Even my grandma has been telling me about “The Blockchain”lately. Well, that’s not true, but it could be true in today’s cryptophile climate. I’ve been managing a mining farm, consuming thousands of kilowat hours for most of the last year. The question people ask me the most is “Why do you have to use soooo much energy?”and the answers to this question bring up a lot more question s that almost always lead to the question asker frustratingly saying “That’s soooo stupid!” In this talk I will explain what Proof of Work (PoW) is, the pros and cons (i.e why it is and isn’t soooo stupid), some alternatives and we’ll even do some mining in Ruby!