted. I needed to move some columns around and relabel certain tokens. So, I created a custom GPT that did this for me with great accuracy.

It was amazing to be able to get what I wanted with just plain English. In the past, I would have to look up Python code and refresh my memory on data frames. Something that would have taken me half a day, now only took an hour.

What I Read

What’s in My Bag, 2023

Matt Mullenwig lays out all the gear that lived in his bag this past year.

I am a sucker for these type of posts. I love seeing what people are using in their everyday life. It makes me consider what I’m using and if there is an opportunity for an upgrade. One of the downsides of this is the urge to buy more things.

Two things in Matt’s list intrigued me:

  1. Rechargeable Candle Lighter - I did not know that these exists. It’s such a better way to light candles than the handheld gas torches.

  2. Ugmonk Notecards - I love productivity products. These notecards take the physical to-do list to another level.

Tags: #axie infinity #crypto #tech


Thursday Thoughts

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