{"id":498,"date":"2014-04-01T08:00:38","date_gmt":"2014-04-01T08:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beer-syndicate.com\/blog\/?p=498"},"modified":"2016-03-01T23:35:44","modified_gmt":"2016-03-01T23:35:44","slug":"the-future-of-craft-beer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beersyndicate.com\/blog\/the-future-of-craft-beer\/","title":{"rendered":"The Future of Craft Beer: The Craft Beer Trend Predictor"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is going to sound crazy: I recently had a conversation with Satoshi Nakamoto.\u00a0 Yes, the same Satoshi Nakamoto often credited with creating the cryptocurrency Bitcoin<\/i>.\u00a0 Now did I truly believe I was communicating with the real<\/i> Nakamoto, or that such a \u201cperson\u201d actually exists?\u00a0 No, not really.\u00a0 Why would I?\u00a0 First of all, this was an online conversation, and on the World Wide Web where anonymity\u2019s the norm, it\u2019s never exactly clear with whom (or with what<\/i>) you\u2019re interacting.\u00a0 It\u2019s a world where you can give yourself whatever name you want, hide your location by bouncing your IP address off an array of thousands of servers, and maybe<\/i> even<\/i> erase any trace that you were ever there at all.\u00a0 There are few better examples of this than Satoshi Nakamoto, a.k.a the Ghost of Bitcoin<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Somewhat of an online urban legend, Nakamoto is about as elusive as they come.\u00a0 Appearing out of nowhere in 2008 with a groundbreaking, self-published Bitcoin blueprint, Nakamoto then went on to release the first Bitcoin software to the world for free in 2009, only to disappear shortly afterwards.\u00a0\u00a0 In fact, nobody\u2019s entirely sure whether Nakamoto is a person, pseudonym, group of people, some sort of \u00fcber -genius, or perhaps an acronymous multinational conglomerate with less than clear intentions.\u00a0 And to say Nakamoto is a bit of a recluse is something of an understatement.\u00a0 The guy\/entity <\/i>only just recently popped out of the woodwork for the first time in five years after an article was run in Newsweek<\/i><\/a> <\/span>alleging to have confirmed Nakamoto\u2019s true identity.\u00a0 Later that day, the \u201creal\u201d Nakamoto emerged from his P2P Foundation account to respond: \u00a0Go fish.<\/span><\/p>\n

So what does all of this have to do with beer?\u00a0 I was just getting to that.<\/span><\/p>\n

Enter The Craft Beer Trend Predictor<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Craft<\/a><\/p>\n

As I\u2019m undoubtedly sure is the case with a lot of craft beer fans, I could be having a conversation about, oh I don\u2019t know, let\u2019s say cryptocurrency<\/i>, and somehow<\/i> I find myself making some connection to and remarking about (you guessed it) beer.\u00a0 As fate would have it, I was engaged in just such a conversation online with none other than Satoshi Nakamoto, or at least that was his handle, and as predicted, craft beer came up.\u00a0 \u201cNakamoto\u201d mentioned he was a fellow craft beer fan, and not only that, he was into homebrewing too.\u00a0\u00a0 Alright, I know what you\u2019re thinking: \u2018This is too good to be true.\u2019\u00a0 And you\u2019re right.\u00a0 It was.\u00a0 Sort of.\u00a0 Nakamoto, apparent master of wordplay, joked that he was into homebrewing<\/i> video games, a term used to describe programming your own video games to run on proprietary gaming systems like PlayStation or Xbox.\u00a0 Sigh.\u00a0 The guy invented Bitcoin, so I let it slide.<\/span><\/p>\n

All kidding aside, he said he was working on a program that utilizes powerful predictive computing algorithms to anticipate future trends, similar to how google seems to know what you\u2019re going to type before you finish typing it.\u00a0 Nakamoto\u2019s version is like the \u201cGoogle Instant\u201d search predictor, but on steroids.\u00a0 And instead of just predicting search results, it predicts EVERYTHING<\/span>.\u00a0\u00a0 Climate change, geopolitics, decryption, the stock market, you name it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Satoshi Nakamoto<\/span>: Think of it as a kind of digital crystal ball, only much more bloody accurate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Needless to say, Nakamoto didn\u2019t give much detail on how the program works, just that he was appropriating<\/i> a few super computers (the TH-2, Cray Titan, etc.), technology from D-Wave, some large databases (NERSC, Google, NCDC, MAINWAY, Facebook, the CIA), and data \u201cborrowed\u201d from the LHC.<\/span><\/p>\n

Satoshi Nakamoto<\/span>: It\u2019s not complete, but close.<\/span><\/p>\n

Being the natural skeptic I am, I said prove it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Satoshi Nakamoto<\/span>:\u00a0 You said you like craft beer, correct?<\/span><\/p>\n

I concurred.<\/span><\/p>\n

Satoshi Nakamoto<\/span>:\u00a0 Well then here\u2019s a small proof-of-concept.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nakamoto uploaded an executable file, which I promptly grabbed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Satoshi Nakamoto<\/span>:\u00a0 Cheers.<\/span><\/p>\n

And with that, Nakamoto disappeared along with the chat log.\u00a0 As such, the above dialog and other details were reconstructed from memory, with the exception of the file.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now I\u2019m not usually in the habit of accepting executable files from strangers, but this was just too tempting.\u00a0 So I ran the program.<\/span><\/p>\n

Remember how I said Nakamoto\u2019s software for predicting future trends is supposed to apply to everything<\/i>?\u00a0 In yet another display of the King of Bitcoin\u2019s wit, he left me with a small taster-sized version of his program, which I share with you now.\u00a0 To be honest though, I\u2019d hoped that he would have given me the version that predicts the future of the stock market, but far be it from me to look a gift program in the code.<\/span><\/p>\n

From the creator of Bitcoin (and now Bitbeer?), I present to you:<\/span><\/p>\n

The Craft Beer Trend Predictor<\/b><\/a><\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

[Click Responsibly.]<\/span><\/p>\n

Kanpai<\/span> <\/em>(\u30a8\u30a4\u30d7\u30ea\u30eb\u30d5\u30fc\u30eb)!<\/p>\n

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