Armory empowers software development organizations to accelerate their innovation and time-to-market while reducing risk to their customers’ experience. Developers can easily, reliably, and securely deploy new versions alongside live versions, incrementally scale up new versions, enable time-saving automation, and effortlessly rollback, all with one out-of-the-box Continuous Deployment solution. Armory Continuous Deployment features: • Integration with your existing SDLC and CI tools • Flexible GitOps and declarative workflows • Multi-cloud and multi-environment orchestration • Developer-first experiences trusted and loved Benefits of Continuous Deployment with Armory: • Improves developer experience and productivity • Accelerates time-to-market • Increases innovation • Improves customer experience • Empowers focus on your competitive advantage • Improves day-to-day DevOps velocity • Assures security at runtime • Scales your business efficiently and grows your bottom line Commit. Deploy. Repeat. Learn More: https://www.armory.io/

Armory

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The Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . Chapter II The Outlaw of Torn Chapter II South of the armory of Westminster Palace lay the gardens, and here, on the third day following the King’s affront to De Vac, might have been seen a black-haired woman gowned in a violet cyclas, richly embroidered with gold about the yoke and at the bottom of the loose-pointed sleeves, which reached almost to the similar bordering on the lower hem of the garment. A richly wrought leathern girdle, studded with precious stones, and held in place by a huge carved buckle of gold, clasped the garment about her waist so that the upper portion fell outward over the girdle after the manner of a blouse. In the girdle was a long dagger of beautiful workmanship. Dainty sandals encased her feet, while a wimple of violet silk bordered in gold fringe, lay becomingly over her head and shoulders. By her side walked a handsome boy of about three, clad, like his companion, in gay colors. His tiny surcoat of scarlet velvet was rich with embroidery, while beneath was a close-fitting tunic of white silk. His doublet was of scarlet, while his long hose of white were cross-gartered with scarlet from his tiny sandals to his knees. On the back of his brown curls sat a flat-brimmed, round-crowned hat in which a single plume of white waved and nodded bravely at each move of the proud little head. The child’s features were well molded, and his frank, bright eyes gave an expression of boyish generosity to a face which otherwise would have been too arrogant and haughty for such a mere baby. As he talked with his companion, little flashes of peremptory authority and dignity, which sat strangely upon one so tiny, caused the young woman at times to turn her head from him that he might not see the smiles which she could scarce repress. Presently the boy took a ball from his tunic, and, pointing at a little bush near them, said, “Stand you there, Lady Maud, by yonder bush. I would play at toss.” The young woman did as she was bid, and when she had taken her place and turned to face him the boy threw the ball to her. Thus they played beneath the windows of the armory, the boy running blithely after the ball when he missed it, and laughing and shouting in happy glee when he made a particularly good catch. In one of the windows of the armory overlooking the garden stood a grim, gray, old man, leaning upon his folded arms, his brows drawn together in a malignant scowl, the corners of his mouth set in a stern, cold line. He looked upon the garden and the playing child, and upon the lovely young woman beneath him, but with eyes which did not see, for De Vac was working out a great problem, the greatest of all his life. For three days, the old man had brooded over his grievance, seeking for some means to be revenged upon the King for the insult which Henry had put upon him. Many schemes had presented themselves to his shrewd and cunning mind, but so far all had been rejected as unworthy of the terrible satisfaction which his wounded pride demanded. His fancies had, for the most part, revolved about the unsettled political conditions of Henry’s reign, for from these he felt he might wrest that opportunity which could be turned to his own personal uses and to the harm, and possibly the undoing, of the King. For years an inmate of the palace, and often a listener in the armory when the King played at sword with his friends and favorites, De Vac had heard much which passed between Henry III and his intimates that could well be turned to the King’s harm by a shrewd and resourceful enemy. With all England, he knew the utter contempt in which Henry held the terms of the Magna Charta which he so often violated along with his kingly oath to maintain it. But what all England did not know, De Vac had gleaned from scraps of conversation dropped in the armory: that Henry was even now negotiating with the leaders of foreign mercenaries, and with Louis IX of France, for a sufficient force of knights and men-at-arms to wage a relentless war upon his own barons that he might effectively put a stop to all future interference by them with the royal prerogative of the Plantagenets to misrule England. If he could but learn the details of this plan, thought De Vac: the point of landing of the foreign troops; their numbers; the first point of attack. Ah, would it not be sweet revenge indeed to balk the King in this venture so dear to his heart! A word to De Clare, or De Montfort would bring the barons and their retainers forty thousand strong to overwhelm the King’s forces. And he would let the King know to whom, and for what cause, he was beholden for his defeat and discomfiture. Possibly the barons would depose Henry, and place a new king upon England’s throne, and then De Vac would mock the Plantagenet to his face. Sweet, kind, delectable vengeance, indeed! And the old man licked his thin lips as though to taste the last sweet vestige of some dainty morsel. And then Chance carried a little leather ball beneath the window where the old man stood; and as the child ran, laughing, to recover it, De Vac’s eyes fell upon him, and his former plan for revenge melted as the fog before the noonday sun; and in its stead there opened to him the whole hideous plot of fearsome vengeance as clearly as it were writ upon the leaves of a great book that had been thrown wide before him. And, in so far as he could direct, he varied not one jot from the details of that vividly conceived masterpiece of hellishness during the twenty years which followed. The little boy who so innocently played in the garden of his royal father was Prince Richard, the three-year-old son of Henry III of England. No published history mentions this little lost prince; only the secret archives of the kings of England tell the story of his strange and adventurous life. His name has been blotted from the records of men; and the revenge of De Vac has passed from the eyes of the world; though in his time it was a real and terrible thing in the hearts of the English. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Edgar Rice Burroughs (1995). The Outlaw of Torn. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/369/pg369-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

South of the armory of Westminster Palace lay the gardens

Any visit to the Fallout 4 Nexus will reveal a staggering number of incredibly detailed, high quality weapon mods. The Halo Mod, Misriah Armory brings Halo’s iconic weapons into a new light. Taking advantage of the game’s inherent ease of modding and its weapon customisation system, a team of modders have implemented custom models and animations to create one of the best Fallout 4 Halo Weapons mods out there. Named after the fictional company that produces the UNSC’s arsenal, the mod brings eight weapons into the Commonwealth. Unfortunately, the mod’s Nexus doesn’t fully outline what this mod does in its entirety. It doesn’t cover how expansive the weapon customisations are or how they handle in gameplay. With luck, this article will explain why this mod should be in a Halo fan’s load order at least once. page What the Misriah Armory Mod brings to Fallout 4 Picture Credit: TheMemeMan1982 This mod brings eight fully-realised weapons to Fallout 4 in stunning detail and a deep respect for Halo’s expansive lore. SMG-M7/Caseless Submachine Gun Magnum-M6 PDWS Pistol Shotgun-M45 Tactical Shotgun Assault Rifle-MA5D ICWS Assault Rifle DMR-M392 Designated Marksman Rifle Grenade Launcher-M319 Individual Grenade Launcher Sniper Rifle-SRS99 Anti-Material Sniper Rifle M99 “Stanchion” Special Application Service Rifle The M99 Stanchion - Picture Credit: NovaFinch on the Nexus Misriah Armory’s familiarity with Halo’s lore can be reflected in its weapon list with each weapon using the name the UNSC gives it. While flavour text has been tweaked to fit Fallout’s setting, much of its art style fits Halo: Reach’s. The M99 doesn’t even exist in the Halo games. It’s an outdated weapon present only in books but has been carefully crafted and implemented in the game. Misriah Armory in Gameplay Picture Credit: SpiffySkyTrooper To state the blindingly obvious, Fallout 4 plays very differently from Halo. In Fallout, players can aim down sights, don’t have to worry about energy shields, or deal with a carefully curated weapons sandbox. Naturally, the guns in this Fallout 4 Halo weapons mod are used differently. These guns fill their own niches and have modifications that suit certain playstyles. Each weapon deals different amounts of damage per round and the types of ammunition used. The Magnum and Sniper Rifle each chamber the .50BMG round that they use in Halo canon, limiting how often they can be used while providing a justification for their heavy damage. The SMG uses 10mm rounds as a stand-in for the caseless ammunition it is supposed to use, allowing it to function as a low-damage bullet hose. Other weapons, such as the Assault Rifle and DMR allow the player to choose the ammunition the weapon will fire, allowing for tradeoffs between ammo availability and damage, an element of choice that works well in Fallout’s post-apocalyptic context. It should be noted that the weapons deal significantly more damage than vanilla weapons, especially at lower levels. While this is offset by the proportionally high crafting costs and scarcity of the weapons, they are enough to trivialise much of the game. The mod accounts for this by allowing players to increase or decrease the damage the weapon deals to tailor the Fallout 4 Halo Weapons mod to their own mod list. While a common feature in many mods, it’s always welcome as it reduces the need to find compatibility patches for gameplay overhaul mods. In-depth Customisation with Fallout 4 Halo Weapons Mod The shotgun modified beyond common sense Picture Credit: NovaFinch As mentioned above, this mod makes full use of Fallout 4’s weapon modification system and is one of the best parts of the mod. In line with Fallout 4’s customisation options, these weapons can have their barrels, magazines, receivers, sights and stocks changed with both real-world and fictional modifications to recreate weapon variations from across the Halo games and even extended fiction. For example, the Magnum’s smart scope modification allows it to imitate the famously overpowered Halo: Combat Evolved Magnum. The suppressed variant from Halo 3: ODST can be achieved by using one of the barrel modifications. Modifications for the receiver can also be applied to make the gun fully automatic. These modifications can alter the ways each weapon handles and can make them more effective in different situations. The DMR can be used to clear out a subway almost as well as the Assault Rifle if the player mounts a reflex sight on it. Conversely, the Shotgun can be lethal at longer distances with slug rounds and a scope and the Sniper Rifle can take a shortened barrel and iron sights to function as a DMR with excessive stopping power. Some modifications are wholly unique to the mod. One allows the Sniper Rifle to fire in two round bursts, noted by the mod’s own description to be impractical in most contexts except that it can demolish a deathclaw at close range. Some introduce much-needed depth to a weapon. The traditional Assault Rifle lacks iron sights which isn’t an issue in Halo but troublesome in Fallout. The mod takes inspiration from Halo 5: Guardians’ attachments to attach scopes in Fallout 4. Final Thoughts on Fallout 4 Halo Weapons Mod: Misriah Armory Picture Credit: NovaFinch Overall this Fallout 4 Halo Weapons mod allows is a must-have for anyone who enjoys Halo’s world and lore. It draws on classic weapons and puts them in a new context by placing them in Fallout 4’s combat system and expanding on how the weapons operate through a fantastic range of customisations. The high-resolution visuals are just the icing on the cake. Other Gaming News and Guides: Fallout 4 Project Valkyrie: Depravity and the Thuggyverse Doom 3 Gets Revived with New PlayStation VR Release Is Virtual Reality Still a Niche Within the Games Industry?

Fallout 4 Halo Weapons Mod: Misriah Armory

This interview was done for our Microservices for Startups ebook. Be sure to check it out for practical advice on microservices. Thanks to Isaac for his time and input! Isaac Mosquera is the CTO at Armory , which helps software teams ship better software, faster. For context, how big is your engineering team? Are you using microservices and can you provide a general overview of how you’re using them? Our current team is quite small — only 5 engineers — but we work on an open source deployment tool called Spinnaker that was open sourced by Netflix in 2015. Netflix uses it to deploy over 2,000 microservices roughly 4,000 times a day. We help enterprise customers achieve that velocity with microservices and Spinnaker. We see deployments as a critical component to obtaining the value of microservices. If the overhead of deployments is high, breaking up a monolith into smaller components only increases overall complexity. Having the right strategy and approach to tooling, including deployments, is critical to success Did you start with a monolith and later adopt microservices? If so, what was the motivation to adopt microservices? We see many Fortune 500 customers already on the path to microservices by breaking up existing monoliths. The value to many of these organizations is flexibility to add a feature to one component without affecting another. The assumption is that the software development life cycle per feature is reduced. At this time, it’s hardly an argument as to whether to move to microservices but instead which services will be migrated and when. How did you approach the topic and definition of microservices as a team/engineering organization? We see constant discussions regarding microservices, and what they mean within an organization. Because every organization is moving toward this type of architecture each company is at a different understanding of microservices and best practices regarding them. Additionally, any instance of a microservices is constantly changing such that we’re brought into organizations to help them deploy their microservices with best practices in mind. Did you change the way your team(s) were organized or operated in response to adopting microservices? This is almost always the case and becomes the inverse of Conway’s Law, “organizations which design systems…are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.” Instead of communication driving software design, now software architecture drives communication. Not only do teams operate and organize differently, but it requires a new set of tooling and process to support this type of architecture, i.e. DevOps. As monoliths get broken into smaller components, smaller teams and their roles become much more apparent. Engineers best skilled for or who have a strong desire to work on a distinct type of problem can now be assigned to those microservices. How much freedom is there on technology choices? Did you all agree on sticking with one stack or is there flexibility to try new? In almost all cases engineering teams can operate with autonomy but at the same time have a “paved road” which has the supported set of tooling. The main set of tooling is typically set for legacy reasons specific to that company. We typically see a set of JVM languages and one scripting language (Python/Ruby/JavaScript) for some flexibility in coding styles. There is no strict requirement to use these languages but it’s known within the teams that these are the languages that work at scale and have the best tooling support. Have you broken a monolithic application into smaller microservices? If so, can you take us through that process? The first step is to include the people (or the team leads) that contribute to the application and to start discussing what are the groups of functionality. Over time, this becomes obvious and less controversial [despite the fact that] there is always tension when re-architecting an application. After discussing with influential people who work with the code, we begin discussing how the different components will be split. The next step is to create a plan. Breaking up a monolith into microservices doesn’t happen overnight. Starting with the easiest non-controversial components is a great place to start. Then we execute the plan. We start deploying the new service as quickly and iteratively as possible to show success. Demonstrating success to the non-engineering organization is critical because the support for this change must come by sacrificing product and features for additional stability and flexibility. We commonly measure steps to deploy, SLA/SLO and number of deployments to production as KPIs to demonstrate value outside of the engineering organization. What were some unforeseen issues and lessons learned when breaking a monolith into microservices? Some functionality and code becomes redundant within microservices. For example, services that communicate with the user-registration service will need to deserialize the user object. While this might be duplicated in a few code bases, that’s okay if the logic is simple enough. A particular issue we’ve seen is where two microservices were responsible for a schema in a database. It was deceiving at first since one service was for read and another for write. This type of problem really slows you down when a deployment for one service required a deployment for another and defeats the purpose of microservices. How do you determine service boundaries? What that discussion like within your team? At first these conversations about where the groupings of functionality would live seemed obvious. But as time goes on, where new business logic will live become more difficult. In its own service, or would some logic be duplicated in two services? For example, we had a service which maintained user events and then shipped to a log. We had introduced functionality that processed those events and made runtime decisions. Should the decision live with the event engine itself or create a whole new service that handles this business logic? Ultimately our decision was to include it in the same service and if the product team requested additional functionality over time we would decide to move it later. How you want data to be accessed is critical to determining these boundaries. At one customer site they maintained significant user data. But some data is more sensitive than others by law. For instance, email, address, and real name had to be split out into a different services so the data can be managed by one source only. What lessons have you learned around sizing services? The smaller the better, but it takes a disciplined approach to reusing much of the tooling. Containerizing everything helps because it internalizes application specific details and allows for the server environment to stay consistent across different devices. Build tooling, monitoring, alerting, etc. should be put into a common set of tools that reduces the overhead of developing, but more importantly operationalizing a micro-service in production. If you notice your microservices are still quite large it is likely due to lack of tooling. Investing in tooling vs “more features” was a common change we see within these organizations. How have microservices impacted your development process or your ops and deployment processes? What were some challenges that came up and how did you solve them? We had some challenges in the following areas: dependency management, deployments, monitoring, alerting, SLA/SLO, security, inter-team communication, logging, and debugging practices. The way we solved many of these with our customers is to turn operations in a true DevOps shop. The reason this is critical is because microservices brings overhead in the form of duplication in many of the areas listed above. Building great tooling is the only way to make microservices work. Secondly, it’s important to treat the application developers, the users of the tool, like customers. The result of doing so will not only improve the tooling for the internal developers but it’ll also motivate your team towards a success metric. For one of our customers we measured tooling/service adoption as a way to measure success. Simply asking “are they using the internal tool?” was a good enough metric to drive better internal tooling. Auditing data sources has become significantly easier since the footprint of code that needs access to a datasource has become a lot smaller. How have microservices impacted the way you approach testing? Integration testing is very error prone and costly, in terms of man-hours. The ROI just isn’t there. Each individual integration test brings a small marginal coverage of use cases. If you consider all the code path combinations to your application coupled with another application’s codepaths, the number of tests that need to be written easily explodes to a number that is unachievable. Instead we instruct our customers to focus on unit test coverage, a handful of integration tests that will demonstrate total failure to key areas of the application, additional metrics such as SLA/SLO, additional alerting, canary deployments and one-click rollbacks. Inter-service integration tests defeat the purpose of microservices. If you’re testing how the system works as a whole, then conceptually you’ve done something wrong since these services should be loosely coupled. Instead, building in a “contingency plan” into the code when a sub-service fails is a better path. For example, Netflix uses a service to predict what you will see in your feed but when that service fails it falls back on a cached version of the feed so that no failures exist. How have microservices impacted security and controlling access to data? Security to data has significantly increased because teams only have to give access to data on more discrete datasets. Data can be segregated by service so that a password isn’t stored with other sensitive user data like PPI. Depending on the size of the organization this differs greatly, as the other service requesting access to your service’s data may be in another part of the country. We’ve found that there are three ways to solve this problem: Mutual TLS: this is very secure as it depends on certificates being granted to the service accessing the data. The downside is managing certificates for both parties. Netflix created a service called Lemur to help with certificate management. Token Based Authentication: this has the advantage of being simple to implement Security Groups: these are more difficult to implement since it becomes harder to implement across VPC and account resources in a security group. Have you run into issues managing data consistency in a microservice architecture? The important thing is that you don’t have multiple services managing a data model. We had this issue where we had one microservice control the schema version and writing to the tables and another microservice reading directly from the database. This meant that whenever we deployed one service it required us to deploy the other service, therefore coupling these two “microservices” together, which defeats the purpose of the architecture. Thanks again to Isaac for his time and input! This interview was done for our Microservices for Startups ebook. Be sure to check it out for practical advice on microservices. . This article was originally published at buttercms.com . It’s part of an interview series for the book Microservices for Startups Sign up to get new chapters emailed to you as soon as they’re released. If you’ve enjoyed this article, please help it spread by clapping below! For more content like this, follow us on Twitter and subscribe to our blog. And if you want to add a blog or CMS to your website without messing around with Wordpress, you should try Butter CMS .

Microservices for Startups: An Interview with Isaac Mosquera of Armory

DevOps is hot right now. It seems like every software engineering job posting requires DevOps experience and expertise regardless of the actual job title. When a tech company breaks up its monolith into microservices, each of its engineering teams now owns their portion of the application from start to finish. Software engineers no longer just build the application; they also own repo maintenance, set up continuous integration, configure build pipelines, and deploy their application. In this world of cross-functional teams and microservice architecture, DevOps skills become increasingly important, and that starts with understanding CI/CD (continuous integration, continuous delivery, and continuous deployment). In this article we’ll talk about best practices for CI/CD and how platforms like Armory can help manage some of the complexity involved. Continuous Integration (CI) is the “practice of automating the integration of code changes from multiple contributors into a single software project.” Continuous integration (CI) As multiple developers are merging code into the master branch daily, it’s important to have automated checks in place to ensure that the code is always in a good working state. This means that code formatters, code linters, and unit tests should be run prior to merging new code. Rather than relying on developers to remember to use these tools locally, CI pipelines help automate running each required job, preventing bad code from being merged into the master branch. Good CI pipelines should be fast. That means running pipeline jobs in parallel when possible and having a fast test suite. Good CI pipelines should also be reliable. If the build is broken, engineers should work to fix it immediately, as a build failure would block all open merge requests from being merged. If a test is flaky, it should be temporarily disabled and fixed as soon as possible. The app should be built once near the beginning of the CI pipeline, after any formatters, linters, and unit tests are run. This way, the build artifact is ready to be used anywhere in subsequent stages of the pipeline. The build artifact can then be deployed in a containerized environment and used as a review app for code reviewers to quickly validate changes when needed. When CI pipelines are successfully set up for a code repo, developers can commit to the master branch daily (or even several times per day). No more long-running feature branches that live for months waiting for the day that they can finally be merged! Following these CI practices helps keep everything in the master branch clean and in a deployable state at all times, which leads us to the second half of the CI/CD acronym. Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployment (CD) As a brief aside, let’s talk about the Continuous delivery is a natural result of generating a build artifact as part of continuous integration. This build artifact is a working copy of the app that can be deployed to an environment. That means, you’re ready to deploy to production anytime! As an engineering organization, you can decide whether to deploy daily, weekly, every two weeks, and so on. In continuous delivery, while you’re prepared to deploy your app at any moment, a human still needs to kick off the process to start the deployment. differences between “continuous delivery” and “continuous deployment.” Continuous , however, goes a step further than continuous delivery in that every change that gets merged into the master branch will immediately begin the deployment process without any further human interaction. This is exciting because developers can see their code in production just minutes after they’ve merged it! (Assuming, of course, that the deployment isn’t blocked by any failing automated checks which would prevent the new build from being released into the production environment.) deployment Whether your organization chooses continuous delivery or continuous deployment, the intent of both practices is the same: deliver value to your customers as quickly and as frequently as possible. No more big quarterly releases! This is what being agile is all about. One of the most important things to get right with continuous delivery is that the app should be able to be deployed with the click of a single button. In other words, the deployment process should be automated. If this practice isn’t followed, and there are multiple complicated steps in the deployment process that must be carried out by a human, the deployment process becomes more prone to error. After all, we are human, and humans make mistakes. Another key principle of both continuous delivery and continuous deployment is that you should use multiple levels of environments in which the app can run. For instance, you might have a development environment, a staging environment, and a production environment. The build artifact can then be promoted from one environment to the next during the deployment process. The infrastructure in these various environments should be as similar as possible so that you don’t run into major surprises once the app gets into production. Deployment Strategies can vary, but some commonly used techniques are canary deployments, blue/green deployments, and rolling blue/green deployments. Deployment strategies In a , you first release the new version of your app to a small subset of users. Once you are comfortable that the changes work properly for those users, you release the changes to the rest of your users as well. This is considered a cautious way to release code as you don’t initially apply the changes for everyone all at once. canary deployment In a , you use two production-grade environments. One environment is actively used in production and contains the current version of the app. The second environment is on standby and has no traffic routed to it. You deploy the new version of your app to the standby environment and then route all traffic to this environment, which makes it the new production environment. The old production environment then no longer receives traffic and becomes the standby environment. This makes it very easy both to deploy a new release and also to rollback a release when needed, because both processes are as simple as redirecting where the user traffic goes. blue/green deployment A can be used when you have multiple instances of your application all running in the same environment. For example, if you have six nodes used in production, swap out the first node with another node that is running the new version of the application. So, now you have five nodes running the old version of the app and one node running the new version of the app. Then you do it again so that the ratio becomes four old and two new. After four more node replacements, now all six of your nodes are running the new version of the application. rolling blue/green deployment The rolling nature of the deployment is both a pro and a con. The deployment is less risky as you don’t deploy everything at once, but it also takes more time to complete the full release since it’s done one node at a time. Various deployment strategies (Source: https://spinnaker.io/concepts/) How Tools Can Help with CI/CD Now that we understand best practices for CI/CD, what tools can we use to help us? For CI, there are many good open source options like or . You can even use the built-in features of GitHub (with ) or GitLab (with ). Most of these tools specialize in the CI part of CI/CD but also include some features for CD. With these CI tools, you can create pipelines that take care of running your linters and tests on every new merge request. Travis CI CircleCI GitHub Actions GitLab CI When it comes to CD, one of the most popular open source tools that helps automate deployments is . Spinnaker was originally developed internally by Netflix before it was released to the broader developer community. One of the best things about Spinnaker is its flexibility in supporting just about every cloud provider from AWS to Azure to GCP. Spinnaker can be integrated with your CI tool of choice and can deploy your app using your chosen deployment strategy. (I already mentioned that it’s flexible, right?) Spinnaker An example pipeline for a canary deployment using Spinnaker might look a little something like this: Canary deployment strategy pipeline (Source: https://spinnaker.io/concepts/) In this workflow, we see the build artifact deployed to a small cluster of server groups for the initial canary deployment. After the functionality changes in the canary deployment have been manually reviewed and approved, a blue/green deployment is done (or red/black deployment as Netflix calls it) by deploying a new prod cluster and using the load balancer to direct traffic to this new group. The canary cluster is then torn down, and — after everyone is comfortable that the new prod cluster is working well — the old prod cluster is destroyed, too. Armory is a platform that takes this idea one step further by providing an enterprise-grade offering of Spinnaker for better visibility, developer empowerment, and resilience . Armory’s dashboards, logging, and live metrics help give developers more visibility into their app deployments. With much of the complexity abstracted away into a nice GUI, deployments and rollbacks can be executed with the click of a button. This enables even those developers without much DevOps experience to own their app from start to finish. And just to give you an added measure of confidence, Armory’s Policy Engine allows you to configure guardrails to ensure that every deployment follows your company’s best practices and agreed-upon rules. Conclusion So, what have we learned? First, developers need to be acquainted with CI/CD best practices. Second, engineering organizations need to provide their developers with the right tools to help increase productivity and reduce errors. As we’ve seen, one of the best tools used for CD is Spinnaker, now enhanced by Armory. By working together to implement these DevOps principles, engineering teams will have greater confidence in their code and will be enabled to deliver value to their customers faster.

DevOps Practices for Software Engineers to Learn

I think it is a fair statement to convey that software engineers in 2021 are not only working hard but working smart. Building upon lessons learned over the last five years, applications and services are now created as dynamic as possible and are designed to meet laser-focused business needs. This same approach has found its way into the DevOps spectrum, where what I often refer to as “* as code” allows components to be created declaratively. The approach leverages the same git version control system that feature developers have been using for over 15 years for their source code. DevOps engineers have also made tremendous strides at delivering continuous integration (CI) pipelines that provide packaged software that is ready for delivery. However, to this day, the continuous delivery (CD) aspect still presents challenges. Challenges which expose gaps that often get in the way of a successful deployment. A couple of those challenges which I often see firsthand are: No easy way to pre-check deployments, which can cause a successful deployment in one environment to fail, while not failing in other environments. Rolling back to a prior deployment is not really a rollback, but a redeployment to an earlier version of a provided commit—not a rollback to a prior state of the full application or service. These gaps need to be addressed to fully complete the software development lifecycle. Why Spinnaker is Great is an open source solution that focuses on multi-cloud continuous delivery and deployment, targeting all the major cloud service providers (AWS, Azure, Google).  Focusing on the CD aspect of CI/CD, Spinnaker works with all the industry-leading CI tooling. Spinnaker Spinnaker shores up the gaps noted above by performing automated pre-checks for planned deployments. Once the pre-check stage is complete, Spinnaker deploys a canary and then monitors the telemetry emitted by the canary, keeping an eye out for variation between the canary and the existing fleet. If successful, Spinnaker will utilize blue/green deployments for the remainder of the application landscape. Using Spinnaker, rollbacks can be automated and actually revert the entire application or service back to the prior state. This is in contrast to simply re-deploying an existing version as a new version. Taking the true rollback approach yields a less disturbing impact on the application ecosystem overall and reduces the potential for external impacts associated with simply redeploying an older version as a new version. Spinnaker is trusted by a who's who list of IT household names, including Adobe, Airbnb, Comcast, Netflix, SAP, TransUnion, and Salesforce. However, the biggest challenge to Spinnaker is that it is a very complicated platform that presents a hefty learning curve. Below, is an illustration of the Spinnaker design and architecture: How Armory Can Help was created to not only simplify the Spinnaker solution, but to actually extend the value of the multi-cloud continuous delivery and deployment platform. Some of the key features that Armory introduces into the CD aspect of the application lifecycle are noted below: Armory Introduces sophisticated pipelines as code, taking things a step further by allowing centralized pipelines. Facilitates scaling options to easily add/remove elements like: Development environments, Application instances, Changes to the deployment landscape, and Cluster sizing Better Kubernetes Management using the Armory Agent for Kubernetes Policy engine which allows for custom policies These enhancements open up what DevOps engineers can do with Spinnaker without the requirement of a hefty investment in time to build similar options in the native product. How Armory Provides Value The prior section provided some high-level features of how Armory can assist the CD aspect of the application lifecycle. There is perceived value in these features, but the biggest challenge is to get from “zero to Spinnaker” without consuming a sprint’s worth of time. Below are some key aspects in how anyone can see value early in the assessment process of an Armory trial. Minnaker Armory’s open source project is designed to take the confusion out of Spinnaker by automatically creating a fully functional environment in approximately 10 minutes, including the latest version of Armory, too! Yes, zero to Spinnaker and Armory in 600 seconds.  In fact, using my MacBook Pro I was able to follow these instructions without any issues: Minnaker https://github.com/armory/minnaker#installation Once finished, I was able to access the Spinnaker installation using the following instructions: https://github.com/armory/minnaker#accessing-spinnaker Those interested in the finer details can access the “Get Started” page offered by Spinnaker themselves: https://spinnaker.io/guides/user/get-started/ Totally Declarative Design With Spinnaker and Armory running, it is possible to start building out the intended design using a declarative approach via the (YAML Ain't Markup Language) data serialization language using Dinghy. Below, is an example of a Dinghyfile utilized to deliver “Pipelines as Code”: YAML { : , : { : }, : { : { : { : [ , , , ], : [ ]
      }, : [ , ], : [
        { : , : , : , : }
      ]
    }
  }, : [
    { : , : , : [
        { : , : , : }
      ]
    }
  ]
} "application" "helloworldapp" "globals" "save_app_on_update" true "spec" "appmetadata" "dataSources" "enabled" "securityGroups" "loadBalancers" "executions" "serverGroups" "disabled" "canaryConfigs" "cloudProviders" "kubernetes" "aws" "customBanners" "backgroundColor" "var(--color-alert)" "enabled" true "text" "Your custom banner text" "textColor" "var(--color-text-on-dark)" "pipelines" "application" "helloworldapp" "name" "my-pipeline-name" "stages" "name" "one" "type" "wait" "waitTime" 10 The results of the YAML design can then be included in git-based repositories, which can then be used in the implementations from sandbox all the way through production. Honorable Mention There are several other items that I would classify as honorable mentions to keep in mind when considering the value that Armory brings to the table: Deployment Prechecks: With the underlying Spinnaker implementation, the fear of a missed configuration or dependency is eased with deployment prechecks. Developer-Focused Enablement: Armory makes it possible for the most-knowledge team to own a given service, from end to end, leveraging the declarative design. True Rollback: With the Spinnaker/Armory design, it is 100% possible to roll back a given service, including its dependencies. The rollback design can even be automated via observables monitoring the landscape. Application-Centric Dashboard (add-on Product) Customers utilizing can create an application-centric dashboard, which provides an overall view into the Armory/Spinnaker implementation. Below, is an example of what can appear in the Continuous Verification tab: Splunk Those interested in Accelerate or DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA) metrics may recognize the mean time to recover (MTTR) analysis which is included in the example above, which is part of the Splunk integration and not part of the Armory product. Conclusion Starting in 2021, I began focusing on the following mission statement which I feel can apply to any IT professional: “Focus your time on delivering features/functionality which extends the value of your intellectual property. Leverage frameworks, products, and services for everything else.” - J. Vester The Armory solution certainly falls into the classification of a service which allows feature teams to continue to focus on delivering business value, while simplifying a somewhat complicated continuous delivery (CD) solution. Armory provides additional value such as: Declarative design using Dinghy and YAML Minnaker allows quick start in just 10 minutes Application-wide scaling options True rollback functionality Anyone seeking a CD solution targeting the major cloud providers should include Armory to the short list of products and services to evaluate. The manner in which Armory extends the proven Spinnaker solution will simplify the delivery aspects of the software development lifecycle, providing additional features along the way. Have a really great day!

Simplified Spinnaker is Possible: I Never Thought About it

Safeguarding Your Digital Realms with OWASP's Arcane Security Practices 🛡️🌟 (Along with Gandalf the Grey🧙‍♂️) In every developer’s saga, genuine might lies in their unwavering commitment to , as resilient and watchful as the Elves of yore. This chronicle imparts upon thee, the true guardians of the code, the sacred and guarded tutorials to shield your containers from all that lurk in the digital shadows. 🛡️🌟 mastering the arcane security practices bestowed by OWASP In the silvery domains of our servers lies the heart of our craft: the containers, akin to the One Ring in their significance. And just as Gandalf the Grey mustered the Fellowship, —to safeguard these vessels as Gollum guards his treasured ‘precious’. OWASP unites developers under a singular banner "My Precious! 💍" - The Art of Container Protection with OWASP's Secret Runes Evoke the treasures hidden within the deep mines of OWASP, ensuring that not a soul taints your digital 'precious.’ Here's the enchanted armory awaiting thine summoning: 1. Defensive Spells & Potions 🧙‍♂️🧪 (Best Practices) These are tried and tested methods that provide security for your containers. Some of the best practices include: Implementing to prevent common vulnerabilities like SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS). secure coding practices to address known security vulnerabilities. Regularly updating and patching your container images and dependencies to protect sensitive data. Enforcing strong authentication and access controls Implementing secure communication protocols, such as HTTPS, to ensure data privacy and integrity. , such as using secure configurations and hardening Implementing secure deployment practices container runtime environments. : 2. Alerts of the Citadel 🚨🏰 (Vulnerability Alerts) These alerts notify you about emerging security threats and vulnerabilities. Stay informed and prepared by: Subscribing to to receive timely updates about new vulnerabilities. security mailing lists and vulnerability databases from relevant software and container image repositories. Monitoring security advisories and alerts for known vulnerabilities using security scanning tools. Regularly scanning your container images and dependencies Establishing a to quickly identify and remediate vulnerabilities in your containers. vulnerability management process : 3. Sword and Shield ⚔️🛡️ (Security Tools and Techniques) These tools and techniques provide additional layers of security for your containers. Consider using: that provide runtime defense mechanisms, such as container isolation, access control, and behavior monitoring. Container security platforms that analyze container images for vulnerabilities and provide recommendations for remediation. Container image scanning tools Intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPS) that monitor and protect containerized applications from malicious activities. that centralize log data and provide real-time threat detection and response capabilities. Security information and event management (SIEM) tools Elven Enchantments 🧝✨ (Advanced Prevention Techniques): To further enhance container security, consider implementing the following advanced prevention techniques: Utilizing to detect and mitigate vulnerabilities that are unknown or have not yet been patched. zero-day protection mechanisms Implementing sandboxing mechanisms to within the container environment. isolate and restrict the execution of untrusted code Utilizing to secure the interfaces and endpoints your containerized applications expose. API protection measures Remember, implementing these technical details in your container security practices will help fortify your code against potential threats andprotectf your digital assets. At the Council of OWASP: Where the Wise Converge 📜🔍 Even as the wise of Middle-earth gathered in solemn conference to safeguard their realm, so too does the Council of OWASP bring forth a grand conclave of security loremasters. In their united prowess lies the salvation of code and container alike, as they bestow upon us their sacred knowledge: Scriptures of Power (OWASP Top Ten): is a widely recognized and regularly updated list of the most critical web application security risks. It serves as a comprehensive guide for developers, security professionals, and organizations to prioritize and address common vulnerabilities. The top ten risks include: The OWASP Top Ten : Involves malicious code being injected into an application Injection : Flaws in authentication and session management Broken Authentication : Failure to properly protect sensitive information Sensitive Data Exposure : Disclosure of internal files and denial of service attacks XML External Entities (XXE) : Unauthorized access to resources Broken Access Control : Misconfigurations that lead to vulnerabilities Security Misconfigurations : Injection of malicious scripts into web pages Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) : Remote code execution Insecure Deserialization : Using outdated or vulnerable third-party components Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities : Hinder detection and response to security incidents Insufficient Logging and Monitoring Guiding Maps (Cheat Sheets): are invaluable resources that provide . They offer concise information, tips, and code examples on various security topics, including: OWASP Cheat Sheets practical guidance and best practices for secure coding Input Validation Authentication Session Management Secure Communication Secure Deployment By following the recommendations outlined in these cheat sheets, developers can significantly reduce the risk of common security vulnerabilities and strengthen the overall security posture of their applications. Congregation of the Stewards (Community and Conferences): is a vibrant and inclusive network of developers, security professionals, and enthusiasts who are passionate about application security. Engaging with this community provides developers with valuable opportunities to learn, collaborate, and share experiences. serve as platforms for knowledge exchange, where experts in the field share insights, present research findings, and discuss emerging security trends. By actively participating in these gatherings, developers can: The OWASP community OWASP conferences, meetups, and online forums Expand their network! Stay updated on the latest security practices! Gain practical insights from real-world experiences! The collective wisdom and collaboration within the OWASP community contribute to continuously improving application security practices and developing innovative solutions to combat evolving cyber threats. With the guidance of OWASP's mighty council, developers become Embrace their wisdom, for it is through their teachings that we shall prevail against the ever-looming darkness. May the fellowship of developers unite, armed with the knowledge bestowed by OWASP, and together, we shall forge a secure future for the realms of code. guardians of their code and protectors of their digital domains. https://hackernoon.com/the-7-pillars-of-zero-trust-security-a-developers-zero-trust-christmas-carol?embedable=true Within the cavernous belly of Moria dwell the multifaceted securities of your Docker quest. Traverse each layer with caution and strategy: 1. The Beacons Are Lit: Foresight of the Threat Landscape 🔥✨ To anticipate the ever-evolving cyber threats, staying ahead of the game is crucial. , developers can receive timely notifications about emerging security risks. These signals serve as a signal flare against the encroaching dusk of cyber dangers. Developers can ensure that the darkness shall find no purchase in their container environments by heeding these calls and promptly addressing the identified vulnerabilities and threats. By closely monitoring the warning lights of Gondor, which represent the alerts from OWASP 2. The Tragic Flaw: Anticipating the Mortal Blunders of Man 💔🔮 Just like Boromir's fall in the saga of Middle-earth, every developer has the potential for missteps regarding Container Security. Recognizing this inherent humanity, By doing so, they can weave their protections all the stronger, ensuring the resilience and integrity of their containerized applications. developers should proactively anticipate possible mistakes and implement robust security measures. https://hackernoon.com/rbac-the-bouncer-with-a-code-of-conduct-in-the-devops-dance-hall?embedable=true 3. Vision from the Great Eagles: Supervision with Advanced Spellcraft 🦅🔍 To achieve a comprehensive view of the container environment, developers should trust OWASP's higher sight, which is facilitated through . Like the great eagles of Middle-earth that have a superior vantage point, these methodologies allow developers to detect even the slightest rustlings in the shadow. By employing threat modeling techniques and leveraging automated security tools, developers can gain valuable insights into their containerized applications' vulnerabilities and adopt proactive measures to safeguard against potential threats. and threat modeling automated security tools 4. Coronation of Order: The Return of Regulation to the Digital Realms 👑⚙️ Just as the rule of Elessar brought order to the Age of Men, developers should ensure that their . Developers can enforce secure deployment practices by implementing robust governance mechanisms, maintaining proper access controls, and adhering to regulatory compliance requirements. By upholding order in the digital realm, developers can ensure the integrity and security of their containers and the applications they support. governance of container environments adheres to established security regulations and best practices Conclusion - The Dawn of a Secured Age: Ensuring the Sanctity of Middle-Internet 🌅🔐 In a riveting conclusion, it is essential to emphasize the significance of securing containers to protect the dominion of code. Developers can fortify their container environments against ever-evolving threats by implementing a multi-layered approach to container security. It is crucial to remain vigilant and avoid the twin traps of inattention and hubris. By continuously monitoring, updating, and strengthening container security practices, developers can safeguard their digital assets and ensure the sanctity of the “Middle-Internet”. Fellow developers, the journey's end for our tale is nigh, but thine own adventure is just at the dawn's edge. OWASP will be your guiding star and steadfast companion in the quest to fortify the sacred containers. So gird up your loins, take up your tools, and into the fray you march—silent watchers over the vast realms of code. For indeed, "not all those who commit to code are lost"; some are graced by the guiding hand of OWASP, ensuring the sanctity of our digital Middle-Earth against the ever-looming darkness. Tread carefully, code bravely, and 🌟🎇 may the light of the Eldar shine upon your pathways. "In every line of code, the light of OWASP; protecting, guiding, unyielding in the digital quest." 🧙‍♂️💻 Lore of Frequently Asked Questions: Q: Is absolute security attainable for my containers with these scrolls from OWASP? A: Alas, in absolutes, the wise do not deal. Yet, adhere to OWASP's scripts, and your containers shall be as guarded as the fortress of Barad-dûr—close to impregnable. 🏰 Q: As time's river flows, how often must I return to the enchantments for updates? A: As the seasons change in a perpetual cycle, so too must you revisit and renew your defenses. Reforge your incantations to strengthen your fortifications with each new moon or upon news of updates from OWASP's sages. 🌒⏳ Q: Do not some counsels of OWASP seem too burdensome for my humble code? A: Fear not the breadth of their wisdom. In truth, their counsels, though vast, are but shields overlapping to cover every flank. Their strength lies not in their individual weight but in their unity. Embrace them wholeheartedly; let no Orc's blade pierce through. 🛡️🧝

"Not All Those Who Commit to Code Are Lost": Strengthen Your Containers with OWASP🧝‍♂️

Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 by Various, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . Patent Matters in Washington, D.C. here Patent Matters in Washington, D.C. To the Editor of the Scientific American: From the report of the Commissioner of Patents, just issued, it appears that its surplus revenue for the past year amounts to over one hundred and five thousand dollars, and that there is nearly a million dollars in the United States Treasury to the credit of the Patent Office; and yet, notwithstanding that this enormous amount is lying idle, our pseudo-economists at the Capitol refuse to grant the Office sufficient of its own funds to carry on its business promptly. So much is the work behindhand in some of the departments that, as the Commissioner states in his report, some of the attorneys who require certified copies of papers have been obliged to employ their own clerks to do office copying, and then had to pay the full legal rate of ten cents per hundred words, the same as though the Office had done the work. This style of , by making inventors pay two prices for their work, may be "reform" in the eyes of the average Democratic Congressman; but speaking for myself, as one of those who have had to pay twice, I would prefer to dispense with this style of "retrenchment and reform," and therefore ask you, Messrs. Editors, in behalf of the inventors of the United States, to so stir up our legislators that they will allow the Office sufficient of its own funds to do its work properly, and not delay the work of the inventor—work that he has to pay for in advance—and so prevent the discouragement and trouble which these delays always cause. economizing As the Patent Office has been doing a good business lately, there appears to be some attempt at rivalry at the Capitol, as the following list of applications for extension will show: LIST OF APPLICANTS FOR EXTENSIONS OF PATENTS NOW BEFORE CONGRESS. —— Reynolds, power loom brake.
Strong & Ross, scales.
Wm. & W.H. Lewis, photographic plates.
T.A. Weston, differential pulley.
S.S. Hartshorn, buckles.
H.A. Stone, making cheese.
N. Whitehall, cultivator.
J.R. Harrington, carpet lining.
H.L. Emery, cotton gins.
J. Stainthorp, moulding candles.
Walter Hunt's heirs, paper collars.
A.B. Wilson, sewing machines.
S.A. Knox, plows.
Rollin White, firearms.
Aikin A. Felthousen, sewing machines.
H. Woodman, stripping cotton cards.
L. Hall, heel trimmer.
J.A. Conover, wood splitter.
J. Dyson, carding engine.
G. Wellmann, card strippers.
E. Brady, safety valves.
Jearum Atkins, harvester rakes.
John Thomas, re-rolling railroad rails.
Thomas Mitchell, hair brushes.
Stephen Hull, harvesters.
T.R. Crosby, wiring blind slats.
G.W. Laban, mitre cutting machine.
T.A. Whitenack, harvesters.
J.J. Vinton, furnaces.
A. Fuller, faucets.
D. Baker, pitcher spouts and lids.
G.F. Chandler, refining sugar.
G.H. Nott, boiler furnace.
William Hall, lightning rods.
B.F. Rice, paper bag machines.
S.D. Nelson, shovels.
E.T. Russell, car springs.
Hubbell & Conant, steam pumps.
C.A. Chamberlain, shovels.
C.A. Adams, locks.
E.A. Leland, paint can. In addition to the above, I find the following names as applicants for extensions, but the inventions covered by the patents sought to be extended is not mentioned: S.S. Turner, Arculous Wyckoff, De Witt C. Cummings, Moses Marshall, J.W. Fowler, and Holloway & Graham. Many of the applicants have apparently given up their cases for this session, but they may be only lying back to its close in hopes that in the final rush their "little bills" may slip through easily. Several bills tinkering at the patent laws are before Congress, and one of these (House Bill, No. 3,370) passed the House on the 30th ult. It has one section that may be made to work great harm to inventors, as it prevents infringers being sued for more than one year's damages previous to notice of infringement being given. By this bill, if it is allowed to become a law, a person will be able to build and use patented machines or processes for years in some out of the way place where the inventor cannot easily find him; and should he be discovered, he can only be sued for one year's damages. There are other sections in this bill which will bear ventilating. Another bill, introduced into the Senate by Mr. Paddock, provides that all appeals from the Board of Appeals shall be direct to the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, instead of to the Commissioner as heretofore; and that the fees shall be the same as now paid to the latter official. Mr. Sampson has introduced into the House a bill changing section 4886 so that it shall read as follows: "SEC. 4886. Any person who has discovered any new or useful art, machine, manufacture or composition of matter, or any new or useful improvement thereof, not known or used by others in this country, and not patented or described in any printed publication in this or any foreign country, before his invention or discovery thereof, and not in public use or on sale for more than two years prior to his application, unless the same is proved to have been abandoned, may, upon payment of the fees required by law, and other due proceedings had, obtain a patent therefor: ." The change is the addition of the words in italics. Provided, That the manufacture or composition of drugs as a medicine shall not be patentable The Smithsonian Institute has sent to Congress a memorial setting forth that the present Institute building is already too small for the vast amount of articles already placed there on exhibition; that at the late Centennial Exposition the Commissioners of various countries presented their entire collection of exhibits to the United States, which had delegated their care to the Smithsonian Institute, and they had no place for them; that the armory building was being fitted up for the reception of the United States Centennial collection, and they therefore asked that a building be erected for the foreign collection, which could be used as a national museum, or otherwise we should have to offend the donors by keeping their valuable gifts stowed away in cellars and other rubbish receptacles. Mr. Eads, who is now here on the lookout for his pay for his work on the South Pass of the Mississippi's mouth, has received intelligence from the resident engineer at the jetties that the channel through the shoal at the head of the South Pass is now twenty-two feet deep, and that the least width at which twenty feet depth is found is one hundred and ten feet. The principal works to improve this shoal were constructed during the last six months. The low stage and feeble current of the river has delayed their effect until the recent flood from the Ohio reached them, and the problem of deepening the shoal has been fully solved by the rapid scouring away of the obstruction. It is stated that the channel is quite straight and is deepening rapidly. The channel through the jetties at the mouth of the Pass is twenty-one feet deep. The entrance from the sea through the jetties is one thousand feet wide, and through the works at the head of the Pass eight hundred feet. A recent telegram from Nevada states that the Sutro Tunnel (of which I gave you some particulars in one of my letters) has now progressed a total distance of 15,565 feet and has fairly entered the mineral belt, and will soon help to increase the already vast products of the Comstock lode. While on the subject of mining, I will state that the amount of quicksilver produced in California has increased so immensely during the last two years that it has attracted the attention of all interested in the article throughout the world. The receipts for the year have been 63,928 and the exports 48,010 flasks. In addition to the receipts there, probably about six thousand flasks were shipped direct from the mines to Nevada, thus bringing up the total production to over 70,000 flasks, a gain in round numbers of from twelve thousand to fifteen thousand flasks over 1875. The exports in that year were 34,844 flasks, or 13,666 less than in 1876. Occasional. Tyrian Purple Ink For Marking Linen.—Von Bele gives the following method for preparing an ink for marking linen and cotton: Neutralize 75 grains of carbonate of ammonia with pure nitric acid, and triturate 45 to 60 grains of carmine with the solution. Mordant the fabric with a mixed solution of acetate of alumina and tin salt, and write upon it, when it is perfectly dry, with the ink. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Various (2006). Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/19406/pg19406-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

Patent Matters in Washington, D.C.

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim has become the modern-day equivalent to classic in that it can seemingly or platform you can think of. Now, not every platform supports mods on their port of this particular game. Case-in-point would be the Nintendo Switch port, for obvious reasons related to potential hacking and piracy on their platform. It’s - on a related note - also one of the first titles I can think of that has the devs support player mods on their game. DOOM run on just about any console One of these types of mods are the Clothing mods. These are the mods that change your characters’ strengths, carrying weight, etc. They also provide some benefits. The Necromancer outfit increases efficiency in Destruction-based magic attacks, for example. : This guide will go over the following questions in detail and attempt to answer What are clothing mods? How do you apply them in / Skyrim Skyrim Special Edition? What are the best clothing mods for this game? For those not in the know by now, Skyrim and support mods on all consoles (except Nintendo Switch) officially. its’ Special Edition Let’s start answering these questions in order. The first question we’re gonna answer is “What are clothing mods?” What are Clothing Mods in Skyrim? Clothing mods are, generally speaking, simple to complex modifications that add new clothes, armors, rings, etc. into the world of and its’ special edition. They can be found in the wide world of Skyrim, or be crafted at the tanning racks if one isn’t good at finding things. One example is Geralt, and another example is The Flash. Skyrim How to find the Tanning Racks in Skyrim This resource ( ) has a list of all the locations in Skyrim that features a Tanning Rack. A Player character/NPC will do this by crouching and using a knife to scrape a hide. https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Tanning How to apply clothing mods in Skyrim/Skyrim Special Edition? Applying clothing mods to Skyrim or Skyrim Special Edition can enhance your gameplay experience by introducing new and exciting outfits for your characters. These mods can add variety, improve immersion, and let you customize your character's appearance. Below, I'll guide you through the process of installing and applying clothing mods step by step: Choosing the Mods: Start by browsing modding websites like or the Steam Workshop for Skyrim. Look for clothing mods that suit your taste and are compatible with your game version (Skyrim or Skyrim Special Edition). Nexus Mods Creating a Backup: Before installing any mods, it's essential to create a backup of your game files. This ensures that you can revert to the original state if any issues arise during the installation process. Install a Mod Manager: To make the process smoother, it's recommended to use a mod manager. The most popular one for Skyrim is "Nexus Mod Manager" (NMM) or " ." For Skyrim Special Edition, "Vortex" is generally the go-to mod manager. Vortex Install Skyrim Script Extender (SKSE) (Only for Skyrim, not for Special Edition): Many advanced mods require SKSE to work correctly. Go to the official SKSE website and download the latest version for your game. Follow the installation instructions provided on their website. Download the Clothing Mods: Once you have your mod manager set up, download the clothing mods you want from the modding website of your choice. Usually, mods are downloaded in the form of ".zip" or ".7z" archives. Installing Mods with Nexus Mod Manager (NMM) or Vortex: Click on the "Mod Manager Download" button on the mod page. NMM will automatically handle the download and installation process. In Nexus Mod Manager: Click on the "Mod Manager Download" button on the mod page. Vortex will manage the download and installation process. In Vortex: Activating the Mods: After the mod manager installs the mods, you'll find them listed in the manager's interface. Ensure the checkboxes next to the clothing mods are selected to activate them. The mod manager will take care of the load order and ensure that the mods are correctly placed in the game's data folder. Load Order and Compatibility: Managing load order is crucial, especially if you have multiple mods installed. Certain mods may conflict with each other, causing glitches or crashes. Mod managers usually help sort the load order, but it's good to double-check for compatibility patches if you encounter any issues. Launching the Game: Start the game through the mod manager to ensure that all the installed clothing mods are functioning correctly. If everything is working fine, proceed to the next step. Finding the New Clothing in the Game: After installing the clothing mods, you can find the new outfits in various ways. Some clothing may be added to existing merchants or chests, while others might require crafting at a forge. Refer to the mod's description or the mod author's instructions for information on how to acquire the new clothing in-game. Enjoying the New Clothing: With the mods successfully installed and activated, you can now enjoy the new clothing options for your character. Dress them up in stylish armor sets, elegant robes, or any other outfit you desire. Troubleshooting: If you encounter any issues with the clothing mods, check the mod page for troubleshooting information. The mod author and the modding community often provide solutions to common problems. And Remember, modding is an ongoing process, and updates to both the game and the mods can always affect compatibility. Always check for updates and keep an eye on the modding community for the latest information and support. Enjoy your enhanced Skyrim experience with the new clothing mods! Some of the Best Clothing Mods in Skyrim The world of Skyrim Modding offers a vast array of possibilities to enhance and customize the gaming experience. Among the countless mods available, the best clothing mods for Skyrim truly stand out as they bring a whole new level of immersion, beauty, and practicality to the game. Throughout this exploration of the top clothing mods for Skyrim, we have witnessed the ingenuity and creativity of the Modding community. From the elegant and regal designs of to the weather-appropriate and realistic outfits of these mods go beyond merely changing the appearance of characters. They add depth and authenticity to the game's atmosphere, making it feel more like a living, breathing world. "Immersive Armors" "Winter is Coming," The introduction of advanced physics with mods like and has revolutionized the way clothing behaves in the game. The realistic movement and interaction of garments with the environment make the characters feel more lifelike and believable. Players are now able to witness the swaying of capes in the wind or the flow of skirts as characters move, creating a more immersive and visually appealing experience. "HDT Physics Extensions" "Cloaks of Skyrim" Additionally, the inclusion of practical and functional clothing mods such as "Bandolier: Bags and Pouches" and "Warmonger Armory" not only adds to the realism but also enhances the gameplay. These mods provide the player with storage options, allowing them to carry more items, and offer a wider selection of gear, enabling more strategic approaches to combat and exploration. Furthermore, the versatility and customization options that the "Apachii Divine Elegance Store" brings to the table are unmatched. With an extensive variety of outfits and accessories, players can truly define their characters' style and persona. This mod has expanded the role-playing aspect of Skyrim, allowing players to embody their characters fully and express their unique personalities. The and mods have addressed the long-standing issue of gender representation in Skyrim. These mods provide female characters with armor and clothing designs that are both practical and stylish, avoiding the impractical and sexualized portrayals that were prevalent in the base game. This focus on inclusivity and authenticity is an essential step forward for the modding community and the gaming industry as a whole. "UNP Female Armors" "UNP Minidresses Collection" However, it’s worth mentioning that mods do come with potential drawbacks. The installation and management of multiple mods can be a daunting task for less tech-savvy players, and conflicts between different mods can lead to crashes. Additionally, as the game continues to receive official updates from the developers, some mods may become incompatible or require constant updates to remain functional, which can be frustrating for players who heavily rely on them. Final Thoughts In conclusion, the best clothing mods for Skyrim have significantly enriched the game, pushing the boundaries of what players can experience in this epic fantasy world. From awe-inspiring armors to practical clothing options and diverse styles, these mods have transformed the way we perceive and engage with the game. The dedication and talent of the modding community continue to impress, making Skyrim a timeless masterpiece that evolves with the creative minds of its players. Whether you seek a more immersive role-playing experience, enhanced aesthetics, or practical gear for your adventures, the world of Skyrim modding has something to offer every player. As we eagerly await future developments and expansions, the clothing mods discussed here will undoubtedly remain as some of the most outstanding contributions to the Skyrim modding community, leaving a lasting impact on the game's legacy for years to come.

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When news of the broke five months ago, we believed it was the beginning of the end for cryptocurrency. The plummet was inevitable, many thought. The unprecedented crisis hasn’t been without consequences, yet it’s not all gloom for the market. Cryptocurrency continues to show positives, such as the launch of since the turn of the year, and the marginal surge in the value of household cryptos like Bitcoin and Ethereum. FTX collapse at least four new coins With an estimated 420 million crypto users globally, there isn’t a paucity of new crypto enthusiasts looking to dip their funds in the market. Growing a profitable crypto portfolio can be particularly daunting for these newbies. What coins guarantee short-term and long-term rewards? Should a crypto newbie purchase multiple units of the same coin, or spread the funds across several coins with varying performances? The easiest way to manage a profitable crypto portfolio is to handle it like a traditional portfolio. Since some coins will outperform others, having several well-performing coins in your armory will prevent losses and guarantee gross profits. For effective management, you should track crypto performances, embrace diversification, and never hesitate to let go of a bad purchase. Balancing your portfolio can be highly rewarding if you know the exact pieces to move every time. Since some coins will outperform others, having several well-performing coins in your armory will prevent losses and guarantee gross profits What is a Crypto Portfolio? A crypto portfolio is a collection of digital coins (cryptocurrencies) owned by an individual. Crypto portfolios often consist of a variety of coins including altcoins, stablecoins, and the largest coins such as Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC). Crypto portfolios are nurtured towards profit through diversification of investments and the purchase of quality coins. CoinMarketCap reports being presently traded in the market. For new investors, this poses a fresh concern - what’s the safest way to make money as a portfolio owner? Purchasing all available coins isn’t only a financial risk, it’s impractical. Some enthusiasts prefer to hold BTC, ETH, or USDT given their long-standing stability. Though this is good advice, committing to one subset of coins makes you vulnerable to the fluctuations of that subset. over 10,000 coins Diversifying your portfolio equally increases the odds of picking an outperformer. Last month, to hit a $30k per unit price, the highest since June 2022. Yet, three other coins surpassed the king coin, with RNDR, Render’s native token, reaching a 17% increase. In the future, other coins may outperform BTC in both market value and price growth, hence the wisdom in seeking out coins with strong potential. BTC surged by 6% How to Manage a Crypto Portfolio? Suppose you invested in coins A, B, and C at a 30:50:20 rate. As B gains, for instance, your portfolio’s worth increases, altering the investment ratio. To restore balance, you can divert the accrued gain into added units of A and C. That way, you’re compounding your profit margins, rebalancing your portfolio, and boosting your portfolio’s worth. In managing a crypto portfolio, research precedes purchase. These five tips will point you toward owning a profitable portfolio: : An expanding crypto portfolio means that you have to track multiple wallets holding all your cryptocurrencies. Over time, this becomes daunting, especially with the instability of several coins and the rapid changes observed in the market. A handles the task of monitoring the ups and downs of your different digital assets. It also displays market cap, trading volume, circulating supply, price changes, and other useful data. The accuracy of a data tracker influences your investment choices. Thus, you should select trusted and recommended trackers for your crypto portfolio. Performance Tracking crypto price tracker : Crypto portfolios shuffle between concentrated and diversified. As implied, investors with concentrated portfolios fixate on a single well-performing coin. Given the risks, some diversification is encouraged. Sharing your investments across high-risk, medium-risk, and low-risk investments is a great way to maintain balance and minimize losses. If your risk tolerance is above-par, holding more high-risk coins may not be a wrong move. Diversify Your Investments : Stablecoins are the go-to for conservative investors. Backed by stable currencies including the US Dollar, they maintain a stable value over extended periods, guaranteeing investors their money’s worth. While they don’t promise mouthwatering returns, they remain unaffected by market dips. Tether (USDT) and the USD Coin (USDC) are two well-known stablecoins held by experienced investors. Purchase Stablecoins : Strategically split your funds across well-performing coins, and know when to step back from a given coin. Haste wins nothing, neither does greed or double-mindedness. It’s your money, so regulate your hope with research-backed facts. Stay abreast of changes in trading volume, unit prices, and other data affecting the coins in your portfolio. Be Logical : Cryptocurrencies can be alluring, especially if they experience unprecedented surges over a short period. Learn to identify shitcoins, and don’t throw in more funds than you’re willing to part with. Cryptocurrencies fail for a lot of reasons - security concerns, unsupportive or absent community, etc - so it isn’t strange to find a coin plummeting despite the positive buzz about its future. Just think of LUNA, UST, and SQUID. Bite Within Means Sharing your investments across high-risk, medium-risk, and low-risk investments is a great way to maintain balance and minimize losses. When building a portfolio, consider starting with small amounts invested in two to five different coins. Observe them for a while, consume white papers and other available information about them, and then come up with a strategy for growing your portfolio. What Crypto Trackers Can I Use? Short answer: CoinMarketCap. It’s trusted by industry experts, it’s the most common, and it offers users a portfolio to manually add cryptocurrencies from their wallets. The tracker includes a watchlist that brings updated information on several coins trading in the market. To choose a tracker, consider: Usability. The ideal crypto tracker is easy to use. You can navigate the interface without feeling lost, and you don’t have to spend a lot of time looking for buttons or features. Uniqueness. Every crypto tracker contains specific features that solve users problems. Both CoinMarketCap and , a lesser-known competitor, provide trading volume, market cap, and other data, but CoinMarketCap also displays trending and newly added coins at one glance. Determine what features are convenient for your portfolio before settling for one tracker. CoinGecko Security. Many trackers are connected directly to your portfolio. Hence, the tracker’s security should be tight. Confirm that there are measures for screening out malicious attacks and that they authenticate transactions using two-factor where necessary. You can master strategic portfolio management as a new player in the crypto market. It doesn’t have to be complicated. With persistence and keen research, you can get started on building a balanced portfolio and scale up in no time. Bonus Tip: Top Recommended Coins Looking for a great place to start? Here are some coins to consider: (BTC) Bitcoin (ETH) Ethereum (DOGE) Dogecoin (USDT) Tether (USDC) USD Coin (XRP), and Ripple (BNB). Binance Coin Don’t overthink your next cryptocurrency investment. Follow the facts, diversify your portfolio, and watch your funds multiply.

Five Easy Steps to Managing A Profitable Crypto Portfolio

Let's learn about via these 65 free stories. They are ordered by most time reading created on HackerNoon. Visit the to find the most read stories about any technology. Continuous Delivery /Learn Repo 1. DevOps 101: CI/CD [Explained] [This is part of a DevOps 101 Series written by Kat Cosgrove, Developer Advocate at JFrog.] 2. Releases: The Last Frontier of Standardization As software engineers, we strive to better our craft and leave a lasting mark on the organizations we work for. Throughout our careers, we balance two types of knowledge: the combination of business domain and technical stack is our bread and butter. Sometimes we might value the business domain over the technical stack and vice versa as we expand our toolkit. For example, we might work at a financial institution (let’s call it Acme Investment Bank) for a broad domain, but where the tech stack is not bleeding edge. On the other hand, we might roll the dice and work for a firm that has a bleeding-edge tech stack but where the domain is very specific, like a company that sells wine to your pets. 3. Delays in app delivery to Kubernetes Enterprises around the world are waking up to the containers and Kubernetes trend. There are numerous benefits of delivering an application as container packages to Kubernetes but at the same time, the process of app containerization and the subsequent app deployment to Kubernetes can hit many roadblocks. Since the idea of using Kubernetes and containers for app delivery is fairly recent, the transition from traditional delivery systems to these modern delivery systems is a bumpy ride. 4. There is No Continuous Delivery Without Continuous Testing Three Ways Automated Testing Closes the Gap Between Development and Delivery 5. Serverless Tekton Pipelines on AWS EKS Fargate Building an on-demand, server less Continuous Delivery automation solution using Tekton and AWS EKS Fargate 6. How to Integrate GitHub Actions and CI/CD With Your Next Python Project We're going to create a CI/CD pipeline for a typical Python package. The text focuses on practical aspects and should be enough to get you started! 7. How to Automate Kubernetes Deployments with Postman Kubernetes is the most widely used container-based orchestration platform today. Learn how to deploy apps with continuous delivery using Postman. 8. The #1 Reason Jenkins Fails Jenkins down? Pipelines broken? Hackers making off with your data? It often stems from one fatal flaw. While Jenkins has been both loved and hated for being DevOps duct tape, every user knows there are plenty of issues to deal with. Over the past three years, as part of my work at Codefresh I’ve been helping teams migrate from Jenkins and I’ve seen all of these issues over and over again. The biggest issue may surprise you because it creates a cascade effect. 9. Deployment Choice: Code Promotion vs Artifact Promotion When it comes to deployment, a choice must be made. Find out what's the difference in code promotion and artifact promotion 10. If Your Product Roadmap is a Gantt Chart, You’ve Got Another Thought Coming It’s been nearly four decades since Microsoft developed their Project application as an internal management tool to organize their various software development projects. In 1984, they released it to the public (on floppy disk…CDs didn’t really become a software download mechanism until the mid-90s), and within a few years it became the dominant project-management software for the PC universe. 11. Why Your Project's 1st Commit Should Have a Working App & CI/CD Pipeline Automating The Automation Behind DevOps 12. What is Lead Time and Why Does it Have So Many Definitions? In this post, I look at why there are so many definitions of lead time and how you can put them to use. 13. What Is the Difference Between Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployment? Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployment are two complementary practices that help teams get their software into the hands of users faster. 14. Efficient Deployment and Release Management “Do not deploy on Friday” is not a joke after all even if you have continuous deployment. With deciding to deploy anyway comes the subtle concern... 15. The State of the Continuous Delivery Developer Ecosystem Continuous delivery (CD) is a software development practice that enables developers to release small but frequent software updates reliably and safely. Closely 16. An Intro to QAOps in Continuous Delivery Systems In the common paradigm, dedicated QA teams solely focus on product quality. QAOps enables an efficient quality assurance process. 17. Netflix Tech Stack Has No Chill: How To Account for 15% of the World's Bandwidth Disclaimer: This is NOT a press release by Netflix. Just my honest review of tech that helps us binge great content without hassle. 18. How Continuous Delivery Helps Startups to Deliver Value The continuous model implies the frequent and predictable release of quality products. Let's understand the business benefits of Continuous Delivery. 19. Solving the Last Mile Problem for Continuous Delivery This post is the fifth and final article in our Tactical Guide to a Shorter Cycle Time five-part series. Read the previous post here. 20. A Comparison of Agile, Lean, and Continuous Delivery With DevOps and Continuous Delivery gaining traction, are the principles behind Lean and Agile still relevant? How do they compare to the 5 Continuous... 21. Deploy on Fridays, or Don't. There seems to be a debate that has gone on for quite some time now on the Twitters about whether or not you should do Friday deploys, and whether there should be Friday moratoriums, etc.  There are a lot of accusations being thrown around about fear, testing, time to recover, and the like.  To be very clear, I am not a big fan of Friday deploys.   That opinion is not based on merely how I feel about deploying on Friday, but also based on the science of it, as well as my learned experience. 22. 8 Fallacies of Continuous Delivery A quintessential piece for anyone working with distributed systems is the Fallacies of Distributed Computing by L Peter Deutsch. Even when working with modern platforms such as Kubernetes, the assertions made in the Fallacies of Distributed Computing prove to be very true around latency, bandwidth and system administration. 23. Building my Github Action to Deliver Doggoes to PRs Because who doesn't want good boys to show up whenever they push? 24. Simplified Spinnaker is Possible: I Never Thought About it Getting Spinnaker running is not an easy feat. Armory's Minnaker open source application gets you started in 10 minutes, so you can focus on Armory's value. 25. DevOps and Telco Sofwarisation - Part 1 In this series of articles, we will explore the convergence happening between the IT and Telecom industries, which is referred to as “Telco Softwarisation”. 26. DevOps vs SDLC: Optimizing the Software Development Cycle If you're using a traditional software development life cycle (SDLC) you may have questions about where DevOps fits in. 27. 7 Common Misconceptions about DevOps Metrics Metrics are crucial to DevOps and Continuous Delivery as part of the process of continuous improvement. However, you must balance collecting and displaying data 28. The Benefits of Automation Testing and How it Works Benefits of Automation Testing, Strategies and Best Practices. Get unique insights on how to implement automation testing fast! 29. The Science Behind High Performing Organisations [Book Review] 30. The Importance of a Continuous Delivery Culture Continuous Delivery is the ability to ship code quickly, safely, and consistently, and it’s a necessity for teams that wish to remain innovative and competitive. It’s focused on delivering value to the user and starting that feedback loop early — the ideal state of Continuous Delivery is one in which your code is always ready to be deployed. Many engineering leaders think of CD as a workflow and focus on the tooling and processes necessary to keep code moving from commit to deploy. But CD is more than just a process — it’s a culture. To effectively practice CD, you need to: 31. How to Get the Most Out of Heroku CI Continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) are best practices in today’s software engineering development process. 32. Learn How to Build a CI/CD Pipeline Using GitLab for your Website We'll run through how to build and configure a CI/CD pipeline to deploy your business's website using AWS, Terraform & Gitlab. 33. What the future holds: 5 core QA trends to rule 2022 Businesses continue to move forward on the digital acceleration path provoked by the pandemic, which means the demand for software testing will increase. What t 34. A Guide to Design Thinking and Continuous Delivery from an Ex-Principal Engineer How do the big tech companies and unicorn startups succeed in agile product development while maintaining code quality. 35. Improving the Working Environment for Developers - In 3 Stages Only … and incidentally establishing DevOps. 36. Creating and Deploying a Simple Helm Chart Learn how to create a simple Helm chart to package and deploy individual Kubernetes applications. 37. Dealing With Systems Debt Why relying more on juniors and less on seniors is essential in dealing with systems debt before the problem goes completely out of the team's control. 38. A-Z Of DevOps: Managing Multiple Environments With The Help Of These Tools In most DevOps settings you’ll find that there are multiple environments in the pipeline. You might have conditions that change the environment based on which branch was merged or when a branch is tagged for release. There are a number of reasons you want to have more than just a production environment, the biggest reason being testing. 39. How to Apply Lean Production Principles in Software Development Lean production is not a new concept. It comes from the manufacturing industry and was polished by Toyota in the seventies. However, Lean manufacturing principles turned out to be so practical and universal that they can be used to create innovations in other industries as well. In the Information Technology (IT) sphere, they are frequently used with the Six Sigma Principles, and in this article, we will explain what each principle means for Lean software development. 40. The Next 11 Things You Should Do For CI/CD Pipeline Optimization Many engineering teams are making the switch to a DevOps culture. This has a lot to do with the way the software development cycle has changed over the years. It used to take months to implement a new feature, get it through testing, fix any issues, and finally get it to production. 41. Using Spinnaker with Kubernetes for CI/CD Kubernetes is now the de-facto standard for container orchestration. With more and more organizations adopting Kubernetes, it is essential that we get our fundamental ops-infra in place before any migration. This post will focus on pushing out new releases of the application to our Kubernetes cluster i.e. Continuous Delivery. 42. So, You Read Accelerate. Now What? “Our analysis is clear: in today’s fast-moving and competitive world, the best thing you can do for your products, your company, and your people is institute a culture of experimentation and learning, and invest in the technical and management capabilities that enable it.” – Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim, Accelerate. 43. Speed and Quality are Not Mutually Exclusive: Telemetry is the Key All engineering teams strive to build the best product they can as quickly as possible. Some, though, stumble into a false dichotomy of choosing between speed and quality. While that choice may have been necessary in the past, it’s not the case today. 44. Publish NPM packages using GitHub Actions: A How-To Guide NPM automation tokens allow us to publish 2FA-protected packages from automation workflows. 45. What's the difference between Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery? There is plenty of content out there describing what Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployment are. But what are these processes for in the first place? 46. The CI/CD Model Development Process Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) are staples of a modern software development workflow that enable developers to release their code rapi 47. DevOps Shouldn't be Hard: Configurating CD Server I wanted to write this guide for a while because DevOps is one of the things that is not discussed much yet there are a few straightforward actions that you can integrate into your workflow that will make your developer life much easier. 48. Guide To Pursue DevOps Agile Development Cycle And Develop a Better Software The rise of DevOps and Agile methodologies is apparent to anyone closely following the business world. Just last year, there was an 18 percent increase in DevOps adoption. Most business owners see the benefits of embracing both DevOps and Agile. With these methodologies in place, developers are able to get projects done in a timely and efficient manner. 49. DevOps and Telco Softwarisation - Part 2: A Simple CI/CD Example Image courtesy of Pixabay 50. Staging Environments are Too Important to be Overlooked: Here's Why Many development teams skip having a staging environment for their applications. They often submit a PR, potentially run tests in a CI system, merge to master, and then deploy to production. This is a risky pipeline because there is no true integration environment or integration testing being performed. What’s worse is that if there is an issue they may engage in “cowboy coding” to try to resolve the issue on their live production environment. 51. DevOps Shouldn't be Hard: Deployment Reports Previously, we managed to make our app redeploy on each commit. As you can remember, we get the status of deployment by processing script execution results. So let's use it to send a notification to ourselves each time we deploy our code. 52. Start To Take Actions with Buddy Buddy is the underdog of the CI/CD world. It's a frustrating world, filled with broken Jenkins servers and exhausting CodeBuild UIs. I discovered Buddy about a year ago and I've been raving about it ever since. It offers a different approach to a complex, difficult problem. 53. 15 of the Best Continuous Delivery Tools Continuous Delivery is one of the best practices for software development, but what are the best tools for it today? Here are my picks. 54. Secrets Your Parents Never Told You About Creating High-Performing Teams How can teams perform at their full potential? 55. I have a confession to make… I commit to master. I used to preach about Git Flow to keep my code releasable, rollback-able, and keep a clean history. But not anymore — now, bad code doesn’t make it into my codebase. 56. Implementing Blue/Green Deployments with Azure Web Apps for Containers Using Deployment slots, we can perform Blue/Green deployments in Azure App Service to achieve zero-downtime deployments for our containerized workloads. 57. Buddy Vs Jenkins: Technical and Tactical Differences Buddy and Jenkins find themselves on completely opposite ends of the CI/CD spectrum. So which one should you go for? It certainly is a question of context. There are some clear technical differences but how they relate to actual value is circumstantial and should be taken on a case by case basis. As such, this comparison will be broken down into two sections. 58. Automatic Cross-Platform Deployments with Electron on a Travis CI Server This is a tutorial on how to setup an Electron app on Travis CI, so that new versions are deployed to Github Releases with a simple pull request. 59. With GitHub Actions, you don’t have to do boring tasks manually ever again Check out this guide and spin up a GitHub Action for your favorite stack fast—like Stack Overflow copy & paste fast. 60. DevOps Practices for Software Engineers to Learn In this world of cross-functional teams and microservice architecture, DevOps skills become increasingly important, and that starts with understanding CI/CD 61. Accelerate your Software Delivery With CI/CD Practices Are you looking to transform your software development process? If yes, this blog post provides an introduces to orchestrating  the CI-CD pipeline with AWS. 62. GitHub Actions: How To Deploy To Google Kubernetes Engine GitHub actions and workflows are great. We use them to deploy a web app to different cluster environments and I want to show you how we did it. Hopefully, this helps to simplify your deployment process as well. I’ve also written a companion article that describes our GitHub workflows for continuous integration. 63. How to Use Platypush to Set Up Self-Hosted CI/CD Git Pipelines How to use Platypush to set up self-hosted build and test pipelines for your Gitlab and Github projects. 64. The Evolution of DevOps: Lessons for Organizations of all Sizes Having someone to lead the DevOps space early and instill the culture will reduce overall release cycles friction and shorten the time to market. 65. Automated Software Testing Using GitLab CI/CD And Selenium Grid We will configure a CI/CD pipeline with GitLab CI/CD and execute Selenium testing over it through LambdaTest, an online Selenium Grid of 2000+ real browsers. Thank you for checking out the 65 most read stories about Continuous Delivery on HackerNoon. to find the most read stories about any technology. Visit the /Learn Repo

65 Stories To Learn About Continuous Delivery

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Ideals of masculine and feminine beauty

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"modesty is the timidity of the body."

Word of the death of Joan de Tany reached Torn

The Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . Chapter III The Outlaw of Torn Chapter III For nearly a month, the old man haunted the palace, and watched in the gardens for the little Prince until he knew the daily routine of his tiny life with his nurses and governesses. He saw that when the Lady Maud accompanied him, they were wont to repair to the farthermost extremities of the palace grounds where, by a little postern gate, she admitted a certain officer of the Guards to whom the Queen had forbidden the privilege of the court. There, in a secluded bower, the two lovers whispered their hopes and plans, unmindful of the royal charge playing neglected among the flowers and shrubbery of the garden. Toward the middle of July De Vac had his plans well laid. He had managed to coax old Brus, the gardener, into letting him have the key to the little postern gate on the plea that he wished to indulge in a midnight escapade, hinting broadly of a fair lady who was to be the partner of his adventure, and, what was more to the point with Brus, at the same time slipping a couple of golden zecchins into the gardener’s palm. Brus, like the other palace servants, considered De Vac a loyal retainer of the house of Plantagenet. Whatever else of mischief De Vac might be up to, Brus was quite sure that in so far as the King was concerned, the key to the postern gate was as safe in De Vac’s hands as though Henry himself had it. The old fellow wondered a little that the morose old master of fence should, at his time in life, indulge in frivolous escapades more befitting the younger sprigs of gentility, but, then, what concern was it of his? Did he not have enough to think about to keep the gardens so that his royal master and mistress might find pleasure in the shaded walks, the well-kept sward, and the gorgeous beds of foliage plants and blooming flowers which he set with such wondrous precision in the formal garden? Further, two gold zecchins were not often come by so easily as this; and if the dear Lord Jesus saw fit, in his infinite wisdom, to take this means of rewarding his poor servant, it ill became such a worm as he to ignore the divine favor. So Brus took the gold zecchins and De Vac the key, and the little prince played happily among the flowers of his royal father’s garden, and all were satisfied; which was as it should have been. That night, De Vac took the key to a locksmith on the far side of London; one who could not possibly know him or recognize the key as belonging to the palace. Here he had a duplicate made, waiting impatiently while the old man fashioned it with the crude instruments of his time. From this little shop, De Vac threaded his way through the dirty lanes and alleys of ancient London, lighted at far intervals by an occasional smoky lantern, until he came to a squalid tenement but a short distance from the palace. A narrow alley ran past the building, ending abruptly at the bank of the Thames in a moldering wooden dock, beneath which the inky waters of the river rose and fell, lapping the decaying piles and surging far beneath the dock to the remote fastnesses inhabited by the great fierce dock rats and their fiercer human antitypes. Several times De Vac paced the length of this black alley in search of the little doorway of the building he sought. At length he came upon it, and, after repeated pounding with the pommel of his sword, it was opened by a slatternly old hag. “What would ye of a decent woman at such an ungodly hour?” she grumbled. “Ah, ’tis ye, my lord?” she added, hastily, as the flickering rays of the candle she bore lighted up De Vac’s face. “Welcome, my Lord, thrice welcome. The daughter of the devil welcomes her brother.” “Silence, old hag,” cried De Vac. “Is it not enough that you leech me of good marks of such a quantity that you may ever after wear mantles of villosa and feast on simnel bread and malmsey, that you must needs burden me still further with the affliction of thy vile tongue? “Hast thou the clothes ready bundled and the key, also, to this gate to perdition? And the room: didst set to rights the furnishings I had delivered here, and sweep the century-old accumulation of filth and cobwebs from the floor and rafters? Why, the very air reeked of the dead Romans who builded London twelve hundred years ago. Methinks, too, from the stink, they must have been Roman swineherds who habited this sty with their herds, an’ I venture that thou, old sow, hast never touched broom to the place for fear of disturbing the ancient relics of thy kin.” “Cease thy babbling, Lord Satan,” cried the woman. “I would rather hear thy money talk than thou, for though it come accursed and tainted from thy rogue hand, yet it speaks with the same sweet and commanding voice as it were fresh from the coffers of the holy church. “The bundle is ready,” she continued, closing the door after De Vac, who had now entered, “and here be the key; but first let us have a payment. I know not what thy foul work may be, but foul it is I know from the secrecy which you have demanded, an’ I dare say there will be some who would pay well to learn the whereabouts of the old woman and the child, thy sister and her son you tell me they be, who you are so anxious to hide away in old Til’s garret. So it be well for you, my Lord, to pay old Til well and add a few guilders for the peace of her tongue if you would that your prisoner find peace in old Til’s house.” “Fetch me the bundle, hag,” replied De Vac, “and you shall have gold against a final settlement; more even than we bargained for if all goes well and thou holdest thy vile tongue.” But the old woman’s threats had already caused De Vac a feeling of uneasiness, which would have been reflected to an exaggerated degree in the old woman had she known the determination her words had caused in the mind of the old master of fence. His venture was far too serious, and the results of exposure too fraught with danger, to permit of his taking any chances with a disloyal fellow-conspirator. True, he had not even hinted at the enormity of the plot in which he was involving the old woman, but, as she had said, his stern commands for secrecy had told her enough to arouse her suspicions, and with them her curiosity and cupidity. So it was that old Til might well have quailed in her tattered sandals had she but even vaguely guessed the thoughts which passed in De Vac’s mind; but the extra gold pieces he dropped into her withered palm as she delivered the bundle to him, together with the promise of more, quite effectually won her loyalty and her silence for the time being. Slipping the key into the pocket of his tunic and covering the bundle with his long surcoat, De Vac stepped out into the darkness of the alley and hastened toward the dock. Beneath the planks he found a skiff which he had moored there earlier in the evening, and underneath one of the thwarts he hid the bundle. Then, casting off, he rowed slowly up the Thames until, below the palace walls, he moored near to the little postern gate which let into the lower end of the garden. Hiding the skiff as best he could in some tangled bushes which grew to the water’s edge, set there by order of the King to add to the beauty of the aspect from the river side, De Vac crept warily to the postern and, unchallenged, entered and sought his apartments in the palace. The next day, he returned the original key to Brus, telling the old man that he had not used it after all, since mature reflection had convinced him of the folly of his contemplated adventure, especially in one whose youth was past, and in whose joints the night damp of the Thames might find lodgement for rheumatism. “Ha, Sir Jules,” laughed the old gardener, “Virtue and Vice be twin sisters who come running to do the bidding of the same father, Desire. Were there no desire there would be no virtue, and because one man desires what another does not, who shall say whether the child of his desire be vice or virtue? Or on the other hand if my friend desires his own wife and if that be virtue, then if I also desire his wife, is not that likewise virtue, since we desire the same thing? But if to obtain our desire it be necessary to expose our joints to the Thames’ fog, then it were virtue to remain at home.” “Right you sound, old mole,” said De Vac, smiling, “would that I might learn to reason by your wondrous logic; methinks it might stand me in good stead before I be much older.” “The best sword arm in all Christendom needs no other logic than the sword, I should think,” said Brus, returning to his work. That afternoon, De Vac stood in a window of the armory looking out upon the beautiful garden which spread before him to the river wall two hundred yards away. In the foreground were box-bordered walks, smooth, sleek lawns, and formal beds of gorgeous flowering plants, while here and there marble statues of wood nymph and satyr gleamed, sparkling in the brilliant sunlight, or, half shaded by an overhanging bush, took on a semblance of life from the riotous play of light and shadow as the leaves above them moved to and fro in the faint breeze. Farther in the distance, the river wall was hidden by more closely massed bushes, and the formal, geometric precision of the nearer view was relieved by a background of vine-colored bowers, and a profusion of small trees and flowering shrubs arranged in studied disorder. Through this seeming jungle ran tortuous paths, and the carved stone benches of the open garden gave place to rustic seats, and swings suspended from the branches of fruit trees. Toward this enchanting spot slowly were walking the Lady Maud and her little charge, Prince Richard; all ignorant of the malicious watcher in the window behind them. A great peacock strutted proudly across the walk before them, and, as Richard ran, childlike, after it, Lady Maud hastened on to the little postern gate which she quickly unlocked, admitting her lover, who had been waiting without. Relocking the gate the two strolled arm in arm to the little bower which was their trysting place. As the lovers talked, all self-engrossed, the little Prince played happily about among the trees and flowers, and none saw the stern, determined face which peered through the foliage at a little distance from the playing boy. Richard was devoting his royal energies to chasing an elusive butterfly which fate led nearer and nearer to the cold, hard watcher in the bushes. Closer and closer came the little Prince, and in another moment, he had burst through the flowering shrubs, and stood facing the implacable master of fence. “Your Highness,” said De Vac, bowing to the little fellow, “let old DeVac help you catch the pretty insect.” Richard, having often seen De Vac, did not fear him, and so together they started in pursuit of the butterfly which by now had passed out of sight. De Vac turned their steps toward the little postern gate, but when he would have passed through with the tiny Prince, the latter rebelled. “Come, My Lord Prince,” urged De Vac, “methinks the butterfly did but alight without the wall, we can have it and return within the garden in an instant.” “Go thyself and fetch it,” replied the Prince; “the King, my father, has forbid me stepping without the palace grounds.” “Come,” commanded De Vac, more sternly, “no harm can come to you.” But the child hung back and would not go with him so that De Vac was forced to grasp him roughly by the arm. There was a cry of rage and alarm from the royal child. “Unhand me, sirrah,” screamed the boy. “How dare you lay hands on a prince of England?” De Vac clapped his hand over the child’s mouth to still his cries, but it was too late. The Lady Maud and her lover had heard and, in an instant, they were rushing toward the postern gate, the officer drawing his sword as he ran. When they reached the wall, De Vac and the Prince were upon the outside, and the Frenchman had closed and was endeavoring to lock the gate. But, handicapped by the struggling boy, he had not time to turn the key before the officer threw himself against the panels and burst out before the master of fence, closely followed by the Lady Maud. De Vac dropped the key and, still grasping the now thoroughly affrightened Prince with his left hand, drew his sword and confronted the officer. There were no words, there was no need of words; De Vac’s intentions were too plain to necessitate any parley, so the two fell upon each other with grim fury; the brave officer facing the best swordsman that France had ever produced in a futile attempt to rescue his young prince. In a moment, De Vac had disarmed him, but, contrary to the laws of chivalry, he did not lower his point until it had first plunged through the heart of his brave antagonist. Then, with a bound, he leaped between Lady Maud and the gate, so that she could not retreat into the garden and give the alarm. Still grasping the trembling child in his iron grip, he stood facing the lady in waiting, his back against the door. “Mon Dieu, Sir Jules,” she cried, “hast thou gone mad?” “No, My Lady,” he answered, “but I had not thought to do the work which now lies before me. Why didst thou not keep a still tongue in thy head and let his patron saint look after the welfare of this princeling? Your rashness has brought you to a pretty pass, for it must be either you or I, My Lady, and it cannot be I. Say thy prayers and compose thyself for death.” Henry III, King of England, sat in his council chamber surrounded by the great lords and nobles who composed his suit. He awaited Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, whom he had summoned that he might heap still further indignities upon him with the intention of degrading and humiliating him that he might leave England forever. The King feared this mighty kinsman who so boldly advised him against the weak follies which were bringing his kingdom to a condition of revolution. What the outcome of this audience would have been none may say, for Leicester had but just entered and saluted his sovereign when there came an interruption which drowned the petty wrangles of king and courtier in a common affliction that touched the hearts of all. There was a commotion at one side of the room, the arras parted, and Eleanor, Queen of England, staggered toward the throne, tears streaming down her pale cheeks. “Oh, My Lord! My Lord!” she cried, “Richard, our son, has been assassinated and thrown into the Thames.” In an instant, all was confusion and turmoil, and it was with the greatest difficulty that the King finally obtained a coherent statement from his queen. It seemed that when the Lady Maud had not returned to the palace with Prince Richard at the proper time, the Queen had been notified and an immediate search had been instituted—a search which did not end for over twenty years; but the first fruits of it turned the hearts of the court to stone, for there beside the open postern gate lay the dead bodies of Lady Maud and a certain officer of the Guards, but nowhere was there a sign or trace of Prince Richard, second son of Henry III of England, and at that time the youngest prince of the realm. It was two days before the absence of De Vac was noted, and then it was that one of the lords in waiting to the King reminded his majesty of the episode of the fencing bout, and a motive for the abduction of the King’s little son became apparent. An edict was issued requiring the examination of every child in England, for on the left breast of the little Prince was a birthmark which closely resembled a lily and, when after a year no child was found bearing such a mark and no trace of De Vac uncovered, the search was carried into France, nor was it ever wholly relinquished at any time for more than twenty years. The first theory, of assassination, was quickly abandoned when it was subjected to the light of reason, for it was evident that an assassin could have dispatched the little Prince at the same time that he killed the Lady Maud and her lover, had such been his desire. The most eager factor in the search for Prince Richard was Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, whose affection for his royal nephew had always been so marked as to have been commented upon by the members of the King’s household. Thus for a time the rupture between De Montfort and his king was healed, and although the great nobleman was divested of his authority in Gascony, he suffered little further oppression at the hands of his royal master. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Edgar Rice Burroughs (1995). The Outlaw of Torn. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/369/pg369-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

The old man haunted the palace

The Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . Chapter I The Outlaw of Torn Chapter I Here is a story that has lain dormant for seven hundred years. At first it was suppressed by one of the Plantagenet kings of England. Later it was forgotten. I happened to dig it up by accident. The accident being the relationship of my wife’s cousin to a certain Father Superior in a very ancient monastery in Europe. He let me pry about among a quantity of mildewed and musty manuscripts and I came across this. It is very interesting—partially since it is a bit of hitherto unrecorded history, but principally from the fact that it records the story of a most remarkable revenge and the adventurous life of its innocent victim—Richard, the lost prince of England. In the retelling of it, I have left out most of the history. What interested me was the unique character about whom the tale revolves—the visored horseman who—but let us wait until we get to him. It all happened in the thirteenth century, and while it was happening, it shook England from north to south and from east to west; and reached across the channel and shook France. It started, directly, in the London palace of Henry III, and was the result of a quarrel between the King and his powerful brother-in-law, Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. Never mind the quarrel, that’s history, and you can read all about it at your leisure. But on this June day in the year of our Lord 1243, Henry so forgot himself as to very unjustly accuse De Montfort of treason in the presence of a number of the King’s gentlemen. De Montfort paled. He was a tall, handsome man, and when he drew himself to his full height and turned those gray eyes on the victim of his wrath, as he did that day, he was very imposing. A power in England, second only to the King himself, and with the heart of a lion in him, he answered the King as no other man in all England would have dared answer him. “My Lord King,” he cried, “that you be my Lord King alone prevents Simon de Montfort from demanding satisfaction for such a gross insult. That you take advantage of your kingship to say what you would never dare say were you not king, brands me not a traitor, though it does brand you a coward.” Tense silence fell upon the little company of lords and courtiers as these awful words fell from the lips of a subject, addressed to his king. They were horrified, for De Montfort’s bold challenge was to them but little short of sacrilege. Henry, flushing in mortification and anger, rose to advance upon De Montfort, but suddenly recollecting the power which he represented, he thought better of whatever action he contemplated and, with a haughty sneer, turned to his courtiers. “Come, my gentlemen,” he said, “methought that we were to have a turn with the foils this morning. Already it waxeth late. Come, De Fulm! Come, Leybourn!” and the King left the apartment followed by his gentlemen, all of whom had drawn away from the Earl of Leicester when it became apparent that the royal displeasure was strong against him. As the arras fell behind the departing King, De Montfort shrugged his broad shoulders, and turning, left the apartment by another door. When the King, with his gentlemen, entered the armory he was still smarting from the humiliation of De Montfort’s reproaches, and as he laid aside his surcoat and plumed hat to take the foils with De Fulm, his eyes alighted on the master of fence, Sir Jules de Vac, who was advancing with the King’s foil and helmet. Henry felt in no mood for fencing with De Fulm, who, like the other sycophants that surrounded him, always allowed the King easily to best him in every encounter. De Vac he knew to be too jealous of his fame as a swordsman to permit himself to be overcome by aught but superior skill, and this day Henry felt that he could best the devil himself. The armory was a great room on the main floor of the palace, off the guard room. It was built in a small wing of the building so that it had light from three sides. In charge of it was the lean, grizzled, leather-skinned Sir Jules de Vac, and it was he whom Henry commanded to face him in mimic combat with the foils, for the King wished to go with hammer and tongs at someone to vent his suppressed rage. So he let De Vac assume to his mind’s eye the person of the hated De Montfort, and it followed that De Vac was nearly surprised into an early and mortifying defeat by the King’s sudden and clever attack. Henry III had always been accounted a good swordsman, but that day he quite outdid himself and, in his imagination, was about to run the pseudo De Montfort through the heart, to the wild acclaim of his audience. For this fell purpose he had backed the astounded De Vac twice around the hall when, with a clever feint, and backward step, the master of fence drew the King into the position he wanted him, and with the suddenness of lightning, a little twist of his foil sent Henry’s weapon clanging across the floor of the armory. For an instant, the King stood as tense and white as though the hand of death had reached out and touched his heart with its icy fingers. The episode meant more to him than being bested in play by the best swordsman in England—for that surely was no disgrace—to Henry it seemed prophetic of the outcome of a future struggle when he should stand face to face with the real De Montfort; and then, seeing in De Vac only the creature of his imagination with which he had vested the likeness of his powerful brother-in-law, Henry did what he should like to have done to the real Leicester. Drawing off his gauntlet he advanced close to De Vac. “Dog!” he hissed, and struck the master of fence a stinging blow across the face, and spat upon him. Then he turned on his heel and strode from the armory. De Vac had grown old in the service of the kings of England, but he hated all things English and all Englishmen. The dead King John, though hated by all others, he had loved, but with the dead King’s bones De Vac’s loyalty to the house he served had been buried in the Cathedral of Worcester. During the years he had served as master of fence at the English Court, the sons of royalty had learned to thrust and parry and cut as only De Vac could teach the art, and he had been as conscientious in the discharge of his duties as he had been in his unswerving hatred and contempt for his pupils. And now the English King had put upon him such an insult as might only be wiped out by blood. As the blow fell, the wiry Frenchman clicked his heels together, and throwing down his foil, he stood erect and rigid as a marble statue before his master. White and livid was his tense drawn face, but he spoke no word. He might have struck the King, but then there would have been left to him no alternative save death by his own hand; for a king may not fight with a lesser mortal, and he who strikes a king may not live—the king’s honor must be satisfied. Had a French king struck him, De Vac would have struck back, and gloried in the fate which permitted him to die for the honor of France; but an English King—pooh! a dog; and who would die for a dog? No, De Vac would find other means of satisfying his wounded pride. He would revel in revenge against this man for whom he felt no loyalty. If possible, he would harm the whole of England if he could, but he would bide his time. He could afford to wait for his opportunity if, by waiting, he could encompass a more terrible revenge. De Vac had been born in Paris, the son of a French officer reputed the best swordsman in France. The son had followed closely in the footsteps of his father until, on the latter’s death, he could easily claim the title of his sire. How he had left France and entered the service of John of England is not of this story. All the bearing that the life of Jules de Vac has upon the history of England hinges upon but two of his many attributes—his wonderful swordsmanship and his fearful hatred for his adopted country. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Edgar Rice Burroughs (1995). The Outlaw of Torn. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/369/pg369-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

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