Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000
<p>Blockchain takes the spotlight as new host <a href="https://twitter.com/_askcarter">Carter Morgan</a> joins veteran <a href="https://twitter.com/Neurotic">Mark Mandel</a> in a fascinating interview with <a href="https://twitter.com/allenday">Allen Day</a>. Allen is a developer advocate with Google, specializing in streaming analytics for blockchain, biomedical, and agricultural applications.</p> <p>This week Allen reveals how blockchain and cryptocurrencies can be applied to a variety of applications like distributed file storage and video services. We also discuss the hype and merits of blockchain + projects that Allen has worked on to analyze cryptocurrency transactions using Google Cloud’s big data platforms. The results may just surprise you.</p> <h5 id="allen-day">Allen Day</h5> <p><a href="https://twitter.com/allenday">Allen Day</a> is a developer advocate with Google in Singapore. He specializes in streaming analytics for blockchain, biomedical, and agricultural applications. Allen studied at the UCLA Geffen School of Medicine and earned his PhD in Human Genetics. Allen’s blockchain work is focused on interoperability between smart contract platforms and cloud platforms. He created Google Cloud’s blockchain public datasets program, which allows non-specialist engineers and data scientists to search and analyze public blockchain data.</p> <h5 id="cool-things-of-the-week">Cool things of the week</h5> <ul> <li>Blockchain.com, scaling and saving with Cloud Spanner <a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/databases/blockchain-scaling-and-saving-with-cloud-spanner"> blog</a></li> <li>Cloud TPU Pods break AI training records <a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/cloud-tpu-pods-break-ai-training-records"> blog</a></li> <li>Cloud Memorystore adds import-export and Redis 4.0 <a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/databases/cloud-memorystore-adds-import-export-and-redis-4-0"> blog</a></li> <li>To run or not to run a database on Kubernetes: What to consider <a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/databases/to-run-or-not-to-run-a-database-on-kubernetes-what-to-consider"> blog</a></li> <li>Google to acquire Elastifile <a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/inside-google-cloud/expanding-our-enterprise-file-storage-offerings-to-simplify-the-management-and-scaling-of-data"> blog</a></li> </ul> <h5 id="interview">Interview</h5> <ul> <li>Blockchain <a href="https://www.blockchain.com">site</a></li> <li>Bitcoin <a href="https://bitcoin.org/en/">site</a></li> <li>Coinbase <a href="https://www.coinbase.com">site</a></li> <li>Ethereum <a href="https://www.ethereum.org">site</a></li> <li>$24 million iced tea company says it’s pivoting to the blockchain, and its stock jumps 200% <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/21/long-island-iced-tea-micro-cap-adds-blockchain-to-name-and-stock-soars.html"> news article</a></li> <li>Blockchain ETL project on GitHub <a href="https://github.com/blockchain-etl">site</a></li> <li>BigQuery <a href="https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/">site</a></li> <li>Kubernetes <a href="https://kubernetes.io">site</a></li> <li>Cloud Composer <a href="https://cloud.google.com/composer/">site</a></li> <li>Pub/Sub <a href="https://cloud.google.com/pubsub/">site</a></li> <li>Bigtable <a href="https://cloud.google.com/bigtable/">site</a></li> <li>Tensorflow <a href="https://www.tensorflow.org">site</a></li> <li>Bitcoin in BigQuery: blockchain analytics on public data <a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/gcp/bitcoin-in-bigquery-blockchain-analytics-on-public-data"> blog</a></li> <li>BigQuery public blockchain datasets on GCP <a href="https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/browse?q=cryptocurrency"> site</a></li> <li>Ethereum in BigQuery: how we built this dataset <a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/data-analytics/ethereum-bigquery-how-we-built-dataset"> blog</a></li> <li>Ethereum in BigQuery: a Public Dataset for smart contract analytics <a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/data-analytics/ethereum-bigquery-public-dataset-smart-contract-analytics"> blog</a></li> <li>Introducing six new cryptocurrencies in BigQuery Public Datasets—and how to analyze them <a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/data-analytics/introducing-six-new-cryptocurrencies-in-bigquery-public-datasets-and-how-to-analyze-them"> blog</a></li> <li>Building hybrid blockchain/cloud applications with Ethereum and Google Cloud <a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/data-analytics/building-hybrid-blockchain-cloud-applications-with-ethereum-and-google-cloud"> blog</a></li> <li>Bitcoin in BigQuery: blockchain analytics on public data <a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/gcp/bitcoin-in-bigquery-blockchain-analytics-on-public-data"> blog</a></li> <li>Unchained Podcast <a href="https://unchainedpodcast.com">podcast</a></li> <li>Off the Chain Podcast <a href="https://blockworksgroup.io/off-the-chain-podcast">podcast</a></li> </ul> <h5 id="question-of-the-week">Question of the week</h5> <p>What are the four (or six?) types of VMs that exist on Google Cloud Platform? <a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/compute/introducing-compute-and-memory-optimized-vms-for-google-compute-engine"> blog</a> and <a href="https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/machine-types">docs</a></p> <h5 id="where-can-you-find-us-next">Where can you find us next?</h5> <p>Mark Mandel is going to <a href="https://cloud.withgoogle.com/next/tokyo/">Tokyo Next</a>, <a href="https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/open-source-in-gaming-day-2019/attend/about/"> Open Source in Gaming Day</a> , and the <a href="https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/open-source-summit-north-america-2019/"> North American Open Source Summit</a>, as well as <a href="https://dev.paxsite.com">Pax Dev</a> and <a href="https://west.paxsite.com">Pax West</a>.</p> <p>Carter will be at the <a href="https://www.edfringe.com">Edinburgh Fringe Festival</a> and working on new videos.</p> <p>Allen will be at <a href="https://striketwosummit.com/">Strike Two Summit (Amsterdam)</a>, <a href="https://singularityfestival.io/">Singularity Festival (Heraklion)</a>, and <a href="https://devcon.org/">Ethereum Devcon (Osaka)</a>.</p> <h5 id="sound-effect-attribution">Sound Effect Attribution</h5> <ul> <li>“mysterypeak1.wav” by FoolBoyMedia of <a href="https://freesound.org">Freesound.org</a></li> <li>“crowd laugh.wav” by Tom_Woysky of <a href="https://freesound.org">Freesound.org</a></li> </ul>
