You may have heard the term ‘blockchain’ and dismissed it as a fad, a buzzword, or even technical jargon. But I believe blockchain is a technological advance that will have wide-reaching implications that will not just transform the financial services but many other businesses and industries.
A blockchain is a distributed database, meaning that the storage devices for the database are not all connected to a common processor. It maintains a growing list of ordered records, called blocks. Each block has a timestamp and a link to a previous block. Cryptography ensures that users can only edit the parts of the blockchain that they “own” by possessing the private keys necessary to write to the file. It also ensures that everyone’s copy of the distributed blockchain is kept in synch. Read Article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2017/01/24/a-complete-beginners-guide-to-blockchain/#471ca66e6077 Great Fire of London - Wharf Fire - 1666 Setting the StageIn the aftermath of the Great Fire, a number of laws and ordinances were passed directly related to the fire that attempted to eliminate such devastation from future fires. One law, for example, required that each quarter of the city be provided with 800 leather buckets and 50 ladders, as well as other firefighting equipment. Each house had to have buckets, and the occupants were required to participate in hand-to-hand bucket brigades.
Another law allowed for the incorporation of an organization to indemnify for losses due to fire. This one set the stage for the first insurance company. Read Entire Article: https://www.irmi.com/articles/expert-commentary/the-worlds-first-insurance-company/ What is insurance? Insurance is a contract between an individual (the policyholder) and an insurance company. This contract provides that the insurance company will cover some portion of a policyholder’s loss as long as the policyholder meets certain conditions stipulated in the insurance contract. The policyholder pays a premium to obtain insurance coverage. If the policyholder experiences a loss covered by insurance, such as a car accident or a house fire, the policyholder files a claim for reimbursement with the insurance company. The policyholder will pay a deductible to cover part of the loss, and the insurance company will pay the rest.
Read more: Intro To Insurance: What Is insurance? https://www.investopedia.com/university/insurance/insurance1.asp#ixzz4xv6QvQfl The story goes that bartenders at James Ritty’s Pony House Tavern were skimming money off the bar’s sales. Ritty, understandably aggravated, was returning from a trip to Europe when he noticed a dial on the bridge that counted the revolutions of the ship’s propellers. Intrigued, Ritty returned home to Dayton and proposed the idea for a calculating sales machine to his brother John, a mechanic. After developing a few prototypes that failed, the brothers developed a machine that replaced the numbers on the dial with dollars and cents. Pressing a key on the machine would add that dollar amount to the total day’s sales, displayed on the dial. There was no cash drawer at this point – just the running tally. Example of Ritty’s early design can be found at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. or at Carillon Historical Park in Dayton, Ohio.
Read Article: http://www.americantable.org/2011/11/today-in-history-rittys-incorruptible-cashier-1879/ Some linguists think of language as a living thing: It grows and changes, and every time a child learns it, the language reproduces itself. Now, a team of researchers is using the analogy of evolution to explain language change, arguing that key factors in biological evolution—like natural selection and genetic drift—have parallels in how languages change over time. And it turns out that the random changes, known as “drift” in biology, may have played an outsized role in the evolution of the English language.
Read Article: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/how-english-language-has-evolved-living-creature |
AuthorBrady Aldinger |