Popular ERC-20 tokens today. Cryptocurrencies vs Tokens Cryptocurrencies and tokens are related but separate concepts. The terms cryptocurrency and token should not be used interchangeably. Cryptocurrencies are the latest, and thus far the most successful, form of digital money. They are digitized currencies, encrypted through . Copies of their ledgers exist in distributed form on decentralized blockchains around the world. Cryptocurrencies run on their own blockchains. cryptography Tokens represent an asset or utility and exist on top of a blockchain. They are tradeable goods and can represent coins, loyalty points, in-game assets, and so on. They can even be redeemable for a service an issuer will provide at a later date. Tokens can be issued on blockchains like Ethereum and Waves. The most widely used token standard is Ethereum’s ERC20. Ethereum also recently proposed two other standards: ERC223 and ERC721. ERC-20 is a technical standard issued by Ethereum. ERC20 Tokens In 2015, Ethereum issued technical specifications for tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. Tokens that conform to these specifications are known as ERC20 tokens. (ERC stands for Ethereum Request for Comments.) In essence, ERC20 tokens are smart contracts that run on the Ethereum blockchain. While ERC20 tokens function within the framework set by the Ethereum team, the framework is broad enough to simultaneously allow developers considerable flexibility in the design and function of the tokens. Most tokens created through ICOs on Ethereum are ERC20 compliant. The ERC20 standard has 6 functions and 2 events. The standard was created to enable interoperability across applications, exchanges, and interfaces. The functions describe how tokens can be transferred and how token-related data can be accessed. The events lay out formatting guidelines for transfers and approvals. Smart contracts on Ethereum, including all ERC20 contracts, are written in Solidity. My description of the 8 various components that make up the ERC-20 token smart contract. Each contract includes 6 functions and 2 events. Tools and Testing To better understand the ERC20 framework, and how it can be adapted to various uses and strategies, it is helpful to experiment on Testnets by creating and testing tokens with different attributes. A great place to start is Etherescan.io, which allows users to visually understand Ethereum’s blockchain and review various ERC20 tokens. Etherscan users can create their own tokens on one of three Testnets: Ropsten, Kovan, or Rinkeby. In my experiments, I used Rinkeby to create an ERC20 token called Raycoin — take a look . here The RayCoin ERC-20 Token I created in the Rinkeby Testnet. Customization ERC20 tokens can be customized to enable to following features: 1. Automatic buying and selling: you can peg the token’s value to that of another token or currency by creating a fund that automatically buys or sells tokens to maintain the balance. 2. Auto refill: transactions on the Ethereum blockchain require payments to miners in ‘gas’. You can program your token to auto-refill gas for future transactions once if it falls below a certain level. 3. Adding a central mint that can change the number of tokens in circulation: this could be useful if your token mirrors or simulates government currencies. 4. Freezing tokens: if instructed to do so by a regulatory body, you can freeze the tokens owned by that user and unfreeze them when required. 5. : you can tie your token supply to the supply of Ether by programing a contract to run “merged mining” with Ethereum. A miner who finds a block in Ethereum then also gets a predetermined number of your tokens as a Block Reward. Proof of work The ERC223 and ERC721 Proposals In some situations, ERC20 tokens can pose difficulties for users. For instance, someone who uses an ERC20 token to send 5 ETH to a contract that is not ERC20 compatible, the transaction will not be rejected because the contract will not recognize the incoming transaction. The ETH could therefore get stuck in limbo and essentially be lost by the user. A new token standard (the proposed ERC223) solves this problem by rejecting a transaction if it is not ERC compatible. Tokens conforming to another new token standard (the proposed ERC721) will be non-fungible: unique and not interchangeable during utility and exchange. (For example, a chocolate bar is non-fungible with a pizza, because their differing characteristics result in each of the them having different value.) An ERC721 token will have value due to its uniqueness and rare qualities (think limited edition baseball gloves autographed by Jordan). Upshot Ethereum released ERC20 token guidelines in the wake of increased interest in Initial Coin Offerings. The primary benefit of an ERC20 token is interoperability with other compliant tokens and decentralized applications on Ethereum. ERC20 tokens can also be traded on all platforms that support Ethereum standards. Some popular ERC20 tokens are Augur, Bancor Network, Civic, Gnosis, and Golem. Given that the majority of ICOs on Ethereum have been ERC20 compliant, thought leaders and entrepreneurs in the blockchain space should seek to understand ERC20 and other Ethereum token standards. — Next: Find out what are! ERC-1190 Tokens

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by Andrew Barisser I have been thinking hard about blockchain scalability lately (see my recent article ). I have the outlines of a proposal which I would like to share here for comment and feedback. The goal is no less than to solve the blockchain scalability problem. This is an incredibly audacious goal, but I hope you will at least review my proposal. https://hackernoon.com/wrestling-with-blockchain-scalability-a1295e47962f The Problem For a more in-depth analysis of the problems underlying blockchain scalability, see my article in the link above. In short, to prevent a double spend, each verifier must have a view of all transactions to a double spend transaction. Since this could occur anywhere, in any block, you must look everywhere. Thus to trustlessly verify even just 1 transaction, you must hold an entire blockchain on your device. global rule out the existence of Proof-of-Publication Scales almost Infinitely With current Blockchain technology, we already have a capability called Proof-of-Publication. I can take 2^N pieces of data, hash them, and compose a Merkle Tree with depth N. I can take the Merkle Root of that tree and publish it in a Bitcoin Block. Then for any of the individual pieces of data in the original Merkle Tree, I can provide what is called a Merkle Path (a series of neighbor hashes demonstrating that my leaf hash is a member of the Merkle Tree) to the Merkle Root. This has the effect that I can prove, for any one of my 2^N pieces of data, that it was published as of the Bitcoin Block in which the Merkle Root resides. This scheme scales almost infinitely because what is actually stored in the block is a succinct Merkle Root hash. This is merely a short string. For a tree of length N, it takes log(N) space and computation to demonstrate membership; this scales quite well. I could prove publication of billions or trillions of datapoints in each Bitcoin Block today. The fact that Proof-of-Publication scales so well should suggest that we can do better than the current state of the art. However, as we shall see, it is not itself enough to create a scalable blockchain. It is also not a new idea; it has been around for years in the community. Tokens with Addresses in an Abstract Merkle Tree In my proposed blockchain design, Blocks are produced using Proof-of-Work just as done today in Bitcoin. However each block contains 1 Merkle Root string. This Merkle Root represents a Merkle Tree that is The Merkle Root merely acts as an anchor; whatever was in that tree, which was potentially vast in size, can be provably timestamped using proof-of-publication. not actually present in the blockchain. Using this abstract Merkle Tree, we can create an out of the leaves of that tree. Each leaf corresponds to some binary number which represents the lefts-and-rights navigating one from the Merkle Root to leaf. In short, each leaf can have a unique numeric address. address space In my scheme, each leaf corresponds to a distinct token in the blockchain.To publish a transaction for that token, it is necessary (but not sufficient) to provide a Proof-of-Publication of that transaction . The Merkle Path that proves publication will also prove the fact that this transaction originated from that Merkle Leaf. An otherwise valid transaction originating from a different leaf (than the one corresponding to that token) is not valid. originating from that leaf in the Merkle Tree Proof-of-Publication does not prevent double spends The above gives us certain capabilities, but does not prevent double spends. One of its key features is that it makes it in a block to rule out a double spend (within the same block and only for the token in question). Since a transaction must originate from the Merkle leaf that corresponds with the spent token, the existence of a double spend transaction from any other leaf is not a concern. There is only one place to look. unnecessary to look elsewhere However we have not yet solved the double spend problem. Let’s say I send you a token at Block 25. I show you a Proof-of-Publication of a correctly signed transaction in block 25. That checks out. I also show you a Proof-of-Publication of the transaction in which I was given the token back in Block 10. But I cannot (yet) demonstrate the of publication of any transactions for blocks 11–24. Thus while the transactions in blocks 10 and 25 are valid, and no other valid ones could exist in blocks 10 and 25, I’m still worried about a double spend in 11–24. absence Theoretically you could have a proof-of-publication of a null transaction for blocks 11–24. But this is not a guarantee of the system. A miner can insert junk where you should have a null transaction. I called this a “gibberish attack” in my previous article. The Merkle Tree route breaks down for demonstrating the absence of transactions for blocks 11–24. We need Proof of Absence As I mused in the last article, there needs to be some scheme where I take a set of strings S and produce a succinct commitment to those strings P, such that for any other string X , I can prove that X was not a member of S . In other words, I need to prove non-membership of an element to a set without examining the whole set, but merely a succinct (and non-interactive) commitment to the set. not in S solely by acting on X and P Cryptographic Accumulators After some research, it turns out this functionality does exist. Cryptographic accumulators provide a way to efficiently test the membership of an element to a set without inspecting the whole set. Critically, there are also variants that support testing . non-membership Here is a simplified summary of what dynamic, universal Cryptographic Accumulators do. To prove membership, I start with some value G. For each member X of a set S, I act on G to produce a new witness value. That witness value can be probed, via mechanisms I will not try to explain here, to demonstrate that X was a member of set S without having to carry all of S around. A similar version exists for non-membership proofs. As far as I can tell, the transformations acting on the witness value are publicly verifiable, thus one does not need to trust the veracity of non-membership proofs. A cryptographic accumulator is, like a Merkle Root, a succinct string that can be used for proofs of membership or non-membership. We will include the accumulator witness statement in each block. Because cryptographic accumulators are ‘dynamic’, ie a valid one for set S can be updated for insertions and deletions in S, we can include in each block a global accumulator witness for the entire blockchain history up to that point. How It All Works So here is how my scheme works. Once: Verify block headers using proof-of-work as lite Bitcoin wallets work today. Each block has an accumulator witness derived from the witness of the previous block, as well as a proof to that effect. Verify that proof to ensure that the accumulator for any given block corresponds to the entire blockchain history. When sending a transaction: You need to send the entire proof-of-publication history of all transactions that ever concerned that token. Thus if the transaction concerns block 25, and its input comes from block 10, show proofs for blocks 10 and 25. This is more data than a Bitcoin transaction is today, but thankfully it does not have to be stored on a blockchain. It could go as follow:- Token A was created at Block 0 and was owned by the one-address-that-owned-everything-at-conception. This is self-evident.- Token A was sent from the genesis address to my address at Block 10. There is a proof of publication of this. Critically the sender does a second thing. He reveals a hidden signature value that corresponds to his address and includes it in the cryptographic accumulator for Block 10. To verify the above transaction, I am given the Proof-of-Publication of a valid (signed) transaction at Block 10. This includes a Merkle Path to a Merkle Root that I know is correct (by having validated all block headers). I am given the hidden signature value that was included in the cryptographic accumulator. This value can be a hidden predecessor to the owning address (like a private key, or one of many private keys) such that once I know it, I know it corresponds to the sending address. I verify that this value is a member of the cryptographic accumulator. At the same time, I verify that . Since Block 9 inherits all the signature values from all previous blocks, this has the effect of proving that this signature value is present in Block 10 and had never before been revealed. A transaction is only valid if also uniquely it was not a value of Block 9’s cryptographic accumulator A) It has a valid accompanying Proof-of-Publication B) It is accompanied by a revealed, previously hidden value that links to his address. This value is part of the next Block’s cryptographic accumulator but part of any other block’s accumulator. This is accomplished by proving non-membership of the preceding block’s accumulator, and by proving the successive inheritance of all cryptographic accumulators across blocks. not Steps A) and B) above must be repeated for all transactions of that token throughout history to demonstrate that a double spend has never occurred. Thus it is not enough to prove a transaction, we must prove that transaction’s predecessor, and that one’s, until genesis. This is feasible because all block headers are verified and these are relatively short proofs a client device can perform. Note that the purpose of the revealed, hidden signature value is to create a provable test that double-spend attempts will fail to defeat. This value must be hidden until use and lead deterministically to the spending public address. It must be apparent to future token recipients that no other signature value could have existed for this address-token pair, thus when they rule out its membership in a block’s accumulator, they have ruled out all spends coming from that address for that token. I believe that the above resolves the double spend problem without including massive amounts of data in a global blockchain. Proof-of-Publication, which is known to scale very well, is coupled with succinct non-membership proofs in cryptographic accumulators. The amount of data in each block is minimal. This design shifts the burden of computation to individual owners and receivers. They can prove the validity of their coins without proving the validity of all coins. Similarly, the existence of Proofs-of-Publications of double spends is not a problem; they will not pass the cryptographic accumulator tests. Some Issues There are some issues and gaps that I would like to enumerate here. My chief concern is that succinct, dynamic, non-membership proofs via Cryptographic Accumulators are pretty esoteric math. I would like more evidence that they work as advertised and that I have represented them properly. A real cryptographer should review my interpretation carefully. These underpin the whole solution. My scheme involves non-fungible tokens rather than fungible units like Bitcoins. I don’t think this is a huge problem; you can construct fine-grained transactions from sets of token exchanges. It is slighlty non-optimal. I would not be surprised if a fungible version could be constructed using similar ideas. A miner has to aggregate all this data into cryptographic accumulators and Merkle trees for them to be published. The miner has to return information to the transaction’s publisher for them to have adequate information to provide transaction proofs. This back and forth introduces complications that do not exist in Bitcoin, where transaction publishing is 1-way only. Worse, a malicious miner could take the revealed, hidden value intended to be part of an accumulator, and include it without including the corresponding leaf in the Merkle Tree. This would lead to a situation in which it would appear I had committed a double-spend when I in fact had not. This can be resolved via several routes; for instance the hidden signature could be revealed a Proof-of-Publication has already succeeded, removing this risk. This is acceptable because orphaned proofs-of-publication have no cost. Thus I believe there are avenues around this problem. the block after This scheme imposes a larger burden on owners of tokens. They must store more data and pass it along. If the transactional proofs are lost, the tokens will be stuck, as they are today with lost Bitcoin private keys. Arguably more computation is required for recipients to confirm transactions. I believe that this is worth the trade-off in Blockchain scalability. If my proposal works, it could allow for vastly improved blockchain scalability. The only real limits would be in connectivity to miners during the interval between blocks. Miners could cram as much as possible into Merkle Trees and cryptographic accumulators without extra burden to block size. I am a bit concerned by the audacity of this proposal that I have missed some critical flaw. I also admit that many parts are not well-defined; this is in part because I am still digesting these ideas. I invite maximal scrutiny and review of this proposal, in particular the feasibility of using non-membership proofs in succinct cryptographic accumulators in the adversarial environment of decentralized blockchains. Feel free to ping me on Twitter for ideas, feedback, or comments. Twitter: https://twitter.com/abarisser 1JZBGMjZxVG1u4WzwAFzKEgHCpfG4YSWhe

A Proposal to Solve Blockchain Scalability

Image Credit: BigStockPhoto Originally published on our Forbes blog, “On the Future of Cryptocurrencies, Blockchain and Money” There can be a lot of hype around how disruptive blockchain technology will be where some trumpet how it will change everything in our world today and every industry is primed for disruption. While I am excited about blockchain technology, I do not believe it’s a cure-all technology. The most common industries cited as ripe for disruption by blockchain are banking and finance, healthcare, cybersecurity, and any space where a lack of transparency or a lack of tracking and inefficiencies abound, such as creative works and supply chain management. The potential of blockchain’s disruptive nature across consumer and enterprise markets can seem like a sea captain sailing in the middle of the ocean during a foggy night. You know you are looking into vast and distant waters, but visibility is limited and the future is uncertain. Enterprise is key When I consider the potential application of blockchain on consumer-facing products and new companies that can launch from it, I get excited. When I think about the enterprise side, I get a little sleepy-eyed. At its core, blockchain technology is pretty boring. It makes backend processes more efficient, more secure or transparent as a new solution or as a middleware product. Middleware for legacy systems? Bringing large enterprises out of the IT Stone Age to the future of decentralized, distributed systems? Please stick a fork in my leg and pour a gallon of Red Bull down my throat. I need Bishop’s knife trick on me to keep me awake for enterprise startups. “Aliens” (1986) But boring is good and highlights a huge potential of blockchain enterprise companies. A good industry benchmark for these up and coming enterprise blockchain startups are companies such as SAP and Oracle, which are traditional enterprise database companies. I see today’s enterprise blockchain startups and those in the coming years as the next generation of enterprise database companies. Oracle positions itself as the world’s #1 enterprise database company with dozens of core products from middleware solutions to servers to databases. SAP has a market cap of over $135 billion with over $23 billion in revenues last year, and Oracle has a market cap of over $209 billion with over $37 billion in revenues. Eye on Asia A little-known fact is that the core technology behind , came from a South Korea company they acquired in 2005 called Transact In Memory. Transact In Memory was founded by , who is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Seoul National University. SAP’s flagship product, HANA database Dr. Sang Cha The next generation of global enterprise database companies might not just be based on technologies acquired from the region, but wholly originated from Asia. For example, Blocko, which went through in 2015, has become the leading enterprise blockchain company in South Korea with over 90% marketshare. Their blockchain-as-a-service platform, Coinstack, has been implemented at Samsung, LG CNS, Hyundai and many other multi-billion corporations. For the Korea Exchange, they created a blockchain-based OTC trading market decreased transaction time from 2–3 days to 1 day. . our accelerator in Seoul This resulted in cost savings of $73 million this past year Enterprise IT is the new black… er, green. (image credit: BigStock) For one of South Korea’s largest credit card companies, Lotte Card, Blocko set up a blockchain-based biometric log-in and payment authorization system which decreased authentication time from 7–10 minutes to 2–3 minutes. This simple solution reduced Lotte Card’s annual security solution expenditures to 10% of their original operating costs while exponentially increasing its level of security. Another company in China, SunlightDB (a member of SparkLabs Beijing’s inaugural class this year), is trying to create a whole new database based on blockchain technology. They are building a database that is highly secure where information cannot be tampered with, but also completely open. Contrary to some misconceptions of blockchain technologies, their database queries have been at least 10x faster than traditional databases. Joining the blockchain Outside of Asia and the startup world, blockchain implementations are occurring throughout the globe. In Dubai, DNATA (Dubai National Air Transport Association), one of the world’s largest air service providers, is through blockchain technology. The potential cost-savings will be in the hundreds of millions. working with IBM to improve the cargo delivery processes Many U.S. corporations are piloting blockchain solutions, but I believe this coming year there will be a shift from U.S. companies dipping their toes into the water to more of them jumping into the decentralized waters of blockchain technology. 2018 will be a breakout year for enterprise startups and large companies (i.e. IBM, Accenture, Bank of America) playing in this space, and U.S. companies within the space might quickly catch up to the innovations occurring in Asia. The weakness of startups in Asia is the inability to become global companies and make a big impact beyond the region. You only have to look at the development of Tencent, Alibaba, Kakao, or Rakuten to question the viability of a true global player coming from Asia, but maybe this new generation of entrepreneurs in Asia will prove us wrong. Whether from Asia, Europe, or the U.S., this coming year could well pave the way for the beginnings of the first $100 billion blockchain company in the world. Bernard Moon is co-founder and partner at SparkLabs Group , a network of accelerators and venture capital funds. Our team of contributors for the Forbes Blog

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Bitcoins with minimal investments and faster ROI and what risks am I taking? Bitcoin prices has been sky rocketing and all the cryptocurrencies are following the lead. There are 2 ways to get bitcoins We buy and trade the bitcoin in the exchange like , Gemini etc Coinbase by mining the bitcoins. What is Bitcoin mining ? you can read . here I took the mining approach for getting bitcoins and I will tell you my story. I was showing lot of interest in mining bitcoins. I was trying to seek the machine to mine bitcoins. The most powerful machine on market today that can mine bitcoin is Antminer s9 with gives hashrate from 11.5TH/s — 14TH/s with the power consumption of 1127W — 1372W. This machine (Original Cost : $1415) is in high demand and almost sold out from manufacturer, every other shop you can possibly find and where ever it still available its madly priced ( $4800 — $6000) and the prices of these machines are going up as bitcoin prices are going up. Pros : Approximately it can make 0.8–1.1 BTC / Year ($16K — $18K) which is again based on the current difficulty of SHA 256 which is increasing as more coins are being mined. Cons: The cons of doing this you need atleast $6000 ready to start this kind of investment and you have to live with extreme noise and heat this machine is going to generate. I am a small investor and I don’t want to invest huge dollars and more importantly bear with the noise/heat and loose my sleep over it , So what to do now ?…… I looked upon is (which is something like AWS analogy to regular data center) which means some body else will mine for you and you buy the hash rate you wish to buy, which translates I don’t have to invest a whole lot and more importantly I don’t have to deal with the noise/heat. cloud mining Register | HashFlare is the one of the cloud miners who sell their has rate as a year contract sounded very interesting to me, you can buy as low 10GH/s to 50 TH/S which gives the flexibility on how much I need to invest. Hashflare I bought 4TH/S which costed me $600 for 1 year contract and here is the forecasted returns So according to this I will be making $357.91 per month for an investment of $600/Year. So I will get my ROI in 2 months based on the current rate of bitcoin as the payout are made in BTC daily and remaining 10 months of revenue is the profit which is promising for a small investor like me. That all sounds promising what are the cons here ?…. First of all you are leaning on someone external to mine coins whom are not aware of , is this trust worthy ? what this turns out to be a scam ? As coins get mined the SHA-256 puzzles are going to get harder either you need more power to solve and get less BTC as payout based on the hashrate you own. All the payouts are always made in BTC which means you are not going to see your USD until you transfer to your wallet and exchange them for BTC. If BTC prices falls all these calculations are up in the air. I didn’t mean to scare you but these are the facts and one must understand the risk involved in investing before getting into it. After a lot of deliberation I decided to go signup for and see how fruitful it is and this is what I did. Hashflare Hashflare account setup process : So if you would like to invest small amount like I did or even lesser/more depending on your investment plan on your mind and get a faster ROI, you may use . You can signup for an account by clicking this and you can signup with your info and buy the hashrate you wish to purchase. Please make sure you select SHA-256 to buy hashrates for mining bitcoins. Hashflare link Interestingly the most popular mining machine which is antminer s9 mentioned before. If you want to buy hash rate similar to that it will cost you $2250 as shown below. looking at first glance you may think this is cheap in real its not because its only leased to you for an year instead of you owning it. Once you have account setup First things first, goto Settings and enable 2 factor authentication and download “Authy” app on your phone so that no one else can access your account without the token on the app. Security : Once you hit proceed you can either buy hashrate by sending them BTC or by Credit card. I did it by using my credit card as I felt its safer but you can do it however you want , here is what you have to do to successfully buy with credit card. Credit Card Purchase Process : When you provide credit card info and attempt to checkout its obviously going to get denied as its a foreign transaction .once you receive your message on your phone from your credit card company that where you attempting to buy the charge just acknowledge and try again (i.e , goto buy the hashrate /SHA-256 and try again, ignore the message “Invaid purchase”) Once you do it for second time It will ask for a confirmation number to enter. to get the confimation number ,You need to open your credit card transaction from your credit card company and get it. It will be appended to charge as shown below. In my case the confirmation is 4176 as this is appended to actual charge. Once you provide the confirmation you should see the message on Dashboard on as “Purchase confirmed”. and then the hash rate you bought should show in the dashboard. Hashflare Maintenance Fee : In every mining there is a maintenance fee (electricity charges and other charges ) , charges $0.0035 per 10GH/S for 24 hrs. so in my case Hashflare 1 TH/s = 1000 GH/s . I bought 4TH/s which is 0.0035 * 100 * 4 = $1.40/per day which will be automatically debited from the amount you earned you don’t have to pay this separate. Payout was 0.00061632 and 0.000007854 is maintenance debited Hashflare Payout : The payout are not updated in realtime due to the load. only updates between 0.00 to 13:00 UTC and you can see this message on their dashboard. so wait for a day atleast to see your BTC amount going up until then it will show as “0” BTC. Hashflare Conclusion : I am venturing into cloud mining to see how fruitful it is ?. My readers wish me good luck. I understand the risk involved in what I did. Happy cloud mining !!! If you wish to invest you can use this link “ ” which gives me a referral. If you like this read leave me clap and share with your friends. 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How the hell do they not make a bigger deal of this? Web application bundling is a development practice that daunted me at first. As with a lot of there are many ways to do it, everyone has their opinions on which is best and sometimes the initial setting up is enough to put you off the entirely. JavaScript tool I’d say that most of my bundling experience has been with Webpack. Webpack’s a powerful tool and its configurability is in many ways its best feature, but learning how to create an appropriate configuration as well as more advanced goodies like really can be a bit to swallow at first. If you’re a TypeScript shill like I am you’ll also need to add something like and whilst it is actually awesome there's nothing awesome about extra effort in the setup stages of an application. “hot module loading” “awesome-typescript-loader”, I shouldn't complain though, these steps are all relatively basic and necessary for any web developer to learn and in defence of Webpack, you’ll end up getting your off your boss or ripping it out of a boilerplate that has been prepared by someone who is infinitely better versed in the technology (web development at its finest 🙌🙌🙌). webpack.config.js Enter Parcel… addresses a lot of the problems with the step into web bundling by providing a This definitely piqued my interests, and looking at the documentation on their site it did everything you needed it to do out of the box, or should I say out of the parcel. My one gripe with it, no TypeScript support. Or at least that’s what their documentation had me think, as after reading into it I could not see any mention of TypeScript in the assets section or even a .ts file in the pretty bundling animation they had on their home page. Parcel "blazing fast, zero configuration web application bundler”. Don't get me wrong I love the animation I’ll save you the long story of how I found samples and issues on GitHub; Parcel does support TypeScript and I’m happy to say it works exactly how you would expect it would. To get started with Parcel, install it globally with . That's it, they're not lying about that whole zero configuration thing. Make an index page and TypeScript file, referencing the TypeScript file in the index page (as a not a ). npm install -g parcel-bundler .ts .js To bundle your application, just run watch the pretty emoji slathered output crawl before your very eyes. parcel index.html With that simple command, you have a powerful bundling solution which hot reloads, transpiles, splits code, resolves modules and so much more without touching a single configuration file. If you are looking to dip your toes into web application bundling or are a seasoned web developer wanting to try something new seriously give Parcel a try. If you liked this little write up please give me a clap 👏 as it powers the ego which drives me to produce more content like this.

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In the previous two chapters we went through some of the basic paradigms in functional programming — pure functions and immutability. If you haven’t read them you can start from . here In this article we will expand our knowledge of functions and their properties by laying the foundations of how they can be used together to compose the logic of your program. The goal of functional programming is to build our programs using mainly small pure functions that can be assembled together as if you were combining small lego pieces. What is function composition? Function composition is the act of combining multiple functions together in order to create more complex logical flows. By using this technique we can avoid iterative code structures that reads like a stream of operations and instead abstract away the complexity of the process by combining the instructions into a single function Don’t be intimidated by the length of that last sentence. To put it simply — here we will start learning how to combine functions together. From what we learned in one of the previous articles — functions should be small, pure and generate no side-effects. A function which adheres to those conditions is a pure function and pure functions are quite easy to compose. The functions always return the same type and given the same arguments return the same value, which makes them predictable. And unlike movies, you want your functions to have a predictable outcome so you can easily use them in your codebase. The precondition that we need to have in mind is that when we compose functions each one should take the output from the previous. We can’t just take some functions, stick them together and expect them to work — their input and output . needs to match Congratulations, you have just had your first experience with function composition! You can imagine function composition like a combination of pipes. The execution starts from the first (the right-most one) and whatever it outputs will be passed on to the second. The second function then takes that, does something with it and passes it on to the next function and so on. Later in the article we will encounter another way to compose functions together, but for this particular example remember that execution starts from the inside out or from right to left — whichever is easier for you to remember Now let’s get back to the preconditions that we need to have in mind when using function composition. If you have a function that takes a number as an argument you can’t really compose it with one that returns a string. Well, technically you can but you won’t get the desired result. Another simple way to explain composition is that the result of consecutively calling the functions should be equal to the result of composing them together. By proving that both approaches have the same result we are sure that we have composed our functions properly and they don’t rely on any extra input. Also notice that we’re just passing the inner function as an argument, this would be a Higher Order Function. The innermost function is actually being called with its arguments. not Where is it applied? Whenever I am learning something new I like to consider where I could apply it and how it can be useful. I had a case recently in which an API expected to receive a JSON payload formatted in a specific way. One way to do this is to implement the formatting logic in the code itself but this is not something that you really want. No matter what service or app you are building you don’t want the insides of your app to depend on something external. So, I decided to implement an extra step before dispatching the payload to parse it and prepare it. The simplest approach here is to create a function that takes the object and returns a new one ready to be sent. parsePayload My worry was that the client API’s required format may change, so I decided to split up the operations in multiple small functions and be more flexible when it comes to modification in the future. Another big benefit of that is the clarity of the parsing process. Same syntax as before but split in new lines In this particular example we start from . Don’t forget that with this particular way of composing execution is always from the inside out. After we filter out the empty properties, we return the object to the function which will take this object and do what its name suggests. It returns the formatted object to which does some work on the keys and then it ends up being so it can be sent. filterEmpty formatValues mapKeys stringified If we were working with an array this could be achieved with the built in methods on the JavaScript Array object but this makes it clearer for future developers that inherit the codebase what exactly I was trying to do. A more mathematical explanation Even though I try not to give mathematical explanations, function composition is a concept that is easily described with a mathematics example. Imagine that you have some calculation and you want to multiply its result by — you would write this as . Here’s how we can easily implement this using function composition x + 3 10 (x + 3) * 10 Looks quite intuitive right? It can be read out loud and it will make perfect sense what you are trying to do — sum numbers and , then multiply by . This is the example that made function composition click for me and I believe it best illustrates how descriptive functional code can be. 3 5 10 Why is this a thing? The first time you read about this you probably ask yourself why is it necessary if you can use some sort of chaining. JavaScript has a lot of utility functions for its data types so it’s not hard to modify arrays or strings. For chaining to work, though, you need to be passing around the same object because you are not just calling a function, you are calling it on the object that is passed from the previous one. Therefore you need that object to include all the functions that you want to chain. In a case in which you want to filter and map an array, chaining is the better and more readable approach. But in a scenario in which you expect the data type to change or you are implementing a complex flow that can’t be supported with the built in methods, composition can still benefit you without sacrificing readability. Libraries There are many JS libraries built with functional programming in mind, but for this example we will be using Ramda. It is the perfect choice if you want to test the water and see how you will feel using a more functional approach to building your programs. For simplicity let’s use an example with a few computational operations. This example is pretty simple and it uses only three functions so it’s still understandable. However, if we need to compose five functions it will go out of control and become harder to read. We can always split the functions in different rows but we must be careful not to overdo it, especially when the count of the composed functions rises. To avoid unnecessary confusion we can use Ramda’s function. The benefit of using a library is that the syntax can be easily understood and looked up so colleagues that haven’t played around with functional programming can still understand what exactly is happening without relying on you directly. compose The first difference that you can see here is that inside the compose call we are not providing the arguments for the first function. In fact compose will return a new function which we can then call. Also, bear in mind that functions created with composed are executed last to first — meaning that will be ran first, followed by and then . If you want to have them run from first to last you can use the function that is provided by Ramda. The syntax is 100% the same with the difference being the order of execution. sum square addTen pipe Why is function composition important? Function composition is in the core of functional programming and will teach you the basics that you will need to create powerful functions and flows. What we’ve learned in this article barely scratches the surface of the topic but it serves the purpose of getting you more comfortable with manipulating functions What’s next? We covered the basics of function composition and you should probably feel comfortable composing your functions together either using Ramda or plain old JavaScript. This is the moment in which the salesman says “But wait, there’s more!”. And there sure is more — by combining what we’ve learned in this article witha couple of other functional programming concepts — and we can create incredibly powerful abstractions and unlock the true potential of functions. currying partial application , In the next article we will be looking into and what is so special about it! partial application _JavaScript is one of the most popular programming languages out there. It runs in the browser, on desktop, on mobile…_hackernoon.com Functional programming paradigms in modern JavaScript: Pure functions _This is the second chapter in a series of articles on practical Functional Programming paradigms. If you haven’t read…_hackernoon.com Functional programming paradigms in modern JavaScript: Immutability

Functional programming paradigms in modern JavaScript: Function Composition

How to Re-Invent Yourself in an Age of Continuous Uncertainty Fascination and fear, excitement and doubt. These are my feelings when I think about the future of work and the impact of technology on my job. But, I also continue to ask myself: Is the world as we know it changing? really There appears to be no single or straightforward answer. Sometimes I think it is just too early to tell. Others tell me it is better to embrace a “wait-and-see” attitude. We will only “know” the answer when technology becomes more mainstream and more data becomes available. Some claim that automation (and decentralization) is all hype, creating a bubble that will burst very soon. The “sceptics” often refer to the current pricing of crypto-currencies as a prime example. But, most of the time I believe that drastic change is coming. And many other people that I meet and talk to seem to share the same observation about how artificial intelligence, blockchain technology and data-analytics are transforming our jobs. They are genuine game-changers. How then should we prepare for a tech-driven and digital age? What can we do to “get ready” for an uncertain world in which “software is “eating the world” and “AI is going to eat software”? _Tech companies and investors have recently been piling money into artificial intelligence-and plenty has been trickling…_www.technologyreview.com Nvidia CEO: "Software is eating the world, but AI is going to eat software" What Worked for Me I have always been fascinated by technology and innovation. I have always been a “techno-optimist”. I’ve always believed that technology will solve most of the societal problems and improve our lives. And I always thought that I was up to speed with technological change. But, that all changed one year ago, during Christmas 2016. I love this time of the year, because it takes me out of that “business-as-usual” feeling. It gives me time to reflect on what has happened and what the plans are for the future. I know it is a cliché, but it really works for me. Last Christmas, I was reading about new technologies. In particular, recent developments in blockchain and smart contracts caught my attention. Surely, I had heard about it and knew that it was the technology underlying bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. What I hadn’t realized, however, is that the potential of blockchain technology was much bigger and went way beyond cryptocurrencies. I realized that there was much more going on, and that these technologies shouldn’t be looked at in isolation. Technologies accelerate each other and by working together could lead to mind-blowing applications. Particularly, the power of blockchain in combination with other technologies, such as artificial intelligence and sensors, interested and excited me. I discussed “my new discoveries” with my wife and felt that I had to be much better prepared in order not to fall behind in my work and teaching. I wanted to understand what was going on and what the impact of this technological revolution would be on our collective future. So, I started to buy some best-selling books on digital technologies in order to learn more and get prepared. But I soon realized that it wasn’t just about buying and reading books. If you want state-of-the-art information, “traditional” sources of knowledge aren’t sufficient anymore. So, here are the five steps that have worked for me in preparing for a new age of technology and continuous uncertainty. Here is my digital journey to prepare for the future of work. #1 — Learning I embraced an active self-directed learning strategy. I found articles and videos on online media. The range and depth of available material was genuinely mind-blowing. I have already mentioned in another story. I also started to see the power of new platforms, such as . Futurism Medium I was constantly consuming all of this information, but soon realized that I needed to do something more. Self-directed learning — by itself — was not going to be enough to really understand what is going on in the world today. #2 — Sharing I started to share this information with colleagues that had also become interested in the exponential growth of technology. We started to share ideas, came up with new potential applications and started to make predictions of how the on-going digital revolution would change the way we live, work and learn. We helped each other “curate” the best articles and videos. But we also realized that reading, sharing and discussing, however interesting, had its limits. More was needed. #3 — Creating In order to fully understand the impact of new technologies on our jobs, it helped me to document my experience and become more “creative”. I started writing about it (both academic articles and blogs) and teaching about it (creating content). Particularly important in this context were the “co-creation” efforts. Writing and teaching together proved to be very useful to fully understand the challenges and opportunities of our current digitizing world. #4 — Networking Writing and teaching also helped create a network and become part of various technology-oriented communities that I didn’t even know existed before. These networks were necessary to receive maximum input and feedback while being on the digital journey. This enabled me to learn much faster. The dialogue and interaction that emerged with people that you don’t know really added something to the experience and made me so much “smarter”. It didn’t matter whether people agreed or disagreed with my views. The dialogue and their input was of tremendous value in honing ideas and arguments. #5 — Experimenting Learning, sharing, creating and networking were all necessary steps in my attempts to become “future proof”. But the best thing that they did was to open the door for continued experimentation. Actively experimenting provided the opportunity to really engage with emerging technologies. Experimentation allowed me to identify problems, find solutions and reveal new opportunities. I have written about this before, in the context of . A process of continuous experimentation has worked for me. But, my colleagues have all had a similar experience. blockchain What is, of course, very interesting is that the experiments were then being used to kick-start a new cycle of learning, sharing, creating, networking and experimenting. A “Lifestyle” for a Digital Age So, how should we prepare for a tech-driven and digital age? How do we “future proof” ourselves for the workplace of tomorrow? Of course, you have to discover and embrace your own digital journey. You need to make the journey part of your life. You have to make it your life. But the five steps (learning, sharing, creating, networking and experimenting) are a good start for everyone to help change your lifestyle and prepare yourself for the new job opportunities of a digital age. And a final thought: What is also interesting is that this approach applies to business, as well as individuals. In order for a business to remain or become the creator of future jobs, it is necessary to constantly innovate and remain relevant in a digital age. And these five steps (“learning”, “sharing”, “co-creating”, “networking” and “experimenting”) provide a powerful template for discovering new and digital strategies to achieve this goal. 👏 Thank you for reading! Please click and hold the below, or leave a comment. There is a new story every week. So if you follow me you won’t miss my latest insights about how the digital age is changing the way we live and work.

NVIDIA

Technology Is Threatening Our Jobs

But you’ll probably die trying By all accounts, 2017 should have been a banner year for Looxie, my location-based photo request app. Two years ago, if you had told me that Looxie would be featured in the world’s biggest English-language newspaper and TechRadar’s 100 Best Apps of 2017 round-up as well as a lot of other places I would have laughed you out of the room. Had I believed you, though, I’d have painted a very different picture to the current one in my mind: I would imagine myself being one of those globetrotting entrepreneurs (i believe kids these days call them ) working on my laptop while sipping mai tais on a beach somewhere, preferably Bali. digital nomads In addition, my crippling stress-related Irritable Bowel Syndrome would be downgraded to a mere Couple-Of-Embarrassing-Farts-A-Day syndrome. And yet, here I am, an oral surgeon by day and aspiring tech visionary by night, still taking out wisdom teeth for a living and still a mere ten seconds from shitting my pants at any given time. Why I’m writing this If you’re a solo app developer like me, this has probably happened to you before: you opened a respected site’s “Best Apps of the Week” round-up and saw a list of apps. You thought “damn, son — these guys got it made. If only my app was included in a similar list. Then I could quit my day job and collect checks in my underwear”. OK, that was slightly hyperbolic but I always thought that inclusion in such lists was a gateway to hundreds of thousands of downloads and maybe an eventual offer for acquisition by Google. If that’s what you thought, you’re in for a rude awakening if your app ever gets included in this kind of round-up. Or not, because you read this article and (spoilers) you’re prepared to be underwhelmed. The Interwebs ft. Looxie I released Looxie in the summer of 2016. As you’re almost legally obligated to do after releasing an app, I posted about the release on my personal Facebook page, Hacker News, Reddit and various other outlets and forums. To cut a long story short, after all my posts, Looxie ended up being featured in PhoneArena AndroidWorld and a couple of other local outlets, both print and online LarnakaOnline AndroidWorld (again, these guys must love Looxie) InBusiness (sorry, no link!) Phandroid the Mobile Roar podcast ? these guys, I guess appszoom ZTE’s Croatian website (no, really) TechRadar’s Top 100 of 2017 the print edition of The Times of India Based on my previous experience releasing apps, this is not the typical online reaction to an app release. Things were looking good. The app must have at least a million downloads by now, right? Let me skip the thousand words and answer that question with a picture This picture is kind of misleading: the Play Store won’t show any download numbers between 1000 and 5000 downloads. Based on my latest Google Play developer console stats, the app has been downloaded about 4100 times so far. 4100 downloads. Yup. So, what’s the matter? What went wrong here? Honestly, nothing much. I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time and I attribute the lack of faster growth to a couple of reasons. Saturation With more than two million apps in the Play Store, you’d be lucky to have your app downloaded a hundred times, much less a thousand times. Everybody is vying for attention but there’s only so much of it to go around. Personally, I used to look forward to “best of the week” app lists. I would visit Android blogs, routinely downloading all (or most) of them and keeping the ones I thought would be useful. I no longer do that. Nowadays, on the rare occasion that I check out some round-ups, I end up downloading a couple of apps at most. do I mean, how many apps does anyone need? Plus, the novelty has worn off. I’ve always said that I don’t play the lottery and I don’t buy scratch tickets because I don’t want to rely on luck to . Instead, I want to because of my own hard work and dedication. make it make it I now find it extremely ironic that I thought making apps would be a way for me to do that, since the chance of actually earning a comfortable living by creating an app must be comparable to the chances of winning the lottery at this point. Android exclusivity No reason to hide it, I’m a huge Android fan. I never even tried developing for iOS since it’s a platform I don’t have much of an interest in. However, this is really detrimental to the chances of any app making it big. First of all, all those Silicon Valley types (VCs, journalists, bloggers etc) are primarily users of Apple devices. If your app is not on iOS, it may as well not exist. Not only that, but unfortunately you won’t find the sort of camaraderie that you find on Apple platforms between Android developers and Android users. A lot of Mac- or iOS-exclusive products proudly proclaim that they are Mac or iOS-only to the Apple tribe (check out and for two examples of products that giddily advertise the fact on their landing pages). It’s a badge of honor. Robofont Sketch If you try and advertise that your app is Android-only, the reaction you’ll get from most Android users (even hardcore ones) will be “yeah, so?”. And then you’ll get 1-star reviews in the Play Store because your photography app doesn’t show you how to do pilates or some shit. Bonus reason: Requiring registration And not only requiring registration, but demanding that the users do it by using their email instead of offering Facebook, Twitter or Google sign in/up. In hindsight, that was pretty idiotic of me (although, in my defense, I was just starting to learn Firebase, so that was the easiest way for me to implement a registration system). As stats go, how is this one? Out of the 4100 users that downloaded the app, only 2215 actually bothered to sign up so far. Registration is OK if it’s easy and convenient to do. Definitely not OK if the users have to jump through hoops — and make no mistake: nowadays, an email-based registration procedure is jumping through hoops. _I'm an Android developer and designer with a love for beautiful UIs!_www.buymeacoffee.com Buy Antonis Tsagaris a Coffee - BuyMeACoffee.com Endless bummer. Or not? Not really! This may be an end-of-year introspective post but creating Looxie has brought nothing but joy to my life. Looxie now has a bunch of dedicated, regular users sending real-time photos from around the world. Its real-time nature makes each picture a joy to receive, even to me. Nope, actually, to me: knowing that my app is being used around the world more than makes up for the Firebase fees and the time I put into developing it. especially right now And interestingly, I consider Looxie to be working at the scale it should be. If it ever got anything like millions of users, the Firebase fees would explode, rendering me unable to keep it running, since I haven’t received any funding. Firebase can scale just fine but my bank account cannot. And this is something that I never considered when I started working on Looxie. Words of wisdom? I’m not saying “don’t make an app”. I’m not even saying “don’t dare to dream”. Making something and seeing it work is an amazing feeling and it’s something I’ll keep doing myself, even if I know that the chances of making it big are slim to non-existent. I’m just saying that you should keep your expectations in check and (specifically for this article) if you see your app featured in Android or general tech blogs, don’t quit your day job. Yet.

Apple

BUNCH

Facebook

fees

Funding

Google

Phandroid

(Try to) Get rich quick by making an app!

This post will walk you through each step of creating interactive, real-time & dynamic dashboard to monitor your instances using , & . MySQL Telegraf InfluxDB Grafana Start by enabling the input plugin in : MySQL /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf Once Telegraf is up and running it’ll start collecting data and writing them to the InfluxDB database: Finally, point your browser to your , then login as the user. Choose ‘ ‘ from the menu. Then, click ‘ ‘ in the top bar. Grafana URL admin Data Sources Add new Fill in the configuration details for the data source: InfluxDB You can now import the file by opening the dashboard dropdown menu and click ‘ ‘ : dashboard.json Import Note: Check my for more interactive & beautiful dashboards. Github Grafana

MySQL Monitoring with Telegraf, InfluxDB & Grafana

Customer segmentation is a necessary part of the marketing strategy for any industry. Demographics like age, gender, and location provide easy wins for companies looking to personalize their marketing materials. In the next few years, the tools that we use for will give every company a greater understanding of every customer on an individual level. These tools will quickly become the norm for any digital business looking to improve their data analysis. segmentation Still, there are some common misunderstandings about the practice on the whole. Before diving in head-first, consider these five factors: Customer behavior is just as important as customer details Effective segmentation digs deeper. It utilizes customer behavior, not just your run-of-the-mill data. What actions are customers taking once they hit your website? Do their actions resemble those of other customers? Does there seem to be a trend? We do see segmentation by customer actions, but few brands dive into it as deeply as they should. Many companies sort customers based on who abandons their cart on e-commerce sites. In these cases, companies might offer a discount or reach out to ask if they had any questions about the product. But, what if you segmented that group even further? Further segments could include those for customers who have never entered their credit card, customers whose credit card has been denied, or customers who have never entered a single detail after adding a product to their cart. By tracking and sorting customers based on their behavior on your site, you can better inform your marketing materials and custom-craft your messages for each customer type. You can then design your landing pages to target specific customer types. Many landing page builders, such as , let you incorporate segmentation into your landing pages and other marketing materials. Unbounce Automation and machine learning are inherent parts of effective segmentation A big reason so few brands haven’t used segmentation to its full potential is because sorting through all that data can be tedious. It can take days to sift through data by hand and properly categorize each person to ensure your assessments are accurate. And accuracy is important here: you wouldn’t want to send out customer emails only to find that you have miscalculated or missed a data point. Automation and machine learning have re-shaped digital marketing and segmentation in particular. Tools like provide hyper-targeting that examines the customer journey and then automatically optimizes your marketing materials for specific customer types, helping you interact with customers on a more personal level. Optimove’s software Micro-segmentation builds relationships Customers love brands that understand them. That’s why it’s so important to speak to their pain points in every piece of marketing that we create. Customers want to know that companies understand their needs, pains, and desires. They also want to be assured that the product you offer will solve their relevant problems. Micro-segmentation is about sorting your customers into more specific categories. In typical segmentation, you might have customer segments based on who lives in Denver, who has a job title of Vice President, or who is above the age of 50. An example of a micro-segment would be a segment that includes all 3–50+ year old VPs who live in Denver. According to an , 78% of customers stated that they’re more likely to buy from a company that sends them more targeted offers. Building that initial trust is incredibly important — customers who have been buying from a company for 30 or more months than they did on their first purchase. Infosys survey spend 67% more per order Micro-segmentation gives you the opportunity to speak to their biggest concerns and win their trust by helping them to address them. Segment research should inform product development At its core, segmentation begins with learning more about your customers. The more you know about your customers, the more you can tailor your marketing to their unique problems, preferences, and desires. Startups often to find a market that needs solutions. But once a company is sufficiently settled within their market and earning a healthy profit, they often shift their focus to other areas of their business. pivot While no established business is going to do a full-fledged pivot in the same way that a startup would, many could benefit from more customer data involvement in product development. Segmentation data should go beyond marketing; it should also be used to inform product development. Great customer data is the most powerful tool that companies have available to them, but too many continue to operate based on perception rather than data-backed facts. Customer journeys and segments are not static Another big mistake that brands make when segmenting is that once a customer has been placed in a segment, their analysis stops there. These customers will forever remain in that segment — even if additional data is collected in the future. Customer segments can and should change over time. Today’s customers may be in a completely different place in life than they had been a year prior. Continually working to correctly categorize your customer types will make all aspects of your marketing more effective. Personalization is the future Deep segmentation of your audience gives you more opportunities for personalization. It allows you to gain a deeper analysis of each customer and their specific situation and to tailor your sales and marketing efforts specifically to them. While segmentation itself isn’t a new concept in digital marketing, the tools that we have available have allowed for micro-segmentation to become affordable for companies of all sizes.

The 5 Factors to Consider When Segmenting Your Customers

In this series I’ll validate a new idea. Read about the concept and the idea . here (Day 0) here (Day 1) I want to use this opportunity to ask you, my Medium readership, whether or not you are interested in actually using the product, by asking for some feedback. I know that if you are you’ll get your hands on the product in a couple of days anyway, but this is still a good opportunity to influence the product if you’re interested. The first version of the product will do just what the says it will. Not a single extra feature (Well, you’ll be able to save those lists …). landing page My question: What data do you want in those tables? I actually worked on getting that data today. I still have to test so much, wow. The plan for tomorrow Get familiar with shipping the tool, updates, … One more thing: I already have 100 emails. That’s the number of people who get early access. But if only a small portion of them actually gives me feedback, I’ll definitely take in some more … ← Day 24 — On Writing on Medium → Day 26 — It’s a lot of Work & It’s Fun

[Day 25] Zero to MVP in 30 Days — Do you Care About Finding Better Questions?

But people LOOOOOOOVE parallax sites… right? Everyone knows clean and simple doesn’t win you a Clio Award. *Satire* A new year is a great time to launch a new website. But with that comes many questions. What are the trends? What type of website can I build that’s so innovative, game-changing, and synergistic that people can’t help but wonder how they survived in life without my Jackson Pollock-inspired mishmash of website greatness? If you really want your website to stand out in 2018, here’s what you have to do. Pop-Ups Everywhere A great way to introduce people to your website is to ask them to sign up for your email list even though they haven’t even figured out whether they like what you’re selling yet. Just throw as many pop-ups as you can on there. In fact, you can throw one on top of another on top of another! Who cares if it’s a bad user experience? Some “growth hacker” you met at the New York Tech Meetup the other night assured you that these babies convert! And, if people don’t want to opt in to receive badly formatted emails from you once every six to eight months, make sure you leave a condescending opt-out option like, “No, I’m a loser that doesn’t want to improve my life” instead of a simple “No thanks.” Animations Galore What could be more fun than lots of animations on your site? Sure, it’ll fuck up the UX on non-standard screen sizes and cause visual distractions that pull your site viewers away from the content they really need to know. But you really, really must have animations on your site so people can tell you apart from all those companies that save animations for dumb and impractical uses like network television cartoons. For added standout effects, add sound effects reminiscent of the most most awkward corporate PowerPoint presentation you’ve ever seen. Or, just add music! I recommend the same song you had on your MySpace page back in 2005. And, if you really want to tell a compelling story, make sure it’s all parallax slide-in effects and requires about 5,000 scroll gestures before anyone can find what they need. 26,000 Nav Bar Items Why have a simple navigation structure when you could have drop downs upon drop-downs upon drop downs? Make sure you add every piece of content your company has ever produced to your drop down options. And make sure the drop downs all rely specifically on hover states that are impossible to navigate on mobile… that’s sure to catch someone’s attention! Hover States On Everything Speaking of hover states, don’t forget to put them on literally everything on your site. Who cares if they make for a shitty tablet experience? Put ’em on every image, every line of text… it doesn’t even matter whether the image is clickable! Hell, just make the page a giant hover state. It may not add much value to your site design, but you’ll inevitably be able to brag about how hard it was for your dev team to code all that insanity, not unlike that time you kept them working through the BlizzCon Livestream to fix your cousin’s chemtrail conspiracy WordPress site that got hacked. Optimize For Desktop You already know that amazing scroll bar you put on the front page is going to look like shit on mobile. But who cares? Optimize for desktop anyway. Who cares if 60% of all ecommerce web traffic on Black Friday came from mobile? Desktop is the way of the FUTURE! Make sure to create a crazy, elaborate site and to completely ignore the mobile experience. It’s not like anyone pays attention to mobile design anyway. Even if your mobile site isn’t even responsive, you’ll still be well on your way to winning design awards because design awards judges only want to see crazy interfaces and DGAF about whether the site is actually functional. Include Lots Of Advertising It doesn’t matter what kind of website you have — it could be a SaaS product, for all I care — just make sure it features clickbait from companies like Outbrain and Taboola that love to use sites like yours to advertise weight loss pills and male pattern baldness cures, and borderline revenge porn. In fact, if any company has ever considered paying you to run their ads on your site, make sure you let ’em all happen instead of trying to find a more viable revenue stream. For added umph, you can make sure to include autoplay web commercials that blast at top volume as users scroll through your site and mine Bitcoin in the web page background. Make Sure The Site Takes A Really, Really Long Time To Load The best things in life are worth waiting for, right? Just like it’s worth it to wait for your brand new animation-fueled, brightly-colored, hover state-endowed website! When designing your site, assume that everyone has the same top-level broadband that you do and that they can all download everything as fast as you can. And if they can’t? Well, think of it this way… that’s 20 more seconds they’ll spend on your site, so you can brag to your marketing manager about what a great job you’re doing keeping people on your site’s home page. If you notice a high bounce rate, you can just assume the user was some kind of idiot who wasn’t really interested in seeing your website anyway. Bury the Content Users Want This will ensure users spend an exorbitant amount of time on your website. Have so many options and accordion menus that they enter an endless rabbit hole of clicking through internal links and expanding nested sections as they try to find things that don’t actually even exist. Visitors might be stuck on your site forever! And who cares if they don’t convert or if they can only figure out how to leave your site after they throw their computers against the wall because they’re so frustrated by your black hole of a website? They should have clicked the right link in the first place! Don’t Make It ADA-Accessible That would take hours! Make sure your website stands out by using the time it would take to make the site ADA accessible and putting it into a funky new interaction design feature that turns your call to action buttons into pictures of Jim Carey in “The Mask” when you click it. That would be “Smokin’!” But really, how many people in the U.S. who use the internet actually have disabilities? Only like 18.7% of Americans. Screw ‘em! Spend No Time On Copy Great copy is a waste of time! Your users can figure out what your product does. Everyone knows what “A data science-backed algorithmic approach to neural network analysis for a winning blockchain platform” means and understands exactly how it applies to their needs. Instead of spending time on copy, spend more time designing layer upon layer of funky interfaces. In fact, if you just take the time to craft a comprehensive illustration of your data-backed algorithmic approach to neural network analysis on the blockchain, then everyone will understand how it works. exactly And there you have it! That’s how you build a website that stands out in 2018. Who needs something clean, sleek, simple, and to the point? Everyone knows clean and simple doesn’t win you a Clio Award! 😀😀 Did you enjoy this piece? Show me the love by clicking the clapping hands below. Your responses to my work encourage me to keep writing!

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10 Ways To Make Your Innovative, Game-Changing, Synergistic Website Stand Out In 2018

remix of art by: @artistchristian and @fluffywiggle Cover image remix by: @artistchristian and @fluffywiggle of https://kawaiicrypto.com/ Slothicorn is Creative Commons Cryptoart. Discord: Steemit: Twitter: discord.gg/GWQHDdR https://steemit.com/@slothicorn https://twitter.com/iamslothicorn Slothicorn represents a shift away from copyrights, and a shift towards a new decentralized “WE” economy (ummmm….Weconomy?). Slothicorn is part of the Open Source and Creative Commons movements. Slothicorn belongs to everyone and no one. As far as I can tell, Slothicorn emerged organically as an internet meme. I have yet to discover its original creator. Slothicorn focuses on the emerging art known as . This includes, but not limited to: cryptogames, art containing crypto paper wallets, art containing cryptographic puzzles, art containing cryptocurrency logos and themes, art that visualizes decentralization, blockchain tech, crypto vs. fiat, a cartoon of Jamie Dimon’s head exploding, you get the idea. Slothicorn may look cute, but its claws are symbolic of the memory of fraud that the bankers and predatory lenders committed during the recession of 2008. Slothicorn never forgot. cryptoart Here are some examples of cryptoart in case you’re not sure what this term means: From @rubenalexander: source: https://steemit.com/eos/@rubenalexander/eos-art-17-71-73-soda-birdhouse-pizza From @overkillcoin: Source: https://steemit.com/dtube/@overkillcoin/9wnv4kdg From @marty-arts’ recent entry into our official Create a Slothicorn contest: Source: https://steemit.com/slothicorn/@marty-arts/my-entry-for-slothicorn-art-contest-digital-painting-process rewards artists with the cryptocurrency, STEEM. This is perhaps the first time in history that artists who contribute to the commons can get paid for their efforts. The Creative Commons movement has, in the past been filled with people who volunteered their time and energy. Sustaining the Creative Commons movement was largely an unpaid martyrdom. There was no good mechanism in place that was able to reward artists monetarily for their time and creations. Slothicorn The blockchain has changed this. As our world and society becomes more widely tokenized, the need for copyrights goes away and I’ll explain why. Blockchain and cryptocurrency communities are able to properly align human behavior and economic incentives. Let’s take a deep dive into how Slothicorn operates on the Steem blockchain: I have been a very active and early adopter of the Steem blockchain. When I first entered , I was an impoverished creator/intellectual. I exemplified the type of individual. steemit.com idea rich, but cash poor I came into Steemit with nothing. Through my hard work and continuous creative efforts, I was rewarded with the cryptocurrency STEEM. I now have a stake in the platform and am interested in creating more value for . I’m interested in creating value because I want to increase the value of my own investment. Steem is a stake-weighted system called . Read my article about this system here: Planet Steem Delegated Proof of Stake https://hackernoon.com/explain-delegated-proof-of-stake-like-im-5-888b2a74897d is an example of how tokenized systems are creating the proper incentives for human beings. In decentralized systems like Steemit, the roles of contributors, shareholders, owners and consumers all get blurred into one person. Every individual in a tokenized community has the chance to become an owner, contributor, a shareholder and also a user. Only when you experience this holistic feeling will you fully understand that the centralized corporate model is completely broken because the incentives are misaligned. Planet Steem Consumers have different incentives than workers. Shareholders only care about profits. Workers could care less about large returns, but are really interested in finding meaning in their daily work life. Investors could care less about workers’ ability to find meaning in their work, and I would go so far as to say that investors don’t care if a robot or a human does the work. All they care about is getting a return on their investment. No one wants to be a slave and in decentralized, tokenized systems, we don’t need slavery anymore. This is not to say that everyone will be equal. A true meritocracy can emerge from these tokenized, decentralized communities though. And the best part of this is that it’s no longer just an idea. These communities are already fully functional. Utopian.io is one example, and the one I’m building, Slothicorn, is another. Artists are already being paid to make Creative Commons cryptoart. It’s happening……very slowly, very sloth-like. This information is being delivered to you not as some high and mighty philosophical diatribe. I am a living example of this new tokenized community and I am living it every day. The decentralized, token economy has transformed me from a miserable wage slave into an investor/contributor/user, all within the span of a year and a half. I have been thinking deeply about how I can best contribute to not only the Steem blockchain, but to the entire world. I founded because I saw a great need within the decentralized, blockchain world for a new culture of radical sharing and synthesizing. All the different blockchain and crypto projects are isolated due to them being decentralized. They seem to lack artists, too. I’ve been working for various crypto projects, and is built to meet the needs of artists who want to contribute to the emerging decentralized cryptoart movement. Slothicorn Slothicorn If Bitcoin is the real Occupy Wall Street, then a Creative Commons cryptoart revolution can help it gain mass appeal, and also help free the creative people of the world, too. I see the future being propagated by abundant “WE’s” instead of fearful “I’s”. This is the paradigm shift that the world needs more than ever. Artists and creative thinkers can become a force for good by adding to the shared economy and in the process, be monetarily rewarded for their contributions. Tokenized economies make this possible, for the first time in history. Kickstarter showed us that crowdsourcing works, and Steemit is like Kickstarter on steroids, because economic rewards are given out once a week, and are distributed via an algorithm instead of a centralized entity. Source: https://steemit.com/slothicorn/@ferjart/create-a-slothicorn-art-contest-own-illustration To launch the Slothicorn Creative Commons Cryptoart community, we are currently having a Create Your Own Slothicorn art competition. Deadline: December 23, 2017. First place wins a . (Kit contains one Ledger Nano S, one Yubikey and one USB Flash Drive.) Create your own Creative Commons Slothicorn and submit your entry on . Crypto Survival Kit steemit.com Are you a creative person or artist interested in disruption? Join us.Are you a programmer who believes in the mission of Slothicorn? Join us. If the Anonymous hacker collective had a sense of humor and a functioning way of creating wealth for artists, you’d get something along the lines of Slothicorn. Our discord channel has a chat room dedicated to CryptoKitties, too. Games and having fun are our weapons. We are now looking for programmers who want to become part of the core group in Slothicorn. Join us in our discord channel to meet the Slothicorn community and learn how to become a part of Creative Commons Cryptoart history: discord.gg/GWQHDdR Source: https://www.shelfies.com/collections/memes/products/sloth-jesus-sweater This avatar is not Creative Commons. It came from Shelfies. I’m in the process of drawing an avatar I actually like.

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Could Slothicorn Become The Ultimate Funding Solution For Creative Commons Crypto Artists?

We were about an hour into the board meeting and one of the board members looked right at me and asked me a question— I tried my best to focus and say something, but the lights in the room were getting unmanageably bright. My head was hurting uncontrollably. I felt very nauseous, so I excused myself and ran to the bathroom. I tried my best to throw up, but the more I would try, the more my head would hurt. Eventually I gave up, told the board and my coworkers that I had to go home. About 4 weeks before that incident, I had been taking about 2–3 Excedrins . My headaches were getting persistent and uncontrollable and only Excedrin (that had caffeine it) would help. In fact my doctor had even given me advice on how frequently I should take Excedrin. He had also told me that to get the pain reliever into my bloodstream sooner, I should take the Excedrin with a carbonated drink. I did all of that. The Excedrin would give me moderate relief but as soon as it wore off, I felt even sicker than before. Vicious cycle. a day The day after the board meeting, I was back at work and once again had another uncontrollable headache. This time the nausea got the better of me. In fact I was having trouble keeping food or drink down. So my wife rushed me to the ER, where they gave me pain relievers intravenously. I remember the ER doctor telling me, “ ” I went back to my primary care doctor, who referred me to a . And the diagnosis was, . I had also learned the very hard way about . have you gotten checked for migraines? neurologist migraines the long term side effects of using NSAIDs like Excedrin My neurologist very quickly got me started on a drug called . The recommended dose was 100mg. As someone who has stayed away from prescription drugs all my life, I decided to start with 50mg. I was also given — a migraine abortive. I was told Sumatriptan was a “ripcord”, in that, if I felt a migraine coming on, I should immediately take some Sumatriptan (100mg). Sumatriptan was a magical drug. It made my mouth super dry, but it helped me get numb to the pain. Topamax or Topiramate Sumatriptan About 6 weeks of staying on Topamax, I started noticing some interesting patterns that I had been warned off. I would try to communicate but on occasion, words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. The thoughts were crystal in my head, but I couldn’t speak. Regular foods started tasting bland and weird. In fact, most times I felt like my appetite wasn’t there. Within 6 months of using Topamax regularly, I lost about 20lbs (went from 150lbs to about 130lbs). No matter what I tried, I couldn’t gain weight. When I told my neurologist about this, he joked, “ ” On my request, my neurologist also started researching alternatives to typical prescription medications. So I also started taking Butterbur, Riboflavin, Feverfew and CoQ10. All in all, the Topamax (50mg) + Sumatriptan (50mg) combo was working. I became the guy that had Sumatriptan in his backpack, by the bedside and some at work. My migraines were down from 8–10 a week to about 3–4 a week. But the 3–4 a week were seriously debilitating. people would kill to have that sort of weight loss. In fact, I knowlayers and bankers who take Topamax just to keep their weight down. For about 4 years, I stayed on this combo. My neurologist never suggested anything to entirely eliminate the migraines per se — in his experience of having done this for 30 years, no one had entirely gotten rid of their migraines. Our thesis, however, was that the migraines were triggered by lack of sleep. So in addition to the pill cocktail, my neurologist also suggested Magnesium, . My migraines were particularly bad on flights — I couldn’t get through a 5 hour flight without at least 150mg–200mg of Sumatriptan. Which means I also chugged water constantly because of the dry mouth. Which also means I had to constantly go to the bathroom. Middle seats were the bane of my existence. which is known to aid with sleep The one other nasty side effect — I was constantly “crabby”. I wasn’t quite myself. I recall being obsessed and quickly getting upset over mundane things. I tried to work out, but my head would start pounding as soon as I tried anything that was remotely exertive. I couldn’t run or walk long distances. As someone who had spent their entire life playing basketball, my life had become very sedentary. People would constantly tell me that I had lost weight, and it wasn’t like a “ ”, it was a “ ”. hey, you are looking good wow, you look creepily thin After about 4 years of seeing the same neurologist, I decided to get a second opinion. In July 2017, I made an appointment at the UCSF headache center. I met a , and he assessed me very briefly. He asked me about my coffee drinking patterns. The coffee snob that I was, I told him about the delicious light roasts I had to have morning. About 1 cup a day — that’s all. But it had to be at least 1 a day. I had been drinking coffee for about 15 years. Dr. Levin interrupted me and said, “ ” I told him that I had tried that before and I would get serious withdrawal headaches — so he suggested I wean off coffee gradually. I was dubious, I couldn’t function without coffee and there was just no way I wasn’t going to do it. Dr. Morris Levin every I’ve heard enough. Stop the coffee immediately. That’s it. You don’t even need to schedule a follow up appointment. Good luck. I had been a long time follower of and I finally got a chance to listen to . These words stuck with me: Shane Parrish and the Farnam Street Blog this podcast with Naval really We also unconsciously pick up habits in the background and we keep them for decades. We may not realize that they’re bad for us until we’re ready to move on them. … What we do is we accumulate all these habits. We put them in the bundle of identity, ego, ourselves, and then we get attached to that. … It’s really important to be able to uncondition yourself, to be able to take your habits apart and say, “Oh, okay, that’s a habit that I probably picked up from when I was a toddler and I was trying to get my parents attention. Now I’ve just reinforced it and reinforced it and reinforced it and I call it a part of my identity. Is it serving me anymore? Is it making me happier? Is it making me healthier? Is it making me accomplish whatever I want to set out to accomplish right now?” … I did a lot of habit changes over the last few years. I’ve now got a daily workout that I do, which is a great habit. I cut down heavily on drinking. It’s not totally eliminated, but it’s mostly gone. I dropped caffeine. … You can untrain yourself. It’s just hard. It takes work. It takes effort. Usually the big habit changes comes when there’s strong desire-motivators attached to them. After my daughter’s 4th birthday, I had decided to make a concerted effort to get healthier, both physically and mentally. With that commitment to myself and my family, with Dr. Levin’s suggestion, and Naval’s take on habits, I decided to, gradually but surely, quit coffee. At this point, I was still getting about 3–4 migraines a week, but as I started going off of coffee, I noticed my frequency of migraines was declining. I used to get withdrawal headaches, but those were very different from the migraines, and very manageable. It took about 6 weeks to get off of coffee entirely. Finally in mid-September, I noticed my migraines had all but stopped. I was entirely off of any form of caffeine at this point. And coincidentally just around then my Topamax prescription had run out. I decided not to refill it. It turns out I was addicted to my . It has now been . I hesitated to write this post for the longest time — not only am I superstitious, but I have been very concerned that the migraines would recur. I have since taken 4 cross country flights without any Sumatriptan in the last 3 months — no migraines. More importantly, my taste buds are back. . I have been working out consistently about 4–5x/week now, and I get no migraines when I work out. The most interesting thing however was how I felt like my “peripheral vision” had returned. We live on top of a hill, and every weekday we drive down the hill to go to work. A month or so ago, I noticed the most amazing view from this hill. When I mentioned the view to my wife, she said, “ ” I was just noticing it! When previously I felt like I was struggling for words, I am also now able to listen, comprehend and respond more cogently. migraine trigger about 3 months that I have been entirely migraine free I have since gained about 11lbs yeah, you know we do this drive everyday. Are you just noticing it? My weight gain since going off of Topamax (via ) HealthMate And an interesting byproduct of the exercise, my had increased by ~50%: HDL via Forward I have read about the . But to me coffee is a dangerous addiction. Had it not been for Dr. Levin and , I would not have thought to challenge my coffee addiction. Fairly often I meet fellow migraine sufferers and we share stories. When I tell them that coffee was the cause of my migraines, they are usually in disbelief. Most commonly I hear, “ ”. Does it though? amazing benefits of coffee Naval Ravikant but the coffee usually makes me feel better Migraines are debilitating and extremely painful. If you are a migraine sufferer, I am so so sorry. There is no known cure for migraines, and there isn’t a consistent pattern for what triggers migraines. Naval’s advice was extremely poignant for me — so if you are a migraine sufferer, it might not hurt for you to revisit your habits. It has definitely changed my life for the better. PS: Please consult with your doctor or neurologist before making any changes to your diet.

I was addicted to my migraine trigger

All hell went loose when Google announced the and I was among the critics. PixelBook One thing the managed to do is to get more people to check out . That is probably part of Google’s goal for the device. PixelBook Chromebooks Coincidentally I was in the process of switching jobs and I was going to be without a laptop for about 2 weeks. I was looking at something that could fill the gap for that period and keep serving as a secondary laptop afterwards. What further lured me towards getting one is the Andriod apps support. Rather than thinking of a Chromebook as a web browser, I saw it as an Andriod tablet with full sized keyboard and desktop browser. I prefer browsing on desktops by far and I would rather use a native mobile app than a mobile site. I wanted a bit of a premium feel but not willing to spend $999 for something that is going to be an experiment. Most Chromebooks are cheap with plastic build, a huge downgrade for someone using MacBooks for couple of years now. After reading available reviews and watching the videos, I settled for the Asus C302. Like many other people, the choice was always between the Samsung Chromebook Plus/Pro and the Asus. I chose the Asus because my keyboard usage is quite heavy and would rather not compromise on the quality of the keyboard. The device and Chrome OS The device turned out to be what I saw in the reviews. It took me few days to be fond of it and kept wishing it could do more. It is so light and comfortable that regular laptops start to feel like a heavy burden. The Chrome OS may be limited but it is so smooth. There’s almost no lag except one is a very heavy user running many Chrome tabs alongside multiple android apps or game at once. It powers off or on in a few seconds and sleep or resume happens almost instantly. To top it all, OS updates downloads in background and also takes few seconds to apply. Android apps are hit and miss but they generally work. Asphalt 8 looks like a game designed for Chromebook, the keyboard works well for control. My PS4 gamepad also works via both USB and bluetooth for games that support such ( and ). Also, I was able to print via USB on an older HP printer. SBK16 Real Racing 3 Do not buy the “Chromebooks don’t work offline” argument. You only need internet to set it up the first time, Chromebooks are no different to Windows/macOS laptops when offline. And by the way, no one stays offline nowadays, irrespective of what type of device you are using. Reality After exploring Chrome OS to satisfaction, I went back to reality that I needed to write code. The option of using the Chromebook as thin client and ssh to a server for development is there but I prefer to have a local development setup. I started out with but soon realised it was not going to suffice and the only way out was to enable Developer Mode. I was reluctant due to the security cost and scary boot screen. Termux Termux would actually be enough for most people. It provides an access to popular development environments including Node and Go but a major limitation for me was the OS being a 32-bit Android. Development environment on Termux Developer Mode A bit of a background. I am the type of guy that toys with devices. e.g. I flashed custom ROM and voided warranty on my Galaxy S2 after unboxing it, I didn’t even see what the Samsung boot screen looks like. I’ve built Hackintosh and ran Linux on my Mac, and so on. So, not enabling Developer Mode on my Chromebook is actually a disservice to myself. I decided to enable Developer Mode and added Ubuntu with . Since I have a tmux and vim setup, I only needed the Linux capability without the desktop environment. crouton The only thing missing is Docker, the Chrome OS kernel does not support it. A workaround was to use , whose limitation on Chrome OS is host network requirement . And whenever there is a need to build docker images, I do that on cloud servers. rkt --net=host Ubuntu environment Why it works for me If the following does not apply to you, the Chromebook may not work for you as a development machine. No reliance on any Windows or macOS software. Willingness to enable Developer Mode and get full Linux capabilities. Use of CLI editor like Vim. VSCode, IntelliJ or other GUI editors are achievable but would require a desktop environment installation, which comes at the cost of performance. No reliance on building Docker images. Running an existing Docker image is possible with rkt. Zero need to edit heavy videos or play AAA games. Chrome OS wish list I primarily hope for two things to improve on Chrome OS. The use of key combinations instead of space bar to disable developer mode at boot. The space bar is too risky. If you by chance leave your Chromebook with someone else, you can be sure they would hit the spacebar if they happen to reboot it. Docker support in the kernel. That would be wonderland. Conclusion Chromebooks already work for 95% of computer users. Yes, 95% of computer users only use what the Chromebook offers. Web browsing, social media, videos, music and editing documents. And Android apps further enhances the tablet modes of the 2 in 1 Chromebooks. For the remaining 5% which is where programmers like me belong, the Chromebook is a very capable device if you have one with an Intel processor and you are bold enough to enable developer mode. You get a 64 bit Linux with the lightness of Chrome OS. Now if you put things in perspective for someone with a similar setup to mine, the PixelBook is not that bad for the price. A premium build quality, top of the line keyboard, high res screen, Linux environment. That is what you get with ThinkPads and they cost more than $999. Now I am looking forward to upcoming Chromebooks in 2018 and may upgrade if I find a worthy one. This is something I would never have imagined myself doing 4 months ago.

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The internet seconds that motion, and the “eyes” have it! The visual internet is worth a trillion (!!) pictures, from photos and videos, to emojis and memes. Pictures are mandatory and “a few sentences are enough to tell the truth.” [- quoted from Robert Sarah] But who says the internet tells the truth? The thing about the internet is that it tells everything, right or wrong, for good or ill; and not everything is carefully curated. Some people say the internet has evolved into an illustrated ® tale. Cf. Choose-Your-Own-Adventure The internet is written in a modern pictographic language, and it’s all hanging out. Some things cannot be unseen no matter how much you wish it could be. There’s also true beauty, poignant and wonderfully unforgettable. Pictures (barely can) hold our humanity, so maybe that is why we struggle so strongly with Completely Automated Public Turing tests to tell Computers and Humans Apart in our rage against bots. The internet can help you out if you are having trouble knowing if you are indeed human, or … have you been secretly replaced without your knowledge by a computer, alien, or possibly secret powers-that-be. Search online using this question, “How human am I?” and good luck! This infographic predicts an even more with growing video, virtual and augmented reality, and the new markets and commodification that go with with it. visual future

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How The Visual Internet Has Evolved

Cryptocurrency is . skyrocketing Bitcoin is approaching a record $20,000, and Ethereum and Litecoin are ballooning in price (or “mooning” in blockchain parlance). As these cryptocurrencies rise in popularity, we’ve seen incredible projects that leverage blockchain technology, including the popular social media site and , a peer-to-peer online marketplace. Steemit OpenBazaar Most recently, a website allowing users to trade and breed virtual cats, , has gone viral. While a simple and fun concept, these sites demonstrate the power, excitement, and promise of blockchain technology to radically change how we interact with the web. CryptoKitties Lunar: Virtual Moon Land Enter . has recently launched a site where users can buy and trade virtual plots of land on the moon. It’s cute and simple project, with a beautifully animated 3D moon. However, in the past few weeks, some asking prices for plots of moon have surpassed 15 ETH (that’s $10,000!) Lunar Lunar Most of the moon land is already claimed, including the landing sites of the Apollo missions (PSA: Sector 214 is the Apollo 11 moon landing location!). As of writing this article, there are 119 plots of land available for purchase. Lunar’s developer is also releasing a new feature for the holiday season: — perfect for astronomy-geeks or . buying “gift” plots of land for friends and family minimalists To buy the plots of land, you’ll need Metamask or a web3 compatible browser. Lunar’s UI for purchasing a virtual plot of land on the moon. Why This Matters Does buying these virtual plots of moon actually mean anything? Well, not quite. As the developer mentions, “the token should be considered a virtual trading card rather than a legally enforceable deed for lunar land.” So, why should you care about a virtual trading card for a moon plot? has actually made history as one of the first platforms to successfully prove the concept of non-fungible blockchain assets. In that manner, these collectibles have historic value, and are a cute way to celebrate both the blockchain’s potential and the mysterious charm of the moon. Lunar Furthermore, platforms like and have an important educational role. Lunar’s developer intends the platform to demonstrate how smart contracts could be used to manage real estate. While the moon may be an impractical example, think about how land deeds could be traded on an online marketplace with the ease of blockchain technology. There’s huge potential for entire industries like real estate to be radically changed, and is a user-friendly, fully-functioning example of this promise. Lunar CryptoKitties Lunar If you’re interested in learning more, you can visit or check out some of ’s blog posts: Lunar’s website Lunar The Only Token Going to the Moon Lunar Token: Post-Launch Update

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Virtual Moon Land — the Next CryptoKitties?

source: newsbtc.com The world has officially gone insane over and millions are rushing to buy it. There are a couple of things that need to be said, now more than ever. Let’s get straight to the point. Bitcoin 1. Take ownership of your Bitcoins Trust nobody. That is the name of the Bitcoin game. Bitcoin works because when it comes to keeping track of who has how many coins or who sent how many coins where, neither you or I have to trust each other, or trust a central entity. It also works because we don’t have to trust a central entity, like a bank, to hold our coins. Your coins are yours alone, provided you hold the private key to your Bitcoins. “Your keys, your Bitcoin. Not your keys, not your Bitcoin.” Time and time again, even the most tenured Bitcoin hodlers have ignored this adage and suffered the consequences. Unsurprisingly, the use of centralized exchanges that facilitate the sales of Bitcoin has coincided with Bitcoin’s growth and gone parabolic. With this rise in exchange usage, this message needs stressed upon now more than ever. The growth rate of one of world’s most popular Bitcoin exchange grows as Bitcoin’s does, source: Alistair Milne There’s no measuring just how many people using exchanges to buy Bitcoin are keeping their coins on these exchanges for extended periods of time, short of asking exchanges for the numbers themselves. But as long as that number keeps rising, a larger and larger target is painted on these services’ backs. The potential damage (or payday, depending on how you want to look at it) from a successful attack on any of the countless exchanges also rises accordingly. crypto For those who don’t know, leaving your coins on an exchange does not mean those coins are yours. You are simply trusting the exchange to release them to you at some point if you so request it. You have no idea of what level of security these exchanges deploy, nor should you trust any security they report to have. Your coins are stored in a trust-maximized and centralized entity, almost entirely defeating the purpose of using Bitcoin. If you’re not convinced that keeping your coins on an exchange is a massive problem, here are just a couple of horror stories to help you along. The timeline starts with Mt. Gox, the world’s most popular exchange at the time. In 2014, it was the target of one of the first major cryptocurrency heists — were stolen from Mt. Gox. Bitcoin’s price then proceeded to plummet in the following year as a result. 850,000 Bitcoins (over 4% of all Bitcoins that will exist) ever The fallout from Mt. Gox, signified by the drop in price of Bitcoin over the year This event first brought to attention the importance of holding your own private keys. However, . It seems lessons aren’t being learnt. there have been several hacks on centralized exchanges resulting in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars since The latest heist to come out was just two weeks ago. on December 6, 2017. Although not an exchange, NiceHash is a centralized entity all the same that users entrusted to hold their coins. This hack was on the smaller end of the spectrum, but as the latest in a string of countless hacks, it proves that there will be no end to attacks of this nature. If you’re a crypto trader that needs to keep coins in exchanges, know that this is a risk you must bare. NiceHash, a mining marketplace service, was robbed of over 4,700 BTC (worth $89 million at the time of writing) The new face of , following the loss of $8.9 million of its users nicehash.com Luckily, there’s a very easy fix to all of these problems: . In particular, ensure that the wallet you use generates a 12–24 word mnemonic seed that easily lets you back up and restore your wallet. Move your bitcoins to a wallet that you control the private keys to Short of you compromising your private key/seed by exposing it to malware or revealing it to a malicious actor, you can sleep well knowing your coins are safe. But there’s a caveat. It’s 2017 and Bitcoin has evolved, so you shouldn’t use just any wallet. 2. Use a SegWit wallet (and exchanges) If you didn’t know, Bitcoin’s growing. Its growing . Faster than almost anything we’ve seen. As a result, its network effect has hit a wall due to the existing transaction limit of approximately 7 transactions per second, or approximately 2,000 transactions per 10 minute block. Transaction fees have risen at a similarly insane amount, as more and more people are competing for their transactions to confirm. fast The average transaction fee at the moment is $26.52, source: bitinfocharts.com A preliminary fix to this problem was deployed six months ago called . SegWit is a fundamental protocol upgrade that decreases the virtual size of transactions and allows four times as many transactions to fit into a block. SegWit The full explanation of Bitcoin’s transaction throughput problem and SegWit’s technical functionality can be found in an in-depth article I’ve written about it . here Because transaction fees are measured on a per-byte basis and SegWit transactions have a lower virtual byte-size, if you send a SegWit transaction using a SegWit wallet right now, . you save 30%–40% on transaction fees instantly Still not convinced about the advantages of SegWit? If every transaction in the Bitcoin network was a SegWit transaction today, blocks would contain up to 8,000 transactions, and the would disappear instantly. Transaction fees would be almost non-existent once again. 138,000 unconfirmed transaction backlog Lower fees for you and more transactions in blocks . The code is sitting there on every upgraded Bitcoin node, waiting to be used. can happen right now The problem is that SegWit is not being adopted by wallets, services, and ultimately users. SegWit adoption is dropping, down to 10%, source: segwit.party SegWit is an optional protocol upgrade that Bitcoin wallets and services are not obliged to implement, despite the benefit it provides to the network. It was deployed in such a way to prevent a hard fork (i.e. a section of the community potentially branching off). As long as there is no demand from their customers, these services see no incentive to spend the time and money to upgrade to SegWit. It is in your absolute best interest, that you, Bitcoin hodler, . use a SegWit wallet Because SegWit is a relatively low-level change and there is some confusion surrounding it, it needs to be said that there are absolutely no disadvantages to using SegWit wallets, only significant network upside and lots of savings on transaction fees. If your favourite wallet has not yet implemented SegWit, kindly ask them to do so. Then, start using a wallet that has already implemented SegWit until favourite wallet does so. A great list of SegWit wallets can be found . I will quickly list a few of the most prominent ones for your convenience. If you know of any that aren’t mentioned, please comment below so I can add them to the list! here Hardware Wallets If you’re concerned about security, these should be at the top of your list Ledger Nano S TREZOR Digital Bitbox Desktop Wallets Electrum Armory iOS Wallets Edge (AirBitz rebranded) GreenAddress Android Wallets Samourai Wallet GreenBits Electrum If your preferred wallet isn’t on this list, make sure it uses SegWit. An easy way to identify a SegWit wallet (but not the only way) is to ensure receiving addresses start with a “bc1” . If your preferred wallet doesn’t use SegWit, it would be in your best interest to use one that does. Remember, you’re saving up to 40% on fees right away. By extension, you should also make an effort to use exchanges that incorporate SegWit. This means they use SegWit transactions to handle transaction volume on the exchange. Because exchanges conduct of transactions, any exchange that uses SegWit greatly benefits the network health of Bitcoin. a lot Thankfully, there are several exchanges that have incorporated SegWit, listed . It should be noted Coinbase, one of the largest Bitcoin exchanges, still has not yet implemented SegWit. If your favourite exchange isn’t using SegWit, do your part and contact them asking them to implement it. here By taking control of your Bitcoins, you mitigate the attack surface for any malicious actors in the cryptocurrency space. By using SegWit, you not only reduce the transaction fees you pay greatly, but you also help reduce network congestion. Bitcoin is what you make of it. This is your opportunity to truly drive positive change on the Bitcoin network. Follow me on Twitter and Medium if you’re interested in more in-depth and informative write-ups like these in the future! Be sure to 👏 if you learned something! Spread the word about SegWit wallets so we can all benefit from a healthier network ☺️

Techcrunch

Bitcoin owners, you need to do these two things right now

HackerNoon Tech Stories Archive December 17th, 2017

@shaanrayShaan Ray

@peterbrackPeter Brack

@david.gilbertsonDavid Gilbertson

@abarisserAndrew Barisser

@bernardBernard Moon

@bishr_tabbaaBishr Tabbaa

@arunkumar.nhArun

@GalarnykMichaelMichael Galarnyk

@pielegacyAlex Billson

@KondovAlexanderAlexander Kondov

@erikpmvermeulenErik P.M. Vermeulen

@sebastian212000Antonis Tsagaris

@mlabouardyMohamed Labouardy

@YoavVilnerYoav Vilner

@EmilBrucknerEmil Bruckner

@whitneymeersWhitney Meers

@crypto-stellaCrypto Stella

@aiAnand Iyer

@abiosoftAbiola Ibrahim

@brianwallaceBrian Wallace

@stervyStephen Cognetta

@stervyStephen Cognetta

@subhan_nadeemSubhan Nadeem

@shaanray
Shaan Ray

@peterbrack
Peter Brack

@david.gilbertson
David Gilbertson

@abarisser
Andrew Barisser

@bernard
Bernard Moon

@bishr_tabbaa
Bishr Tabbaa

@arunkumar.nh
Arun

@GalarnykMichael
Michael Galarnyk

@pielegacy
Alex Billson

@KondovAlexander
Alexander Kondov

@erikpmvermeulen
Erik P.M. Vermeulen

@sebastian212000
Antonis Tsagaris

@mlabouardy
Mohamed Labouardy

@YoavVilner
Yoav Vilner

@EmilBruckner
Emil Bruckner

@whitneymeers
Whitney Meers

@crypto-stella
Crypto Stella

@ai
Anand Iyer

@abiosoft
Abiola Ibrahim

@brianwallace
Brian Wallace

@stervy
Stephen Cognetta

@stervy
Stephen Cognetta

@subhan_nadeem
Subhan Nadeem