Another day, another Replay on my Witness Server, 20.4 is now out to help resolve the issues of our smallest Steem Power holders being able to do hardly any interaction on the Blockchain. Don't get too excited though, because it will require the nodes to catch up before the benefit is seen - so maybe some time tomorrow (Saturday 29th). And then of course it will be a lottery if the block you are trying to transact in is signed by a 20.4 Witness or one on a prior version. 20.3 Steemd and below will not allow the increased transaction limit - so we return to the now recurring issue I am finding that the only real thing that forces a Witness to update their server to the latest version is whether it will process blocks and thus generate rewards. Back at the start of July the negative vests glitch resulted in the updated 19.5 and 19.10 revisions that were quickly updated to by all Witnesses - because the prior software was no longer capable of producing blocks. Subsequently though because those versions still signed blocks, despite new updates being available there were still many instances of these versions being run. Even after the premature fork the week before last, and despite a new block log being required so server interaction was essential - quite a few failed to update their software version to the 19.12 we were all advised to fall back to for blockchain stability.

Consistancy

I could be totally wrong about this, but personally it feels like updates to the software that processes transactions on the Blockchain are done for good reason, and having a mismatch of versions interacting with it can not be doing any good. Realistically not every Witness can be on stand by to install an update as soon as it is released - but I think within 7 days of a new revision being out it should be visibly being used by all collective Witnesses. https://steemian.info/witnesses shows the version every Witness is running, and it updates every time a block is signed. It does surprise me that there is nothing in place to stop block production on an old version of Steemd after a set time of a new release coming out, maybe the feeling is that the diligence of Witnesses to maintain and update their servers is part of the "job". Certainly in terms of my own Witness voting I will be taking into account how quickly new versions of Steemd are adopted because I do feel an essential part of keeping constancy in the Blockchain is to have blocks signed by the latest software available.

Witness Votes

It has been a while since I shared my own Witness votes, and they do change as I feel contributions change or a different Witness is potentially bringing more to the Blockchain for me. And that is an essential part of Witness voting, choosing based on what a Witness brings to you - along with if they are actually actively running a Witness server or inactive for a long time.

• gtg
• timcliff
• aggroed
• ausbitbank
• someguy123
• followbtcnews
• clayop
• drakos
• pfunk
• yabapmatt
• therealwolf
• themarkymark
• jackmiller
• adsactly-witness
• helpie
• ura-soul
• noblewitness
• guiltyparties
• steemcommunity
• mahdiyari
• enginewitty
• fulltimegeek
• c0ff33a
• thekitchenfairy
• poetsunited
• pcste
• swisswitness
• sapphic
• markangeltrueman
• castellano

For another post I would like to give reasons why I vote each of these, but for today that is beyond the amount of time I have. Needless to say I feel each of these contribute to what I enjoy most about engaging with Steem and the Blockchain.

Filling in the time

With one thing and another we have all ended up needing to hold off upvoting while we recharge back to our normal Voting Strength - I normally try to sit around 90%, the lower your percentage the less value your upvote gives compared to what it could do for the Steem Power you hold. If you are like me you love rewarding your favourite content creators, and it is easy to go giddy and drain the vote strength - but in reality you are wasting your investment in the blockchain - and also denying the potential reward you could be giving.

So while we all avoid upvoting posts to recharge, what to do? It has come to my attention a new distraction has come around - surprisingly just when we are limited on here. I struggle to keep up with posts and comments on the Steem Blockchain so adding another distraction to my time is totally out for me, but I can see why people might wish to see if the grass is greener elsewhere.

I did finally head over to www.steemmonsters.com finally last weekend, and found @carrieallen had Kindly gifted me some things! I know I'm late to the party but I was never good at cards.

So I got the entry level pack thing that is supposed to get you into the game - only I have no idea what the game is? Do we play snap? Like I have a Kobold Miner card - who has that when we can go snap (I forget the rules of snap too lol). Zero idea what happens now, but I do have a collection of pretty cards to look at so that is nice.

I'm looking forward to see what @chibera will come out like, it is well worth checking out now you have free time - I have invested into it and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens - this could be an amazing game.

If you have the Resource Credits comments are of course a great way to reward creators - the monetary value on a post isn't what everyone wants - it's just feedback on the content, so feel free to leave a comment on your favourite posts while you are still letting your vote recharge.

So while it has been an interesting few weeks, there is plenty to still enjoy on our beloved blockchain - and so much more excitement to come, I'm still interested to see when Hivemind communities will come live and then with 2019 so close so are SMT's and that will be a big game changer.

Some of my previous posts you might have missed

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Witness Update by @c0ff33a The Day The Blockchain Stood Still

The C0ff33 Vlog 21st September 2018

Sublime Sunday by @c0ff33a ☕️

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Last Confirmed Block Number 26,345,925 Last Aslot 26,440,191
Steemd v0.20.3

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If you enjoyed my post don’t forget to leave an Upvote, feel free to comment on what you liked or where I can do better even. Follow @c0ff33a for regular and varied posts, photography, my weekly VLOG, posts on coffee roasting and brewing - just follow and see.

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The greatest challenge we face on Steemit is getting our posts seen, I have always believed the simplest and best value way of doing this is by commenting on the blog posts of others, the more you engage people and interact with them the greater the chance they will visit your own blog and return the favour. Other then spending all my free time commenting on Steemit posts, I also distribute coffee roasting machines and also espresso coffee machines and roast my own Speciality Coffee Range. being one of the premium coffee suppliers Yorkshire including a wide range of filter coffee sachets

!steemitworldmap 53.766547 lat -1.801500 long Bradford, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom. d3scr

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