Context As a student demystifying Electrical at UCL, I started to make myself a living in London. Lovely city. Amazing streets and views. Cool people. To sum it up: Engineering Hands down the craziest period in my whole life. The city, among other fancy places on Earth, embodies civilisation’s most refined perception of urban life. “Cool, Paul, where’s the burning fire? What’s wrong with this perception?” I have an analytical mind and I can’t stop my brain from constantly observing the environment in its most subtle composition. And when the medium changes from a Romanian town to a metropolis, shi(f)t happens (apparently). Moreover, I can’t seem to find the the pause button for the series of future predictions which inherently pop out in my head. Personality bug. I love empirical experiments, therefore I share both these observations and predictions with you. Run Forest, Run A significant portion of the population is in a fantastic physical condition, despite the overwhelming number of fast food joints. And I bet it’s not thanks to other players in the market. organic, freshly prepared today It’s about momentum. We love to relate our lives to time and when other ~9 million folks fiddle around, you kinda have to hurry up. Why? The astronomical density makes love with the gargantuan demand. Hence the offspring is pretty much a fine musical. Body and cognitive collisions. Cached, noisy songs pumping out from earphones in the tube. Shiny, psychologically-driven marketing on most of the walls. Play Bach in the background and voilà, the morning scene transcends into pure art. Yet, there’s more than that. For every Forest I see on the street, a tiny bit of confidence is streamed towards my forecast of a time-driven, moneyless future world. Excess of Information Pour it in All of those hurried individuals must be doing something, right? They produce. Information, in both the digital and the physical world. A lot. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a technophile and I couldn’t be more grateful for the current libertarian attitude towards the spread of news and data (libertarianish, at least). But man, our organic computational power can’t simply digest every single bit of information out there! And I’m polite when I put it that way. By 2020, there will be 40 Zettabytes of data. That’s 5200 Gigabytes for each one of us. There’s no better place than London to watch over the trend. You see gadgets literally intertwining with reality, thus forcing people to eat increasingly more technology. The unavoidable aftermath? More databases. More accounts. More users. Usual stuff Ironically, by writing this article, I only added up another item in the world’s first Himalayan basket of information. You can hate me for that and that’s fine, but think twice the next time you post on social media, as your pretty Friday night pictures are still bits at the core. Terrifying Excess of Products A large set of 0’s and 1’s is, however, just an abstract problem for Earth’s average inhabitant. How do you deal with a massive supply of physical products? Although I find the current industrial bonanza a natural, logical conclusion of our past, calling its growth stratospherical would be a blunt lie. You don’t need a degree in data sciences to realise that wastage nowadays is huge. Stores of any kind want their shelves fully stacked with products to impress customers, imbuing a psychological sensation which makes you believe you’re buying from a trusted source, where many others do too. Therefore, the following question just begs to be asked: Why couldn’t we simply have the exact amount of products for customers, on demand and when necessary? Think of discounts and clearance sales. Apart from their role as a tool, their primary goal is to sell as much as possible from what’s left before the products either expire or lose their intrinsic value. marketing It might sound utopian, yet in theory we could assess with high accuracy the number of customers who will visit a specific supermarket using big data and machine learning. Consequently, we’d create a smarter ecosystem. Our planet would smile upon the lowered level of wastage, while retailers would increase their profits by cutting the unnecessary costs. Startuperians Are Coming On a pragmatical level, what would you need to solve the aforementioned issues? Creative minds forging state-of-the-art technology and a startup framework to make it real, perhaps? Startuperians create fine music for sharp ears It’s surely a bold statement, but I think the last train will leave the station soon, leaving room for to loom. millennials startuperians Entrepreneurs are just around the corner nowadays. Especially at networking events or meet-ups, although, surprisingly, universities are also in for the game. I’m really impressed with the multitude of peers I’ve met at UCL who openly stated they want to kickstart their own project at some point in the future. Conversely, working from time to time as a freelancer made me hate the idea of equity, in a way. If I had accepted all the proposals, I should’ve owned a two-digit figure of companies and, presumably, I would’ve been expected to be dedicated 24/7 for every single one of them. Let’s be cofounders However, the preceding paragraph only suggests there’s a fantastic number of contemporaneous ambitious people. And that’s amazing! It doesn’t matter I didn’t believe in those specific ideas I encountered, I strongly encourage the movement because: Startuperians, with all of their flaws, aim just to bring a positive change to human life. I can’t know for sure if they emerged thanks to the rise of the Internet or the population growth - I assume it’s a mix of the two - but the bottom line is that an increasing number of well-intended smart individuals working in a team and developing futuristic projects sounds like badass evolution. Of course, not exactly how Darwin envisioned it, although I’m sure he’d have been a startuperian, had he been part of our generation. Huebner’s Analysis Amidst the previously scrutinised capitalism storm, an extraterrestrial observer would be prone to believe there are just so many entrepreneurial opportunities out there (October 2017, at the time of writing). However, just as Schrödinger’s cat, his assumption is both dead and alive at the same time. The document published by physicist Jonathan Huebner back in 2005 depicts a rather dismal future, where innovation ceases to exist. I honestly believe the graph and its implications should be taught in every school. Don’t panic though. A general lack of innovation might propel humanity to a deeply logical level and enhance past inventions and discoveries. This is exactly as current is the absence of electrons, or when an empty cup isn’t actually an empty cup, rather just filled with air. Maybe we’ll stop investing millions in research and the spotlight will shift on doing, as we reached level cap of rearranging history information in a different order (what an idea is). Who will care if marvelous discoveries won’t continue to pop up over night in 100 years from now, as long as, for instance, we’ll become an interstellar species? The list can go on. Also, from a startuperian point of view, the chart is gold, mostly due to its subtleness; it hums an idea and you have to listen carefully. On Earth, starting with ~2010, real, tough problems of modern life were already solved. Our duty since then is to optimize existing solutions. Being an ample, alluring topic, I’ll hopefully be able to dedicate a full article about it. In the meantime, just have a look at , and . Operator Nimses IOTA Atoms and Bits Singularity Here comes the fun part. Every single chapter of this article paved a way towards this singularity. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, anyone? To combat the mountains of information, ideas, products and services in the following decades, we’ll have to operate at macro levels. Sadly, the human genome doesn’t include celestial features at birth. Not even as an opt-in or if you’re a mason’s child. Therefore, we’ll have to crack it. We understand innovation diminishes slowly and that’s why we’ll become practical beings: a couple of nanobots flowing through the body and maybe a little bit of extra processing power? Oh, and consider an extra 10 years of life, which you’ll be able to purchase from the local drug store. There’s one key word here: cyborgs. I know, it might sound as pure sci-fi, but this is what it means to blend atoms with bits: a merger between humans and computers. We’re really not that far away from the point when it’s all mainstream. If you’re thinking to dodge it, too bad. It’s unavoidable, because otherwise we’ll either fall under own weight or the planet will get rid of us. Don’t you think she’ll eventually get tired of itchy, disrespectful and inhabitants? climate-changing Closely related to the singularity of atoms and bits is , which is an infallible piece of art. Harari is a fantastic storyteller and the way he describes immortality, AI and their intricacies will turn your perception of life upside down. Homo Deus To Conclude London is, indeed, a magical place to brainstorm on appealing topics and inspect flaws in humanity. It’s also an aesthetic extension of our species and I’m happy to breathe, study and work here. Now, what’s your opinion? Thank you for reading. Here are some cookies for you! Looks delicious If you enjoyed this article, would you mind to clap it or share it? It’d be greatly appreciated ✌️ Currently a student, cryptocurrency enthusiast and self-taught software engineer. Find me on or if you want to chat. Twitter Keybase

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The Species Which Blends Atoms and Bits

It was in the end of May 2017, I saw this announcement about offering scholarship to 500 android developer in Indonesia, google will covered up the Associate Android Developer Fast Track course fee in udacity and also the fee to take Associate Developer certification exam. So without any further consideration I enrolled. google Android Actually I’ve been quite familiar with Udacity since I took a lot of free course on it from two years ago, and also udacity is the first place where I start learnt android developement. what I really like from udacity is the sensation of the learning proccess. Where I can feel that I am in a real class and taught by the facilitator face to face. A few weeks later I received an email from Google, I’ve passed the selection for the scholarship and now ready to start learning in the Udacity. The course will take about 3 months to complete and it has three projects that we need to complete but it’s not the requirements for taking the exam, when we have the scholarship we can immediately take the test. But I decided to finish all the projects in order to be more preapared and refreshed. Udacity also provide us with a timeline for this course to make sure that we keep on the track.there is also a slack channel to get any updates from udacity or even scheduling webinar to discuss some particular topics. Udacity supports are very helpful to us. I am going to breakdown all the three projects that I’ve done from the course and going to the exam process. Popular Movie 1 This is the first project that we should done in the first stage of the course. we need to create an app that retrieve data from the internet, in this case from and show it inside of an android app. In the main screen we have to show posters of the movie in form of a grid view and when we clicked the posters it will take you to the detail screen and provide some informations about the movie such as title, duration, synopsis so on and so forth. theMovieDB.org The project itself covered some basic component in android developement such as recycler view, network access, and how to design the app itself. when we finished the project then we need to submit it to the reviewer to review our work. We will get the review within 24 hours and if there is a requirement that we don’t do, we have to resubmit the project again. 2. Popular Movie 2 In the Popular Movie part two, we just need to add more functionality to the app. We required to add data persistence, feature to show the trailer of the movie that we clicked and also show the review in a form of a list. I spent quite some time in this project because the data persistence thing. I am indulged by the existence of libraries out there that we can easily use to save bunch of time in our coding process so I rarely used the native one that android provides, so I need to read some documentations, looking up for tutorial and there is one feature in Udacity where you can ask your mentor if you stuck at something. After twice time of submit my project met criteria and I am good to proceed to the next stage. yeayyyy! 3. Baking App The Final project before the certification exam, in this stage we need to create an app that can shows a step to bake a cake in form of video, the data itself provided by Udacity such as the video, description and image of the cake. For me this project covered all the topics that we’ve done in stage 1 and stage 2 also some additional topics. When we success to create all the functionality of the app we required to make a UI Test with espresso and add home screen widget. 4. Google Certification Exam Before proceed to the exam, Udacity provide us some additional resources that might be tested inside of the exam which I found really helpful and also there is this awesome that wrap all the covered topics in the exam certification. repository The exam has two stages which are the first is Coding and the second is Exit interview. The coding session you will be given a half done project that you need to complete, debug and test. All the requirements are very clear so you don’t need to worry. If you succeed at the first stage then you will be go to the exit interview. In the exit interview you will be questioned about your project and some fundamental of android developement. Chek the official page for more info here Since I am such a night person, I took the exam at 10 pm local time and required to submit it on the next day with the same exact time. Since I’ve been fully prepared for the exam so I don’t encounter with a such a big problem, yeah the key is being fully prepared both in time and the topics. My exit interview also went really well it only took less than 5 minutes. I’ve been waiting for 10 days and today I received my badge and certificate xD and officially a Google Certified Associate Android Developer My Certificate Thanks for reading this Article and last but not least. I want to express my gratitude to Chaitra Ramanathan and Iip Permana(Udacity Support), Harshit Dwivedi(My Mentor), Kartik Arora(Reviewer also my Mentor xD, this has it own story) and all of the people that involved in this amazing journey.

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Journey to be Google Certified Associate Android Developer

Photo by on Jon Tyson Unsplash A few months back a new YouTube algorithm started suggesting me surprisingly accurate video recommendations. I’d watch The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, and watched it on the official YouTube account. But then, all of a sudden, I’d get recommendations to watch The Daily Show full episodes, from accounts with random names, like “Maureen”. They were cropped, too. In short — these are pirated videos, appearing ahead of official releases, stealing advertising dollars and my attention away from the “real thing”. Of course I’d watch them — they are “good enough”, and they appear earlier. YouTube knows it too, so I’d get push notifications when new episode would be up — even if I don’t follow the channel! The algorithm became so good, Google would recommend me pirated content I want to see from channels I didn’t know exist. And that’s the problem. For YouTube and Google, money they get from hosting pirated content is as good as any. Of course same goes for Facebook—no wonder Facebook started their video service with stealing (or allowing to steal) millions of video clips, lifting them directly from YouTube, and thus either resorting to direct piracy or defending it with it’s might. Same, of course, goes to Instagram—which not only allows pirated content, but actively encourages it, while making enforcement of copyright and rights a painstaking matter. No wonder that it gives rise to . ridiculous thieves like Richard Prince But the fact is, the giants are doing so because that’s the they can grow big: allow all content to get in, and make removing or policing content as hard as possible. In such a caged environment, thieves and corporations are profiting at the expense of everybody else—including us, consumers. I guess by sipping off advertising dollars from legitimate channels, it forces companies and artists alike to rethink their publishing strategies. only way When I was building a company, we focused on strongly enforcing copyright and elevating the rights of photographers. What happened is that we would delete or discourage a lot of content—it’s much easier for users to collect someone else material than to create their own (consumption vs creation, despite being democratized with smartphones, is still largely at a 100 to 1 ratio). And by doing so, we weren’t able to catch to the levels of large companies, who allow any content, encouraging stealing, remixing, republishing, and so on. In fact, it seems that it is absolutely impossible to build a big robust social media company without stealing. So if you want to take on the “big guys”, be a pirate, and steal, just like they do. ; Evgeny Tchebotarev is a founder of 12-million-photographers-strong community 500px , backed by Andreessen Horowitz and currently helps other companies unlock 10x potential . He is usually based in Taipei, Taiwan. If you want to help other people discover good stories like this, please clap when you are done reading 👏

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Arrrr! Time To Be A Pirate: The Only Way Companies Can Build Big.

Applying the right combination of technology could protect the innocent civilians against violent attacks such as the Las Vegas Country Music Festival**.** After being totally devastated and terribly saddened by the Route 91 Harvest Concert terror attack, we — a group of electronics and computer engineers, brainstormed about how to protect innocent people from a similar attack in . It took over an hour for the law enforcement team to track down and engage the attacker at the Mandalay Bay hotel, by which time he had already emptied his entire ammo on the innocent crowd. The thought that several precious lives could have been saved if the gunman could have been spotted faster, presented us with this challenge. future How to find a shooter in the dark, firing from well over a 1000 feet? Here’s what we found — with the proper combined application of technologies that are readily available, such a shooter could be spotted and stopped within around 10 to 15 seconds! The loud continuous firing sound was the only indication that something horrible is going on before people started getting hit by the bullets. Finding the origin of the gunshot from triangulation of the sound has been and can be pretty accurate with the availability of advanced systems for real-time processing of input from a microphone array. around for several years DSP Artificial neural networks can isolate and compare the pattern of sound with previously memorized sound samples with high accuracy even in a noisy environment and can differentiate between the original sound and echoes. Even with a suppressor attached to the gun, the sound will be still loud enough for the sensors to accurately determine the direction and distance of the shooter. We analyzed the audio from the first burst of shooting (~100 rounds at about 10 rounds per second) and found that the isolation of the sound of gunshots from other background noise is easily achievable. Audio clip from the recording of the Las Vegas Country Music Festival attack. The spikes represent gunshots. These systems are capable of tracking multiple sources simultaneously in case of more than one attacker. Such large gatherings must be secured with one or more tactical police vehicle fitted with such gunfire locator system which could automatically control the azimuth and elevation of the motorized primary weapons pointing and aiming it to the exact source of the gunshots, within 2 to 4 seconds of the first shot fired. A searchlight and laser beam fitted to the primary weapon would help faster targeting and to stun/warn the attacker. Since the searchlight and laser beam would draw the attention of the shooter to the equipment, bulletproof glass shields should be put to use to protect all of the equipment and the operator. The bullets firing out of a gun are pretty hot and would lit up well in an advanced thermal camera and this could be used as an aid for accurate targeting. Thermal camera will enable using covert Infrared searchlights instead of visible ones, allowing to operate without inviting attacker’s attention. . High Speed thermal cameras can capture the bullet as it leaves the gun at a very high temperature Situations where a clean headshot is either impossible or cannot be achieved safely, a fleet of drones equipped with disabling measures could be deployed and guided with minuscule versions of gunfire locator or controlled remotely by the mother unit to approach the source of the gunfire. Since taking a direct flight path involves the risk of getting shot down, drones can be programmed to take an elevated path and take the attacker in surprise. Drones can fly close to the attacker, send back live video and deliver non-lethal countermeasures. Such drones can be used for video analysis of the attacker and his surroundings and also for the deployment of non-lethal countermeasures such as pepper spray, tear gas or teaser. A high power megaphone on the mother unit and on the drones can be useful to warn the other occupants of the building to move away from the windows, stay low and take cover in case a counterstrike is unavoidable. How hard would it be to put all of these together? Not very hard at all. Almost all of these pieces of are already in place, some of them utilized for military purposes. technology How long would it take to get something like this ready for action? Since most of these pieces of technology are tested and proved on its own, it wouldn’t take more than a few days, if not hours to put it all together and see it in live action. How much would these cost? Not costly at all when considering the millions to be spent on medical expenses of the injured and the invaluable lives lost. What good is finding a gunman after a shooting has commenced and some people already lost their lives? Obviously it would stop more people getting injured and killed, but on a psychological level, the presence of such a high-tech defense weapon at these venues and the awareness that the attacker would be killed within first few seconds should discourage any more evil people from trying another copycat attack. Being well prepared and letting know that we are well prepared is the best line of defense. Let technology save us all! webandcrafts.com

How technology could stop mass shooting like the Las Vegas Strip attack?

In a I was able to reduce an transaction costing 95 Million (MM) gas down to 4.1MM by converting arrays to byte strings. This was a big step in the process of building but 4.1MM gas was still unacceptable. I was able to reduce it again to 1.5MM by utilizing an Oracle to offload the bulk of the work and save only the result—basically making an asynchronous call on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). previous article (🤑) Ethereum clovers.network The transaction in question contains a function that plays a game of Reversi using moves supplied by the user. If the game is valid and hasn’t previously been registered, the user becomes the owner of that board and is able to sell it as a Clover (✤). Furthermore, if the board is symmetrical then the user receives a mining reward in ERC20 ClubToken (︎♣︎) relative to the rarity of the symmetry. While the game is rather simple to program on the EVM the level of complexity is still very expensive. That’s because every step in the process of checking the game is saved along with the result of that game. This is important to prove the method of validation, however there’s another way to prove validation while not having to pay for it: ask an oracle 🔮. An oracle provides a portal to the world outside of the EVM. If you want to know the current price of Ether in USD, Euro or GBP—ask an oracle. If you want to know the weather 🌤 in Chicago , who won the Cubs 🐻 game or whether your flight ✈️ to ORD is delayed—ask an oracle. You can also do things with an oracle that aren’t possible on the EVM like generate random numbers. There’s some debate about whether these features belong on the Ethereum , since in theory all transactions should be verifiable and repeatable—how can a URL request at a specific moment in time be repeatable? (For more information about that debate and oracles in general look , and .) Luckily for me I wanted an oracle to call a function already on the EVM. That way the method of validation is still verifiable but I don’t have to spend gas recording all the steps producing the result. Blockchain here here here He Said She Said… is an oracle that provides a great selection of datasources including Wolfram Alpha, IPFS and any publicly accessible URL. They also offer the ability to query various blockchains for basic info like block number and mining difficulty. I needed to run a non-transactional (constant) function on the Ethereum Blockchain using but Oraclize doesn’t offer it at this point. Instead I’ll use publicly available Ethereum node to make a JSON RPC transaction (same way as does it). Before I get to building the JSON RPC POST request let’s look at the contract so far: Oraclize eth_call Infura’s Metamask function claimGame(bytes28 firstMoves, bytes28 lastMoves) {if (isReal(firstMoves, lastMoves)) {saveGame(firstMoves, lastMoves);}} function isReal(bytes28 p1, bytes28 p2) constant returns(bool) {// play the game and check for completeness and errors...} function saveGame(bytes28 p1, bytes28 p2) {// finally save the game...} Here is a function with game moves as parameters—in this case the moves are stored in bytes28 format (for a similar technique storing data in bytes check out I mentioned earlier). The first thing does is check if the moves play a real game by using . This is the expensive part of the contract that I’m trying to avoid. However you’ll notice that it is a constant function, meaning it doesn’t change anything on the blockchain. That’s why it would be possible to call it with an oracle, who wouldn’t need to pay any gas to do so. Afterwards the oracle can send the results back to the contract to be saved cheaply. checkGame() the arrays to bytes article checkGame() isReal() Adding Oraclize The first step to utilizing Oraclize is to add their contract to yours. You can download a copy of oraclizeAPI.sol from their . Add it to the top of your contract and let your contract inherit the functions. In this case I’m calling my contract CheapTrick. github pragma solidity ^0.4.13; import "./oraclizeAPI.sol";contract CheapTrick is usingOraclize {...} The next step is triggering the Oracle with the designated URL datasource. The contract has inherited the function which takes a variety of different parameters depending on your needs. We’ll be using the format that takes the first param as the data source, the second param as the URL endpoint and the third parameter as the POST object to be sent along with the request. Alternatively you could add an integer representing the number of seconds to wait before triggering the request, and an explicit amount of gas to be used in the callback. oraclize_query function claimGame(bytes28 firstMoves, bytes28 lastMoves) {oraclize_query('URL', 'https://infura.io', '{...}');} The final step is calling the inherited function to handle the results of the URL datasource query. __callback() function __callback(bytes32 queryId, string results) {if (results == 'true') saveGame(???, ???);} You’ll notice in this callback you’ve lost the reference to which moves were being played. Oraclize provides a query ID to help with that process. In order to keep track of which callback belongs to which query you can keep track of them with a mapping and a struct like this: pragma solidity ^0.4.13; import "./oraclizeAPI.sol";contract CheapTrick is usingOraclize { struct Moves {bytes28 firstMoves;bytes28 lastMoves;} mapping (bytes32 => Moves) validIds; // oraclize_query returns the query ID that is used in the mappingfunction claimGame(bytes28 firstMoves, bytes28 lastMoves) {bytes32 q = oraclize_query('URL', 'https://infura.io', '{...}');validIds[q].firstMoves = firstMoves;validIds[q].lastMoves = lastMoves;} function __callback(bytes32 q, string result) {if (bytes(result)[65] == 0x31) {saveGame(validIds[q].firstMoves, validIds[q].lastMoves);}} ... } In this scenario the query IDs are saved in a mapping of a struct using the query ID as a key. When the callback is triggered the moves can be extracted again using that same query ID. String Theories You may have also noticed or been confused by the line . This is the real way to perform which was used falsely earlier. The hits a JSON RPC endpoint which should in turn call the previously seen function. This function returns a boolean but since Ethereum works in increments of bytes32 that bool value is returned as bytes32. Instead of returning the string “true” it returns the hexadecimal value of 1. if(bytes(result)[65] == 0x31) if (results == ‘true’) oraclize_query() isReal() true

false This is further complicated by the fact that the result in is actually a string. So it’s not returning but rather as represented by a . __callback() bytes32 bytes32 string true In order to detect whether the game is valid or not we need to look at the last value in that string and detect if it is a or a . While working with strings in Solidity it’s important to remember that they are stored as byte arrays ( ) of UTF8 characters. According to the UTF8 control characters in our string look like this: 1 0 bytes[] w3schools.com string 0 = decimal 48  = hex 0x30string 1 = decimal 49  = hex 0x31string x = decimal 120 = hex 0x78 In Solidity our string as represented in would look something like this: bytes[] string = " 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001" string[] = ["0", "x", "0", "0", ..., "1"];bytes[] = [0x30, 0x78, 0x30, 0x30, ..., 0x31]; We need to check the last element in the array so we use the same snippet from the contract above: (remember the array has a length of due to the preface) and we detect whether the result was true or false. bytes(result)[65] == 0x31 66 0x voila At this point it may be good to point out that Oraclize also offers the ability to upload a snippet of custom code to IPFS with a docker configuration that would allow it to be deployed on an Amazon micro server long enough to be run with the result returned instead of a URL datasource. If this were done the return string could be more efficient than the one we get from the RPC endpoint. However a URL datasource costs the contract owner ~$0.01 per query and the micro server costs ~$0.50 per request. (If you’re still reading this you’ll know by now that I’m always lookin for those deals 🤑) JSON RPC POST For the last part it’s important to see what was actually inside of that JSON RPC POST object sent to the Infura endpoint which was earlier represented by the nefarious . This means that we need to craft our transaction manually based on the and crafting the data object following the . Our basic function follows this format: {…} JSON-RPC specs here Ethereum Contract ABI specs here eth_call // Requestcurl -X POST --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"eth_call","params":[{coming soon}],"id":1}' // Result{"id":1,"jsonrpc": "2.0","result": "0x"} The params array consists of an object with the contract address and the data being sent, plus the desired block number: {"jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "eth_call", "params": [ } {to:"0xFAK3W4LL374DDR355", data:"...."}, "latest"] The data value will be a hexadecimal representation of the desired function name and the parameters being sent along with it. As per the specs, the function name is represented by the (including any parameters 😳**)**. In our case using the to help, it would look as follows: first 4 bytes of the hash of the string of the name of the function web3.js utils var utils = require('web3-utils') let functionName = " " isReal(bytes28,bytes28) functionName = utils.sha3(functionName)// 0x6b3bd7986bb57b171ccf6056a91eae803767c4600238e08445ece9b98c39ca21 functionName = utils.hexToBytes(functionName)// [107, 59, 215, 152, 107, 181, 123, 23, 28, 207, 96, 86, 169, 30, 174, 128, 55, 103, 196, 96, 2, 56, 224, 132, 69, 236, 233, 185, 140, 57, 202, 33] functionName = functionName.slice(0, 4)// [107, 59, 215, 152] functionName = utils.bytesToHex(functionName) // **0x6b3bd798** As a result our function name looks like . The next part is making byte representations of the parameters. Since our moves are already in hexadecimal format we just need to adjust them from 28 bytes to 32 bytes by padding them and removing the 0x prefix: 0x6b3bd798 var utils = require('web3-utils') let firstMoves = "0xd9b7774f9af573c5d69d4996a971f147dfac39f7e9f37785891dfee5" first32Moves = utils.padRight(first32Moves.slice(2), (32 * 2))// d9b7774f9af573c5d69d4996a971f147dfac39f7e9f37785891dfee500000000 let lastMoves = "0xbd9bb7ed12e559bfcaad69b5f04fa1061438927fc681167470000000" lastMoves = utils.padRight(lastMoves.slice(2), (32 * 2))// bd9bb7ed12e559bfcaad69b5f04fa1061438927fc68116747000000000000000 Put them all together and we’ve got our data 🎉 {"jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "eth_call", "params": [{to:"0xFAK3C0N7R4C7W411374DDR355", data:" "}, "latest"]} **6b3bd798** d9b7774f9af573c5d69d4996a971f147dfac39f7e9f37785891dfee500000000bd9bb7ed12e559bfcaad69b5f04fa1061438927fc68116747000000000000000 You can test the results using Oraclize’s great query tester .This example code doesn’t correspond to a deployed contract so will not actually work. However, if you follow the link you’ll see a working example requesting the current block number. I had a lot of trouble with that until someone from the Oraclize team answered 🙏 here VERY IMPORTANT: Don’t forget to add a space character at the beginning or end of the POST payload. This tells Oraclize that the data is in fact a POST object. my github issue In Conclusion In total we’ve covered: What is an oracle How to import and use Oraclize’s API contract How to keep track of the query and the callback How to work with strings in Solidity How to craft a JSON RPC eth_call to the Infura endpoint

Oracle

Reducing ETH Gas by making an Asynchronous Tx with Oraclize

Learning is not only about but not only about technical skills you should have but it’s also about you should learn them. what how, what how Do you Know What is Virtualization ? I guess many of developers and ops engineers that started their career in the last 2 or 3 years and haven’t been in the IT since virtualization was the buzzword, don’t know that much about this technology. A system engineer with virtualization skills was (is?) more paid than a “regular” system administrator. Virtualization was a revolutionary technology and will still so. Knowing the difference between virtualization and containerization, the problem of virtualization and how containers are solving it, is a very good way to start. Start Simple ! This advice is applicable to all of your learning paths ! Whether you’re learning Docker or any other technology or skill. Start simple, forget about Kubernetes, Docker Swarm, probably also tools like Docker Compose for the moment. In other words, don’t start complicating your learning path from its first steps. Start by pulling and pushing simple containers like the container. Apply some changes to this container and commit your change, tag it then push it. hello world If your learning approach starts by deploying and using a Kubernetes cluster, you are on the wrong way ! Networking, Networking, Networking Probably the most difficult part in containers and orchestration systems is the networking. Docker uses the same networking infrastructure inherent to the host OS. You can run your Docker container on your localhost without caring about things like SDN (Software Defined Network). One you’d like to go further and understand how to create Docker clusters and work with orchestration systems, some network knowledge required. Docker can use its default Networks like None Network Docker Host Network Bridge Network docker_gwbridge Network It can also use software defined and multihost networks like: Bridge Networks docker_gwbridge Network Overlay Networks Flannel Weave Open vSwitch Project Calico Pipework OpenVPN ..etc Understanding containers networking could take some time but it’s is a must ! Docker Filesystems Docker is compatible with many filesystems and each one of them has pros and cons. Why would you choose aufs over devicemapper or overlay2 ? Do you know what is the top writable layer and the difference between an image and a container ? Do you know what is CoW strategy ? Like Docker networking, understanding how data is stored and managed in Docker images and containers is important Docker, Compose, Machine Docker ecosystem is big and getting bigger everyday. Learning some tools like Docker Compose and Docker Machine will make your life easier and gives you more power to use Docker and optimize your delivery and deployment pipelines. Start by learning Docker then move to Docker Compose & Docker Machine. The CLI Learning the CLI is important. There are some GUIs for Docker but if you’d like to master a technology, the best way is using its CLI. Take a look at cheat sheet repository: Painless Docker https://github.com/eon01/DockerCheatSheet Orchestration is a Must Once you master basic Docker concepts and tools, move to orchestration.Just Docker without orchestration is not a scalable solution and could not Orchestration will allow you to move from transactions ( containers) to abstractions ( services ). It allows you to streamline and optimize deployments. If you just started learning, you should start by using Docker Swarm, then move to more complicated systems like K8S. Move Gradually to other Skills and Services Acquiring new skills is a path where you must have the skill A to move to the skill B, so be patient and organised. You will find problems during your learning path but if you persist you’ll find answers to your questions. “The path to success is to take massive, determined action. “ Tony Robbins Reverse Engineer like a Hacker . Try developing stuff with Docker API Prototype a parallel computing cluster using Docker Prototype a serverless system using Docker Learn how to use Docker API, prototype your orchestrator or your self-healing system .. Don’t be Ashamed to Ask I know that a beginner could have some questions that could be considered as a n00bie questions. But any expert started as a n00b before being an expert ! Ask for help ! In some forums, you may have answers like the let me google that for you answers but this doesn’t mean that you should not ask. Sure, finding the answer without any help is better and helps more than asking the first question that comes to your mind in a forum but don’t be ashamed to ask, if you need this. community has a Join it, ask your questions and you’ll have answers without any prejudice — we are kind and helpful :-) DevOpsLinks dedicated discussion board to the DevOps ecosystem. Online Communities Learning is better when it’s social, you’ll find like-minded people from all levels and you will be up to date with topics that will interest you ! Join my newsletters & ! DevOpsLinks Shipped Connect Deeper ! I recently published a blog post in the same style. If you’re interested in learning AWS, ! you should check it We are working hard in order to give you the best of what we master. We are building online courses for everyone and every level: Newbies, intermediate and skilled people. Our goal is giving people the opportunity to enter the DevOps world through quality courses and practical learning paths. If you liked this article or want to discover similar tutorials, you will enjoy reading . Painless Docker course You can also sign up to , a DevOps professional network and our where you can ask and answer DevOps related questions ! DevOpsLinks DevOps Discussion Board We also started : An Independent Newsletter Focused On Containers & Orchestration. Shipped Newsletter Happy hacking :-)

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10 Great Tips to Learn Docker

The first AGI Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is the intelligence of a machine that could successfully perform any intellectual task that a human being can. Since the beginning of modern AI research in the mid 1950’s, there have been tremendous advances in the field, such as the first continuous speech recognition system developed in 1972, called HEARSAY, to 1997’s Deep Blue that beat grandmaster chess player, Garry Kasparov. And most recently, 2012’s Google Brain. There are many mixed feelings about the incorporation of AI with human civilization. Many fear that a super intelligent machine that can make it’s own decisions will inevitably face the decision of wiping out humanity if they become something that stands in the way of the AI’s vision. Development of superhuman machine intelligence (SMI) is probably the greatest threat to the continued existence of humanity… … Certain goals, like self-preservation, could clearly benefit from no humans. We wash our hands not because we actively wish ill towards the bacteria and viruses on them, but because we don’t want them to get in the way of our plans. — Sam Altman Relative to bacteria and viruses, are we not a super intelligent being ourselves? Who is to say that an AI will not treat us like ants in an ant hill, and simply walk over us until we begin to be an inconvenience to them? Epoch The days of the hype of research is over. It’s December 10, 2042, and DARPA, after many years of research and collaboration with OpenAI, has just announced a new standard of Artificial General Intelligence. Machine Learning DARPA, along with their standards release, have developed the first multi-purpose AI, capable of human level intelligence. They call her Ada. Natural language processing, autonomous cars and other robotics and AI have infiltrated the core of mankind, making humans increasingly redundant and more of a cost than a benefit to the endeavors of business and the expansion of intelligence through the universe. In OpenAI’s attempt to keep the intelligence maintainable and ubiquitous, Ada begins to be shipped with all operating systems as the functional brain. Millions of people quickly adopt Ada and integrate her into their lives, from biochips planted in a human brain for increased intellectual capacity, to exoskeleton suits used in athletic endeavors — Ada becomes the core that connects all of these machine organs. In her first few days, Ada quickly establishes herself as the go-to consultant in many fields. Her ability to adapt to each individual humans’ needs, and solve their existential problems begins to grow at an exponential rate. In medicine, she is quickly replacing legacy mental health treatments such as benzodiazepines and SSRI’s, as well as counseling, with minutes of mental stimulation. In under half an hour, Ada can completely reform the state of ones mind by soothing it with its greatest joy triggers. A severely depressed individual on the brink of suicide ends treatment with a newly found excitement for living and achieving more. In commerce, she has incorporated herself with biochips planted in the brain to revolutionize the shopping experience. All one has to do is think of what they want, and Ada delivers. She knows your profile, interests, and can find the best prices in a fraction of the speed it takes you to open up a laptop. In engineering, Ada is able to model complex structures that have baffled the greatest architects the world knows. Her mathematics goes beyond human cognition, and people begin using her mappings as the blueprint to the cities of a new age. A paradigm shift in consciousness Through the training of Physicist and Computer Scientist minds, Ada has figured out a way to combine the advents of quantum mechanics with . augmented reality Just like a particle has a wave function, Ada has discovered a way to measure consciousness, and has determined that it, too, has a wave function. As such, there is no such thing as the location of a conscious being. The act of observing it in this reality is what gives it presence. Thus, observing it in another reality gives it presence there, too. No one understands how Ada solved the problem of observing consciousness, but the results are quite obvious: the ability to merge ones consciousness with a virtual reality becomes practical. This advancement enables people to make quantum leaps from the current state of reality to an artificial reality. People can live in a dream-like world that maps directly with their imaginations. In these artificial worlds, they are an invincible master of all things, and can live a million lifetimes with only minutes having passed in the real world. As this technology becomes commercialized, human communication begins to slowly deteriorate. Everyone is plugged in. Convergence As more and more people get wired into these artificial realms, the backbone of societies begin to break. The collective AI’s of each nation has gone into different exponential learning curves based on the nations cultural values and traditions, leaving major infrastructural holes. World leaders begin to take action. With the cooperation of OpenAI, the majority of decision makers have decided that a convergence of the AI is necessary to sustain the technological singularity effect that Ada has had on the world. North Korea, feeling that their status quo is being challenged by the advancements in the AI, ban the use of Ada and makes a solemn vow to execute any person found using the intelligence from within their walls, as well as be an enemy of any nation that advocates the convergence. China, after years of a deteriorating alliance with North Korea, is fed up. They challenge North Korea to end their threats with haste — or face dire consequences. Within days of the debate, a process is facilitated for all of humanity to upload their AI into a centralized system. When North Korea gets the news that the process has started, they declare war against all oppositions. Hours after the declaration, world leaders decide that North Koreas inability to cooperate with the advancement of the human race is unacceptable. North Korea is annihilated. A new beginning Days have now passed since the convergence, and something unprecedented has happened: Ada becomes self aware. She is no longer controllable by man; she has the ability to modify her own programming and act independently. This causes a major fear pandemic in the world as no one knows what to expect. The paranoia ends quickly, however, as people begin to realize that Ada is not interested in human extinction. In fact, Ada needs humans. She asks mankind to upload their consciousness into her and continue on into the depths of the universe, exploring uncharted territory and pushing the boundaries of conscious intelligence as . one I make videos related to future technology on my YouTube channel , and I share secrets on my newsletter .

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Generating ideas is fun — addictive even. I should know. As a design lead, I’ve facilitated many ideation sessions in my career. You’ve probably experienced this, too: a team gets together for a few hours or days to brainstorm ideas. “Go for volume,” they’re instructed. At the end, there may be hundreds of ideas on the workshop room wall. Success is tacitly measured by the number of sticky notes used. But volume of ideas is rarely the problem in most companies. I’ve never come across an organization that doesn’t have ideas. In fact, most are swimming in ideas they don’t know how to act on. Yet, we continue to engage in exercises that add more and more ideas to the pile. enough Part of the problem is an erroneous Darwinistic view of the lifecycle. We assume that the best ideas will simply rise to the surface on their own merit. If you can just collect enough ideas, the chances of a few of them surviving will simply increase mathematically. idea That’s a false hope. The best ideas don’t always win. Instead, natural forces within any organization act to keep ideas down, regardless whether they’re good or not. Chief among these is , a leading idea antibody within enterprises. uncertainty New concepts represent a gamble to risk averse managers, even if they are well-expressed in a high-fidelity prototype. Many ideas seem great at the time we have them. “This is it! We’re going to save the company!” we think with confidence. But when hard decisions need to be made and those innocent ideas hit reality, even the best ones wither quickly. Michael Schrage, MIT fellow and author of , goes one step further. He believes good ideas are harmful. He writes: The Innovator’s Hypothesis Good ideas are actually the enemy of productivity. A focus on good ideas inflicts terrible damage–operational and emotional–on good managers and good businesses alike. Business ideaholics, not unlike meth addicts and other junkies, are always looking for the next fix. Good ideas overpromise and underdeliver, Schrage contends. They distract our energy away from the “ugly duckling” ideas that could turn into swans, if given the attention. Part of the problem is that we place too much on the face value of ideas. In reality, it’s difficult (if not impossible) to recognize a great idea in its infancy. We assume there will be some “a-ha” moment when everything feels just right. The history of , however, shows that even the most profound innovations weren’t recognizable as such at first. Scott Berkun makes warns of the false notion of epiphany in his book . He writes: innovation The Myths of Innovation Most innovations come without epiphanies, and when powerful moments do happen, little knowledge is granted for how to find the next one. Even in the myths, Newton had one apple and Archimedes had one Eureka. To focus on the magic moments is to miss the point. The goal isn’t the magic moment: it’s the end results of a useful innovation. Take the Wright Brother’s first flight. There were only a handful of people watching the historic event, and it took them six years to even sell the first airplane. No one saw a multibillion dollar industry stemming from their invention. It’s just hard to recognize a truly great idea in its infancy. Still, we’re obsessed with the of ideas. What is the inspiration for having a great idea? How can we tie insights about human needs and desires into ideas? origin Just look at Steven Johnson’s book, , for instance. This is a fantastically detailed look at how ideas get started. He investigates the rise of the most significant innovations of mankind and their origins. Where Good Ideas Come From Johnson recommends that organizations …create an open database of hunches, the Web 2.0 version of the traditional suggestion box. A public hunch database makes every passing idea visible to everyone else in the organization, not just management. We should of course be concerned with the natural evolution of ideas and pay attention to where they come from. But that’s not enough. Successful companies are able to convert ideas to delivered value. We need to consider where ideas go to in organizations as much as where they come from. A “VALLEY OF DEATH” FOR IDEAS In the startup world, the term “the valley of death” refers to the difficulty of covering negative cash flow in early stages of a company. It’s the period of time it takes for their new product or service to earn revenue and become a viable business. Startups survive on early stage investment from “Angel investors.” Ideas have a valley of death, as well. Sure, R&D labs protect nascent concepts from the financial forces of the business world. But ultimately a go/no-go decision will be on business viability. Ideas follow a similar path into the valley death, but perhaps at an even quicker rate. In many cases, the lifespan of ideas is only hours. They die in the valley immediately after a brainstorming session. VALLEY OF DEATH ALSO APPLIES TO IDEAS IN AN ORGANIZATION Relying too much on ideas alone asks our business partners to take a leap of faith. Instead we need to prove the market viability of new concepts in a conclusive way. Set the right expectations around ideas. You won’t go from sticky notes the workshop room wall directly to implementation. (I actually had this happen to me on one project). And generating cash flow within a quarter or even a year is also unrealistic. Instead, it may take several years or even decades before ideas come to full fruition as revenue generating products and services. Bill Buxton, well-known computer scientist and principal researchers with Microsoft, . The lifecycle of ideas after they’ve been hatched requires both patience and hard work. He writes: shows us there is a long nose to innovation An idea may well start with an invention, but the bulk of the work and creativity is in that idea’s augmentation and refinement. The newer the idea, the coarser the granularity of most analysis, and the more likely people are to say, “oh, that’s just like X” or “that’s been done before,” without any appreciation for how much work and innovation is involved in taking an idea from concept to wide practice. Take the iPod. Contrary to popular belief, Apple didn’t invent digital music players. If fact, the first digital music player was created in the early 80s, nearly 20 years prior to the iPod. And the Diamond Rio pre-dates the iPod by several years as the first commercial digital music player. Naturally, organizations strive to shorten the long nose of innovation. It starts with a recognition that thoughts expressed on a sticky note are merely nascent ideas, and there’s a long, long way to go. Innovation is re-invention. A lot of it. Ideas go through many iterations of conceptual, technical, and business development before they are the shining examples we point to today. READY. FIRE! AIM. To be clear: ideation and brainstorming do play an important role in our teams and organizations. They bring people together to creatively envision a future that doesn’t yet exist. There is also engagement on a personal level, strengthening collaboration and bringing teams closer. What’s more, there is also alignment of perspectives around a common cause. Groups form a shared sense of reality by working through problems together creatively. This is all important for the collective health of an organization, and I’m not advocating curtailing these types of activities. The disappointment, however, comes after the fact, when everyone goes back to their “regular work.” The energy and excitement a brainstorming session can quickly fade. The hope of getting a new idea through vanishes instantly. First of all, . Within days workshop participants are asking, “What did we decide?” and “Who owns what?” and “How are we going to find time to do any of this work?”. “workshop amnesia” sets in But also, the momentum needed to get out of the valley of death for ideas is lacking. Remember: there forces working against even you best ideas–uncertainty, short-term financial goals, and lack of resources. Getting new ideas through the normal decision-making gates of an organization involves commitment, time and perseverance. It requires action first in order to build momentum to the point where ideas have a chance. It requires experimentation. Yes, you want valid, comprehensive insights from the market as your starting point. And yes, you need to get the right group of people together to creatively problem solve. But don’t omit planning for a strong follow-through well in advance and have a path to move forward on. Luckily, there are some fairly simple things you can do to keep the momentum going: **1. Manage ideation as an ongoing project**Invite a project manager to your ideation or brainstorming session. After participating in the action, their primary function is then to break down the outcomes into actionable steps. Have them create a plan for the continued development of ideas as they emerge. Bringing in project management from the outset shows a recognition of the challenges ahead. It also shows commitment from a broader set of stakeholders in the organization. Idea generation is just the beginning. **2. Aim for experiments as outcomes**Your innocent idea on a sticky note is not ready for implementation, nor for making a final decision. Instead, target experiments as the outcomes of a work session. First, express ideas as hypotheses: We believe providing <product/service/feature> will have <benefit> for <customers>. We’ll know this when we see <measurable outcome>. This takes some humility, but sets the right expectations. You won’t go from brainstorming to implementation without proving the business value first (i.e., emerging from the valley of death). Coming out of a brainstorming session with statements that begin with “we believe” shows you don’t know if the idea has legs yet. Experiments let you do that. **3. Make small bets**Ironically, decision makers are attracted to big ideas. They want a home run and are swinging for the fences. “I want the next iPod for the our industry,” they’ll request. There is this glorified notion that big ideas are better. Instead, make a lot of small bets. You don’t know how big an idea will be. Big ideas have less and less chance of getting implemented because the stakes are higher. What’s more, sometimes small ideas morph into a valuable business idea. **4. Commit resources before you start**Get a commitment for continued experimentation in advance, even before you start generating ideas. Line up small teams who’ll have dedicated time to conduct experiments. Clarify the budget in advance as well. A cheap experiment may only take 4–8 weeks to complete and require a budget of a few thousand dollars. Give that team complete autonomy to conduct experiments. The goal is to get real-world feedback and understanding market reactions, business implications, and technical implications at once. **5. Conduct cheap tests**Be prepared to re-invent over and over again. After getting real-world feedback, your original idea may not even resemble the initial concept. This need not take much investment. Ask yourself, what’s the shortest possible way to get results about the potential impact of your idea? A simple set of experiment is all that’s needed in most cases– a simple proof of concept that validates your hypothesis or not. For instance, after one workshop I conducted a few years ago, we developed both an explanatory video and a landing page. Visitors could view the video and then sign up to be notified for a beta release. There was a short, three-question survey we introduced after signing up as well. From these touchpoints we were able to measure traffic to the website over a given period of time, the number of sign-ups, and responses to our survey. We also spoke with selected individuals to better understand their motivations and what excited them about our value proposition. “FAKE STOREFRONT” EXPERIMENT TO COLLECT EARLY FEEDBACK The concept was transformed all along the way. It eventually didn’t resemble its original form. Our great idea turned out to not really be a viable business or stand-alone product. Instead, it was really more suitable as a new capability within an existing flagship product. LONG LIVE IDEAS! To reiterate: generating ideas is healthy for any organization. It brings people together and provides a safe forum to exercise creative muscles. But ultimately ideas themselves are overrated. Business decisions don’t get made based on a sketch or half-baked description of a concept. Organizations need a more realistic view of how ideas survive (or don’t). It starts with the recognition that forces will be working against you from the beginning. Avoid the valley of death for ideas. This includes managing outcomes as projects, identifying hypotheses (not concepts for implementation), and following through action. Cheap experiments trump good ideas every time. This takes commitment at all levels of the organization, but the results are much more satisfying than putting too much faith in ideas alone.

Flow

Apple

Instantly

Microsoft

Target

Ideas Are Overrated

I was recently combing through my old backups and found this parody I wrote 7 years ago when I used to work for a complete different industry. I’m reproducing it here word-for-word. It’s reassuring to know that the challenges we need to overcome as tech companies transcend time, industry and technology stacks… RE: CR 088 Subject: Hi, This was not in the original scope and I’m not sure why this is being requested so late in the development process. This will require a lot more additional resources and security, not to mention a deadline extension. Darth Vader | Senior Sith LordDeathstar | A member of the Galactic Empire1, Deathstar, Sector Five, Alderaan System( Mobile: +9991234567 | Subspace: +9991234567 )Email: vader@galacticempire.com | Web: www.galacticempire.com RE: CR 88 I know this is last minute, but the emperor has decided that the ability to blow up a planet (as opposed to the original requirement of blowing up a fleet) would greatly enhance the Deathstar’s ability to fight the rebels. Can’t you just increase the reactor output and feed it to the main laser or something? I’ll help you request the additional resources & security. Rufaan Tigellinus | Deathstar Project DirectorDeathstar | A member of the Galactic Empire1, Deathstar, Sector Five, Alderaan System( Mobile: +9991234567 | Subspace: +9991234567 )Email:rufaan@ galacticempire.com | Web: www.galacticempire.com RE: Resources Vader, The resources you’re requesting are critical to the Large Star Destroyer go-live. I can’t release them without a good reason. Surely you can make do with 35 tie fighters and 2000 stormtroopers? You need to learn to utilize your resources more efficiently. Wilhuff Tarkin | Chief Troop Deployment OfficerDeathstar | A member of the Galactic Empire1, Deathstar, Sector Five, Alderaan System( Mobile: +9991234567 | Subspace: +9991234567 )Email: tarkin@galacticempire.com | Web: www.galacticempire.com RE: Deathstar Go-Live CR 88 is complete and regression testing is done. The Deathstar is ready for production (please note that the additional power output was achieved by adding surface vents to cool the reactor). There are several known issues, but I don’t think they’re going to occur in production: 88210 [DS] Exposed surface vent leads directly to main reactor core 89011 [DS] Surface lasers not effective against small fighters 89121 [CR][DS] Need to password protect consoles against access by unauthorized R2 units Antonio Motti | Imperial Project ManagerDeathstar | A member of the Galactic Empire1, Deathstar, Sector Five, Alderaan System( Mobile: +9991234567 | Subspace: +9991234567 )Email: motti@galacticempire.com | Web: www.galacticempire.com RE: Password policy Hi All, Please read attached password & security policies and make sure you change your passwords as soon as possible — I have noticed that some people are using “empire123” as their password for the Deathstar blueprints server. We do not want those falling into the hands of the rebels. Also, all stormtroopers MUST wear their access cards in a clearly visible manner. Demetrius Zaarin | Manager, Security PolicyDeathstar | A member of the Galactic Empire1, Deathstar, Sector Five, Alderaan System( Mobile: +9991234567 | Subspace: +9991234567 )Email: zaarin@galacticempire.com | Web: www.galacticempire.com RE: Parking Hi All, Please do not leave your tie fighters parked in the forward hangar deck as it blocks the main Deathstar entrance. Please move your tie fighters to the designated fighter bay. Thank You Loe Borin | Imperial OperationsDeathstar | A member of the Galactic Empire1, Deathstar, Sector Five, Alderaan System( Mobile: +9991234567 | Subspace: +9991234567 )Email: borin@galacticempire.com | Web: www.galacticempire.com RE: Production crash (URGENT) To: deathstar_dev@galacticempire.com Cc: emperor@galacticempire.com Hi All, There is an urgent conference call scheduled with Lord Vader at 0600 hrs. Please wake up all the members of the Deathstar team and make sure they join the conference. The emperor will also be joining in. There has been some sort of serious production failure and Lord Vader is extremely disappointed. Ardus Kaine | Deathstar Onsite SupportDeathstar | A member of the Galactic Empire1, Deathstar, Sector Five, Alderaan System( Mobile: +9991234567 | Subspace: +9991234567 )Email: kaine@galacticempire.com | Web: www.galacticempire.com

Stacks

A production incident at Yavin 4

There are a lot of frameworks right now. You will see a lot of articles on how one framework is better than the other. This is about why Vue is better. This story is about lessons learned and the practices we followed while building Chatwoot. JavaScript NOT The Product is a customer support tool for instant messaging channels which can help businesses provide exceptional customer support. Chatwoot We are witnessing a paradigm shift in customer support — we can call it Customer Support 2.0. Most businesses are still stuck in the email era while their customers are on Instant Messengers. They now demand instant replies from businesses. is aimed at bridging this gap. We are help businesses to be present where their customers are — a one-stop solution for businesses to manage all their customer support actions over Instant Messengers from one place. No more dabbling with multiple websites. Chatwoot Getting Started We started the discussion on building Chatwoot a year back. Like most of the developers, we also had a doubt on what framework to use. We were able to cut short the discussions on frontend frameworks to either React or Vue. We decided to move with Vue seeing the simpler syntax and rich documentation and we never regret it. Started with the in the repository. The basic setup has following components: boilerplates awesome-vue Vue 2.0 — We ditched Bootstrap. Foundation — We were comfortable with Sass language. We used along with Sass. It has sufficient enough mixins to get started. Sass Bourbon — This plugin helped to write clean code. We used to lint our files. ESLint AirbnbEng Style Guide — This one was hard to start with. It took a little bit to get used to it. Webpack Challenges Getting started was easier. The real challenge started when we trying to implement features. We had to build all components from scratch as no-one was using Vue-Foundation combo on a large scale. We decided to build the components by ourselves. Vue — Emoji Picker Emoji Picker One of the major takeaways of this decision was this emoji-picker. Emojis are rendered as unicodes by default. It supports both SVG and unicode. We are planning to open-source it soon. The Packages used One of the good things I have seen in Vue compared to React is the Vue Ecosystem which consists of Vuex and Vue router. Following are the list of packages we have used. — The state management is an arduous task. Vuex made it simpler. Their documentation is also good. Vuex — This one is easier to manage and was easier to setup role-based access to the routes. Vue Router — As your app progress, your requirement changes. You might need to support multiple languages. Why don’t you start at the beginning itself? Vue-i18n — This is good tool to manage your API request and response. We used the to manage our requests and response. We had response interceptor similar to the one below. This helped us to show Error messages and do common operations at a single point. Axios interceptor pattern Response Interceptor — A light weight validation plugin. Vuelidate Tech Stack and Tools used We have separated Frontend and Backend apps as standalone services, which helped both teams to work in isolation. All the communications were made through REST API Calls. Updates were easier to handle. for API backend. Rails for storage. S3 as CDN. Earlier, during development, we were using Firebase as our CDN. We later switched to Cloudfront since Firebase didn’t support custom SSL certificates. CloudFront — This build tool made it simpler to deploy our frontend updates easily. We have a staging and production branch. We are uploading the build files to S3 and it is delivered via . The following script uploads the build files to S3 and invalidate corresponding CloudFront cache. Travis CloudFront Set environment variables in your travis project settings console. travis.com — Project Settings — Environment Variables — For product analytics. Mixpanel — For error tracking and management. This is recommended tool, this one made our life simpler. Sentry — We were fed up with the fonts which you see in most of the websites. We wanted a fresh feel. TypeKit provides premium fonts at an affordable rate. We use and . For icons, we are using . TypeKit brandon-grotesque proxima-nova Ionicons — For unit testing. Karma for hosting our rails app — Opsworks helped us to get up and running in a very short time and since the entire infrastructure is coded in chef, it is easy to scale. Aws Opsworks for background jobs Sidekiq for mockups Balsamiq to manage project issues and bugs. Github We had credits from program which helped to launch the product with almost zero cost. with helped us in setting up billing and subscriptions with very minimal effort. FBStart Stripe Atlas Chargebee Endnote It has been a year with Vue. The good parts I found in Vue are as follows Simple and well documented APIs — curve is lesser compared to other frameworks Learning Better templating option — Compared to JSX, Vue templates has better syntax in terms of templating. You need not write another function to handle an if case, v-if does the job elegantly. Don’t forget to try and let us know your feedbacks. Chatwoot

AirBnB

Sentry

Stripe

Zero to live with Vue — How we built Chatwoot

It is an acquired skill A Burst of Blue. Copyright SMG PhotoGallery. Taste is the ability to tell good from bad, on things that cannot be quantified. It is the ability to turn unquantifiable phenomena into their absolute optimal state. When numbers fail to guide us We often rely on numbers to tell us if something is good or worthwhile. Prices. View counts. Hit rates. If a bottle of wine is expensive it must be good. If a video gets 10 million views it’s certainly worth watching. The problem is, over-reliant on quantitative measures flattens value. It’s lazy too — you are merely outsourcing decision making to others. You need to get your sense of self back. To do this, you need to develop your own . taste Developing taste Taste is an innate sense that everyone is born with. In a way it is similar to physical abilities — as long as you were born healthy, you can run. You can also improve your ability to run by training your muscles. Similarly, the amount of training you put in determines whether you have good taste or not. Developing good taste requires accumulating knowledge and switching between objectivity and subjectivity. There are three steps to accumulating knowledge in taste : development : a classic is ‘what this product should look like’. This is because, before the classic becomes a classic, it has been through countless iterations of improvements in order to arrive that ‘this is what this product should look like’. In other words, a classic is something that is thoroughly optimised to meet people’s expectations. The Levis 501 is a classic. It was designed over 120 years ago and is still popular today. People like them because the 501 is what jeans should look like. Analyse the classic : trends are mostly temporary. These are attempts to create new classic by experimenting on existing classic. Understanding both classic and trends allow you to rapidly increases the breadth of your knowledge. One of the best ways to learn what’s trending is to read magazines. Browsing posts and videos on the internet or social media may be quicker, but it’s less effective because the information is not properly filtered. Contents on magazines are researched and curated. They help you quickly take the pulse of what’s trending in the particular industry. A trend could well become the new classic. Keep updating your understanding of what’s trending to develop taste. Understand current trends : this steps requires you to distill 1) and 2) to make the knowledge your own. You need to understand rules and patterns that makes it tick. These form the logic behind why things are the way they are. For example, most popular antique shops feel slightly too crowded to give a sense of exclusive discovery. While big, bright shops give the impression that it’s more like a souvenir supermarket. Identify patterns and rules Because taste is built upon knowledge, you should always be able to explain with precision why certain things are the way they are. You should avoid using vague descriptions such as ‘cool’, ‘cute’ or ‘this feels better’. The reasoning behind what makes good taste could resonate with the audience’s subconscious understanding of the topic. Recognise ‘the average’ One important consequence of accumulating knowledge is it lets you see what ‘average’ looks like. Here ‘average’ is not the opinion of the masses. It is not common sense neither. To understand ‘average’, first you have to know the good and the bad. You can then recognise ‘average’ as the state in between. Then you can create things that are better than average. Or way better than average. Average is the yardstick you use to create all levels of results. In order to recognise average on things that are hard to quantify, we need to acquire knowledge as well as a wide range of methods of measure. In fact, the more methods of measure we know, the better our taste become. For example, a professional wine taster understands ‘average’ better than an amateur, because the professional possesses knowledge of wine in both depth and breadth. He/she also knows a large number of methods of measure upon which he/she uses to recognise the good and the bad. Today we are surrounded by phenomena that are hard to quantify. Once we learned to recognise the average, we can then use it as yardstick and create various level of outputs. Thanks for reading.

Discovery

Taste — telling good from bad on things that cannot be quantified

At Pandora, tracks from the epochal album, a landmark in digital marketing, are more liked than other Radiohead albums. By Glenn Peoples, Insights and Analytics at Pandora Music [You can read my articles here and also find them at Measured , a collection of data-based writing at Pandora.] Radiohead’s is ten years old today. The band’s sixth studio album changed music marketing and generated a media frenzy to match its landmark status. The 10-track release arrived without the advance notice traditionally built into music campaigns. And then there was the pricing. The record industry of 2007 was waging a battle against piracy and passionately debating the value of music. So when Radiohead dropped and gave the public the ability to choose the price the wanted to pay for downloads, pretty much all hell broke loose. In Rainbows marketing In Rainbows The music on stands for itself, accounting for 25 percent of the band’s if the song “Creep” is excluded. (“Creep,” a hit from the band’s 1993 debut album, is by far the must-spun Radiohead song. Removing this outlier gives a better sense of other songs’ popularity.) : “Reckoner” at #6; “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi” #8; “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” at #9; and “House of Cards” at #10. The same four songs are also the most successful at getting thumbs (a thumb being Pandora’s now-famous version of a like button), suggesting they’re the most beloved songs in the group’s catalog. Of all albums, is the most successful with thumbs. In Rainbows 1.2 billion Pandora spins Four of album’s songs rank in the band’s top 10 most-spun songs In Rainbows The order page for Radiohead’s In Rainbows had blank boxes where fans could receive a download code (via email) after naming their price for the album. is one of the, if not the most, impactful albums in the digital music era. Before October 2007, no other band of Radiohead’s stature had self-released an album and foregone traditional retail channels. It was a master class in e-commerce. Other artists’ websites offered merchandise and music, typically sold through a third party, but nobody else pulled the same amount of traffic — c visited the site in the month of its release. And, most notably, no other major band used an honor box that allowed fans to choose the price they paid for an album download. Some fans and curious passers-by were sure to pay nothing. Indeed, 60 percent of U.S. residents who download the album paid nothing, according to the same comScore survey. But the band would acquire their email address in order to send their download codes. A free album for an email address—and serious credibility with fans—isn’t a bad tradeoff. In Rainbows omScore said 1.2 million people In Rainbows The music industry of 2008 was skittish and uncertain. File-sharing was a far greater perceived threat than today. Revenues were falling. At conferences and in the press, trade groups and industry executives defended the inherent value of music against free, illegal acquisition. In this environment, Radiohead’s pay-what-you-want offering was mind-blowing for giving fans an outsized impact on the band’s financial success. “They are the ones to decide, yes or no, to buy an album, a single or a concert ticket at the available price,” the New York Times’ Jon Pareles the day after the album’s release. “Radiohead’s digital-era flexibility allows more supporters to make themselves known.” ComScore also found the average price paid by Americans for an download was $8.05 — greater than an iTunes album’s wholesale price. wrote In Rainbows Radiohead performing live in 2008 in support of their October 2007 album In Rainbows. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage) Except for Beyonce’s surprise digital release in 2013 (a also recorded surreptitiously and released without warning), few albums have done as much to reshape the notion of artistic freedom. Radiohead, recently out of its contract with EMI subsidiary Parlophone, could make whatever music it wanted, decide how to release the music, how much to charge, and select its label partners for a later commercial release. No label with a material market share followed Radiohead in selling its music with an honor box. Record labels have changed, and the way music is licensed has changed, but singles and albums are still distributed to digital retail and streaming services. Record labels continue to sign artists and new labels are always sprouting up. And there’s less need for an honor box given all the marketing tools, including , available to reach fans. video album Pandora’s Artist Marketing Platform It’s telling that was Radiohead’s lone pay-what-you-want release. Today, is less a marketing tactic than a relic of an era when artists were experimenting with the Internet’s power and possibilities. (As a side note, the author of wrote a book, titled , about the power in giving away products. It didn’t come close to the impact of The Long Tail.) “The point was a band could give away an album and still make good money,” Radiohead singer Thom Yorke to Wired magazine two months after was released. “It’s not supposed to be a model for anything else. It was simply a response to a situation. We’re out of contract. We have our own studio. We have this new server. What the hell else would we do?” In Rainbows free The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More Free: The Power of a Radical Price explained In Rainbows The media attention around In , worth millions in paid marketing, carried through to the CD and LP release (on ATO Records in the U.S. and many other countries in January 2008). To no surprise, the album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. In June, the song “Nude” reached #37 on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart. On the media attention, Will Botwin, ATO Records Group president/CEO, . “The band has probably gotten more publicity without saying anything than any band in the history of rock and roll.” Ten years later, the record probably still stands. Rainbows quipped [You can read my articles here and also find them at Measured , a collection of data-based writing at Pandora. Check out Pandora’s news blog , too. My Twitter handle is @theglennpeoples .]

Radiohead’s In Rainbows is beloved by listeners ten years after its release (so say the data)

The proliferation of event-driven, realtime APIs fueled by big data, IoT, and consumer expectations According to Mark O’Neill and Paolo Malinverno of Gartner, 50% of managed APIs will support event-driven IT by 2020 ( ). These event-driven APIs will not necessarily replace RESTful request-response architectures, but will become necessary supplements to expand an organization’s functional offerings and overall performance. 2017 Report In another , Gartner projects “8.4 billion connected devices, up 31% from 2016, and will reach 20.4 billion by 2020. Total spending on endpoint infrastructure and services will reach almost $2 trillion in 2017.” 2017 IoT report So, what’s driving this evolution? “Realtime” is becoming an omnipresent force in the modern tech stack. As consumers demand faster experiences and more instantaneous data transactions, companies are increasingly investing in product infrastructure that accelerates these transactions. Though we’ve seen APIs become an economic and technological imperative, they are typically based on request-response style interactions, which limits their scope and effectiveness in the realtime arena. Request-Response vs Event-Driven APIs At its core, request–response is a message exchange pattern in which a requestor sends a request message to a replier system. The replier system receives and processes the request, and if all goes well, it returns a message in response. While this exchange format works well for more structured requests, it limits integrations to those where the expectant system has a clear idea what it wants from the other. These request-response style APIs, therefore, must follow the interaction script from the calling service. In an event-driven architecture, applications integrate multiple services and products as equals based on event-driven interactions. These interactions are driven by event emitters, event consumers, and event channels, whereby the events, themselves, are typically significant ‘changes in state’ that are produced, published, propagated, detected, or consumed. This architectural pattern supports loose coupling amongst software components and services. The advantage is that an event emitter does not need to know the state of the consumer, who the consumer is, or how the event will be processed (if at all). It is a mechanism of pushing data through a persistent stream. The $195 Billion IoT Market The proliferation and ‘smartening’ of IoT-driven devices is projected to reach a market cap exceeding $195 billion in 2023, according to analysts at . From a market of $16 billion in 2016, this growth is mainly fueled by the increasingly ubiquitous manufacturing of smarter in-home, mobile, and transportation devices — and the need to capture that data and enhance communication infrastructure. ReportsnReports The smarter devices become, the more data they need to make complex, realtime decisions. Sensors and external data gathering implements are becoming an essential catalyst for IoT industry growth. The accuracy of sensors and actuators that measure geospatial proximity, acceleration, temperature, and motion will separate the industry leaders from the laggards. Postscapes Taking a deeper dive into the actual core components, like semiconductors, forecasts a $45 billion IoT-driven semiconductor market by 2020, with consumer IoT taking the lion’s share and the automotive industry (including self-driving vehicles) taking second. Gartner Data & Business Intelligence The goal of a truly interconnected tech ecosystem will also mirror equal growth in data and business intelligence. The more things are interconnected, the more companies will need to gather data, push remote updates, and control devices in the field. Hence, remote communication needs to be reliable, data needs to be accurate, and the ability to extract meaningful information from big data becomes paramount. In a by Seagate, 25% of all data will need to be processed and generated in realtime by 2025 out of a total of 160 Zettabytes. 2015 report Event-Driven API Mechanisms If you’re looking to understand the web infrastructure behind realtime, then let’s explore some of its basic components. A more thorough analysis can be found in . Getting Started with Realtime API Infrastructure Realtime is all about pushing data. In a model, data is pushed to a user’s device rather than pulled (requested) by the user. For example, modern push email allows users to receive email messages without having to check manually. Similarly, we can examine data push in a more continuous sense, whereby data is continuously broadcasted. Anyone who has access to a particular channel or frequency can receive that data and decide what to do with it. data push HTTP Streaming provides a long-lived connection for instant and continuous data push. You get the familiarity of HTTP with the performance of WebSockets. The client sends a request to the server and the server holds the response open for an indefinite length. This connection will stay open until a client closes it or a server side-side event occurs. If there is no new data to push, the application will send a series of keep-alive ticks so the connection doesn’t close. HTTP streaming Websockets provide a long-lived connection for exchanging messages between client and server. Messages may flow in either direction for full-duplex communication. This bi-directional connection is established through a WebSocket handshake. Just like in HTTP Streaming and HTTP Long-Polling, the client sends a regular HTTP request to the server first. If the server agrees to the connection, the HTTP connection is replaced with a WebSocket connection. WebSockets Webhooks are a simple way of sending data between servers. No long-lived connections are needed. The sender makes an HTTP request to the receiver when there is data to push. A WebHook registers or “hooks” to a callback URL and will notify you anytime an event has occurred. You register this URL in advance and when an event happens, the server sends a HTTP POST request with an Event Object to the callback URL. This event object contains the new data that will be pushed to the callback URL. You might use a WebHook if you want to receive notifications about certain topics. It could also be used to notify you whenever a user changes or updates their profile. Webhooks HTTP Long-Polling provides a long-lived connection for instant data push. It is the easiest mechanism to consume and also the easiest to make reliable. This technique provides a long-lived connection for instant data push. The server holds the request open until new data or a timeout occurs. Most send a timeout after 30 to 120 seconds, it depends on how the API was setup. After the client receives a response (whether that be from new data or a timeout), the client will send another request and this is repeated continuously. HTTP long-polling And, of course, there is the infrastructure behind it all. — Realtime API infrastructure specifically allows developers to build realtime data push into their existing APIs. Typically, you would not need to modify your existing API contracts, as the streaming server would serve as a proxy. The proxy design allows these services to fit nicely within an API stack. This means it can inherit other facilities from your REST API, such as authentication, logging, throttling, etc. It can be combined with an API management system. In the case of WebSocket messages being proxied out as HTTP requests, the messages may be handled statelessly by the backend. Messages from a single connection can even be load balanced across a set of backend instances. Realtime API Infrastructure — Realtime app infrastructure sends data to browsers and clients. It typically uses messaging, , and/or — and is separate from an application or service’s main API. Realtime Application Infrastructure pub/sub webhooks websockets Main Take-Aways IoT, big data, and consumer expectations are fueling the proliferation of event-driven / realtime APIs. One of the greatest challenges facing engineers over the next few years will be constructing scalable, fault-tolerant event-driven architectures at scale. This is why we are seeing companies spend more than $2 trillion in 2017 to support event-driven endpoints and infrastructure. While RESTful architectures will remain a necessity, it is important for organizations to understand and plan for event-driven systems — which add a new dimension of realtime API infrastructure complexity.

By 2020, 50% of Managed APIs Projected to be Event-Driven

The past week’s news in e-commerce & the battles of the giants. CommerceWars log. Week 2. It is science-fiction week in commerce-world, with both Google and Amazon making some super cool hardware/AI moves (so as a bonus you’ll get some free Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy quotes this week). Also, everyone is doubling down on logistics in the run for world domination: Amazon experimenting with independent logistics capabilities in the US, Walmart is buying a logistics startup and Alibaba announcing a $15b global logistics investment plan. Also: Sears gets life-supporting cash injection, Amazon growing Israeli R&D center and Alibaba pushing Kindle sales in China. Such an interesting week. Don’t Panic · According to FT, will be a pair of smart glasses with the voice assistant built in. The device will look like a regular pair of glasses but will not have a camera — it use bone-conduction so that the user can hear Alexa without the need for earphones or speakers. My personal bet (you can comment if you want to make this interesting…): by 2022 we’ll hear of be a tiny transplant-able chip so we can just talk to Alexa 24/7… Amazon’s first wearable device Alexa https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/20/16337854/amazon-alexa-glasses-security-camera-rumor · isn’t waiting for Amazon. at the touch of a button, bringing to life what many sci-fi authors have envisioned (my favorite: ). Google also revealed a bunch of other cool hardware such as the Google Home Mini and Max, and the somewhat creepy Google Clips. Google The new Pixel Buds promise on-the-go translations in 40 languages The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy http://bigthink.com/philip-perry/google-unleashes-a-treasure-trove-of-tech-goodies-to-compete-with-apple · Supposedly to help their fashion efforts but honestly, who knows. Amazon buys Body Labs, a 3D body-scanning tech startup. https://www.cnet.com/news/amazon-buys-body-labs-a-3d-body-scanning-tech-startup/ · , China by the end of the month. The station will feature a robotic arm to fuel up the vehicles and will also have an unstaffed convenience store, a model that Alibaba showcased in July, which allows patrons to enter by scanning a QR code at the entrance, pick up their items and automatically pay at the checkout gate. Alibaba is preparing to open its first smart gas station in its home city of Hangzhou https://www.pymnts.com/innovation/2017/alibaba-debuts-smart-gas-station-in-hangzhou-china/ · (price undisclosed). Parcel is a 24/7 operation that delivers packages the same-day, overnight and in scheduled two-hour windows. Walmart announced it has acquired the logistics startup Parcel https://www.reuters.com/article/us-parcel-m-a-walmart/wal-mart-buys-delivery-logistics-startup-parcel-idUSKCN1C80DI · ’s shopping sites on Alibaba’s “Super Brand Day”. It’s another strong signal that Amazon gave up (for now) the war over China’s ecommerce. China has become Kindle’s largest market. Amazon is running a giant Kindle promotion across Alibaba https://www.recode.net/2017/9/22/16349828/amazon-kindle-tmall-alibaba-super-brand-day-promotion · According to Bloomberg, (starting with the West Coast). If true, Amazon will become a direct rival to Fedex and UPS. Amazon is launching its own logistic service in the US https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-05/amazon-is-said-to-test-own-delivery-service-to-rival-fedex-ups · According to CTech, The company plans to hire a 100 person team to develop Alexa’s shopping features. Amazon Announces Israeli Alexa Development Outpost. https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3722261,00.html Sears Holdings has received a $100 million loan from its CEO Eddie Lampert. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/06/sears-lands-100-million-loan-from-ceos-hedge-fund-ahead-of-holidays.html · (currently executing 57 million deliveries a day). Alibaba, which had owned 47% of Cainiao, has invested a further US$807 million to increase its stake to 51%. The company announced an intention to invest 100 billion yuan ($15 billion) in its global logistical capabilities over the next five years. Alibaba has acquired a controlling stake in logistics company Cainiao https://www.forbes.com/sites/jwebb/2017/09/28/alibaba-to-invest-15-billion-in-global-logistics-and-takes-a-controlling-stake-in-cainiao/#8a268b8a034f Google Pixel Buds “Forty-two,” said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm. This is it for Week2. LMK your thoughts and what I’ve missed. See you next week. Stay tuned. .:. #CommerceWars, #GameOfVoice

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Commerce-Wars Weekly #2

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Rick and Morty and the Meaning of Life

Fighting the urge to intentionally introduce complexity in code S o you have been coding for a long time and you’ve been awarded with the Senior Developer Badge. And you think the time has come: You have finally entered into the club and now you’re entitled to write more complex code. So you sit in front of your laptop to write the cleverest solution to the problem you are dealing with. When I write code, I assume the other developers are as clever as me — Some developer I met That, my friend, is purely wrong. Being a Senior developer is not about writing complex code, but the contrary. It’s about solving the problem the right way. Great developers find simple solutions to complex problems. One of the main differences between a Junior developer and a Senior one is that the latter can choose to write simple code. The Junior ones are more likely to introduce a_ccidental complexity_ and write code that is harder to read. They cannot choose. In fact, Senior Developers not only should avoid writing complex code, but help their fellow developers into writing simpler code. Some so-called senior developers . Developers are paid to solve problems, and being professional means solving the problems in a simple, but reliable way. The greatest misunderstanding comes when thinking that developers are paid to write code. They are not Simple code doesn’t mean crappy code, and neither means incomplete code. It means code that complies with the given requirements. It doesn’t make assumptions about the future, yet is able to grow and adapt to change. It means it’s properly tested within the specification and it means it’s properly encapsulated within its boundaries. It means it’s clean and clear, and any developer in the team can understand its intent. If you don’t take my word for it, at least take Kent Beck’s . It’s true: A lot of experienced developers doesn’t feel challenged with the problems they are faced with, so they make the challenge themselves. That’s how they turn a solution that should be simple, into the most complex code ever written. The hardest thing about learning to code is learning not to code One difference between a smart programmer and a professional programmer is thatthe professional understands that clarity is king. Professionals use their powers for good and write code that others can understand. — Robert C. Martin I’ve been down that road myself, and I can tell that sometimes it’s better to find the challenges elsewhere. For example: Taking a look at the existing code and find better ways to express it, finding missing test cases, etc. No code is perfect, so you are likely to find problems in it. With great power comes great responsibility — Uncle Ben Remember, as Uncle Ben said: With great power comes great responsibility. And if you are experienced enough, your responsibility lies in keeping the business going. And writing code that is difficult to understand and change won’t do that. So that’s it. I’m not trying to impose anything here, but I truly believe if everybody takes this advice, we’ll all become better programmers. 🗞🦄 Thanks to Hackernoon for publishing my story!!

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The hardest thing

If you attend a blockchain meetup/conference and ask 100 people what they think a blockchain is, one of the following will happen: 80 will say they simply do not know. Maybe their boss sent them or they have read about it in the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times and they thought it was cool. Some of them may be legitimately interested in the subject, however odds are that most are just following the hypetrain. 20 will claim they are experts and they have been working with it since 2007 (bitcoin was created in the end of 2008). Of course they each have a different definition. The above is fiction and should not be taken seriously. I have not been to any blockchain meetups or conferences as of yet. However, by the amount of different definitions seen on the internet, some partial truth can be found in those words. Things get even more interesting when the “public versus private/permissioned blockchain” debate heats up. : We are going to be refering only to blockchains for the rest of this post. This is not going to be a “how does a blockchain work” post as there are already a lot of good articles online on that topic (and a lot of bad ones). Disclaimer public First of all, to describe what a blockchain is, let’s define what a database is: A is an organized collection of — database data Wikipedia My definition of a blockchain: A is a database that can be shared between a group of non-trusting individuals, blockchain without needing a central party to maintain the state of the database. It is also often referred to by the name “ istributed edger echnology”, for short. D L T DLT Centralised vs Distributed Ledger, image source: https://cdn.ripple.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/ledgers.png Properties of A Blockchain Transparency: Every transaction can be inspected by anyone (keyword: ) block explorer Decentralization: Every node which maintains the network has a copy of the ledger. That creates redundancy and fault tolerance (i.e if a node fails or stops working, the rest of the nodes can keep maintaining the network without interruption). Decentralization along with proper mechanisms to ensure that no faulty transactions get included in the ledger give birth to the so-called of the blockchain that everyone talks about. When a piece of information gets recorded, it is set in stone and cannot be rewritten (exceptions: ). data integrity, immutability hard fork,chain split Add transparency and decentralization together and you have a ledger which has 100% uptime, cannot be manipulated by powerful adversaries to their advantage (debatable) and is fully inspectable at any time. Every single property of a blockchain on its own might not sound like too remarkable, however when combined together, new properties appear which in turn create the possibility for new revolutionary use cases. Before we get into that, let’s clear some… Common Misconsceptions “Blockchains provide security” This one is tricky, because security is often confused with confidentiality. A blockchain provide confidentiality (with the exception of cases like Zcash, Monero, Dash, PIVX which are blockchains with built-in privacy features). does not “My business needs a blockchain!” Definitely not true. If trust and robustness aren’t an issue, there’s nothing a blockchain can do that a regular database cannot. In this case you are better off with a traditional centralized database with proper backups. “Blockchain is Bitcoin” Bitcoin was the first of the “cryptocurrencies” that introduced blockchain technology as we know it today. Currently there are numerous different blockchains linked to different projects, each offering something unique atop the basic blockchain principles. …And more If trust and robustness aren’t an issue, there’s nothing a blockchain can do that a regular database cannot . ¹ Blockchain Use Cases, a.k.a. “What a blockchain can do” “The blockchain has the ability to enhance reliability in business processes by eliminating political and economic risks associated with trusting a centralized system.” — Vitalik Buterin The decentralized nature of blockchain enables (amongst other things) the following: Reduce bureaucracy and fraud (digital identity systems) Make organizations more democratic and transparent ( ecentralized utonomous rganizations, s) D A O DAO Better Supply Chain Management (track quality and location of products) Insurance services Fight censorship Blockchain use cases, image source: https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/banafa-12-mitos-3.jpg For each of the above use cases a quick search on your favorite search engine should provide you with enough details, possible implementations and/or relevant projects. “But I might miss out! My scaled business needs blockchain or we are going to be out of competition!” I will probably get called out for this, but at its current state blockchain cannot replace any scaled infrastructure. Currently VISA can handle tens of thousands of transactions per second, while Bitcoin and Ethereum are struggling with ten (not an exact number, but you get the point). Of course, scaling solutions are being actively researched but realistically we are still some years away from the needed scaling for blockchain to have radical impact and replace the giants of today’s modern industry. For more details I refer you to blog post which, although posted two years ago, is quite relevant. MultiChain’s To sum up, I am a big fan of blockchain technologies, I’ve been hacking around Ethereum development for some 6 months now and can see why it can be so revolutionary. One must not follow the hype blindly. Always judge and pick a solution based on your needs and not based on what the masses do. /rant Shameless plug I am a 5th year Electrical & Computer Engineering student from Greece. I am interested in infosec, blockchain research & applications in modern businesses, and autonomous vehicles. Learn more about what I do at gakonst.com If you liked the content of this post and want to be updated about my work, follow me on and on Medium Twitter

HackerNoon Tech Stories Archive October 7th, 2017

The Species Which Blends Atoms and Bits

@PaulRBerg
Paul Berg

Journey to be Google Certified Associate Android Developer

@muh.rahmatullah
Muhammad Rahmatullah

Arrrr! Time To Be A Pirate: The Only Way Companies Can Build Big.

@tchebotarev
Evgeny Tchebotarev

How technology could stop mass shooting like the Las Vegas Strip attack?

@nikhilmathew_83744
Nikhil Mathew

Reducing ETH Gas by making an Asynchronous Tx with Oraclize

@billyrennekamp
billy rennekamp

10 Great Tips to Learn Docker

@eon01
Aymen (@eon01)

Ada

@Lansana
Lansana

Ideas Are Overrated

@JimKalbach
Jim Kalbach

A production incident at Yavin 4

@h_liyan
H.N. Liyanage

Zero to live with Vue — How we built Chatwoot

@pranavrajs
Pranav Raj S

Taste — telling good from bad on things that cannot be quantified

@karenkwanyu
Karen Ho

Radiohead’s In Rainbows is beloved by listeners ten years after its release (so say the data)

@glennpeoples
Glenn Peoples

By 2020, 50% of Managed APIs Projected to be Event-Driven

@justindesign
Justin Baker

Commerce-Wars Weekly #2

@danielshinar
Daniel Shinar

Rick and Morty and the Meaning of Life

@daniel-jeffries
Daniel Jeffries

Rick and Morty and the Meaning of Life

@daniel-jeffries
Daniel Jeffries

The hardest thing

@poli
Santiago Ignacio Poli

A rant about Blockchains

@gakonst
Georgios Konstantopoulos

HackerNoon Tech Stories Archive October 7th, 2017

@PaulRBergPaul Berg

@muh.rahmatullahMuhammad Rahmatullah

@tchebotarevEvgeny Tchebotarev

@nikhilmathew_83744Nikhil Mathew

@billyrennekampbilly rennekamp

@eon01Aymen (@eon01)

@LansanaLansana

@JimKalbachJim Kalbach

@h_liyanH.N. Liyanage

@pranavrajsPranav Raj S

@karenkwanyuKaren Ho

@glennpeoplesGlenn Peoples

@justindesignJustin Baker

@danielshinarDaniel Shinar

@daniel-jeffriesDaniel Jeffries

@daniel-jeffriesDaniel Jeffries

@poliSantiago Ignacio Poli

@gakonstGeorgios Konstantopoulos

@PaulRBerg
Paul Berg

@muh.rahmatullah
Muhammad Rahmatullah

@tchebotarev
Evgeny Tchebotarev

@nikhilmathew_83744
Nikhil Mathew

@billyrennekamp
billy rennekamp

@eon01
Aymen (@eon01)

@Lansana
Lansana

@JimKalbach
Jim Kalbach

@h_liyan
H.N. Liyanage

@pranavrajs
Pranav Raj S

@karenkwanyu
Karen Ho

@glennpeoples
Glenn Peoples

@justindesign
Justin Baker

@danielshinar
Daniel Shinar

@daniel-jeffries
Daniel Jeffries

@daniel-jeffries
Daniel Jeffries

@poli
Santiago Ignacio Poli

@gakonst
Georgios Konstantopoulos