Episode 3 of , an interview with inventor and game creator Jai Hudes Crypto Disrupted Last week, and I interviewed Jai Hudes, creator of . In the interview we discuss everything from , cryptocurrencies, microcurrencies, blockchain, and the gamification of life, technology and social systems. Greg Kerr X the Game Holochain Watch or listen below.

Gamification of the Blockchain with Jai Hudes

Expensive lessons I’ve learned in the past year. I set off on my cryptocurrency journey halfway through 2017. I don’t talk about when I started very often because we’re in a age of weighing peoples worth in the amount of days they’ve spent peering over charts. Which is . ridiculous Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of s whom I tip my hat to — I wouldn’t have learned as much as I have this quickly, if it weren’t for the thought leaders in this community. O.G’ There is also a lot of negativity whenever someone who is , asks something that only someone who’s would ask. obviously new obviously new We should be the path for curious new investors, not them. lighting shaming I’m proud of the short length of time I’ve been involved in crypto. In less than a year, I’ve managed to see higher returns than any traditional investor could dream of. I’ve learned about , taught myself (with the help of a mentor), and even managed to work with a wide array of cryptocurrency and blockchain companies. new technology technical analysis The best part of it all is that I feel like I haven’t even scratched the surface. Because I don’t care how long anyone has been doing this. This industry is young enough, that a few years of experience doesn’t give anyone much of a head start. A few years of advantage can be outweighed by working harder, smarter, and bringing in more value to the community than others are willing to. I started investing less than a year ago and I will outwork . you “You think that your time spent trading crypto is your ally? You merely adopted crypto. I was born in the bear market, molded by it. I didn’t see green candles until I was already a man.” I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to pull this quote out. I was baptized in the Great Bear Market of 2017 ( ). I don’t think anyone has ever referred to it as that, but I’m going to roll with it The first time I bought a coin, I bought Ether (ETH), the coin that fuels the Ethereum Network, at its all time high on June 6th or 7th. It was right above $300 at the time. I had been studying Ethereum for weeks, reading all about , Bitcoin, and other blockchain projects. it I was convinced Ethereum was going to change the world — but I also knew from a brief stint day trading that one should never buy into the tail-end of a uptrend. “Don’t chase green candles”, I thought. Which is investor speak for “don’t buy an uptrend that’s already started as you never know when it will stop”. It’s a part of the mantra conveyed by the famous investing quote, “buy when there’s blood on the streets”. I waited patiently for the price of Ethereum to drop. Weeks passed and the price continued to rise. Soon it was over double where I had initially considered it for investment. I panicked. I bought the top. It lost over 50% of its value the next day. I was . rekt Too stubborn to realize the loss and cash out, I decided to spend the next several months studying everything I could get my hands on regarding , , and . Blockchain Technical Analysis (TA) Investment Strategy I started scalping Ethereum. Selling the highs and buying the lows, using what I was learning from studying TA. I obsessed over chart patterns, lagging indicators, leading indicators, Fibonacci, Elliot wave — I fell so deep into the matrix, I forgot I was even plugged in. Soon, despite Ethereum still being 50% of the value I had bought into, I was back at my breakeven investment. I had doubled the amount of Ethereum I initially owned. While I may have only been around for under a year — I like to think I was forced into the accelerated program — where I had to either learn fast, or lose everything. It wasn’t my initial strategy but circumstances forced me into it, and now I am glad. Most of what I’ve learned, the knowledge that allowed me to recoup those losses, has come as a result of the losses occurring in the first place. . It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are.” — Arthur Golden “Adversity is like a strong wind You’re not too late to get into cryptocurrency; this market is just getting started. Furthermore, you have a better chance of outworking and surpassing your peers in this market because it’s 24/7. I’m forever a student and while proud of my progress, in many ways I’m still a beginner. I take methodical notes on anything I’m studying, and if I really want to learn something — I publish it. I’ve found that the best way to force feed my brain subject-matter is to consume as much as possible and then distill it down to easily digestible bites. Digital hors d’oeuvres. This is not financial advice — merely a description of my journey and the locations of the pot holes I tripped over — in hopes that you can sidestep them. I won’t tell you what to buy and when, but I will tell you how to make those decisions yourself. 1 DON’T PANIC Shoutout to Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Whenever someone I know begins investing in cryptocurrency and asks me for help getting started, I know that I’m going to end up having to calm that person down whenever there is a dip in the market. Don’t Panic. The reason you got into this is the same reason you’re freaking out, crypto is extremely volatile. The same forces that allow us to see 1000x returns on our investments, can also create situations when you suddenly see 90% of your money disappear. A roller coaster goes both up and down at extreme speeds. Remember when I told you about ? I bought at the top of the roller coaster. I fell victim to rule #3 — the FOMO trade. how I got started investing Whenever you see an article claiming that this dip is the end for Bitcoin due to some country increasing regulations or something similar — remember that China has “banned” cryptocurrency three times or more. Believe it or not, Bitcoin and other coins are still standing. 2 YOU’RE NOT TOO LATE I hate when people talk about wanting to get into cryptocurrency but feeling like they’re, “too late”. Bitcoin does this thing called “correcting” every few months, when it tends to drop in price drastically to prepare for the next surge up — buy-in during any of these dips, and you’ll be fine. YOU’RE NOT TOO LATE. Buying during the dip in Bitcoin has been a winning investment strategy since 2009. Two thousand and nine! The funniest part about the fact that I constantly hear, “I’m too late to get in now”, is that people have been saying that same statement since Bitcoin hit $1. I shit you not. If you dig deep enough into the BitcoinTalk forums, you will find stories of people saying, “Oh it’s too late”, as early as 2014. Furthermore, everyone I know who is now in cryptocurrency, at some point had that same thought. “I’m too late”, Until they watched it gain another 100% and realized that this magic internet money doesn’t always make sense. Here’s a in Forbes from 2015 where the author outlines all the risks and dangers of investing in Bitcoin, at the time it was $400. link to an article 3 DON’T CHASE GREEN CANDLES (FOMO TRADING) I’ve written about this several times before and I’ll write about it again. trading is one of the more common (if not the most common) causes of traders and investors losing their shmeckles. FOMO We’ve all done it, I’m certainly not immune to FOMO. Every once in awhile, I still find myself inching closer and closer to that market buy when I see a coin exploding, before hitting one of my carefully thought out limit orders. It’s an hard impulse to resist. It’s a . disease Buy when there’s blood on the streets. You should approach crypto investments like you’re bargain hunting. Study a coin’s history; zoom out and look at its entire lifespan. Determine a good entry point and set your buys. I always try to buy into whatever coin I’m trying to load up on when the market is down. I’m a huge believer in both Neo and Ethereum (although they’re competitors), but I’ll never buy either of those unless they’ve had a series of successive down days and are showing signs of reversal. : I highly suggest starting with an extremely small investment. Before you start investing, you have a lot of studying to do. Bonus Before you begin studying, take a tiny amount of money and invest it into cryptocurrency- this will incentivize you to watch the charts more often, and get an idea of how volatile this market really is. 4 DON’T LISTEN TO TWITTER TRADERS (DYOR) There are some people on Twitter who bring serious value to investors by providing solid analysis and investment strategy. There are even more people on Twitter who are just looking to pump shitcoins after they’ve bought in, and dump after you pump their bag. A lot of these accounts will tweet out calls for coins that have already broken out into an uptrend — and then a few days later post results saying something to the tune of, . “My followers booked 583% Gain on BSCoin” They’ll rinse and repeat this process until they have an army of people whom now will pump whatever coin they Tweet — some use this power with responsibility, others go fall to the dark side. Pay attention, listen to others when you know they’re credible sources, but come to your own conclusion and do your own research (DYOR). 5 DON’T JOIN PUMP AND DUMP GROUPS Much like the several guys on Twitter who pump their bags by telling their followers to buy coins which they’ve already bought into, there are “pump and dump” telegram and discord groups that will promise huge gains. The problem with these is that there is always a loser, and 9 times out of 10, it’s you. In order to move up the ranks and get trading signals ahead of the pack, you need to invite more people to the group. The more people you invite, the sooner you get the trading signal. If you join a group that already has a large amount of members already, it’s going to be difficult to invite enough people to increase your “rank” enough to receive trading signals before the herd. If you join a group that doesn’t have a large amount of members already, and you invite as many people as you can to join in on this literal pyramid scheme — you’re a part of the problem. 6 DON’T BUY WHAT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND I wasn’t sure if I wanted to include this commandment or not. To be completely honest, there are some coins now that I invest in solely based on their chart. I could know absolutely nothing about a company — if I see enough positive buy signals and price history to back it up — I’m going in. I find that when I’m looking at coins for extremely short term trades (0–3 weeks), focusing on Technical Analysis over Fundamental Analysis brings me greater returns. That’s just me — I don’t suggest buying into coins you haven’t done research on, unless you’re also a TA geek like myself. For long term investments you absolutely need to DYOR. The biggest % gains I’ve ever had in crypto were my long term bags. Bags that I would’ve emptied to FOMO into other trades at the beginning of my dive into crypto — but I’ve learned from my mistakes. When I’m looking at a coin that I’m considering as a long term hold, I think of the worst case scenario. If crypto were to figuratively burn to the ground tomorrow, would this coin be one of the few that would survive the crash? I’m a bull when it comes to cryptocurrency as a whole, but I also believe that there is a shocking amount of money in this market with a very small amount of meaningful use cases that have been successfully executed. Blockchain technology has the potential to create serious impactful change in this world, but right now some of the largest examples of blockchain projects coming to fruition are and . TRXPuppies CryptoKitties With that being said, I foresee a reckoning in the future where the vast majority (99%) of cryptocurrencies fade out of existence, with the ones remaining being those that address serious widespread issues (or streamline existing processes), while capturing more market cap than their competitors. Operating under this assumption, means that most, if not all of the coins I trade on a short term basis, would not pass my screening for long term holds. For example, I don’t see Verge (XVG) passing the test of time — but I do see it going 2–3x in the near future, and I’ll hold it until it does or I’m proven wrong. On the other hand, ETH and NEO are competitors. They solve the same problems, are both serious coins with large market caps, and I hold both as long term investments. I’m not hedging against my bets by investing in competitors. It’s feasible to me that these two entities could co-exist in the future in a fashion similar to how Apple and Samsung coexist. I believe they both have too much funding, too much support, and too large of a community to fizzle out completely. 7 MONEY ON EXCHANGES DOESN’T BELONG TO YOU I know that everyone and their mother preaches about this on Reddit/Twitter, so I won’t spend too much time on this. It defeats the purpose of a decentralized currency — one in which you are in complete control, with no need for third parties to store or transfer your money — to trust a third party to store and transfer your money. There have been several times in the past when trusting third parties (exchanges, mining pools, even gambling sites) has resulted in the loss of a devastating amount of cryptocurrency. Read up on Mt.Gox, the first Bitcoin exchange ever to open its virtual doors. You’ll begin to understand that danger of unnecessarily trusting third parties in a trust-less system. So what do you do? Download the official wallets for your cryptocurrency holdings, and store them there. An alternative would be purchasing a Ledger Nano, or a Trezor — which are both hardware wallets similar in appearance to thumb drives. Ledger Nano S 8 DON’T MARGIN TRADE If you don’t know what margin trading is, just skip ahead. Don’t even look it up. It’s dangerous, and a very efficient way to lose your money fast. Margin trading is trading with leverage. Which means that I can put $100 into a margin account, and get 3x my trading balance in buying power. That also means that if I trade 3x my balance ($300), and my position goes -$100, I will lose everything I’m holding as collateral. I made more money in a short time frame than I’ve ever made in my life through margin trading. I also lost more money faster than I’ve ever lost it before in my life through margin trading. 9 IF YOU DO MARGIN TRADE, NEVER MARGIN TRADE WITH BITCOIN AS YOUR COLLATERAL I knew you wouldn’t listen to me. Since you still want to margin trade, at least heed these words of advice: Never use Bitcoin as collateral for your margin trading. Never put Bitcoin into your margin account, and open long or short positions with the buying power given to you by that Bitcoin. I can’t think of a better way to say it. Don’t do it. If you’re going to margin trade, leverage fiat.This is something that was told to me when I first started margin trading. I didn’t do it for a while, but after a God-like winning streak, I felt untouchable. For about 2 months, I didn’t place a losing margin trade. My account balance was exploding. I had been religiously removing my profits every week from my margin account to buy BTC and set aside as a long term hold. It was part of ; use margin trading to increase my holdings in coins I really believed in. my investment strategy One day, I saw an opportunity that I thought would make me rich. The market had just finished the bull run that took Bitcoin to $20,000. I had closed most of my margin positions and realized a solid profit from the run — at this point I was just sitting patiently with my entire margin balance available to me. I was waiting for the . dip I thought my salvation came when BTC dropped down to $10K and bounced back up to $13K. I was blinded by my winning streak. Confirmation bias is a bitch. I went all in on a few long positions. I hadn’t seen some of my favorite coins this low in months, it felt like the greatest flash sale of all time. The next day, the market dropped. I was completely maxed out on the leverage available to me, and the only funds I had available were the BTC profits I had been setting aside every week. I loaded them up into my margin account, and gave myself a lot more breathing room to avoid liquidation. If I had stopped there, I would have been fine. After transferring BTC into my margin account, I noticed that I had a lot more of a tradable balance from leveraging the BTC than I realized I’d have. Still feeling semi-God-like, I decided to double down on my positions. “ ”, I thought to myself. Nothing has changed…I still believe the market will correct within a couple days…I’m not going to have weak hands and realize the loss The next day, the market dropped. I freaked out for a couple more days until I woke up to being liquidated. Much of what I had made in my two month spree was gone. 10 DON’T TRADE/INVEST WITHOUT A STRATEGY My next piece is going to go in depth on creating your own investment strategy. You should not be investing without a strategy and goals. Your strategy will include the tactics you will use to reach your goals. For example: if my goal is to own X NEO, X ETH, X BTC, and X ETC by Q4 2018. My strategy will include all the methods I plan on using to add to those long term holds I have in my goal. Failure to plan is planning to fail — or so say the Boy Scouts. Determine your goals, and write them down by hand. Most of what I’ve learned has come as a result of the huge loss I took as soon as I began investing. If there’s only one thing you take away from this piece, I hope it’s this: Don’t panic, and don’t give up if your first investment doesn’t go well. Use it as an opportunity to reflect on what caused you to make the mistake — and seek education to pull yourself out of the hole. Adversity is like a strong wind, you can run away with it pushing you faster, or you can hold your ground, letting it tear from you all except what is absolutely necessary. If you liked this article, and would like to read more beginner guides, check out the links below: medium.com Beginners Guide to Investing in Cryptocurrency Before you start getting everything set up to actually purchase crypto you should do a little (okay a sh*t ton) of… 2 Things to Do While the Cryptocurrency Market Falls hackernoon.com Besides crying, screaming, and other self-destructive behavior.

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As told by the second youngest attendee of the 2017 Riot Games’ Hackathon It’s been almost three months since 50-ish other attendees from around the world and myself were selected to attend the Riot Games . I applied on a whim, thinking it would be cool to make something, like any other hackathon. Little did I know, this experience would become one of the highlights of my 2017 year. Hackathon I had never been to a local hackathon alone before, let alone one in Los Angeles. I went back and forth several times trying to decide whether to go, simulating worst case scenarios. What if I can’t find a team? What if I get lost in the airport? What if I can’t contribute to any projects? What if I can’t make friends with the other participants? I felt as though I had been thrust into my first hackathon again as my introverted tendencies took over my thoughts. Luckily, the community Discord was very welcoming. Despite this, it was difficult to initiate conversation with people I had never met before, and had been in the League of Legends developer community together for years. I had always been more of a casual player, preferring to stay within my group of friends and duo-queueing with people I knew in real life. Although I took interest in many projects, I still was unable to see how I could contribute, seeing that there were many other developers much more talented than myself. Crossing my fingers, I only prayed that I would meet people to work with at the event. Day 0: Arrival Fast forward to the night before my flight. I had gotten back from Pittsburgh a couple weeks before, and navigated San Francisco International Airport (SFO) for the first time on my own. I rushed to the airport following an academic test, and my stomach began to flutter as I embraced a combination of both excitement and nervousness. My mother followed me to my plane, and I gave her a last embrace before I boarded the plane. It was a quick 1-hour flight to LA, where I caught a couple zzz’s. As I stepped off the plane into LAX, I tried to find my glasses and froze. The realization that I had forgotten them at home suddenly struck home, and I began to panic. I had heard tales of LAX being notoriously difficult to navigate, but headed for the nearest readable sign, hoping that I was walking in the right direction. My face flushed red as I stepped onto an elevator, but nearly stepped off on the wrong floor. Feeling lost, I messaged the Discord, “Uh oh, I’m lost or something.” I was directed to look for a sign with my name on it, but I only saw my middle name. Being the extremely self-conscious person I am, I pranced back and forth before shuffling up to the limo driver and asking, “Is this for Emily Yu?” With that simple phrase, I overcame my first predicament and arrived at the hotel, Marriott Courtyard. Later that night, a group of us that had arrived a day early went out to explore the Pier and head out to get dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp. A group of us exploring the pier the day before the hackathon started Day 1: Team Formation and Hackathon Start My hackathon experience began with a bang, as prior to arriving I had anticipated the same experience as hotels in Asia, and realized the night before that I had forgotten many essentials. Among these items lay toothpaste, slippers, hair ties, and also pajamas (but I didn’t realize that toothpaste was provided from the front desk). As a result, I rose early, hoping to make a leisurely walk to the nearest Walgreens a mile or so away. This decision proved to be an unlucky one, as I was equipped with uncomfortable shoes and a terrible sense of directions. Even with the assistance of Google Maps I ended up walking in a circle for about twenty minutes, and to make it back in time for the shuttle to Riot HQ, I had to sprint without a hair tie. For those who do not have long hair, this is something unpleasant. Imagine sprinting in 80 degree heat, wearing excessive clothing and a couple necklaces or lanyards. Definitely not an ideal running environment, and to make things worse, I hadn’t run in ages! very After finally making it back with a burnt cheek and sore heels, I barely scrambled up to my hotel room and made it back down in time for the shuttle pickup. Throwback to my impromptu Walgreens run I had come into the hackathon with an idea that was frankly way out of my League — haha, get it? However, following the orientation event, I was left wandering around, realizing that most people had already found a team. After meandering around with one other person interested in my idea, we both decided to merge into another group, who happened to be the team that I would stick with for the rest of the event. As we gathered around a table, I stared in confusion as the team scribbled a plan down on the nearest piece of paper. With a very light understanding of what was going on, I volunteered to work on part of the backend, since I had spent a lot of time as a frontend developer in previous hackathons. Sorry if you’re reading this guys, I was confused for a pretty darn long time. I had come in with a light knowledge of JS, which happened to be what we built our project, League Voice, with. League Voice stemmed from the fact that beginner and low-elo players tend to lose track of stats and champion profile that makes gameplay much easier, such as spell cooldowns (for both themselves and opponents) as well as what other champions’ abilities are. We thought that a Google Voice assistant would be the best platform to make referencing information easy, since you would not need to tab out and interrupt your . game Because our team was so large, our main focus ended up being to cover the greatest amount of features possible — yet we still ended up running out of ideas closer to the end of the hackathon. The following are just a couple of the many that were implemented, so feel free to register your summoner at our and keep up with us at our and ! demo website Discord GitHub : “I’m playing mid. Who should I play?” Champion suggestions : “Give me an item suggestion.” Item suggestions : “Give me some advice.” Game advice : “Annie just flashed. When is Annie’s flash up?” Summoner Spell Cooldowns : “What is Annie’s passive?” Static Data : “Remind me not to pick into Annie” Write or Read Notes A demo of our project, League Voice. The team headed off to the cafeteria for lunch, and I headed for the salad bar, avoiding the long line for warm food. I had felt bloated before coming to the hackathon, so it was a win-win situation. As a result, I would spend the next three days eating variations of the same salad, and would come back with a new preferred diet. Every day around dinner, attendees headed over to Riot’s PC bang, which glowed red and purple as we gazed in excitement at the gaming cubicles that encompassed the room. Settling down, we hopped on Discord and played a couple games of League of Legends, where I marveled at the difference of playing using a Wacom tablet versus using a mouse (but that’s a story for another time). As we finished our session with a triumphant win, we headed back to the room and continued working on our project, and around 11:30 PM, a couple team members and I hopped on a bus and left for the hotel, anticipating the sleepless nights that lay ahead. The splendor of Riot HQ’s PC Bang in full view Day 2: Riot HQ Tour As the day went on, we spent our time making new functions and improving our project. We were given a tour of the facility in two groups, but photography was limited. The whole facility was amazingly designed, soI highly encourage taking a visit. There were many little intricacies that were implemented into the building structure that embodied the employees’ passion for League of Legends. LCS Studio and Bilgewater Bar Thresh and the Pocket Picks Studio Lucian, Annie (and Tibbers), and Ziggs By the end of the day, I had finished up a couple more features, and spent my time trying to correlate game time versus win rate, but unfortunately struggled to implement it. I headed back to the hotel late at night, thinking that my room would be an ideal working environment, but ended up falling asleep a couple hours before the shuttle back. Day 3: Demo Day As the code freeze deadline approached, excitement and tension filled the air. Our projects were demoed in an exposition-type presentation, and checked out everyone’s projects. Chan and Jake demo League Voice for Querjin Runeterra: The Election Using their combined cinematic and art skills, they made a game that would determine what region of Runeterra you would be associated with the closest, based on your summoner profile. Parallel Convergence: GitHub While watching games, people will often offer advice on how they could improve. Parallel Convergence allows real-time annotation on game replays, allowing professional coaches to instruct players with ease. Lobby Links When inviting friends to play a game of League, it’s sometimes difficult to know if a 5-man stack is already full, oftentimes leading to summoners logging in just to find that they cannot play. Lobby Links keeps an updated party count and allows players to invite others through a Discord invite link, allowing players to easily invite their friends to play. Couch Potato Many people enjoy watching esports together, which for the most part, happens over Discord or Skype. They shifted the experience to virtual reality, allowing players to watch esports together in a virtual environment while being given a virtual representation of the current game stats. Liam demonstrates how his team’s project Couch Potato works to a Rioter Combo Practicer Summoners often go into a custom game just to practice cs mechanics or figure out how to play a new champion. This plugin allows a players to practice their combos on an actual target, recording the levels of damage, tracking the timing of combos, and giving prompts for different ways to do so. Alexa Helper Application This application was similar to our own, League Voice. It gave insights on player ability and helped a player improve their play. Blitzcrank Coach Summoners often compare themselves to the pros while trying to figure out how to improve. This web application picks out a summoner’s weak points and gives advice on how to improve. Build Sharer Application A more personalized alternative for Mobafire or Probuilds, this web application allows you to generate your own hot links for created builds and skill sequences, allowing players to easily share information regarding their playstyle. Shopkeeper: GitHub This virtual reality game helped improve player’s knowledge of champion builds by giving a time limit on incoming “customers” who desired items. Kevin demos Shopkeeper, equipped with a full virtual reality headset I couldn’t find all the projects on GitHub, but I’ve linked a couple of them! If I forgot a project, messed up the name, or you would like to give a more thorough description, drop me a note and I’ll correct my mistakes. Also, shoutout to new project, DeepLeague! Farza’s DeepLeague — leveraging computer vision and deep learning on the League of Legends mini map + a dataset of over 100,000 labeled images to further A.I research within esports. You can check out his project’s GitHub out and read more about it ! here here Following the event, despite our exhaustion, we head over to the PC bang again to wind down and relax. As we left Riot, I was hit with a wave of both sadness and sleepiness, but our group decided it would be fun to explore Santa Monica more before we left. Through sneaking into a jacuzzi to playing Ghost (a mafia-like word game), exploring a bookstore, and raiding YogurtLand, we enjoyed our last moments before heading off to bed for home. Reflection As I arrived home, I was in the reflection phase already, and was recalling my experiences and telling my family how glad I was that I decided to go, and basically everything that happened. Throwback to this beautiful sunset view from the Pier I had never had that much self-reliance or self-rule. In other hackathons, when I went with my super dependable friends, I always fall back on them if I became scared or uncomfortable, so I always had a lot of fun and never experienced a push on my self-imposed boundaries. However, I always felt like I was missing something; I rarely met new people and mostly stayed close to the people I knew. That gap was filled when I experienced a of new experiences this time around, mostly because of my lack of self-dependency. ton Speaking up for yourself can save hours of time. As I mentioned earlier, I spent some time trying to figure out what I was supposed to be doing, trying to mask my confusion and appear how I wanted to portray myself. However, if I had instead asked more questions during the planning phase, I would not have had to spend that first couple hours being confused about how we were to integrate the Firebase functions with Google Voice, nor would I have had to think doubt my competence during the hackathon. People aren’t scary, and there’s no reason to be scared of approaching people. For the most part, a lot of people probably felt the same way as I did, probably sharing some of the same introverted tendencies that gave them similar experiences as myself. By no means does this represent the majority of hackathon attendees, but it is still makes up a prevalent personality type that cannot be ignored. After the first night of socializing, I unintentionally closed off, spending most of my time with my hackathon group. However, a lot of new people arrived the morning after, and because I made my run to Walgreens I did not have time to spend the time and meet the new arrivals. As a result, during the exposition, I spent most of the time wandering around and checking out others’ projects without ever have really formally introduced myself. However, I found that our post-hackathon group gave me a way to meet the rest of the developers, and so it all turned out well. In a different perspective, as a fellow hackathon organizer, I think that Riot’s Hackathon was splendidly put together. and the rest of the crew did a great job making sure that we always knew what was going on, even when I gave my false alarm of being lost. It is, of course, a given that a company hackathon would be different from a school or university hackathon, since there are likely very different requirements to fulfill, in regards to food catering and funding. Regardless, the whole event progressed very smoothly, with little to no hiccups during the event. Gene All the attendees and the organizing crew gathered together for a post-hackathon group photo. In the end, attending Riot’s hackathon was both a truly mentally and intellectually rewarding experience, and came out knowing people from all over the world: Germany, the United Kingdom, and even Japan. I hope that in the future, we can all reunite in the future and build more amazing projects at Riot Games again. If you enjoyed hearing about my hackathon experience, please leave a 👏 and go play some League of Legends!

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My First Experience Attending a Hackathon Alone at Riot Games

Source: TuringFinance Bitcoins, Bees and the power of Emmergent Trustless Behavior Web3.0 is upon us. The world as we know it is changing, or at least that is what everyone says. People get pumped up about this, that, decentralized, tokenized everything… blockchain Bitcoin But in-between all the excitement, an important question arises. What is a blockchain? You cannot be everything for everyone — the wants and desires are to diverse to co-exist ( ). as we have seen recently with the Bitcoin Core vs Bitcoin Cash debate But even these seemingly divided sides had two very similar visions of the Bitcoin blockchain, both very financially focused. What happens when you separate the economics from the underlying functionality though? Peeling back our all-important question, what is blockchain, makes the situation more (not less) confusing. Everyone has their own views. Few if any completely agree. But there are themes: trustless, transparent, decentralized, censorship-resistant and programmable are the most common adjectives I have heard used. I think these give clues to the nature of blockchains, but are also all subject to personal views — each weighing these different attributes differently. Today there are many types of tokens. These can be loosely categorized into one of the following: cryptocurrencies, protocols, identity coins, privacy coins, stable coins, app/utility tokens and of course securities (which no one in the industry wishes to discuss). While every category and coin has its own specific use cases, they boil down to one core tenet: trustless trust Blockchains create trust in an inherently untrustworthy world, allowing for exchange, governance, access and more without need for centralized overseers. The beauty of chaos I lived in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam for nearly a year. The city is raw chaos. As of Jan 2016, there were 7.4M motorbikes in the city of just 7.98M people. That is close to 93%. And Ho Chi Minh’s streets have no rules. The only rule is survival and to look out for yourself first and foremost. And while most drive on the right side of the road most of the time, during rush hour, at traffic lights and while experiencing torrential downpour, all bets are off. Despite the craziness though, something magical happens. It all just works. Likes bees in a beehive, those two driving principles: “I am the most important person here” and “I must not die” are enough to make traffic flow in a pretty smooth manner. People fly along the sidewalks, the wrong sides of the street and in-between oncoming traffic but by following those base rules (which every other driver on the road is also focused on), leads to a relatively streamlined transit system (especially considering the poverty). Bees and Bitcoins Researchers have been studying swarms for years, working to understand how beehives and ant colonies achieve such high levels of efficiency and the answer is in the goals. By simply optimizing for a specific goal, like not dying on a motorbike or helping the colony survive, large masses of seemingly unconnected creates can create something bigger than the sum of their parts. This is the vision for blockchain. By aligning incentives across a wide range of humanity, networks evolve and adapt in unpredictable yet incredibly efficient manners. I personally have seen very little exploring the concept of swarm-mechanics applied to blockchain based protocols/economies, but would be very interested to get researchers to study emergent behaviors crypto protocols and incentive structures which evolve organically. Distributed Autonomous Organizations DAOs are playing (and will play) an increasingly important role in development and furthering blockchain technologies. And although we are off to a rocky start where the DAO is concerned, open-source projects often outperform their centralized counterparts. Look at Wikipedia. No one organization could ever have compiled such an exhaustive database of information on seemingly everything. It came down to community motivation and organization to create the “information archive” of the world. The most successful/interesting example of a DAO-like structure would be an ant colony. There are few (if any) more resourceful, organized and efficient creatures than ants. How else could a group of 5–15mm (up to 30mm) creatures build colonies 38.5x taller/larger than the Eygptian pyramids (by proportional body size)? (2–3mm) built an empire spanning 6000km (actual kilometers!!!) from Northern Italy to the Atlantic coast of span — all without internet, and moving at ~0.1 mph. And this species of Argentine ant How do they do it? The answer is, it is complicated. But I know what you are thinking, how could ant colonies be a DAO if there is a queen? It is a common misconception that ants have a “ruler” or leader. The queen is only the reproductive engine, not responsible or in charge of anything else. For a detailed understanding of ant colony dynamics, . see this post The gist is, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, ants can communicate (via chemicals) and also change roles as situations demand and the entire organization is fault tolerant — meaning anyone can die without interuption to the system — there is no trust, there is no reliance, everything is self-propagating. Can we get to this point with DAOs? Ant swarm behavior — Simple explanation: Simple modeled demonstration: Detailed TED Talk: Driving force To achieve optimum results, we need to understand intrinsic motivations and build our systems to both align with and take advantage of these. Blockchain projects that succeed here will ultimately survive, thrive and “reproduce.” I realize this is related to crypto-economics however belief the behavioral aspects of biological systems could provide interesting frameworks for someone like the Ethereum Foundation to get behind. Closing thoughts This article is incredibly incomplete, I need YOUR help to flush out the finer workings of the system. While experienced with growth hacking, network effects and tangentially with token incentive structures, understanding the underlying systems from a biological perspective is beyond me. The goal of this article is to spark a discussion. Please invite any: swarm/herd researchers, AI neural net folks, economists and behavioral psychologists you know to participate in the comments below. Evolution is the process of millions of years of testing. If nature can share secrets to decentralized governance and blockchain basics, it would be foolish to turn a blind eye. Thanks guys. Hope this can create a conversation that can contribute to the bigger picture. Learned something? Click the 👏 to say “thanks!” and help others find this article. Hold down the clap button if you liked the content! It helps me gain exposure . Clap 50 times!

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Better Blockchains Built by Nature

, and are the 3 main components of any DialogFlow agent Intents contexts entities DialogFlow was founded back in 2010 and got acquired by Google in 2016. The beauty of DialogFlow, is that we can use it to build an agent and then integrate it with voice or text across multiple services. Services like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, etc… Supported integrations 1. Intents An intent represents a mapping between what a user says and what action our app need to take. Usually we would have more than one intent in an agent. Think of this as a decision tree and we need to map a user's phrase to a specific outcome/response. There is also this concept of a , in case the agent did not know how to respond to something. fallback intent 2. Contexts Contexts guide the conversation because they tell us what we know at any given point. Let us imagine a conversation flow like: Search for jobs in Wellington Order by date them The second conversation item (intent), can have an input context (like search criteria). We can also ask the user to provide the missing input context to be able to correctly trigger the intent. 3. Entities They are the values in user says like location, date, etc… DialogFlow has some pre-defined entities like address, city, etc…, these are called system entities. There are also the entities we define in our agent, which are called developer entities. Finally, we would most probably also need a that goes with our agent. Which we could either implement and host it on our own or use Firebase Cloud Functions (just like Amazon Lambdas) for that. backend Final thoughts Back in the early days of personal computers, users had to interact with the console. A black screen with few to no options to choose from. Then came visual interfaces. It became more obvious what a piece of software “can do”. Now we are moving to a sort of ambiguous form of interacting with our machines again, using voice. It is ambiguous because we cannot just speak naturally with it and it can be tricky to figure out what it is capable of doing. yet If you enjoyed reading this story, please and share it to help others find it! You can also follow me to get notified when I publish a new story. 👏 on Twitter

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The 3 main components of a DialogFlow agent

Correlation is not causality Moderation is not morality Certification is not ability Mobilization is not mobility Educated is not all-knowing Constipated is not at all flowing Darting is not bowling R.R. Martin is not J.K. Rowling A free lunch cannot be supersized The revolution will not be centralized Grown ups might not be adults All nations might not be cults Lawyers are not under oaths The emperor has no clothes Counterfeiting is not a crime is more sublime Quantitative easing Caracas is not Mogadishu Block size is not the issue A free lunch cannot be overpriced The revolution will not be centralized Your opinion is not science Being a minion is not defiance Having anti-virus is not being immune The Pirate Party can’t win too soon On the news is not a fact You can choose to not react Stevie Wonder is not Steve Wozniak Choose the shortcut and not the cul de sac A free lunch might make you realize The revolution will not be centralized

Bitcoin

A Bit of poetry

Adaptive CMS is a new CMS structure that different from traditional CMS and headless CMS. . It builds data interfaces to connect to single or multiple data sources. The biggest different about Adaptive CMS is that it decouples both view and data layer CMS trends Recently the main trend of swift from traditional to Headless CMS because it , which enables developers to connect CMS data to web, mobile apps and even IoT, moreover, it provide composite API and CMS structure that developers can design it’s CMS and specification in the same time. CMS decouples it’s view to APIs API What’s different in Adaptive CMS? Adaptive CMS move a step further, it’s a CMS framework that provides different adapters to connect to different backend services such as Firebase, Parse and GraphCool. This allow developers to choose where they want to put their data without binding it’s data source to a single data source. Advantages of Adaptive CMS: CMS doesn’t own your data, you can host it on your backend services. Own your data: Support main backend services, you don’t need to learn another API. Easy to learn: : You could host on both public and private clouds in a single CMS. Hybrid CMS solution Why now? The raise of backend services As backend services user base grow rapidly, and these backend services do terrific jobs on dealing with web and mobile apps backend features such as push notifications, authentication, storage, crash report, cloud functions, etc … . With Adaptive CMS, we could leverage it’s platform and build CMS fast and scalable. There are millions of developers using those backend services already. If you build a CMS that adapts to those platforms, developers don’t need to learn new APIs, they can pick up easily. Try Adaptive CMS? https://www.canner.io/ What do you think? Is Adaptive CMS the future? Love to hear your ideas!

Different

What is Adaptive CMS?

MIMIR has had an exciting week. We released the rust user client andrust validator client on github. We also built a faucet for theRopsten Testnet that will automatically fund any validator client thatis downloaded and executed. We are now ready for the world to playwith the MIMIR to Bridge. This released version isa limited subset of the final implementation, that includes thefollowing RPC methods: eth_estimateGas, eth_call, eth_gasPrice,eth_getTransactionCount, and eth_submitRawTransaction. Blockchain Internet This API is still undergoing large changes but we hope to have the API stabilized in the coming days. The system should be ready for simplistic Dapps in the coming week. We are through the worst of the waterfall, and we areswitching to a continuous integration flow that will allow rapidimprovements. If you want to play with the system, please download andhack away. If you want any specific features added first, let us know! Now that there is something for alpha testers to play with, be sure to sign up to become a tester, if you haven’t already. You can sign up . Our rocket.chat community continues to grow. Whether you’re already a tester or plan on becoming one, join our community . If you need help going through the system, or find a bug, you can chat with our developers as well as other testers. here here Don’t forget, our CEO Nicolas Fierro and CTO Hunter Prendergast will both be presenting at the February 16–18 in Dallas, Texas. If you are planning on attending, reach out to us. It would be great to meet in person. Bitcoin, Ethereum & Blockchain SuperConference From all of us at MIMIR, thank you to our testers and those who are planning on signing up. DISCLAIMER: The content provided on this site is opinion and commentary on topics related to the blockchain universe. IT IS NOT INTENDED TO BE NOR SHOULD IT BE RELIED ON BY YOU FOR ANY REASON AND IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITH NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND. You are responsible for your own decisions and for properly analyzing and verifying any content.

MIMIR Blockchain Solutions Weekly Development Update (Jan 26)

After graduating from U.S. Naval Academy in 1981, Captain David Marquet spent a year studying — every pipe, switch, filter, etc. It was the submarine he was supposed to be in charge of. As a prospective commander, he realized that he wanted to be the person with more knowledge about the submarine than anybody else onboard. Though, he was later put in charge of —which was then ranked last in retention and operational standing. His rigor to learn helped him quickly catch-up with the new submarine. Along with his unique style of leadership, he and his crew went on to become the highest ranked crew in U.S Naval history. USS Olympia USS Santa Fe intent-based Mediocrity kills software. Being a developer not just requires a considerable amount of technical skills, but also be exceptionally good at some of them. Great applications are built using great code. You can’t impress your customers with the applications that perform poorly even though your ideas are extraordinary. To deliver applications that excel, you need people who excel at writing those applications, people who their craft. There’s one thing that’s common with all high-performing athletes — they are extremely good at doing ONE thing. They constantly learn, practice until they reach the level of being a master in their respective fields. master Software Development on other hand is a different ball game. There is a multitude of technologies, languages, libraries, frameworks that developers can learn and be good at. It is imperative to know and even be good at many technologies, but it is quintessential to be the master of at least ONE! Let’s take Web Development for example. As a developer and technologist, it is essential to stay informed so that you can apply the knowledge when providing solutions and use the right set of technologies. But it is extremely hard to master all the libraries and frameworks that pop on the internet every day. It is simply not easy to catch-up. However, you gotta focus on one thing that matters the most to you and the market — let’s say React.js. As a lead developer, your responsibility is to steer your project towards success and help your associates get up to speed with the technologies being used in your platform and help them understand it’s architecture. And to be able to do that you will have to master your craft. If you lead a group of front-end developers and use React.js (or any other framework or library) to build your applications in your current or upcoming project, your focus should be to master the craft and be the most knowledgeable person to stay ahead in the game. Invest time in reading, learning, coding and experimenting with it’s features, dig deep into the working principle of it’s architecture and understand it’s use cases. With our fast-paced agile nature of development, it is not easy as it sounds. However, your ability to churn, hone new skills and master newer technologies as the market demands will be higher provided you possess strong foundational knowledge of technologies such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript. primary Mildred Katz and Joseph Henry “Teaching is a lifelong art, that … involves continuous learning not just for the student but for the teacher as well.” — The process of mastering the craft is agnostic of technologies being used. Constant learning and helping people succeed are two major traits of an effective leader. When you master your craft through rigorous learning regime, you not just contribute to the success of your project, but also help others gain knowledge and produce more masters who eventually go on to lead other projects. Reference(s) and Recommended read(s): — L. David Marquet “Turn The Ship Around” is a series that focuses on understanding the nitty-gritty of leadership skills required as a technologist to bring a team of developers together and deliver quality results. It is an attempt to generate more leaders who boost productivity in their teams that helps accelerate the innovation of newer products and services. Developer’s Guide to Being a Better Leader Other articles in this series: _Things aren’t always as smooth as we expect. There are times we undergo pressure to meet a deadline or fixing a…_hackernoon.com Developer’s Guide to Being a Better Leader — Cultivate a Sense of Hope If you like this article, please share, follow and write your feedbacks and comments below.

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Developer’s Guide to Being a Better Leader — Master your Craft

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: BILL OXFORD/ISTOCK Recently Microsoft announced another one of its garage projects. This time it was , which takes a drawing on a piece of paper and translates it into code. Sounds magical … so easy. Someone draws an interface on a napkin and … BAM … we got ourselves a working and useful app. One can only wish it was that easy. Ink to Code I do empathize with the attempt to solve this problem. Democratizing the craft of application development and enabling anyone to solve their own digital challenges is . This approach, although a valid attempt in the spirit of experimentation and exploration, is just too flawed. inspiring There are 3 serious flaws to the approach itself to generate applications, right off the bat. Flaw #1: Drawings do not capture intent sufficiently Having a set of boxes drawn on a piece of paper with some handwritten labels is far from disclosing what the use case behind it is. By analyzing the drawing, it can be derived a box is a card, or a table, or some control like a toggle or button. But what is it supposed to do? Where does the data come from? We can imagine there might be an IDE (development environment, such as Visual Studio or OutSystems Service Studio) that would pick up the drawing and turn it into something more useful. But it is arguable that it would produce anything value, like what what you get from a modern IDE, (UI) away. Microsoft drag and dropping the User Interface . So, if a drawing is not enough and a developer would be required to turn the drawing into an useful app, it is arguable if there’s any real advantage in starting from a napkin, for other reason than inspiration. A person who draws is not a programmer Flaw #2: Drawings would require some sense of application UI design For applications to be easy to use, they need to be supported in known patterns. Presuming an useful app would be the aim, either the person drawing would need a sense of these patterns or the algorithm would be able to, not only to interpret, but to translate weird boxes into valid patterns that users would be able to use. That’s a stretch. Presuming the use of modern IDE, some sort of toolbox with templates and patterns would be available for browsing and configuration, removing the onus and correct pattern selection effort from the “developer”, thus dramatically increasing the chance of building a reasonable easy to use app. design . The distance that most often will exist from boxes in a napkin to the respective valid interface one could use, will either need a huge jump or need some design directions from the start, to direct the drawing. A person who draws is not a designer Flaw #3: Drawings are valid for the User Interface but not much else People are used to application interfaces. Many would be able to sketch some boxes inspired by previously seen UI patterns. But few are accustomed to modeling business logic or data models. An application without business logic or some structuring of data will not amount to much that can make a difference. It will be a toy app, at most. A much better approach will be to map some sort of business intent (in written or verbal form) to a specific design pattern with the associated business logic. It will be easier, because by understanding the actual use case and it can map it to usual solutions. These are the problems that machine learning can actually solve. . There already for someone who can model business logic than drawing in pieces of paper. A person who draws is not a business developer better tools The Major Approach Flaw The major, and most fundamental, flaw is forcing someone to develop an application without any help. It’s completely free form. And that does not help the person drawing or the machine that will have to make something out of the drawing. Recent progress can lead us to believe that artificial intelligence will solve it all. But there are too many jumps here and it just looks like a flawed approach. The way to reduce the development time of apps will most certainly be to get closer to natural interfaces, making use of artificial intelligence to connect the dots. But this direction does not look like something worth pursuing. Keep trying, Microsoft.

Garage

Microsoft

3 Serious Flaws to Microsoft’s ‘Ink to Code’ Approach

Some part of me did regret for not investing in cryptocurrencies. But then I realised trading is not my thing. I want to do things where I have an advantage. I had invested in learning blockchain for the past few months. Now, I see opportunities that are no so obvious but rewarding. Since the field is emerging, only a few people understand blockchain to a deeper level. A majority understand it to the surface level. Some just heard about it and has no clue what it is. You can benefit a lot if you can gain deeper understanding of the technology. course on edX by the Linux Foundation is a good one. is a recommended read. Once you have good understanding of the fundamentals you can teach others, bring in your own ideas or even launch them. Here are some opportunities you can benefit from. Blockchain For Business Blockchain Revolution Writing Stories Credits : xkcd There are a lot of articles with jargons about Blockchain, but stories are less. There is a good audience who is looking for simplified explanations. Since it’s an emerging market a lot of ideas are still to be imagined. You can write about Blockchain by thinking about its use cases in different industries. Eg. How will Blockchain impact the health industry? or the education industry? You can also write by combining ideas from different fields. is a great book that can help you explain topics simply in an understandable way. Made to Stick _The ultimate 3500-word guide in plain English to understand Blockchain._hackernoon.com WTF is The Blockchain? _It wasn’t too long ago that Silicon Valley scoffed at cryptocurrencies. All over coffee shops in Mountain View and…_hackernoon.com We already know blockchain’s killer apps Teaching with a Heart Credits : xkcd I explored a lot of Blockchain courses in Udemy, Blockgeeks, etc. Some of these courses are good. But, there is a room for improvement. It can be made much simpler, interesting and engaging. I recently came across . It teaches you to write a smart contract by building a game. It was on top of . There is a good demand for such courses. CryptoZombies HackerNews CryptoZombies _The fastest way to learn how Blockchains work is to build one_hackernoon.com Learn Blockchains by Building One _According to Wikipedia, a blockchain is:_medium.freecodecamp.org How does blockchain really work? I built an app to show you. Validating Ideas Credits : xkcd You have a startup idea. You know it works when you put it out on the market with a basic version of the product (MVP). Only when people pay you money you can be sure. Typically starting to accept payments can be difficult. You need to register a company, complete the legal process, etc. Cryptocurrencies help you prevent such hassles. You can create a wallet, set up the API and start accepting payments in no time. Starting up Credits : xkcd It’s difficult for non-techies to use blockchain themselves. Startups like are addressing this market. There are potential in ideas which can help non-techies take advantage of Blockchain solutions like generating a smart contract, managing ICO funding, etc. I was exploring ICO turnkey solutions, most of them are expensive. You have to raise a seed round to afford such solutions. An affordable solution is definitely a need. Coinbase TravelChain Decentralised data exchange for the Travel Industry Creating Open Source Blockchain Projects Credits : xkcd In the age of the internet, creating communities have become easy. When Vitalik Buterin’s ideas on Bitcoin was rejected, he started the Ethereum project with people who shared his ideas. If you don’t have ideas, I suggest going through the open source Blockchain based projects such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc. Think of ways it can be improved, or combine its ideas with a different domain. Ethereum ICO feature is a combination of decentralised payment system + crowdfunding. _ico-wizard - Create ERC20 token and crowdsale campaigns (ICO) on Ethereum networks using open source Wizard. No coding…_github.com poanetwork/ico-wizard Contributing to Open Source Blockchain Projects Credits : xkcd A senior employee from the Linux Foundation addressed the problem that they need more contributors on their project. It’s rewarding to contribute to open source projects because it reflects your skill set. Employers value such open source contributions. If I want to hire someone, the first thing I do is to search for their Github profile and check for contributions. Hyperledger _GitHub is where people build software. More than 27 million people use GitHub to discover, fork, and contribute to over…_github.com Hyperledger Project Starting a Non-Profit Credits : xkcd The biggest problem the Blockchain solves is that it eliminates the middleman. Producers get reasonable revenue for the work. In India middleman has exploited the agriculture industry. Non-Profits are trying to use the Blockchain to connect consumers and farmers directly on the Blockchain. Find an industry you are familiar which is exploited by a middleman. Experiment ways you can use Blockchain to eliminate them. There you go, you have an idea for a non-profit. Ethereum is one of the biggest social enterprises on the Blockchain. They have created a platform which can benefit programmers, entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs, miners, etc. Investors can fund the Non-Profits with the help of a smart-contract. This means if only certain milestones are achieved the funding will be released. This will make Non-Profits more responsible for the work they do. Blockchain also increases transparency to the system. You can find out who exactly benefits from your donation on the Blockchain. _Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any…_ethereum.org Ethereum Project Raising Funds Credits : xkcd It has been never easier to raise investments for your idea. The biggest problem ICOs solved is anyone anywhere could be an investor. You don’t have to go through the tedious process or generate a certain amount of revenue to be eligible. Scamsters has taken advantage of these. In the future probably there would be some mechanism to prevent fraud. If you have an idea. investment wouldn’t be your biggest hurdle. You just need to convey the idea to the right people to help you raise investments. Entrepreneurs usually have these skills in their blood. Emerging market brings in a lot of opportunities. So does the Blockchain market. Investing money is not the only thing that can be rewarding. Investing in reading, writing, programming, teaching and developing ideas on Blockchain can be more rewarding. If you can invest in these hidden opportunities when the massive adoption of Blockchain occurs, you will become thought leaders. 👏 😬 . Claps Please I will write 5 kickass stories for you in the coming days. Please help me reach my goal by . Suggest me your story topics . buying me some coffees here You can also donate cryptocurrencies. BTC 1NywHKugDFsM5kmxnkKmwe5zRE6Es9JbPg BCH 16jU3FswL23sYFtyKbEh7gfUdXzJRFzYfx ETH 0x847376BC3e7459B4324df33bc17b2335Aa14AF05 Thank you for coming all the way here. Follow us, and me ( ) for more stories. I am writing a book about Blockchain. If you wish to get the pre-release version . I also recommend one book with every story I write. For this story, it’s ). HackerNoon Febin John James sign up here Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World. Reading is invaluable. (If you don’t have time for reading please checkout Mentorbox

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Hidden Opportunities for You on the Blockchain

can often feel riddled with opaqueness, and seems to hold the throne as one the most illiquid asset classes available to investors. However, the proliferation of token sales has brought about an interesting discussion regarding the possible effects on the traditional VC model, which has essentially remained untouched since its inception. Venture capital Hence, it would be interesting to lay out a balanced overview of the benefits and drawbacks of tokenizing a VC fund, considered mainly from the perspective of LPs and fund managers. A small number of funds have already turned to crypto tokens as a means of alleviating some of the shortcomings of an otherwise dynamic and exciting practice. Most recently, the 22nd batch from 500 Startups announced the independently operated , which will offer access to a portfolio of 30 highly vetted startups, through the purchase of a single token. 22X Fund Historically, the typical with common provisions against transference of LP interests. This means capital can be locked up for the entire life of a fund. The issuance of an equity based security token could provide a degree of liquidity, and thereby . fund lifecycle is around 10 years attract more investors to a fund Additionally, the current regulatory environment may allow for greater inclusivity by allowing a new demographic of investors to gain exposure to the asset class, drawing on (e.g SeedInvest) and publicly listed funds (e.g Social Capital, Draper Esprit). the same principle as crowdfunding sites However, crowdfunding sites have proved rather disappointing in terms of dealflow, while IPO-ing a fund is often highly capital intensive. This means money could currently be left on the table by denying some investors participation in funds with access to top tier . startups Despite the possible benefits of tokenization, many firms may shy away due to the backlash over phony token projects and overall volatility of crypto markets in the past year. Categories across 2017’s cluster of ICOs, showing 277 fundraisings for investment purposes. Source: ICOBench.com I do believe this is a real cause for skepticism and would even argue that some “pump and dump” ICOs have hijacked the functional progress of tokens, so far. However, a number of platforms have been introduced recently, which focus on security and regulatory compliance (for example, and ). This could provide assurance to firms willing to be the forerunners. Bancor tZero It may be argued that allowing liquidity can also be disadvantageous, as there will be a lack of insulation against external market forces that can require an LP to cash out early. This is an important function of existing PE / VC models, which could be lost through the introduction of full liquidity. The nature of this asset class requires fund managers to have the ability to operate with a high degree of autonomy from their investors. There are some sound arguments for why . In fact, the current regulations for tokens, or the lack thereof, may allow firms to lessen some of the potential bureaucracies prescribed in traditional models. This may be entirely dependant on the structural issuance of the token, and to what extent it would be backed by equity in the portfolio companies. liquidity may not necessarily affect fund autonomy the way one might assume Nevertheless, tokens and crypto markets are still a nascent field, and implementing this technology as a new VC model can prove risky in the face of a highly volatile market. Applying unconventional wisdom, however, is in the essence of venture capital itself. The potential implications of tokenizing a VC fund, for better or worse, will warrant close attention from all stakeholders in 2018.

What are the benefits and drawbacks of a tokenized fund?

Open Source Your Technology The success of a company is not entirely attributed to the performance of the founder, but the value creation for the user. One of the best ways to create value for the user is to treat them as co-developers, finding bugs and testing code. Allowing users to participate in value creation forms a defensible moat around your business making it impenetrable for competitors to break through. In many cases, these network effects lead to new market creation and are driven by open-source technology. , coined in the ’90s to evolve the field of computing, denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open-source technology is often developed and distributed in a collaborative public manner. Corporations such as IBM, Oracle and Google have contributed to the adoption of open-source software, resulting in savings of to consumers. Sharing also allows for feedback and the opportunity to see problems or opportunities that you couldn’t otherwise find on your own. Open-source technology billions per year One of the best leaders to utilize open-source technology is Elon Musk. In 2014, Musk, Tesla Inc. CEO, decided to open the electric car company’s technology to the public. He removed all patents, , for the advancement of electric vehicle technology. Musk stated in a company : in the spirit of the open source movement press release “Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal. Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.” — Elon Musk Musk worked hard to obtain patents for IP protection from big car companies only to soon realize that patents stifled progress. Musk believed that Tesla, other companies making electric cars and the world would all benefit from a common, rapidly-evolving technology platform: “Technology leadership is not defined by patents, which history has repeatedly shown to be small protection indeed against a determined competitor, but rather by the ability of a company to attract and motivate the world’s most talented engineers. We believe that applying the open source philosophy to our patents will strengthen rather than diminish Tesla’s position in this regard.” — Elon Musk Musk has taken the same position with , a high-speed rail technology that he invented_._ Musk open-sourced the technology to the public and encouraged anyone to build on top of the software. The company currently provides these services to innovators, governments and universities across the world interested in high-speed transportation technology and solutions. has even invested in advancing the technology. Hyperloop Richard Branson’s Virgin Group In 2013, Elon Musk publishes the Hyperloop Alpha white paper and shares it with the world. Musk knows that leading-edge technology takes a long time to develop, gain regulatory approval and turn a profit — and the pace of innovation will accelerate with the more users involved in value creation. In Musk’s case, open-sourcing technology has been the answer. Some times, the fastest way to create a market is by attracting co-developers into the process. Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this article, please click and hold the 👏 to say “thanks!” and help others find this article.

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Tesla

How Elon Musk Creates New Markets Faster Than Anyone Else

My bunny food dispenser This article is part of a serie about how to spy your pet with Raspberry Pi, don’t miss the first steps ! where I describe how to set up a Raspberry Pi and a camera stream server! Spy your pet with a Raspberry Pi Camera Server where you will learn how to configure everything for remote control. How to access your Raspberry Pi Camera from anywhere On the previous articles, we learned how to build a Camera server and access it from anywhere. But having a camera is quite basic stuff nowadays right ? How cool would it be to trigger a food dispenser for your companion at home ! Required material Let’s sum up the required materials that you’ll have to buy. A Raspberry Pi and a configured Wifi Dongle A food dispenser of course. It has been quite a challenge to find one in France. I recommend getting a small one with hard plastic blades. Don’t forget that you’ll have to strongly paste or screw a motor on the spinner. So you might not want a metal one ! A motor strong enough to rotate the spinner but not to powerful in order to be natively compatible with the Raspberry Pi voltage (5V). About motors : There are many kind of motors. The simple spinning ones are called DC motors. Then, steppers motors which can stop at certain positions. Finally, servo motors where position can generally be accurately set between 0 and 180°. (However, 360° servo motors exists aswell). For more details, check out . this great summary Because I wanted to have the possibility to trigger different food doses for my bunny, I decided to go for a servo motor. I took since it was perfectly suited for Raspberry Pi GPIO voltage. the Adafruit Continuous Rotation Servo , I strongly recommend you to buy a tutorial kit which will make you confortable using the GPIO pins ! is perfect for that ! In order to get use to Raspberry PI electronic pins The CamJam Kit Plug-in everything up ! Good ! We are all geared up to plug-in everything and start coding our first python script to activate the servo motor. Let’s first plug everything correctly by following this scheme. Pretty straight forward right ? Let’s sum up Plug the servo positive red wire to the Pi 5V pin Plug the servo negative black wire to one of the Pi grounds Plug the control orange wire to one of the Pi GPIO (exemple : BCM18 in the picture). How to recognize the pins names ? Go and bookmark this page (Optional) Configure your development environment In the next chapter, we are going to code scripts and launch many commands. Knowing that it can be tiring to switch from our computer to our Pi every time. If you would like to configure your computer so you can on your Pi using your favorite code editor, I strongly recommend following this great tutorial : develop and launch commands remotely Getting started on raspberry PI in less than 10min Create the rotation script in Python Now let’s get back to our servo ! We need to build the script that is going to trigger it. While the RaspberryPi (& Raspian) run Python out-of-the-box, you need to install for easy installation/removal of packages. On your raspberry Pi, type : pip # Install python pip package managercurl -o get-pip.py https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py Thanks to pip, we are now able to download and use a super usefull library to manipulate by code the raspberry PI electronic pins. pip install RPi.GPIO Now lets create our servo script ! # Create the directorymkdir pet-feedercd pet-feeder # Create the file with execution rightstouch feed.pychmod +x feed.py How to use the servo controller Everything is ready, we can start coding. What we want to do is control the servo by sending electricity pulses into the control wire of the servo. That’s the way is works. Referring to Adafruit documentation we have this : Position "90" (1.5ms pulse) is stop, "180" (2ms pulse) is full speed forward, "0" (1ms pulse) is full speed backwards This means that, as long as the control wire is receiving electricity pulses (with a duration of 2ms each), the servo will continuously go forward at full speed. But.. the Pi is only capable of delivering a constant current of 3V through the GPIOs, how am I going to make pulses ? The library RPi.GPIO that we installed earlier has everything we need ! What we want to use is called “ ”. You can import it in your Python script like this. Pulse wave modulation ##!/usr/bin/env pythonimport RPi.GPIO as GPIO Now, let’s configure the library with our plugged servo. First, set the mode to BCM in order to have your pins matching the and NOT the physical locations. GPIO names GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM) Next, let’s setup which pin is going under our control. If you took the BCM18 like in the picture above, then : FEED_SERVO_CONTROL_PIN = 18GPIO.setup(FEED_SERVO_CONTROL_PIN, GPIO.OUT) Finally, let’s initiate the pulse wave modulations to activate the servo forward movement. To do this, you’ll have to play with two variables : and in order to reach the required pulses. (1.5ms pulse is stop, 2ms pulse is forward, 1ms pulse is backwards) frequency duty cycle is the amount of pulses there are going to be per second. It is always expressed in Hertz. Example : Frequency 1 hertz = 1 pulse / second → 1 pulse = 1 second 100 hertz = 100 pulse per second → 1 pulse = 10ms is the fraction of one period in which a signal is active. In simple terms, the percentage of active signal during a pulse. Example : Duty cycle A pulse of 10ms with a 10% duty cycle is 1ms of active signal A pulse of 10ms with a 20% duty cycle is 2ms of active signal Wait… isn’t it the exact pulses we’re looking for ? Yes !! we have our variables all set ! # Import time to manage servo activation durationimport time # Let's set the frequency and dutycyclePWM_FREQUENCY = 100FULL_SPEED_FORWARD_DC = 20FULL_SPEED_BACKWARD_DC = 10 # Activate the servo !pwm = GPIO.PWM(FEED_SERVO_CONTROL_PIN, PWM_FREQUENCY)pwm.start(FULL_SPEED_FORWARD_DC) # Let it run for 3 secondstime.sleep(3) # Let's go backward now !pwm.ChangeDutyCycle(FULL_SPEED_BACKWARD_DC)time.sleep(3) # Stop and Clean everythingpwm.stop()time.sleep(0.5)GPIO.cleanup() # Very important ! Ready to try out your script ? Save your code and launch it using : # and the magic appearspython feed.py Script summary Launch your script from a browser Let’s move further and launch our script though a browser instead of typing command lines in the terminal. First of all, we need to have a local server on our Pi, capable of running python scripts. Download and install Apache on Raspberry Pi # Install apachesudo apt-get install apache2# Make it Python friendlysudo a2enmod cgid By default, Apache will create a test file under /var/www/html/index.html. Copy paste your directory next to that file. mv ~/pet-feeder /var/www/html Finally, make Apache able to read our script inside this particular folder. # open the file as rootsudo vim /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default Add the python cgi-script handler to it. Finally restart apache and test everything in your computer browser directly ! # Restart Apachesudo service apache2 reload # Find out your Pi IP addressip addr show wlan0 | grep inet # Go to your computer browserhttp:<IP_ADDR>/pet-feeder/feed.py Launching the script through my browser Launch the script from internet (router and server configurations) If you didn’t follow , I strongly recommend you to check it out. You’ll have to do exactly the same thing ! However this time, we will change the redirection port. Previously, we were handling request from port 8081 because it is the camera stream server. Now, we also want to handle requests from port 80, simply because it is apache default port. the previous tutorial To do that, we simply add another rule to our router. Please find all the explanations on the section. At the end, that’s how it should look like. Port Forwarding “Configure the port forwarding to your PI” The important part here is the redirecting rule 80:80 We are actually telling our router: Please redirect all outside world request coming in with port 80 to the raspberry Pi on port 80. Reboot your router to take account of the new port forwarding rule. and let’s find out if it works ! https:// .dyndns.com: <your_ddns_name> 80/pet-feeder/feed.py Just like on the previous tutorial, try this with a different connection than your home. For example, on your smartphone 4G. When being inside your local network, trying to use the DDNS may not work. This is a limitation with . routers VICTORY ! (Optional) Want a little extra ? What about making a daily task that will give a treat to our pet every couple hours ? Does that sounds cool 🐇? Here you go ! Crontasks are instructions that you can configure to execute desired tasks (in the background) at designated times. Crontasks # Open the crontab panelcrontab -e # Add your feeding task# FEED PET EVERY DAY AT 9AM AND 6PM0 9,18 * * * python /var/www/html/pet-feeder/feed.py >/dev/null 2>&1 The five time-and-date fields are as follows: minute (0–59), hour (0–23, 0 = midnight), day (1–31), month (1–12), weekday (0–6, 0 = Sunday). Mochi chilling in deluxe cage OMG ! At last ! We finally have a way to both see and feed our little companion through a connected cage ! Why not going one step further ? Check it out 🙌 ! In the next tutorial we will learn how to incorporate even more electronics by adding buttons on the cage.

Apache

ORANGE

Build a connected food dispenser with Raspberry Pi

Prepare your Skill Set for Web Developer Interviews — Part 2

This is (almost) the text of a talk I gave as part of the Museum of London’s Futureshocks season , on humans in the city. It’s about how technology has allowed both the Woman’s and the Robot’s Gaze to emerge as cultural forces. I’m going to talk about clothes and body image and identity, and the way that Instagram and other kinds of new technology are changing and challenging how women are seen, and how we see ourselves. And about the importance of whose gaze we’re looking through: men’s, women’s, or robots. Who do women want to be seen by? Men, women, or robots? What I’m going to call “the fashion internet” is interesting to me because it’s mostly out of sight of mainstream technology commentary. From a technical perspective it’s understood that there is, at the moment, a single Internet — an open network of networks in which everything is connected. But not everyone has the same experience of those networks — there is not a single experience that defines the digital world. It’s fashionable to call this a filter bubble, but it’s no more or less a bubble than the rest of our lives: the networks we inhabit are constructed by our interests, our backgrounds, the people we know. This isn’t simply a consequence of algorithms or personalisation, it’s also because no one can see everything — there’s no digital omniscience. This lack of a shared view means that predictions for our near future tend to represent a few of us, at best. They are filled with drones and self-driving cars and cold beers that are on the table when you get home. These futures belong to a small — often male and affluent — slither of society. Other futures are of course possible, but they’re not always seen, or allowed to emerge. In reality, every city, every street, holds many contradictory futures at once — what is true for one of us won’t be true for everyone — yet in spite of that, certain people’s futures become the dominant narratives, while others’ are trivialised. How women’s fashionable lives have been changed by technology is playing out in plain sight, but it’s also hidden from view — taking place in the alternate reality of our Instagram timelines, rather than on the city streets around us. The most visible membrane of this is our traditional perception of women and power. At first glance, women appear vulnerable, partly clothed and available to the camera. But it’s an easy misconception to think this is the whole story. A snapshot of Kendall Jenner and Desi Perkin’s Instagram feeds Technology has changed the power dynamics of how women look, how they appear, and made the Woman’s Gaze into a culturally significant force. The fact that women can now own and manipulate their appearance might, in time, provide a protection from the harassment and the day-to-day harms of our physical lives. I’m going to explore this in three ways by talking about women wearing clothes, women wearing make-up, and women taking pictures. And I’ll start with women wearing clothes. So — going back to an evening last May. It was kind of late and I was getting ready for bed, and I saw this picture from the Met Gala ball pop up on Twitter. Helen Lasichanh and Pharrell Williams at the 2017 Met Gala Ball, picture from Vogue.com This is Pharrell Williams, looking kind of so so, and his wife Helen Lasichanh, looking extraordinary and unlike any normal idea of how women appear in the world or on the red carpet. So I stopped what I was doing — which was probably getting ready to go to sleep — and watched some of the live stream of the other women turning up on the red carpet. The gala was in honour of Rei Kawakubo from Commes des Garçons. The clothes she makes for women look like this: A dress from the Commes des Garçons Fall 2012 Ready-to-Wear Collection (Vogue) So I was expecting to see more women wearing challenging and extraordinary outfits. But I was fairly quickly disappointed. I realise I’d not actually ever seen, or thought about, what makes those big red carpet moments happen. And sure, while Helen Lasichanh might not be wearing the most practical outfit in the world, she looks both powerful and, quite literally, protected. Insulated from the outside world, while sending a message of utter confidence. Not only is she taking up space, but she looks like she couldn’t care less. But she was one of the few guests who met the dress code head on. Instead, there were lots of very slender women, wearing shoes that were too high to walk in and dresses that needed three people to organise, standing around looking shell-shocked at the shouting photographers and the lights, waiting for their stylist to tell them where to stand. They were making princessy, high-status pictures, where the train of the dress fell in a perfect puddle and the light bounced from their borrowed diamonds to illuminate their faces. They weren’t there to have fun; they were there to create highly syndicatable and profitable moments in time. Inevitably, the standout image from the evening had nothing to do with Kawakubo at all. It was this picture of the model and Instagram sensation Bella Hadid, showing off her “revenge body” after a break-up. Image: Bella Hadid in Alexander Wang (Vogue) Hadid is a millionaire, and incredibly influential in the fashion world. She has 17m followers on Instagram and her picture fills billboards and magazines. But to look at this picture, you would never know that: she is vulnerable, passive — barely dressed, coquettish, . wearing a body suit that the designer Alexander Wang “stitched her into”, like a chastity belt And it’s worth just quickly taking a quick look at Wang’s sketch for the outfit. Sketches by Alexander Wang The body here is so anatomically unlikely it may as well be some kind of curvy, upside down giraffe: the impossibility of walking or sitting down with that of degree of thigh gap, of holding up that curvy bottom on those spindly legs, makes it seem fantastical that this could be a sketch of how clothes relate to a human body. Yet this is how powerful, influential young women are depicted. No leg can be long or slender enough to do justice to the design. So, I stopped watching the live stream and went to sleep, but a few weeks later I was in New York and went along to the exhibition. And afterwards, while I was wondering around downstairs in the Met, I was really struck when I walked into one of the armoury rooms by how much this suit of armour reminded me of Lasichanh’s outfit. The padding, the top knot, the stance, they’re all kind of the same, and so different to the vulnerability of Hadid’s outfit. (L) A suit of armour in the Metropolitan Museum of Art; (r) Helen Lasichanh in Commes des Garçons Because how Hadid looks is more reminiscent of how we’re used to seeing women: naked, compliant, and available. Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus (Wikimedia) And since then, for the last few months, I’ve been tussling with this contradiction: for the first time, millions of women are producing and publishing pictures of themselves, but the images that make it into popular consciousness are no different to those from 500 years ago. How is technology changing the image of ourselves that we’re creating and projecting? Women taking pictures. It’s a truth universally acknowledged that women spend a lot more time in public imagination looking like this: Eduoard Manet, Le déjeuner sur l’herbe (Wikimedia) or this: The Jumanji poster, with my annotation. Than they do like this: Queen Elizabeth I, attributed to George Gower (National Portrait Gallery) Of course — fashion is slightly different, because women are at least wearing clothes. But the women themselves are often so insubstantial as to be barely there — slithers of flesh and bone, not taking up too much room even in the magazines invented to celebrate them. YSL 2017 Print Ad High-end women’s fashion, which is largely owned, run, designed and photographed by men, has a famously complex, and perhaps exploitative, relationship with the women who keep it in business. Unlike high street beauty products, luxury fashion doesn’t gratify women with slogans like “ ” — the fantasies it creates are often more punitive, masochistic almost, focussed as much on the absence of women as celebrating their presence. Because you’re worth it In 2016, for instance, Louis Vuitton used a drawing of the character Lightning from the game Final Fantasy in a campaign — and rather bafflingly sent this drawing out on the press circuit, to talk about “her” appointment. Louis Vuitton Print Ad (2016) The designer Nicolas Ghesquière welcomed this new two-dimensional representative by calling her: “the symbol of new pictorial processes. How can you create an image that goes beyond the classic principles of photography and design? Lightning heralds a new era of expression.” A new era of expression because, in case you missed it, she’s not a woman. She’s a drawing. And in this world where women have become expressions of men’s creativity, fashion bloggers and Instagram influencers have actually brought a kind of pseudo-candour to things. Their pictures — which look like real life only better, interspersed with motivational quotes and unlikely images of people eating pasta — have made fashion more intimate and personal — something that can be held and examined in the palm of your hand. Millions of women now have intimate, high-definition relationships with the lifestyles, faces and bodies of hundreds of women they have never met, and rich lives lived in Instagram comments. Images from Camille Charriére and Leandra Medine’s Instagram feeds Influencer told Vogue, “ .” Camille Charrière I know that if I want 8,000 likes on an Instagram post then I need to be wearing jeans and a T-shirt with Converse. In general, people like simplicity. They’re looking for reality, because that’s something they can emulate and buy into And buying they are. In 2017, the top 10 influencers reached an audience , and e-commerce referrals from them have started to . about the size of Canada dominate mobile traffic to big name fashion stores Which means that for many women, the screen — which is controllable, editable, filterable — is becoming more representative than the street. Even 10 years ago it made sense for a street-style photographer like Bill Cunningham to cycle around New York, taking photos to predict coming trends; now the same is achieved by liking pictures on Instagram, with the added bonus that you can “shop the look” with just a tap or two of the your finger. But the crux, of course, is that the “reality” people are buying into is as much an alternate reality as any virtual world or magazine shoot. The lens of the influencer is positioned a selfie-stick away from real life and is managed by algorithms, filtered by software and powered by likes. Which means, ultimately, that your favourite influencer is no more or less authentic than your favourite brand of deodorant. But in the aftermath of , it makes perfect sense that women might want a protected world that looks and feels a bit better than reality. There’s something safer about engineered spontaneity, something more trustworthy about a woman’s gaze and the reassurance of her personal brand. #metoo Never mind that we’ll never know how she took that , or that most people put on trousers before lying on their kitchen counter to drink coffee. It’s a safe escape in a reckless world, like an all-inclusive holiday at a gated resort. plandid Which brings me to the last area: women wearing make-up Make-up is in some ways more democratic than fashion. You can’t afford those fancy shoes, but you can still do flicky eyeliner, and if you need to brush up on your skills — well, there are . 11 million YouTube tutorials to help you out “Putting your face on” is a culturally normative part of women’s armoury, and both the ceremony and the results of applying make-up have extended from the real world to its digital alternatives. While women are still barely visible in most areas of public life, YouTube hums with the technical knowledge and skills of millions of women who authoritatively share their expertise about their hair, make-up and skin care. When you see a woman put on her make-up while standing up on a busy commuter train, the rhythms and routines are second nature. She’s holding the mirror almost out of force of habit, not even because she needs to see the shapes her hands are making. And photo-editing apps translate this casual optimisation — “like you, on a good day” — from your real-life human face to the screen. Facetuning out your eyebags isn’t such a big deal if you’ve worn Touche éclat every day of your adult life, just as adding a cat filter in Snapchat isn’t *that* weird if you’ve ever applied white eyeliner to the pink bit in your inner eye to look “more awake” (pro tip: don’t do this). These micro-optimisations are no more than digital reflections of the ways women hide their imperfections and project their “best self”. FaceTune, before and after. But what seems interesting is the way the online and offline worlds are colliding. Cosmetic companies have been quick to make products that . You can buy foundation that somehow makes your face blurrier, glowier and brighter, and the continuing popularity of contouring is at least partly because, as fashion blogger Leandra Medine says, it makes you look like “ ”. copy the affordances of Instagram filters a perpetually filtered, better version of yourself For many women, these micro labours aren’t new tasks but a seamless continuation of their off-line lives. If you “put your face on” to pop out to the shops, why wouldn’t you do the same to pop up on Instagram or Facebook? But just because it’s easy, does it mean it’s good? Probably one of the biggest downsides is the even closer coupling of personal identity with consumerism. Shopping a look or clicking through from a sponsored post are not that different to going to TopShop with your friends. There’s a feeling of intimacy and friendship from sharing in something that someone you respect has recommended. The feeling of belonging, of being in a gang when you’re really sitting on the bus on your own. And the trails and trails of data that we’ve left behind. The insecurities we’ve shared with our photo editing apps, the obsessions that only Instagram Discover really knows you have — these are all grist to the ad targeting that might just help to reinforce the insecurities you came to Instagram to hide from. And where does this all end? Like so many things, probably with Amazon. The Amazon Echo Look might be the singularity of the fashion Internet. It’s an Amazon Echo with a camera that tells you if you look nice. Echo Look promotional film Using machine learning and a panel of experts, Alexa will not only keep you on trend but make sure you’re wearing the most flattering outfit. “How do I look?” (or variants thereof) is one of the most complex questions a person can ask. It depends on context, taste, norms, and requires bucketloads of sensitivity. It could mean will I stand out, will I get the job, will that person fancy me, should I wear a bra, or a hundred things more. It’s a question millions of significant others have got wrong on an average Saturday night — and not because they lacked the right data points. But also, training data for the “most flattering look” needs to come from somewhere. What’s the canonical data set for “do I look better in pink or red?” or “do these trousers go too far up my bum?” , machine learning , and . No two retailers can decide on the dimensions of a size 12 finds it difficult to deal with race Fat is a Feminist Issue Amazon publicity image Asking Alexa how you look is a bit like asking it who’s winning an argument, or to rate your self worth. It’s a subjective question that depends on context and is laden with nuance. Checking back with an algorithm that gives you a percentage, like a school assignment, assumes it’s possible or desirable to look 100%, and that . That we’re rateable by Robots, and can be gazed upon and judged by them in unremarkable, everyday ways. everyone has a score So to end, what I worry that the Woman’s Gaze won’t stick for around long enough to become a cultural artefact — that it will have popped up for long enough to make enough data for robots to understand. It seems possible that the liberation of the Woman’s Gaze might be very fleeting indeed.

Gala

Instagram

Naked

YouTube

Women, Plandids, Power

The year was 2016. I was a hobbyist with ideas to burn. Naturally, I needed an inexpensive hosting provider for my latest web app. Where would I start? Who would prove to be the elusive “hostess with the mostest?” This is the story of my migration to and from DigitalOcean, AWS, and Heroku — the trial and error, the pros and the pain points. You’ve seen the archetypal hero’s tale. Now cinch up your belt, oil your sword. Prepare to experience firsthand the epic tale of a simple village hobbyist — and his quest for just the right host. Background: The idea and the app. . I followed a training plan as I prepared for my next race, but all the training plans had one thing in common: they prescribed different paces for different types of runs. For example, I was expected to adjust my pacing depending on whether I was heading out for an “easy” run, a “distance” run, or a “long” run. But what an “easy” run? Give me the numbers in minutes per mile — how do I know when I’m on target? To find out, I would consult pacing charts based on a runner’s latest 5K race time and write down my prescribed pace for a scheduled run. I like to run is Manually looking up paces in pacing charts was tedious and boring. So I wrote an app to do it for me: . No matter where I am, I can lookup my prescribed pace for a given run type, and hit the ground running. RunbyPace But where would I host my app? I didn’t want to spend much money. I budgeted about $5–10 a month for it. My search began at DigitalOcean. Hosting with DigitalOcean: The savings (and the struggle) are real. DigitalOcean was a great start. They have droplets that come pre-installed with the requisite tooling for different types of apps. In my case, I had a Rails app, so Ruby, Postgres, Bundler, Unicorn, and Nginx were all pre-installed and ready to roll on the rails. The biggest pain point I experienced surrounded updates — keeping the OS patched, updating the Ruby ecosystem, and pushing new versions of the app itself. It was all manual and difficult because of the droplet’s limited memory. DigitalOcean Pros Inexpensive, at $5 per month. Easy to get started. Lots of well-written guides. DigitalOcean Cons Instead of working on new app features, I had to , including Nginx, SSL/TLS certs. manage everything myself . OS updates were a manual process. I configured a Cron job to automatically install security updates, which helped somewhat, but still. Manual updates Updates to the Ruby ecosystem were also manual. . Releasing a new version of the app was not a one-click affair. I had to ssh into the VM and run my scripts by hand. Manual deploys Only droplet, so availability was so-so. Updates and new app versions meant the app was offline temporarily. Availability. one Only possibility for scaling was vertical, with a bigger droplet. Scaling. . The basic droplet only had 512MB RAM, which was only enough headroom for basic operations. I had to kill Unicorn in order for Rake tasks to complete. Limited RAM between production and development made me afraid of releasing big changes to the app because I wasn’t sure if they would work in production. Often I put off releases. Environmental differences DigitalOcean got me going, but the pain of releasing new features made me want something more automated and more robust. I got interested in trying AWS. Hosting with AWS: No one visits your site, but everyone could — if they wanted to. After my DigitalOcean experience, I decided to give AWS a go. I signed up and qualified for AWS’ free tier, which meant I could have a little fun at limited cost — but for only a year. Goals with AWS With DigitalOcean fresh in mind, here were my goals with AWS: Parity between development and production environments. High availability, even during updates, releases, and deploy failures. Architecture on AWS I went all in with the AWS ecosystem. I moved my runbypace.com domain to AWS Route 53 and used their DNS infrastructure. DNS directed visitors to an Elastic Load Balancer (ELB), which then directed visitors to EC2 instances running dockerized versions of Nginx and my Rails app on top of the Elastic Container Service (ECS). On the backend we had Postgres running on AWS RDS. AWS also handled SSL certificates for me. # AWS architecture diagram 

      Route 53          |   Elastic Load Balancer      |          |    ec2/ecs    ec2/ecs   (nginx)    (nginx)   (rails)    (rails)        |      |       PostgreSQL AWS Pros . On the free tier, the whole robust world-class architecture only cost me around $11 per month. Most of that was due to the second t2.micro instance. Cost . Once the infrastructure was in place and I’d written my deployment scripts, I could deploy new versions of the app with a single command. Easy deployments . On my dev box I only had to run and start writing code. Because the app was containerized I had the confidence that if it worked on my box, it would work in the cloud. It wasn’t 100% seamless though, as you’ll see in the “Cons” section. Dockerfiles made it pretty easy to package up and deploy assets and artifacts that I didn’t want open-sourced. Dev/Prod parity via containers docker compose up . The entire time I had the site on AWS, I never had one outage. When I pushed a new app version, ECS would handle stopping one of the web tasks to make room for the newly registered one. Once the new task passed the health check, ECS would stop the other web task(s) and replace them with the new version. The whole process was seamless. If I made a boneheaded move and broke something, the new version would fail the health check and ECS would keep running the old version of the site. Availability If you run standard AMIs (Amazon Machine Images), they handle the security updates for you. Less update management. AWS Cons After the free tier expired, I expected to pay around $50 to $65 per month for my existing architecture. Ouch! Way too rich for a hobby app that makes me $0.00. Cost, post free tier. AWS documentation is a little scatterbrained . At the time, Kubernetes wasn’t a thing on AWS. ECS was the only option. Wait, so you mean I have to manage my containers the VMs they run on? I just wanted to push my containers to the cloud. And there’s no easy way to autoscale EC2 instances in response to pressure from the ECS containers? — I have to manually increase the number of EC2 instances? Ugh. So I better have access to the AWS console if I ever experience a big traffic spike. ECS is awkward and Again, why do I have to manage EC2? And why do I have to manually update the ECS container agent when I’m using AMIs? Still have to manage the EC2 instances. For local development, I kept configs in files consumed by . For production I pushed configs along with the ECS task definitions. When I added or modified an config but forgot to update the task definitions, trouble ensued. If I’d given this more thought, I suppose I could have automated this. App config differences between dev/prod. .env docker-compose .env AWS was incredibly robust, but not pain free, and the pain machine was about to be cranked up to 50, $50+ per month! I looked into Elastic Beanstalk, which is supposed to deploy code directly to the cloud without the need to manage EC2, but it is expensive too! The cost would have been about the same as my previous AWS architecture. So our quest for the right hosting provider continues — this time with Heroku. Hosting with Heroku: So far, so good I just started using Heroku, so I’m still in the honeymoon phase, but so far things look pretty good. The price is good for my needs, and deployment is a cinch. Heroku Pros Only $7 per month for a Hobby dyno. Price. . Apparently it’s possible to scale both horizontally (additional dynos) and vertically (more powerful dynos) Scalability Drop dead . Now all I have to do is push to master and Heroku deploys to production automatically. simple automatic deploys Build configuration via . With my AWS setup I used Dockerfiles to tweak my build setup. With Heroku I can easily create my own build packs. For some examples see a build pack for , and another for . Heroku build packs deploying the current commit hash to an arbitrary path deploying a keybase proof to an arbitrary directory Free SSL certs Heroku Cons Issues with with Google Domains. After leaving Route 53, I took runbypace.com back to Google Domains. For my custom domain , Heroku requires me to configure my DNS provider with an record pointing to . Google Domains does not support records… ¬_¬ The workaround on Google Domains is to create a pointing to and then a synthetic record to redirect to . , this breaks down somewhere with the SSL certs, causing to have an invalid certificate, even though works just fine. This was a big bummer, so I switched to PointDNS for now, as it does support records. SSL Certificates on naked domains runbypace.com ANAME runbypace.herokudns.com Unfortunately ANAME CNAME www.runbypace.herokudns.com @ www Unfortunately again https://runbypace.com https://www.runbypace.com ANAME As I gain more life experience with Heroku, I’ll report back with new findings. A respite in my hosting quest Fellow travelers, we have reached another respite in this quest for the best hosting provider. We’ve met DigitalOcean, which is inexpensive, but leaves the burden of setup and configuration to you. Then there’s the Hilton of hosting, AWS. If you have the need for massive scalability and a bazillion 9s of availability, it’s one of your only choices. If you just want to dream dreams and deploy code, Heroku seems like the best fit, for now… Safe travels and happy coding! Originally published at tygertec.com on January 27, 2018.

Heroku

Travelers

Hard up for hosting: From DigitalOcean, to AWS, to Heroku.

I love the open source community, especially the React ecosystem. Most of the folks there are supernice and helping each other. But sometimes something goes wrong. I value my time and even more I value my mental health. I want to continue contributing to open source and avoid burnout. I try to be nice and helpful to every user of my projects. But sometimes it’s hard. Every time I see or feel that someone is complaining about my project or my actions, or any unhealthy behavior towards me or other users, I immediately lock the conversation, or even block the user. I see it as the only way to continue working on open source. There are many ways you can make folks in the open source community happier: new feature specs (better than just ideas because they’re often not actionable); detailed easily reproducible bug reports; any maintenance help, like answering questions on GitHub, Stack Overflow or Twitter. bugfixes; new features; docs improvements. Other people are experiencing similar issues: by Karolina Szczur The Dark Side of Open Source by James Kyle Dear JavaScript by Kenneth Reitz The Reality of Developer Burnout Let’s keep this community healthy and friendly!

Read my new book on clean code

No complaints policy

Do you ever wonder why there are so many great software companies on the internet? Charles Darwin could explain it to you. No, he didn’t know how to write code, but his theory of evolution and applies to software as well. survival of the fittest We’re in a day and age where software tools are so prevalent and plentiful, that consumers have a choice for nearly every solution. And anytime there is a choice, one product will inevitably outperform the others. If a product or company fails to find product market fit and generate a sustainable revenue, it will slowly lead to it’s own demise and end up extinct — or in the case of San Francisco, in the Startup Graveyard. Dolores Park — Startup Graveyard In our analogy, revenue is the food needed to survive, and just like food, there is a finite amount. While there is enough to sustain many companies, there isn’t enough for everyone. All companies have unique diets — some are very lean and require very little revenue, while others consume the cash equal to a small country’s GDP. But, that’s a topic for another day. So what happens when entities are no longer hunting for sustenance on their own, but rather someone is supplying it to them? Charles was particularly interested in his study of birds in the Galapagos. They could adapt quickly, within only a few generations, and they were very reliant on adaption for survival. For instance, the subfamily Geospizinae, or Galapagos finches, were believed to have derived from the same predecessor, however, Darwin documented 15 different species of varying sizes and beak lengths. The long beak variation was reliant on this adaption for extracting food out of narrow openings. Birds with shorts snouts would slowly die off because of their inability to access the food. Now imagine if someone began showing up every day to feed the lesser suited birds. It’s uncertain whether or not they would live a full life, but they would certainly survive while the outside resource is being supplied. Enter VC injected money. Many of the startups venture capitalists vet and fund would survive without the outside injection, but there are countless startups that are being strung along, only surviving due to this substantial crutch. [ ]. Typically, 80% of VC funded startups don’t show a return Angel In some cases, the injection of money slows adaption to the ever-changing market since a lifestyle business with non-significant cash flow isn’t the priority, so generating revenue isn’t always an early focus. There’s been talk of a tech bubble for some years now, and that the traditional VC era is coming to an end, making room for VCs focused on more sustainable, slow-growth businesses, like . Indie.vc What’s your take on the topic? Do self-funded startups have a chance competing against existing VC backed enterprises?

Darwinism of Software

In my continuing attempt to , I’ve been exploring . I realized this might be valuable after listening to my thought process as it relates to fantasy sports. Generally, I’ll ask myself questions like “Has this player broken 10 rebounds the last 2 games?” or “Is this player consistently getting over 25 minutes per game?”. In addition to removing bias, a decision tree should ask better questions, improve given more data and generate insights over key features in data. automate as much as of my Daily Fantasy Sports lineup creation as possible decision trees technique I want to start off with the simplest possible example I can think of for a decision tree. I’ll use this example as an opportunity to explore the sklearn.tree module. In a future post, I’ll review in depth how I constructed my DFS basketball decision tree, . but you can check it out here if you’re interested , I reviewed how a neural network could be used to classify some data where only one feature mattered. A similar example here I think will be illustrative. I often find it easier to make the example as close to real as possible, so let’s assume we have data on a group of basketball players, and we want to label them 0 if they scored under 20 points and 1 if they scored over 20 in a game. The three features in the data set are minutes, age and height; let’s assume only minutes matters. Below is a simple decision tree with a fake dataset: In Part III of my ML blog series The visualization confirms what we know to be true; if a player plays over 30 minutes, they scored over 20 points. The visualization also provides a good means to go over some terminology. The in the decision tree are the two child-most nodes that place a player in the > or < 20 point baskets; are any non leaf nodes that divide up the data, excluding the top-most node in the tree, which is the (note that this example is kind of contrived, since there is just a root node, two leaf nodes and no internal nodes). leaf nodes internal nodes root How does DecisionTreeClassifier actually work under the hood? If you were to manually construct your own decision tree, you would have to select your own root and internal nodes. Those selections would be based on what features you believe to be most valuable in a data set; if you know that minutes are what matter most for player statistics, minutes will be the feature used at your root. In a real basketball data set, a natural starting question would be “Did the player play more than 0 minutes?” , the best question is the one that reduces the uncertainty the most. If know the player did not play, I can claim with absolute certainty that they scored 0 points. In the words of Google’s Josh Gordon The decision tree algorithm makes feature selections like this based on , which are used to compute the importance of each attribute and then arrive at the right questions to ask. While a human would anecdotally know that good NBA players get 30+ minutes a game, a decision tree would infer it statistically via criterion. I’m going to use as my criterion of choice here, since that is what DecisionTreeClassifier uses by default. This is actually configurable via the : criterion Gini impurity criterion parameter in sklearn criterion : string, optional (default= “gini”)The function to measure the quality of a split. Supported criteria are “gini” for the Gini impurity and “entropy” for the information gain. Gini impurity, as the name suggests, is not a desirable quantity, and each node seeks to minimize it. : Via Wikipedia Gini impurity is a measure of how often a randomly chosen element from the set would be incorrectly labeled if it was randomly labeled according to the distribution of labels in the subset. This is a mouthful, so an example and some code should help. As noted in the wiki definition, Gini impurity is a probability, so its value must be between 0 and 1. If our data set has six players who all scored over 20 points, then only one label exists in the data set, so randomly guessing that label will be correct 100% of the time. Gini impurity is 0, since we’re never wrong. However, if three players scored less than 20 and three scored more, than guessing > 20 would be right half the time, and wrong half the time (as would be < 20). Gini impurity is 0.5 since we’re wrong half the time with a random guess. Josh Gordon implements gini in the following way, and the two examples are illustrated below: A decision tree algorithm will construct the tree such that Gini impurity is most minimized based on the questions asked. You can actually see in the visualization about that impurity is minimized at each node in the tree using exactly the examples in the previous paragraph; in the first node, randomly guessing is wrong 50% of the time; in the leaf nodes, guessing is never wrong. When the data makes perfect sense, so does the tree. Unfortunately, data is inherently messy, and configuring the tree to work based on the data will be a subject of a future post. Note that the sklearn source here is pretty difficult at least for me to parse (interesting note — the base class BaseDecisionTree is also the parent of DecisionTreeRegressor, which can be used to make floating point number predictions and may be the subject of a future blog post), so I turned to documentation and other writing for the explanations in this blog post. Here’s a summary of the most useful ones I found: - - - sklearn docs - Victor Lavrenko lecture Josh Gordon, Decision tree classifier from scratch Josh Gordon Jupyter notebook with tree from scratch You can find all the code from this post in this Jupyter notebook

HackerNoon Tech Stories Archive January 27th, 2018

@trentlapinskiTrent Lapinski

@rezaReza Jafery

@rezaReza Jafery

@emilyyu_17465Emily Yu

@mattwardMatt Ward

@mgazarMostafa Gazar

@knut.svanholmKnut Svanholm

@chilijungHoward Chi

@bluephoenixincJohn Licata

@gigacoreSanthosh Sundar

@goncaloveigaGonçalo Veiga

@febinFebin John James

@danielbakhDaniel Bakh

@harryalford3Harry Alford

@michelparrenoMichel Parreno

@dormosheDor Moshe

@rachelcoldicuttRachel Coldicutt

@tygertecTy Walls

@sapeginArtem Sapegin

@rborn92Ryan Born

@bmb21Ben Brostoff

@trentlapinski
Trent Lapinski

@reza
Reza Jafery

@reza
Reza Jafery

@emilyyu_17465
Emily Yu

@mattward
Matt Ward

@mgazar
Mostafa Gazar

@knut.svanholm
Knut Svanholm

@chilijung
Howard Chi

@bluephoenixinc
John Licata

@gigacore
Santhosh Sundar

@goncaloveiga
Gonçalo Veiga

@febin
Febin John James

@danielbakh
Daniel Bakh

@harryalford3
Harry Alford

@michelparreno
Michel Parreno

@dormoshe
Dor Moshe

@rachelcoldicutt
Rachel Coldicutt

@tygertec
Ty Walls

@sapegin
Artem Sapegin

@rborn92
Ryan Born

@bmb21
Ben Brostoff