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Navigating Complex Search Tasks with AI Copilots: Opportunities

$DED: The MemeCoin Sparking New Life in Polkadot's Ecosystem Memecoins have made a name for themselves in the constantly changing world of cryptocurrency by offering a mix of fun, community, and real money-making opportunities. All three of these things come together in memecoins. What this phenomenon is best shown by is how popular the term $DED is right now on the social media site X. Not only does this rise in fame show how strong the community behind memecoin is, but it also marks an important moment for Polkadot and the environment it fits into. We will talk more about this trend and look at what it means and how it has changed since the news of the $DED memecoin snapshot. For instance, the $DED memecoin began as a joke in a small online group but quickly caught on as more people joined the joke and put money into the coin. This made it more valuable and well-known, showing that community and humour can really help people make money in the world of cryptocurrency. The meteoric rise of the DED The fact that $DED has moved up the top lists on X shows how quickly the memecoin is becoming famous. Due to the fact that $DED, which is a representation of the Polkadot ecosystem, has created a rush of excitement within the community, more than 20,000 individuals are eagerly anticipating the airdrop in the $DED Telegram channel. This is because $DED has caused the community to become more enthusiastic. What a nice treat this photo event was! It helped to reinforce the goal of $DED, which is to get more people in the community involved in the network. The Polkadot group is even more excited now that the snapshot has been made public. The huge number of people who are active in the $DED Telegram group shows how passionate they are about it. This channel has a lively community spirit because people there actively discuss strategies, share ideas, and work together. It is extremely clear that the community is ready to support and propel the $DED token to new heights, as seen by the increasing interest that has been displayed recently. This is very visible. An important step towards strengthening $DED's place in the Polkadot environment was taken by the snapshot event for the token. It's a smart move that will get more people involved in the community and give them more reasons to join the network. This attempt brings attention to the fact that the coin has the power to encourage growth and make community members better bonds. The $DED coin is helping Polkadot grows and scale its ecosystem Perhaps the release of $DED will mark the start of a new era of growth and attention for the Polkadot community. This is a very important event. Because $DED is a memecoin with real goals, it has the unique ability to bring new wealth to the ecosystem. This means that it can compete with other markets for more people's attention and money. Where Polka Dot Style Starts to Change An important part of the community thinks that the launch of the $DED coin was a turning point for Polkadot. It's a smart chance to bring new investors into the environment and get people who are already involved excited about it again. Polkadot needs to get moving again in order to regain its position in the competitive world of cryptocurrencies, and this could be the push it needs. Making ties between people in the community stronger The partnerships and support that are supplied by key initiatives that are a member of the Polkadot network are evidence of the unwavering solidarity that exists within this community. The Talisman Wallet, Nova Wallet, and SubWallet are a few examples of the projects that fall within this category. This collaborative effort strongly demonstrates the community's commitment to supporting $DED and, by extension, the whole Polkadot ecosystem. It is an important message that conveys the importance of this commitment. The Zealy Campaign The launch of the Zealy campaign, with a prize sum of over $30,000 in DOT, is another sign of how passionate and involved the community is with the $DED coin. Polkadot is once again the centre of attention thanks to high-profile sponsorships from well-known crypto stars like DataDash, Ash Crypto, and DubzyXBT. These recommendations make the token even more well-known and desirable.  The goal of "Dot is DED" is to rethink how to bring people together and get them involved in their communities. The goal of the community to launch the first memecoin on the Polkadot network was what led to the start of the DOT is $DED campaign. Because of the impact that $BONK had on the ecosystem of Solana, the community saw an opportunity to produce a similar rush of passion and engagement for Polkadot by using the same platform. This was something that they viewed as a potential possibility. How collaborative work pushes the memecoin community forward There were a lot of problems that had to be solved along the way to start $DED. However, the community's desire to repeat the success seen in other areas was what was needed to get things moving. This project that everyone worked on together shows how strong group teamwork can be when it comes to reaching big goals. For example, community members held virtual events and teaching classes to get more people to know about and join the Polkadot environment. This was similar to what was done during the $BONK campaign. The strength of community-driven efforts in attaining shared objectives was shown by the fact that this collaborative effort resulted in a considerable rise in user engagement and adoption of Polkadot. People are getting more and more excited about the upcoming airdrop. It is also expected that this event will bring even more people into the community, bringing in more followers and making the coin more popular among loyal Polkadot fans. Any and all concerns about the death of the Polkadot ecosystem have been put to rest as a direct consequence of the successful execution of the introduction of the $DED. Because of the combined efforts of the community, the Polkadot Foundation, and ecosystem activities, the market has been given a new lease of life. This is a consequence of the combination of these three factors. This shows how strong and useful the Polkadot network can be. The successful launch of $DED has not only revived interest in the Polkadot ecosystem but has also solidified its position as a leading player in the decentralized finance space. With the community's continued support and the foundation's strategic initiatives, Polkadot is poised for even greater success in the future. Don’t forget to like and share the story! This author is an independent contributor publishing via our brand-as-author program. Be it through direct compensation, media partnerships, or networking, the author has a vested interest in the company/ies mentioned in this story. HackerNoon has reviewed the report for quality, but the claims herein belong to the author. #DYOR Vested Interest Disclosure:

How $DED's Social Media Surge is Redefining Crypto Community Engagement

$DED-এর সোশ্যাল মিডিয়া সার্জ কীভাবে ক্রিপ্টো কমিউনিটি এনগেজমেন্টকে পুনরায় সংজ্ঞায়িত করছে৷

Wie der Social-Media-Anstieg von $DED das Engagement der Krypto-Community neu definiert

Cómo el aumento de las redes sociales de $DED está redefiniendo la participación de la comunidad criptográfica

Comment la montée en puissance des médias sociaux de $DED redéfinit l'engagement de la communauté cryptographique

$DED का सोशल मीडिया उछाल क्रिप्टो सामुदायिक जुड़ाव को कैसे पुनर्परिभाषित कर रहा है

$DED のソーシャル メディアの急増が仮想通貨コミュニティの関与をどのように再定義しているか

$DED의 소셜 미디어 급증이 암호화 커뮤니티 참여를 재정의하는 방법

Como o aumento da mídia social de $DED está redefinindo o envolvimento da comunidade criptográfica

Как всплеск социальных сетей $DED меняет определение взаимодействия с криптосообществом

$DED'in Sosyal Medya Artışı Kripto Topluluğu Katılımını Nasıl Yeniden Tanımlıyor?

Sự gia tăng truyền thông xã hội của $DED đang xác định lại mức độ tương tác của cộng đồng tiền điện tử như thế nào

$DED 的社交媒体热潮如何重新定义加密货币社区参与

This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. Authors: (1) Md Masud Rana, Department of Mathematics, University of Kentucky; (2) Duc Duy Nguyen, Department of Mathematics, University of Kentucky & ducnguyen@uky.edu. Table of Links Abstract & Introduction Datasets and Results Methods Conclusion, Data and Software Availability, Competing interests, Acknowledgments & References 2 Datasets and Results In this section, we perform validation and evaluation of our proposed models on several benchmark datasets. We develop two types of GGL-PPI models: GGL-PPI1 and GGL-PPI2. The first model, GGL-PPI1, is built solely on geometric graph features discussed in Section 3. On the other hand, GGL-PPI2 incorporates both geometric graph features and auxiliary features, as detailed by Wang et al. [41]. The electrostatic potential calculations for the auxiliary components are conducted using the MIBPB software [42]. 2.1 Validation To validate our models, we primarily consider the AB-Bind dataset [25], SKEMPI 1.0 dataset [23], and SKEMPI 2.0 dataset [24]. We employ a rigorous evaluation methodology by conducting a 10-times 10-fold cross-validation (CV) on each datasets. The mean Pearson correlation coefficient (R ) and root-mean-square error (RMSE) serve as our evaluation metrics. p In comparing the CV performance of our proposed models with other existing methods, we specifically assess TopNetTree [41], Hom-ML-V2 [43], and Hom-ML-V1 [43]. Both TopNetTree and Hom-ML-V2 incorporate auxiliary features in conjunction with their topology-based and Hom-complex-based features, respectively. On the other hand, Hom-ML-V1 solely relies on Hom-complex-based features without utilizing any auxiliary features. Validation on AB-Bind S645 Data Set The AB-Bind dataset contains 1,101 mutational data points for 32 antibody-antigen complexes, providing experimentally determined binding affinity changes upon mutations. Pires et al. curated a subset known as AB-Bind S645 [44], consisting of 645 single-point mutations observed in 29 antibody-antigen complexes. The dataset comprises a mix of stabilizing (20%) and destabilizing (80%) mutations. Additionally, the dataset includes 27 non-binders that do not show any binding within the assay’s sensitivity range. For these non-binders, the binding free energy changes have been uniformly set to a value of 8 kcal/mol. It is crucial to consider these non-binders as outliers during model development and evaluation to ensure model accuracy and robustness. Our GGL-PPI2 achieved an Rp of 0.58 on the AB-Bind S645 dataset, as shown in Figure 2a. The comparison results in Table 1 indicate that our model tied for second place with Hom-ML-V2 43, while TopNetTree [41] claimed the top position. However, when we exclude the 27 nonbinders from the dataset, our model outperforms all other existing models. Specifically, the Rp value increases to 0.74 from 0.58 after removing the nonbinders (Figure 2b). Furthermore, GGL-PI1, our purely geometric graph-based features model, demonstrated competitive performance with an Rp of 0.57 on the AB-Bind S645 dataset. Intriguingly, when excluding the nonbinders, GGL-PPI1 surpassed all other models with an improved Rp of 0.73. These performances reveal that our multiscale weighted colored geometric graphs can effectively characterize the wide range of interactions in biomolecular complexes. Validation on SKEMPI 1.0 S1131 Data Set The SKEMPI 1.0 dataset consists of a collection of 3,047 mutations of 158 complexes obtained from literature sources, where the complexes have experimentally determined structures [23]. The dataset includes both single-point mutations and multi-point mutations. Specifically, there are 2,317 entries in the dataset that represent single-point mutations, which are collectively known as the SKEMPI S2317 set. Additionally, a subset of 1,131 non-redundant interface single-point mutations has been selected from the SKEMPI S2317 set and labeled as the SKEMPI S1131 set [45]. This subset focuses on studying the impact of single-point mutations on protein-protein interactions. Table 1: Performance comparison of different methods in terms of Pearson correlation coefficients (Rp) for the AB-Bind (S645) dataset. Figure 2c shows that our model GGL-PPI2 achieves an Rp of 0.873 and an RMSE of 1.21 kcal/mol in 10-fold CV on the S1131 dataset. Table 2 presents the performance comparison of various methods on the S1131 dataset, including our proposed models, GGL-PPI1 and GGL-PPI2. Among them, our model, GGL-PPI2, achieved the highest performance, underscoring its superiority in predicting binding affinity changes due to mutation. Notably, even without auxiliary features, our GGL-PPI1 outperformed both TopNetTree and Hom-ML-V2 methods that do leverage auxiliary features. This again highlights the efficacy of our geometric graph-based molecular representation. Table 2: Performance comparison of different methods in terms of Pearson correlation coefficients (Rp) for the single-point mutations in the SKEMPI 1.0 (S1131) dataset. Validation on SKEMPI 2.0 S4169 and S8338 Data Sets The SKEMPI 2.0 dataset is an updated and expanded version of the original SKEMPI dataset, incorporating new mutations collected from various sources [24]. Released in 2018, it significantly increased in size, now containing a total of 7,085 entries, including both single-point and multi-point mutations. The data was obtained by merging several databases, including SKEMPI 1.0 [23], AB-Bind [25], PROXiMATE27, and dbMPIKT46. Additionally, new data from the literature were manually curated and added to the dataset. The mutations cover a wide range of protein complexes, such as protease-inhibitor, antibody-antigen, and TRCpMHC complexes. Among the mutations, approximately 3,000 are single-point alanine mutations, 2,000 are single-point non-alanine mutations, and another 2,000 involve multiple mutations. Notably, the authors of the mCSM-PPI2 [8] method filtered the single-point mutations, yielding S4169 set, comprising 4,169 variants in 139 different complexes/ The S8338 set, derived from S4169, represents hypothetical reverse mutation energy changes with negative values. This comprehensive dataset serves as a valuable resource for studying protein interactions and their thermodynamic properties. Perforamnce-wise, Our GGL-PPI2 model posts an Rp of 0.81 with an RMSE of 1.03 kcal/mol for the S4169 dataset as shown in Figure 2d, outstripping all existing models (Table 3). It is noteworthy that our GGL-PPI1 model, which solely relies on geometric graph-based features, demonstrated comparable performance to GGL-PPI2, outperforming TopNetTree and mCSM-PPI2 with an Rp of 0.80 and an RMSE of 1.06 kcal/mol. In the case of the S8338 dataset, we applied a stratified cross-validation approach similar to mCSM-PPI2. We ensured that hypothetical reverse mutations were consistently placed either in the training or test sets during the dataset splits, maintaining their relationship to the corresponding original mutations intact throughout the cross-validation process. GGL-PPI2 achieved an Rp of 0.85 with an RMSE of 1.07 kcal/mol as depicted in Figure 2e, and GGL-PPI1 closely followed, attaining an Rp of 0.84 with the same RMSE value. As Table 3 attests, our GGL-PPI2 is on par with TopNetTree and outperforms mCSM-PPI2 on the S8338 dataset. Table 3: Performance comparison of different methods in terms of Pearson correlation coefficients (Rp) for the single-point mutations in the SKEMPI 2.0 (S4169 and S8338) dataset. 2.2 Evaluation To evaluate our proposed model for predicting binding free energy (BFE) changes of protein-protein interactions, we consider two datasets sourced from the ProTherm database [22]. The first dataset, carefully selected by Pucci et al. [36], named S[sym] dataset. This data assembles 684 mutations from the ProTherm, comprising 342 direct mutations and their corresponding reverse mutations, resulting in a balanced dataset. The dataset specifically focuses on mutations in fifteen protein chains with solved 3D structures, ensuring highresolution data with a resolution of at least 2.5˚A. By providing experimentally measured ∆∆G values and a balanced representation of stabilizing and destabilizing mutations, the S[sym] dataset serves as a valuable resource for evaluating prediction biases in the context of predicting mutation-induced binding affinity changes. To address the issue of data leakage and enhance the generalization capability of our method, we employed the Q1744 dataset [47]. Quan et al. [48] compiled the Q3421 dataset from ProTherm, consisting of 3421 single-point mutations across 150 proteins with available PDB structures. However, the presence of homologous proteins in both the training and test set can lead to interdependent effects of mutations, compromising the model’s performance. To mitigate this, Li et al. [47] created the Q1744 dataset, derived by excluding overlapping data points and refining protein-level homology between Q3421 and S[sym] datasets, resulting in 1744 distinct mutations. Furthermore, the Q3488 dataset was created by augmenting reverse mutations in the Q1744 set. We utilized the Q3488 dataset as our training set, thereby enhancing our ∆∆G predictor’s capability to accurately predict BFE changes in PPIs. We conduct an evaluation of our model on the blind test set S[sym], with a distinct focus on both direct and reverse mutations. To assess the performance, we utilize the Pearson correlation coefficient and root-mean-square error as our primary metrics. Additionally, to discern any prediction bias, we incorporated two statistical measures: Rpdir−rev and δ. The former calculates the Pearson correlation between predictions for direct and reverse mutations, while the latter represents the sum of predicted ∆∆G values for both types of mutations. The hypothesis is that an unbiased predictor would yield Rpdir−rev = −1 and an average δ ( ¯δ) of 0 kcal/mol. Our main focus is to highlight the effectiveness of our model, GGL-PPI2, particularly emphasizing its robust geometric graph-based molecular featurization. GGL-PPI2 has demonstrated exceptional prediction accuracy, maintaining consistency for both direct and reverse mutations. As depicted in Figure 3a and 3b, our model achieves consistent Rp values of 0.57 and an RMSE of 1.28 kcal/mol, indicating its efficiency against overfitting to direct mutations. Additionally, the analysis reveals that a significant proportion of mutations fall within a prediction error of 0.5 kcal/mol and 1.0 kcal/mol, with 34.6% and 65.8% for direct mutations and 35.1% and 66.0% for reverse mutations, as depicted in Figure 3d and 3e. Furthermore, Figure 3c demonstrates that GGL-PPI2 effectively addresses prediction bias by achieving a nearly perfect Rpdir−rev value of -0.999 and an extremely low average ¯δ of 0.006 kcal/mol. Finally, the distribution plot in Figure 3f illustrates that 99.4% of mutations exhibit a prediction bias under 0.05 kcal/mol. In Table 4, we present the prediction results of our models and conduct a comprehensive comparison with other ∆∆G predictors. We observe that our GGL-PPI2 model outperforms ThermoNet [47], which was also trained on the homologyreduced set Q3488, across all evaluation measures. It outperforms ThermoNet by 21.3% for direct mutations and 18.7% for reverse mutations. Furthermore, the GGL-PPI1 model, which only uses geometric graph-based features, also performs better than ThermoNet in both direct and reverse prediction tasks. This further emphasizes the effectiveness of our geometric-graph approach. For a broader comparison against other ∆∆G predictors, we introduce the GGL-PPI2∗ model, trained on the Q6428 set constructed before the homology reduction of the set Q3421 [47]. As illustrated in Table 4, GGL-PPI2∗ excels over other methods in reverse mutation predictions. It is noteworthy that while some methods surpass GGL-PPI2∗ for direct mutations, they frequently exhibit significant bias towards reverse mutations. This paper is available on under CC 4.0 license. Arxiv

Our Datasets and Results From Our Study: GGL-PPI Models

আমাদের গবেষণা থেকে আমাদের ডেটাসেট এবং ফলাফল: GGL-PPI মডেল

Unsere Datensätze und Ergebnisse unserer Studie: GGL-PPI-Modelle

Nuestros conjuntos de datos y resultados de nuestro estudio: modelos GGL-PPI

Nos ensembles de données et résultats de notre étude : modèles GGL-PPI

हमारे डेटासेट और हमारे अध्ययन के परिणाम: जीजीएल-पीपीआई मॉडल

私たちのデータセットと研究結果: GGL-PPI モデル

연구 데이터 세트 및 결과: GGL-PPI 모델

Nossos conjuntos de dados e resultados de nosso estudo: modelos GGL-PPI

Наши наборы данных и результаты нашего исследования: модели GGL-PPI

Veri Setlerimiz ve Çalışmamızın Sonuçları: GGL-PPI Modelleri

Bộ dữ liệu và kết quả từ nghiên cứu của chúng tôi: Mô hình GGL-PPI

我们的数据集和研究结果：GGL-PPI 模型

, a prominent cryptocurrency payments provider, has achieved a significant milestone for the Web3 sector by becoming the first worldwide on/off-ramp infrastructure firm to get the coveted System and Organization Controls (SOC) 2 Type 2 accreditation. Transak Greater cooperation between Web3 and traditional finance is made possible by this historic accomplishment, which solidifies Transak's leadership in security and compliance standards in the cryptocurrency space. What is SOC 2 Type 2 Compliance? represents the gold standard for data security and privacy in the tech industry. Issued by the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), it ensures organizations have stringent controls and processes in place to protect user data and privacy. SOC 2 Type 2 The lengthy audit process requires companies to prove their data handling and IT practices meet the highest benchmarks for security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality and privacy. For crypto companies like Transak that deal with highly sensitive user information, SOC 2 compliance is a must for building trust and reassuring customers their data is safe. Why This Matters for Web3 By attaining this critical security certification, has overcome a major roadblock to mainstream adoption of Web3 services. Many established corporations and regulated industries like healthcare and finance have been hesitant to work with crypto firms due to a lack of security assurances. This has always been a problem for the adoption of web3 technologies! As companies take data, privacy and security serious seriously due to regulations governing data and privacy of users. Transak However, by satisfying SOC 2 requirements, Transak can now seamlessly collaborate with organizations that demand the highest data protection standards. This paves the way for integrating crypto payments into traditional business platforms, accelerating onboarding to Web3. Transak's Commitment to Security It was not a simple task to achieve SOC 2 compliance. Transak's platforms, policies, and processes were rigorously audited for months in order to demonstrate that it complies with the requirement. This involved showcasing how its software systems, data governance models, controls, and payments infrastructure are safeguarded by encryption, access restrictions, and other measures. Transak has long pledged to maintain financial-grade security on par with leading banks and fintechs, and this accreditation confirms that commitment. Another gold standard for information security management, ISO 27001, was also recently obtained by Transak. With these guarantees, Transak is able to service highly regulated sectors that deal with sensitive consumer data, such as banking and insurance. Driving Web3 Adoption With data security no longer a barrier, Transak's SOC 2 certification could spur rapid growth in crypto adoption among mainstream businesses and consumers. The achievement also sets an example for other Web3 companies to prioritize compliance and reinforce the image of crypto as a mature, secure industry. Transak CEO Sami Start commented: "Achieving SOC 2 Type 2 compliance represents a key milestone in our mission to bring institutional-grade security and privacy to Web3. We're proud to set the standard when it comes to protecting user data and building trust in crypto's future." By cementing its leadership in security and compliance, Transak is delivering on its vision to accelerate the transition from traditional finance to the world of crypto and blockchain. Final Thoughts The achievement of Transak is a step forward for the general development and acceptance of the cryptocurrency market - Transak has demonstrated that cryptocurrency businesses are capable of putting in place the same strict security measures as leading financial institutions by obtaining this prestigious accreditation. It is certainly not easy to receive SOC2 certification due to rigorous safety standards! More critical! Transak has now eliminated a significant barrier that kept heavily regulated industries from interacting with Web3, including banking and healthcare. Knowing that user data is safeguarded to the greatest standard, these industries can work with Transak with confidence as compared to other vendors in the industry! This might expedite the process of integrating cryptocurrency services and payments into established corporate platforms considerably. The ease with which consumers may access and invest in cryptocurrency through their current bank or service provider will spur exponential development. Transak merits great recognition for being a trailblazer in financial-grade security in the crypto space. Don’t forget to like and share the story! This author is an independent contributor publishing via our brand-as-author program. Be it through direct compensation, media partnerships, or networking, the author has a vested interest in the company/ies mentioned in this story. HackerNoon has reviewed the report for quality, but the claims herein belong to the author. #DYOR Vested Interest Disclosure:

Transak Sets Industry Standard with First-Ever SOC 2 Type 2 Accreditation in Web3 Space

Transak Web3 স্পেসে প্রথম SOC 2 টাইপ 2 স্বীকৃতি সহ শিল্পের মান সেট করে

Transak setzt mit der ersten SOC 2 Typ 2-Akkreditierung im Web3-Bereich Branchenstandards

Transak establece el estándar de la industria con la primera acreditación SOC 2 tipo 2 en el espacio Web3

Transak établit la norme de l'industrie avec la toute première accréditation SOC 2 Type 2 dans l'espace Web3

ट्रांसक ने वेब3 स्पेस में पहली बार एसओसी 2 टाइप 2 मान्यता के साथ उद्योग मानक स्थापित किया

Transak、Web3 分野で初の SOC 2 Type 2 認定を取得し業界標準を確立

Transak은 Web3 공간에서 최초의 SOC 2 Type 2 인증을 통해 업계 표준을 설정합니다.

Transak estabelece padrão da indústria com a primeira acreditação SOC 2 Tipo 2 no espaço Web3

Transak устанавливает отраслевые стандарты, впервые получив аккредитацию SOC 2 типа 2 в пространстве Web3

Transak, Web3 Alanında İlk SOC 2 Tip 2 Akreditasyonu ile Endüstri Standardını Belirledi

Transak đặt ra tiêu chuẩn ngành với chứng nhận SOC 2 loại 2 đầu tiên trong không gian Web3

Transak 在 Web3 空间中首次获得 SOC 2 Type 2 认证，树立了行业标准

This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. Authors: (1) Terence Blésin, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL); (2) Wil Kao, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL); (3) Anat Siddharth, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL); (4) Alaina Attanasio, OxideMEMS lab, Purdue University; (5) Hao Tian, OxideMEMS lab, Purdue University; (6) Sunil A. Bhave, OxideMEMS lab, Purdue University; (7) Tobias J. Kippenberg, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL). Table of Links Introduction Results A. Physics and design B. Device characterization C. Bidirectional microwave-optical transduction D. Pulsed transduction Discussion Acknowledgments Appendix A: Theory Appendix B: Fabrication process flow Appendix C: Optical characterization Appendix D: Characterization of acoustic resonances Appendix E: Characterization of bidirectional transduction Appendix F: Optimization of optical extraction efficiency D. Pulsed transduction Quantum-enabled operation, where the added noise referred to the transducer input is less than one quanta, would require concurrently attaining high conversion efficiency and low output noise. As the three-wave mixing interaction is parametric in nature, the associated cooperativity and hence efficiency can in principle be enhanced by boosting the optical pump power. A potential trade-off is nevertheless the subsequently increased thermal noise. While the high resonance frequency of the transduction HBAR already helps suppressing this noise to some extent, additionally employing a pulsed pump presents a number of utilities. Reducing the integrated optical power serves as an effective measure to mitigate thermal load onto the cryostat as well as pump-induced noise while maintaining high peak power. Quantumenabled operation has in fact been achieved with this strategy by a bulk electro-optic transducer employing Watt-scale optical pumping [36]. Gate-based superconducting quantum computers too function inherently in the pulsed regime. As such, we characterize our transducer in both frequency and time domains with a pulsed optical pump to evaluate its compatibility with these cryogenic microwave circuits as well as its potential for quantum-enabled operation. To study pulsed bidirectional transduction, we choose a pulse-on time τon = 1 µs and a repetition rate frep = 100 kHz. We program the pulse sequence such that the increase in temperature, and hence acoustic mode thermal occupancy due to optical heating, is expected to be inconsequential (Appendix C 3). First, we measure the up-conversion efficiency, summarized in Fig. 4a, using the same heterodyne method as in the CW case (Fig. 3). The pulsed optical pump mediates transduction of a CW microwave input into a pulsed optical output. This optical pulse comprising both the up-converted output and pump is then down-mixed by the LO, resulting in a microwave pulse whose frequency content can be probed via an ESA. The measured efficiency exhibits reasonable agreement with CW data. Additionally, the down-converted microwave pulse envelope in the time domain provides an independent measure of the transducer bandwidth—a key metric for qubit-photonic interconnects [7, 8]. With the pulsed pump set in the twomode squeezing configuration, an optical input pulse is converted on-chip into a microwave pulse with a carrier frequency ωEOM = ωm through difference frequency generation. The time-domain dynamics of the pulse envelope is captured through phase-sensitive demodulation using a digital lock-in amplifier. As shown in Fig. 4b, we observe that the pulse envelope is consistent with the step response of the lock-in integrator, which has a bandwidth of 5 MHz, or an RC time constant τRC = 30 ns. The lock-in bandwidth therefore sets a lower bound for the transducer bandwidth.

Bidirectional Microwave-optical Transduction Based on Integration: D. Pulsed Transduction

This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. Authors: (1) Terence Blésin, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL); (2) Wil Kao, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL); (3) Anat Siddharth, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL); (4) Alaina Attanasio, OxideMEMS lab, Purdue University; (5) Hao Tian, OxideMEMS lab, Purdue University; (6) Sunil A. Bhave, OxideMEMS lab, Purdue University; (7) Tobias J. Kippenberg, Institute of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) & Center of Quantum Science and Engineering (EPFL). Table of Links Introduction Results A. Physics and design B. Device characterization C. Bidirectional microwave-optical transduction D. Pulsed transduction Discussion Acknowledgments Appendix A: Theory Appendix B: Fabrication process flow Appendix C: Optical characterization Appendix D: Characterization of acoustic resonances Appendix E: Characterization of bidirectional transduction Appendix F: Optimization of optical extraction efficiency Coherent interconversion between microwave and optical frequencies can serve as both classical and quantum interfaces for computing, communication, and sensing. Here, we present a compact microwave-optical transducer based on monolithic integration of piezoelectric actuators atop silicon nitride photonic circuits. Such an actuator directly couples microwave signals to a high-overtone bulk acoustic resonator defined by the suspended silica cladding of the optical waveguide core, which leads to enhanced electromechanical and optomechanical couplings. At room temperature, this triply resonant piezo-optomechanical transducer achieves an off-chip photon number conversion efficiency of 1.6 × 10−5 over a bandwidth of 25 MHz at an input pump power of 21 dBm. The approach is scalable in manufacturing and, unlike existing electro-optic transducers, does not rely on superconducting resonators. As the transduction process is bidirectional, we further demonstrate synthesis of microwave pulses from a purely optical input. Combined with the capability of leveraging multiple acoustic modes for transduction, the present platform offers prospects for building frequency-multiplexed qubit interconnects and for microwave photonics at large. I. INTRODUCTION Modern data centers have seen rapidly increasing traffic that motivates an overhaul of existing network infrastructures. As optical fibers support nearly lossless transport and high bandwidths, twisted-pair copper deployment has shrunk in favor of optical interconnects. Energy-efficient optical transceivers [1] and optical network architectures [2] are being explored in parallel to accommodate emerging data- and resource-intensive applications. In an analogous fashion, processing quantum information in superconducting circuits and networking via photonic interconnects has been envisioned as an effective strategy to address the scalability challenges in advancing quantum technologies [3–5]. The scheme, featuring the full universal set of microwave quantum gates [6] with vanishing thermal occupancy and loss of the optical channels, calls for the development of microwaveoptical transducers to bridge the two energy scales that differ by more than four orders of magnitude. Aside from facilitating the networking of remote quantum processors, these transducers may enable fully optical control and readout of microwave qubits [7, 8]. The subsequent replacement of coaxial lines bridging room temperature and cryogenic environments by optical fibers is expected to significantly ease the space and heat load constraints in dilution refrigerators, opening up a path toward upscaling processor units housed in a single fridge. Efficient frequency conversion requires a nonlinear interaction stronger than the coupling to loss channels. The highest conversion efficiency to date has been achieved using an electro-optomechanical approach [9]. There, a silicon nitride membrane interacts with an optical mode of a free-space Fabry-Pérot cavity via radiation pressure and simultaneously serves as the top plate of a capacitor, parametrically coupling the mechanics to the microwave resonator. By virtue of the high resonator quality factors and pump power handling capability, 47% of input photons can be interconverted between optical and microwave domains [10], approaching the 50% efficiency required for attaining finite quantum capacity [11]. This highly efficient transducer has enabled optical dispersive qubit readout with negligible excess backaction [12]. The low-frequency (MHz) mechanical intermediary nevertheless limits the transduction bandwidth and leads to appreciable added noise even at dilution refrigerator temperature. To address these drawbacks, piezo-optomechanical transducers based on optomechanical crystals (OMC) have been developed [13–22], where a tightly confined high-frequency (GHz) mechanical mode and a co-localized optical mode can interact at a vacuum optomechanical coupling rate g0 ∼ 2π × 500 kHz. The trade-off lies instead in the sophistication required for microwave-phonon wave matching that significantly increases design complexity, as well as thermo-optic instability that constrains the intra-cavity photon number. An on-chip efficiency of 5% has recently been reported on such a platform [20]. However, low thermal conductance of these suspended quasi-one-dimensional structures hinders correlated microwave-optical photon pair generation at a practical rate. Cavity electro-optic modulators constitute a conceptually simpler approach where Pockels effect directly mediates microwave-optical interaction [23–25]. On-chip realizations employing planar superconducting microwave resonators, benefited from the deep sub-wavelength mode volume of the vacuum electric field, to reach single photon electro-optic coupling rates g0 ∼ 2π × 1 kHz [26– 29]. However, the material science of χ (2) crystals poses additional challenges. Photorefractive effects—observed, for instance, in LiNbO3 thin films [30]—hamper optical power handling, while piezoelectric loss and scattered optical photons degrade the quality factor of superconducting resonators [31, 32]. The difficulty of producing smooth sidewall surfaces in the workhorse Pockels material, LiNbO3 , through dry etching results in propagation losses an order of magnitude above the absorption limit [33]. As a result, the maximum on-chip efficiency achieved with integrated electro-optic transducers exceeds just 2% [26]. In the spirit of Ref. [9], a bulk transducer comprising a mm-size mechanically polished LiNbO3 whispering gallery mode (WGM) resonator coupled to a 3D superconducting microwave cavity has proved competitive, trading g0 for improved power handling and quality factors [34, 35]. Taking one step further with pulsed optical pumping, the system has demonstrated not only a hallmark 14.4% total efficiency but also electro-optic dynamical backaction [36, 37] and microwave-optical quadrature entanglement [38]. With the aforementioned design trade-offs in mind, we present a new piezo-optomechanical transducer based solely on wafer-scale, CMOS-compatible fabrication processes. We utilize a low-loss silicon nitride (Si3N4 ) photonic molecule, as well as multiple GHz high-overtone bulk acoustic resonances (HBAR) parametrically coupled to the optical modes. Endowed with power handling capabilities superior to existing integrated transducers, the device fits compactly within a 100 µm-by-50 µm footprint, in contrast to state-of-the-art bulk designs [10, 36]. In addition, the transduction HBAR modes are more readily coupled to the microwave signal, unlike OMC transducers. We demonstrate bidirectional microwave-optical transduction with a bandwidth of 25 MHz and total efficiency up to 1.6 × 10−5 by pumping with 21 dBm of off-chip optical power in continuous-wave (CW) operation. The device is also characterized with a pulsed optical pump, which constitutes the first step toward optical control and readout of qubits, as well as heralded microwave-optical photon pair generation. The simple design, ease of fabrication, robust operation, and compact form factor anticipate wide applicability in quantum technologies and microwave photonics at large.

Bidirectional Microwave-optical Transduction Based on Integration: Introduction

The Asia Pacific region faces all kinds of such as , home network threats, finance-related phishing scams, and attacks. In the circle of vulnerability are not just business organizations but also home networks. sophisticated cyberattacks QSnatch According to a report by cloud company , 10-16% of organizations globally encounter command and control (C2) traffic in their network in any given quarter, indicating the possibility of an attack or breach in progress. In APAC, Akamai observed about 15% of affected devices reaching out to Initial Access Brokers (IABs) domains. These are cyber-criminal gangs that sell unauthorized access to breached networks to other cybercriminals, such as ransomware groups. Akamai Technologies, Inc. According to Akamai’s data, between 10% and 16% of organizations globally encounter command and control (C2) traffic in their network in any quarter. The presence of C2 traffic indicates the possibility of an attack in progress, or a breach, and threats range from information-stealing botnets to Initial Access Brokers (IABs) who sell unauthorized access to breached networks to other cyber criminals. As Asia Pacific continues to accelerate its evolution as a global hub for economic and digital transformation, it is thus no surprise that attackers continue to explore any way to attack enterprises for financial gain Reuben Koh, Director of Security Technology and Strategy, APJ at Akamai Reuben Koh, Director of Security Technology and Strategy, APJ at Akamai, says, “As Asia Pacific continues to accelerate its evolution as a global hub for economic and , it is thus no surprise that attackers continue to explore any way to attack enterprises for financial gain. Akamai’s latest findings not only highlight the most prevalent attacks in each region, but also that multi-stage attacks have become a staple of the modern cyber landscape in our region. digital transformation “Threat actors are finding increased success when they work together or when they can combine various tools in a single attack. A C2 infrastructure is pivotal in the success of these attacks as they can be used for communication as well as to facilitate downloading a payload and the next-stage malware to move the attack onward,” “It is crucial that organizations stay ahead of bad actors because of the detrimental impact that multi-stage attacks can have on their businesses. More than the immediate impacts of direct financial loss, and loss of customer confidence and trust, there is also the long-term costs to recover compromised infrastructure, such as legal, reimbursement and clean-up costs”. QSnatch According to the report, QSnatch has become the largest APAC botnet threat. This malware that specifically targets QNAP, a type of network-attached storage (NAS) device used for backups or file storage by businesses, was by far the largest botnet threat in enterprise environments in APAC in 2022. Almost 60% of affected devices in APAC were infected with QSnatch, making this region second only to North America in terms of devices with QSnatch infections globally. Highest Home Network Threats Also, APAC suffers the highest home network threats globally. Already, an FBI report says that of the devices on the market are unprotected. While attackers often have their sights on enterprises because it presents a bigger payoff when they successfully breach their networks, home users are often an easier and quicker target as their networks are not as secure as a corporate environment. Attackers are seeking to abuse not only traditional devices like computers, but also mobile phones and Internet of Things devices. 40% According to Akamai’s data, APAC had the highest number of queries flagged in relation to the home network threats in the second half of 2022. The region had twice the number as compared to North America – the second most region with flagged queries. In APAC, more than 350 million queries related to Pykspa were observed, a threat that spreads through Skype by sending malicious links to the affected users’ contacts. Its to connect to a remote system and execute arbitrary commands such as download files, terminate processes, and propagate through various means, including mapped drives and network shares. backdoor capabilities allow an attacker Finance-Related Phishing Scams & Attacks Phishing campaigns are also actively targeting financial brands in APAC to lure in unsuspecting consumer phishing victims. Akamai’s research found that over 40% of all phishing campaigns were focused on financial services customers, resulting in close to 70% of all victims suffering from finance-related phishing scams and attacks. This clearly indicates that attacks against financial services and their customers were highly effective in 2022. It is unsurprising that we are seeing the rise of such attacks in our region, with Asia Pacific accounting for over 1.2 billion people accessing mobile internet services today, and with IoT spending forecasted to reach $436 billion in 2026. The continuing increase in mobile and smart device use and adoption in the region is likely to foreshadow the increase in such attacks, which requires home users to be on high alert to avoid falling victim to cyberattacks “Beyond the personal consequences that home users face of potentially losing all their data when their networks are compromised, there are far more insidious consequences if their devices become part of a massive botnet with attackers mobilizing zombie devices to perform cybercriminal activities without the user’s knowledge, like spamming and even launching DDoS attacks against organizations,” said Koh. “It is unsurprising that we are seeing the rise of such attacks in our region, with Asia Pacific accounting for over 1.2 billion people accessing mobile internet services today, and with IoT spending forecasted to reach $436 billion in 2026. The continuing increase in mobile and smart device use and adoption in the region is likely to foreshadow the increase in such attacks, which requires home users to be on high alert to avoid falling victim to cyberattacks,” he continued. Advice to Business & Home Users Following an analysis of the DNS landscape, Akamai shares the following guidance to business and home users: : Remain proactive in ensuring optimal cyber hygiene practices for all your digital assets and users Organizations should start by attaining visibility of all software and hardware assets and mapping out all critical vulnerabilities across every step of the organization’s data journey and the controls required to do so, such as DDoS protection, malware attacks and scrapping as well as lateral movement and exfiltration. Best practices include keeping all systems and software up to date, implementing Anti-Malware and Multi-factor Authentication and enforcing least privileged access for users and devices at all times. For larger organizations or those requiring more complex requirements, engage a specialist provider for help, but remain proactive in monitoring performance and for anomalous events concurrently. : Foster good security practices from home Homeowners should take proactive steps in securing all their devices by ensuring software updates are done regularly, installing Anti-Malware software and by using WPA2 AES or WPA3 encryption for their home WIFI networks. They should also be on high alert for any potential suspicious websites, downloads and messages via email or text message. As the threat landscape widens to not just business organizations, but also home networks, it’s time to become savvier about all the devices we use at home and how to protect them. This article was originally published by on Navanwita Bora Sachdev The Tech Panda.

APAC Business Entities and Household Networks Confront Advanced Cyberthreats

Have you ever thought about what a nation or state really is? Maybe the first thing that comes to your mind is an established area of land. But wait there: without people, the USA or Japan would be just another patch of dirt, plants, and animals, wouldn’t they? So, people and all that they imply (minds, traditions, culture, laws, language, etc.) are also key to defining a nation. When talking about network states, they might be all that matters. In 2022, the Indian-American entrepreneur Balaji Srinivasan published the book “ ” As the second part of the title implies, , and formed by like-minded people distributed all around the world. The Network State: How to Start a New Country. he’s proposing to create a new nation from scratch, independent from others, with its own money and systems This new type of nation would start online and then would evolve into “physical nodes” funded and governed by its members. He described it like this: “A network state is a social network with a moral innovation, a sense of national consciousness, a recognized founder, a capacity for collective action, an in-person level of civility, an integrated cryptocurrency, a consensual government limited by a social smart contract, an archipelago of crowdfunded physical territories, a virtual capital, and an on-chain census that proves a large enough population, income, and real-estate footprint to attain a measure of diplomatic recognition.” As an individual, anyone could choose to join a certain network state and abide by its rules and benefits, written and shared via smart contract. For Srinivasan, this system could be better than the alternative: be governed by the left or right global powers, which will always ensure the control and surveillance of the population while competing against each other. How to Build a Network State? It may sound nice, but it requires a lot of work. As the author mentioned, a network state just doesn’t come to exist without previous steps or stages. Therefore, he describes seven points to build a network state, and they don’t even need significant resources in the beginning. One person from their computer at home could start a network state. They can begin by founding a startup society: an online community of like-minded people with ambitious aspirations. Then, organize this community into a purpose-driven network union, fostering collective action. The third phase involves building trust offline through physical meetups and concurrently developing an online economy through the creation and promotion of their own cryptocurrency. from apartments to entire towns, creating real co-living communities. The fifth step is connecting these physical nodes digitally to form a network archipelago, linking territories worldwide. Employ web3 crypto-passports for physical access and utilize mixed reality to seamlessly integrate the online and offline realms. With growing trust and accumulated funds, they can initiate crowdfunding campaigns to secure physical spaces, As the society expands, conduct a cryptographically auditable census, showcasing population, income, and real estate growth. Finally, seek diplomatic recognition from existing governments, gradually attaining increased sovereignty to evolve into a fully recognized network state. As the network state's population and economy grow to rival that of legacy states, achieving recognition from established sovereign entities, including the United Nations, becomes a foreseeable milestone. The core concept revolves around populating land from the cloud, fostering a geographically decentralized but ideologically aligned community globally. Why Build a Network State? Because the current global landscape doesn’t seem very amicable or open to free innovation. That’d be the short answer, at least. Srinivasan put it this way in the book: “We want to be able to peacefully start a new state for the same reason we want a bare plot of earth, a blank sheet of paper, an empty text buffer, a fresh startup, or a clean slate. Because we want to build something new without historical constraint.” He also talked about how the world is facing a “ ,” where three main powers and visions are competing to win more influence: The first one is described as “capitalism that enables decentralized censorship,” the second one would be fully centralized capitalism, and the last one is stateless capitalism, the decentralized and neutral sector. Tripolar Moment the American Establishment (symbolized by the paper NYT), the Communist Party of China (CCP), and the Global Internet (symbolized by BTC). In CCP-like societies, you must submit to their government's will; while in NYT-like nations you must sympathize. In the decentralized world, you must be sovereign —but that’s good only to some extent. No one wants to submit to undesirable or unjust laws, and it’s not always possible to “sympathize” with others’ ideas. On the other hand, an excess of sovereignty would mean that every person is alone with their needs, with only them to help themselves. Not only “one” network state is meant to exist, but multiple of them, destined to different groups with diverse ideas. It’s said in this way: “… rather than trying to impose preferences on everyone, what we really want are a variety of points in between these three undesirable poles: different fusions for different groups.” The concept of a network state tries to fuse the best of these three visions, in different flavors and communities. Potential Issues of Network States The concept of network states carries both opportunities and challenges. On the positive side, it enables global collaboration and democratizes participation. However, navigating legal complexities, regulatory hurdles, and the risk of widening digital inequalities poses significant challenges. To add some perspective, Bitcoin didn’t achieve “diplomatic recognition” ( ) soon after its creation, but 12 years later. And only by a couple of countries, so far. Not to mention the logistics, promotion efforts, funding, and mere years it would take to achieve something like this. legal tender status Looking deeper, unforeseen consequences could emerge. Digital nomadism offers freedom but about dependence on technology. New social norms and a potential financial revolution bring opportunities but also introduce challenges, including increased cyber threats —as we’ve often seen in DeFi apps. The network state presents a mix of promises and uncertainties, demanding careful consideration of its potential impacts on our world. raises concerns In addition to the optimistic outlook, there may be . Prioritizing financial gains over genuine connections may commodify relationships. The risk of reinforcing cult-like echo chambers, marginalizing diverse opinions, and potential ethical concerns in inhabited areas require thoughtful consideration. As we explore the concept of network states, it's crucial to remain aware of both the possibilities and the challenges they may bring to the forefront. notable risks Current Network States Initiatives Despite everything, some parties have already started their own version of this futuristic concept. aims to build cities as hubs of technological progress, emphasizing the importance of measurable economic and cultural capital. PRAX Credits, their own cryptocurrency, seeks to fund this new city in the Mediterranean. We can mention three running projects: Praxis, Afropolitan, and Epoch Island. Praxis envisions a digital nation, uniting Africans globally through a curated network. This initiative addresses issues of scarcity, weakness, and poverty experienced by Africans, proposing a Network of Abundance. The strategy involves building awareness, providing utility through the Afropolitan Super App, preparing for a transition to the physical world, and ultimately acquiring land for physical districts governed by the Afropolitan Network. Afropolitan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shFHD4KDYls&embedable=true Finally, sets forth a mission to create a Network State by 2030, introducing a unique country governed by Islanders and Elders. It leverages a cryptocurrency, EPOCH, allowing ownership of land and treasury, and contributing to the growing economy. Intending to acquire diplomatic recognition, Epoch Island envisions becoming the Crypto Capital of the World, providing an alternative space for crypto users seeking refuge from centralized governments. Epoch Island These ventures reflect the diverse paths toward building network states, ranging from creating cities grounded in technological progress, fostering an ethnic bond, or just establishing a new country with its own cryptocurrency. Each project navigates the complex landscape of community, governance, and economic structures in the pursuit of redefining societal models. Obyte for Network States , as a decentralized platform, While it was not explicitly designed for creating network states, its decentralized nature and capabilities could facilitate the development of innovative social structures. Obyte possesses unique features that could potentially contribute to the realization of network states or similar decentralized communities. Known for its DAG ( ) structure, Obyte provides a censorship-resistant platform. This architecture aligns with the concept of network states, where governance, decision-making, and participation are distributed among community members rather than concentrated in a central authority or a small number of central authorities — block producers in blockchains. It can foster a more inclusive and participatory model for building and governing communities. Directed Acyclic Graph Besides, the network supports smart contracts and (AAs), allowing for the creation of self-executing agreements without the need for intermediaries. It's also possible , with or without coding. Autonomous Agents to create custom tokens This feature allows communities to establish their own tokens with specific functionalities, use cases, or governance mechanisms. Economy of Network States Any country needs an economy, and the economy needs safe, properly enforced contracts. Obyte’s provide that, and Obyte is the only crypto network where they’re available. Likewise, any country needs a justice system. Obyte’s and its arbiters provide a kind of autonomous justice for commercial relationships. contracts with arbitration ArbStore Contracts with arbitration, available through the , offer secure decentralized escrow protection for two-party agreements, eliminating the need for mutual trust. Obyte wallet They can work for individuals as well as businesses, and they’re particularly well-suited for international operations —like the ones a network state would need for its members. These contracts can lock the funds until pre-set conditions are met by the parties. However, if one of the parties misbehaves, the other can call an expert arbiter to solve the dispute. They’re (human) professionals registered in the ArbStore platform with their real names and are available to solve certain types of disputes in exchange for a reasonable fee. All of these opportunities are available with a strong emphasis on privacy and security — only the contract parties and, in case of a dispute, the arbiter, can see the contract text. This focus aligns with the need for secure and private communication within network states. To explore the possibility of building an Obyte-based network state, community leaders and developers could leverage the platform's existing features and potentially customize certain aspects to suit the specific needs of their envisioned community. Whether it involves establishing a digital society, coordinating economic activities, or fostering collaborative projects, Obyte's decentralized infrastructure could serve as a foundation for innovative experiments in governance and community building. Featured Vector Image by photoroyalty / Freepik

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加密社区：探索网络状态时代

I wrote this series of posts primarily for myself, or at least someone who is trying to make something electronic to sell. If that’s you, then I hope this helps you on your journey! If you just want to see the end product then you can find it at . https://hortus.dev/products/social-battery This is a long post, so I have broken it up into chunks to make it a bit easier to digest. These are: (this article) Designing and Prototyping the Board Selling the Prototypes Online Going from Prototype to Production Introduction I wanted to experiment with JLC PCB’s assembly service - whilst I’ve designed and manufactured bare PCBs before placing and soldering components manually, I’ve got some future projects in mind that will be impractical to solder up by hand due to both the quantity and size of components. It’s kind of amazing how cheap this service is when you think about what’s involved, but it’s still expensive enough that it can be a bit daunting handing over your money, and then waiting to find out whether you’ve made some mistake that will ruin the end result. I figured I’d get started with something simple, something I could test the waters of not just PCB assembly but also e-commerce. My plan was to come up with a small item that I could realistically design and submit for manufacture in less than a day, then hopefully sell reasonably easily on a marketplace like Etsy. I was expecting the design and manufacturing side of things to be the hard part and listing the product on Etsy to be easy, but it was very much the other way around as you will see if you keep reading! The Product I had a quick scan of Etsy to look at the kinds of things people were successfully selling that I could make. I found a couple of examples of people making electronic pin badges - the perfect project! These mostly consisted of LEDs with either a random or pre-set flashing pattern on a novelty-shaped board. These looked alright to me, but I wanted to try something a bit more interactive and meaningful that I could sell for enough money to make a sensible margin on a small number of initial units. Looking at the regular pin badges being sold on Etsy, I saw a bunch of enamel ‘Social Battery’ pins with a sliding indicator. These immediately jumped out at me as something that a) I could identify with personally (people make endless jokes about my social battery…), b) would be really fun as an electronic version, and c) would be easy to design - just a few LEDs, a switch, and a microcontroller to tie it all together! Designing and Prototyping the Board Confident in my skills, I threw together a quick circuit diagram in Kicad. I decided to use an ATtiny13A - mainly because I had a few on hand from a previous project, and because I have a decent amount of experience with similar chips. If you’re not familiar with it, the ATtiny13A is a small 8-bit microprocessor with 6 IO pins and is part of the AVR family of MCUs. It’s similar to the ATmega chips that have historically been at the core of most Arduinos, except its capabilities are much more limited. The benefit is that the ATtiny range of chips are smaller and cheaper, so if you don’t need a lot of memory or peripherals, then they are great! (although possibly a bit dated now with the endless variety of ARM chips that are available). I laid out the PCB for my circuit in KiCad, then got it to spit out the gerbers and drill files (which are used to manufacture the PCB), and the bill of materials and placement files (which are used to assemble components onto PCBs). I submitted them to JLC PCB to see if they were able to process them correctly. The BoM and placement files needed a bit of tweaking from the default to get them in the right format (turns out I did this the hard way, and there’s a much easier plugin for KiCad that does everything perfectly in a single click). JLC PCB maintains a pretty large library of components that they keep in stock for assembly orders. However, in my case, the ATtiny13a was not available, so I had to order them in. This was pretty straightforward using their global sourcing service. I was able to find the supplier with the best price for the quantity I needed and then let JLC PCB order them to their warehouse on my behalf. Whilst I waited, I figured I might as well breadboard my design and start working on the code, and I’m glad I did because I immediately discovered an issue! My design used five of the IO pins available on the ATtiny13a to drive the LEDs directly (with the sixth being used to monitor the button). What I didn’t realize/remember from the last time I made this mistake (yes, It’s happened before), was that one of those IOs is also the reset pin. You can use it, but it’s not able to supply much current, and by tying it to the ground through an LED, I was keeping the chip in a permanent reset state. One way to get around this is to burn a fuse on the chip that permanently disables the reset functionality of the pin transforming it into a regular IO. The issue with this though is that you can only program the chip once (unless you own a high-voltage programmer, which I don’t), and given my propensity for learning things the hard way, that seemed potentially quite wasteful! The other option is to find a way to do more with fewer pins so that the reset pin can be left alone. This can be achieved using a technique called which allows you to address many more LEDs than the number of available pins. charlieplexing You can then scan through these LEDs, turning them on and off individually at a high rate to make it appear as if multiple are on at once through . persistence of vision In my case, I’m driving the four green LEDs from 3 pins, and the red LED with a dedicated pin. This isn’t the most efficient example of charlieplexing, as I could drive all the LEDs from the three pins, but keeping red on a dedicated pin allows for simpler code when it comes to programming. I revised my circuit diagram and PCB design, then re-exported the necessary files and sent them off to JLC PCB to manufacture and assemble an initial set of five prototypes. A little over a week later, I received my prototypes, and I was really pleased with them! There were a few things that I could see I needed to change: I hadn’t really planned how I was going to program the boards. I had just broken out the AVR programming pins and hoped for the best. This was fine for five prototypes as I could tack the programming wires on with the tiniest bit of solder, but this would get very tedious very quickly at scale. The spike for the fastener on the back was soldered onto a ground pad. This would have been fine except the thermal mass of the spike and the ground plane on the board made it difficult to make a good join. It also sticks out very close to the positive metal cage of the battery holder which meant that there was a good chance of accidental shorts occurring if people placed/attached the badge on/to conductive surfaces. The negative contact for the battery wasn’t prominent enough, so I had to add a dab of solder to it to make a good connection. Again - not the end of the world for a small number of prototypes, but a pain if I had to do this for loads. These were all simple fixes to implement. I added a proper programming header that could be used with a pogo pin jig for quick and repeatable programming. I disconnected the spike from the ground plane so that it was its own small disconnected island of copper that would heat up more easily and not cause shorts. And I expanded the negative contact for the battery so that it would have more surface area to make a solid connection. The code is pretty simple. I keep track of the mode the badge is in which is represented by an integer that gets decremented every time the button is pressed. I then loop and blink each LED on my way around as dictated by the mode. When mode 0 is reached, I reset it back to the original number and then put the ATtiny into sleep mode. Pressing the button again triggers the interrupt which wakes the chip and starts the whole process again. Overall, I was really pleased with the results, which meant it was time to see if I could sell them! You can read about my experience doing this in . the next post in this series

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When I shifted from an individual contributor to a manager role, it appeared like a natural part of my career progression. I was moving forward in my career, getting bigger and better responsibilities. What was there to say no? I was playing a lead role, working with stakeholders and co-ordinating work across many teams and functions. So, I kinda assumed that becoming a manager would be very close to the work I was already doing and nothing much needed to change. The first few months were tough—I was unprepared, ignorant, and naive. Mismatch in expectations led to many mistakes with unnecessary stress and anxiety. Jumping into the role just because my manager thought “I was ready” wasn’t a good decision. I definitely could have been a better manager only if I had made the decision myself with some thoughtful consideration. Continuing to confuse career development with attaining specific positions will only limit the growth that both employees and organizations need. - Julie Winkle \That’s a big mistake that employees at all levels make. Rush to climb the career ladder makes them take on positions that make them miserable because they actually don’t enjoy the role or do not have the proper skills to do their job well, which leads to exhaustion and burnout. Becoming a manager when you’re not ready is the worst of all. Your job is not just about you. You’re now responsible for other human beings. Take a long-term perspective. Don’t be short-sighted. If management is the path for you, you’d better do it right. The choice to become a manager is not black and white. Ask these four questions to take the right steps toward your goal of becoming a manager without rushing through the decision: What does the role demand? Becoming a manager may appear like a step up in your role. It definitely comes with better pay and more responsibilities. But do you actually understand what the role demands? Even if you’re playing a lead role in your team, being a manager is nothing like it. It’s a completely different ball game. Every organization has a different set of expectations from the manager role. The actual work is not even close to what you see other managers doing. A lot goes behind in becoming a successful manager and it starts with understanding your organization's unique expectations and challenges. What will be your day-to-day responsibilities? What would your team need? Which stakeholders do you need to collaborate with, and what do they want? Are you expected to code along with managing the team? What do other managers say about the challenges of the role? What kind of support exists for managers within your organization? Ignoring your organization’s reality or the challenges you’re bound to face is signing up for a lot of pain and angst down the line. Aligning with what’s to come gets you better prepared to deal with the challenges when they arise. Is it something I want? Moving from a lead role to manager may seem like a natural career progression, but have you ever sat down and pondered over this question: “Is this something I really want?” Just because your friends, colleagues, or other people around you are opting to become a manager does not mean it’s the right role for you too. Many organizations now offer growth opportunities on the individual contributor track. Speak to your HR, your manager, and other leaders of the organization, and then determine what’s the right thing for you to do. Becoming a manager takes more than assigning tasks, delivering products, and getting work done. It involves real people—their growth, emotions, and aspirations. The tough part of being a manager is not doing the work but getting work done through others. To determine if you’re up for it, answer these questions: Do I love dealing with humans, and am I willing to take responsibility for their learning and growth? Am I ready to let go, empower my team, and trust them to solve problems instead of being the one providing solutions? Do I understand that my decisions will be more complicated and will have less certainty involved? Am I mentally prepared to navigate the unknowns that are part of the role instead of expecting everything to be in control? Do I acknowledge that conflicts will be a big part of my role and I cannot avoid, ignore, or put them aside? Am I willing to embrace the discomfort and deal with the conflicts as they arise? Do I employ good practices to make the best use of my time (and others' time as well), or do I use not having sufficient time as an excuse? Proactively inquiring if the role aligns with what you want to do will help you avoid the dissatisfaction, frustration, and unhappiness that comes from having a different set of expectations from your career and not getting what you want. A great way to do this exercise involves: Write down the top 10 responsibilities of a manager. Write down the top 10 things you want to do in your job. What’s the overlap between 1 and 2? Consider a score of 6/10 or less a red flag. Becoming a manager is a choice. No one can force you into it. Don’t jump into the role unless you’re sure it’s something you really want. How can I bridge the skill gap? Once you’ve made up your mind that management is the path for you, honestly evaluate the gap between the skills you possess and the skills you need to build. Rushing into a promotion may be good financially and may even be good for your ego, but not having the skills to do the job well can hurt you mentally and emotionally. Take a long-term perspective. You’re going to be in this role for a long time once you opt for it. Better to invest time in building the proper skills than failing at your job and feeling miserable about it. It may be hard for you to see what you lack. This is where trusting others to give you honest feedback can help. What does your manager think? What about your colleagues? Are there other leaders and managers in the organization you’ve worked with who can give you feedback and advice? However, simply knowing what you aren’t good at isn’t enough. You actively need to seek the right opportunities to bridge this gap. You may think it’s your manager's responsibility to help you shine and succeed, but leaving your growth in your manager's hands is irresponsible and foolish. No one’s ever going to be as invested in your growth as “you.” Don’t treat your career growth as other people’s responsibility. Feel powerful to take your growth into your own hands. Create a plan of action by identifying different ways to build career capital—don’t limit yourself to the work you’re doing right now. Think about how you can contribute to areas that will help you build the skills you need. Treat Your Manager as a Coach. Your own boss should be one of your best sources of learning. But this might not naturally be the case. Maybe he doesn’t see the day-to-day of your work, or he’s busy putting out other fires, or he simply isn’t as proactive about helping to guide your path as you’d like. Regardless, the person most invested in your career isn’t him; it’s you. Your own growth is in your hands, so if you feel you aren’t learning from your manager, ask yourself what you can do to get the relationship that you want. — Julie Zhou For example, If you need to learn how to interview candidates, ask your manager if you can shadow a few of their interviews. A lot can be learned by sitting and silently observing how your manager conducts them. You can do this with other managers in the organization as well to get a perspective on different interviewing styles. Another example: Let’s say you find it hard to give direct and honest criticism. Speak to your manager and sign up to mentor a few interns. Ask your manager to be around when you give feedback and seek their guidance on how to do it better. You can also mentor people outside your organization. Plenty of youngsters are looking for experienced, senior folks who can mentor them. It will be a great opportunity for you to practice your skills, and your mentee will be delighted to learn from you. A true win/win. Who will stand for me? You can’t get promoted by working hard or simply building all the skills. Keeping your head down and doing great work isn’t sufficient to become a manager. Your work needs to be visible, and it needs to get in front of the right people. While many organizations have set criteria that determine if someone is ready to get to the next level, what goes on during the decision process is not that simple. Leaders and managers in the organization play a crucial role in determining who stays and who gets promoted to the next level. \It’s important for you to understand how the performance appraisal process in your organization works: Who is responsible for promotions in your organization? How does the process work? Do you need recommendations from some senior employees of the organization? Who can vouch for you? Your manager needs to be your biggest ally. To do this, you need to get into the spotlight and make your work visible. Your manager should know about the areas you’re doing well, where you excel, your strengths, and highlights. Keeping your manager in the loop is essential for your success and growth. To do this, manage by sharing the following information with your manager regularly: Your biggest accomplishment Challenges faced and how did you overcome those challenges Your learnings Initiatives and value created Self-promotion isn’t boasting or putting others down to pull yourself up. It’s shining a light on your skills, making sure your boss and colleagues understand what you’re truly capable of, and demonstrating your true strength. Self-promotion is a leadership and political skill that is critical to master in order to navigate the realities of the workplace and position you for success. ― Bonnie Marcus\ Summary Don’t make assumptions about expectations from a manager's role. Do the work necessary to understand what the role demands and the unique challenges you’ll need to face when playing this role in your organization. Getting promoted and becoming a manager may seem lucrative. But you can’t take up this job for the wrong reasons. You need to be sure about what you’re signing up for, as the growth of many individuals will now be in your hands. You may be an excellent individual contributor, but that does not guarantee you’ll be successful in your role as a manager. To be an effective manager, identify the skills you need to build and proactively seek opportunities to practice them. Working hard or ticking each item on the manager’s competency list may still not get you the promotion. To get promoted, you need backing and support from people who have the power to make such decisions. Get in front of these people and make your work visible. This story was previously published . here

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In the dynamic landscape of data analytics, choosing an analytics platform can significantly impact your business's bottom line. In this educational article, we're on a quest to explore three heavyweight analytics contenders: Snowflake, BigQuery, and ClickHouse. We will delve into their cost models and reveal valuable strategies to help you master the art of cost-efficient analytics – it's a journey exploring insights that can transform your data game! Understanding Analytic DBMS Cost Models To make cost-effective decisions in data analytics, it's crucial to comprehend the cost models behind analytical database management systems (DBMS). A common starting point is to examine the cost structure of cloud-based businesses. So, first, let's talk about cloud-based analytic databases and how they handle costs when running in the cloud. Picture this: It’s before 2013, and setting up a data warehouse could take up to several months of dealing with multiple vendors, hardware bottlenecks, and configurations. Then came , allowing you to start your data warehouse in under 20 minutes with just a credit card—quite the leap forward. This paved the way for other cloud-based data warehouses like , , and cloud services that operate Snowflake. Amazon Redshift in 2013 BigQuery Snowflake Most developers learn about the importance of cost-efficiency as soon as they start getting their cloud bills. For example, you could run a long-running query on BigQuery that ends up costing you hundreds, often thousands of dollars. Take it from the following tweet/X post; this is not an isolated occurrence. https://twitter.com/FredKSchott/status/1631449132358598656?embedable=true We recently ran a webinar discussing this topic in further detail where Robert Hodges (CEO at Altinity Inc.) goes into the in-depth cost analysis of each option and shows you an alternative DIY solution at the end. Feel free to watch the on-demand once you’re done reading this article! recording of that webinar So, let's dig into how these databases work and, more importantly, how they price their services. We'll start with Snowflake, but before we get into its architecture, we will talk business. Snowflake, being a publicly traded company, gives us a chance to poke around its financials. In , they raked in a whopping $2 billion in total revenue. What's intriguing is the cost of delivering their service, roughly around $717 million. This cost, also known as the cost of goods sold, is what it takes Snowflake to run the show. a recent report Understanding the cost of running Snowflake's cloud services is like a hidden treasure hunt. If you crunch the numbers, it's roughly about one-third, maybe a tad more, of their total revenue. So, in plain English, if all that cost went straight into covering their cloud expenses and nothing else, they'd be marking things up by roughly three times when they charge you. But of course, it’s not that simple! The actual costs of running a powerhouse like Snowflake go beyond just running virtual machines and stashing data in Amazon S3. Now, if we do the math again, that markup on their costs? It's more like 5x. That is a nifty benchmark to carry in your back pocket. If something's got a markup greater than 5x, well, it's living large in the world of Snowflake's pricing. On the flip side, if it's less than 5x, you're looking at a more budget-friendly option. It's like having a secret decoder ring for deciphering the cost puzzle. Unpacking the Cost Models of Snowflake, BigQuery, and ClickHouse To master cost-efficient analytics, let's dissect the cost models of Snowflake, BigQuery, and ClickHouse. Snowflake Virtual Data Warehouse Model Now, let's break down Snowflake's costs. They use a "virtual data warehouse" model, where your data resides in S3 object storage. When you run SQL queries, you create virtual data warehouses powered by credits, essentially hosted processing units pulling data from storage. The pricing for these virtual machines ranges from about $2-4 /hour as listed in their pricing. Keep in mind: it's not the thriftiest choice. This would wrap up our Snowflake cost analysis if not for this intriguing twist: a recent bug in Snowflake unveiled that the credits for virtual data warehouses often translate to c5d2x large instances, costing about 38 cents per hour. Remarkably, Snowflake doesn't significantly mark up object storage, pricing it at $23-40 per terabyte per month, similar to Amazon's S3 costs. Instead, the real markup occurs in computing, which can be 5 to 10 times more expensive than storage. BigQuery Serverless Query Model Let's take a closer look at BigQuery, another heavyweight in cloud database analytics. BigQuery offers a distinct pricing model known as "serverless" or "on-demand." In this setup, you store your data on a unique distributed storage system, not the typical object storage used by most cloud services. However, the pricing is quite competitive, similar to object storage rates, at least for uncompressed data. Prices start at $0.016-0.023 per GB per month for storage—now that's more budget-friendly. Here's the catch: when you run a query, BigQuery dynamically allocates compute resources as needed. It charges you $6.25 for every terabyte of data scanned during your query processing. This pricing structure means that even seemingly innocent queries can rack up costs if they involve scanning a large amount of data from distributed storage. Now, comparing BigQuery costs to standard cloud resources isn't straightforward. Your actual expenses depend on various factors, like how often you run queries and your data storage methods. For instance, if you run queries sporadically, BigQuery might be cost-effective. But if you're running queries 24/7, it could get expensive. So, it's crucial to understand your workload and assess your real costs carefully. AWS RedShift "Buy the Box" Model The previous models we’ve discussed typically rely on object storage, or something quite similar, for data handling. However, there's another cloud database operating approach, one initially introduced by a decade ago. Let’s call it the "Buy-the-Box" model. Redshift Here's the deal: you rent a ), such as a dc28x large, which comes with attached SSD block storage. For instance, in Amazon us-west-2, this VM would cost you around 4.80 cents per hour. Now, let's break down the actual costs. This VM likely corresponds to an i38x large instance, an older Amazon instance type, which comes with local SSD storage. This type of instance costs approximately $2.50 per hour, offering nearly the same amount of RAM. virtual machine (VM In terms of markup, Redshift is 92% more expensive while providing 66% less storage than if you were to set up a similar VM yourself. Interestingly, Redshift's markup is relatively lower compared to some other services, like Snowflake, which tends to charge more for computing resources. ClickHouse Database Architecture To improve on the previous models for cost efficiency, let us first introduce you to ClickHouse.  It is a free, renowned, open-source, real-time analytics database. ClickHouse’s architecture revolves around interconnected servers capable of seamless data replication, especially with replicated tables. This system employs efficient columnar storage, where data resides in compressed arrays, not only reducing storage costs but also boosting query performance. Initially, ClickHouse was confined to block storage, but it has evolved to support S3-compatible object storage, making it versatile and open to integration with any S3 API-equipped object storage solution. To manage replication consensus efficiently, ClickHouse relies on either ClickHouseKeeper or ZooKeeper. You can read more about Clickhouse . here The Modernized "Buy-the-Box" Approach Now, let's envision this as a cloud service paradigm, which we term "Modernized Buy-the-Box." On the left side of the image below is the traditional Redshift architecture, while on the right, we embrace innovation. We replace the old i3 instances with faster Intel-based m6is, providing a significant speed boost. The game-changer is the use of EBS (Elastic Block Storage) gp3 storage, granting control over bandwidth and throughput. This, paired with efficient VMs akin to Redshift, results in an approximate cost of 2.64 cents per hour. The real magic happens with the separation of storage and computing. This flexible approach lets you easily adjust CPU and VM types while keeping the same storage, allowing cost scaling up or down. Our experience at Altinity.Cloud managing ClickHouse applications reflects this efficiency. In the graph below, you'll see the all-in on-demand cost for when running ClickHouse. For instance, opting for m6i 12x large might cost six dollars per hour, slightly more than Redshift. However, ClickHouse is so fast that smaller instance sizes get better performance than Redshift, which means lower cost without compromising performance. This showcases the tremendous benefits of separating storage and computing. Altinity.Cloud To summarize, we've explored three cloud-hosted analytic database models and their cost implications. In our comparison, we've created a wallet-sized table to make it clear how these models stack up against each other. The "Buy-the-Box" approach offers cost-effective computing but pricier storage due to block storage usage. Snowflake and BigQuery, on the other hand, offer economical storage but can be costly in different ways. Snowflake tends to be relatively expensive in terms of computing, while BigQuery's on-demand query model can become pricey when handling extensive data scans. Each model has its strengths and weaknesses, making it essential to align them with your specific analytics needs. "Buy-the-Box" suits customer-facing analytics with unpredictable workloads, while the virtual data warehouse model and BigQuery excel in specific scenarios but require careful cost management to avoid surprises. This overview helps you navigate the landscape effectively. In Conclusion When it comes to analytics, cost-efficiency is paramount. Understanding the cost models of popular platforms like Snowflake, BigQuery, and ClickHouse is essential for making informed decisions. By evaluating each platform's strengths and weaknesses and considering their cost structures, organizations can craft cost-efficient analytic solutions tailored to their specific needs. Leveraging open-source solutions and educational resources can further optimize cost, ensuring organizations achieve their analytics goals while being mindful of their budgets. This article was derived from an webinar. Altinity.com

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When we work on complex projects, JavaScript and CSS often get the jump on us. Before we know it, thousands, if not tens of thousands, of bytes are being transferred and executed in the browser - most of which we do not need to load. What is Code Coverage? Code coverage derives from a computer science concept called "test coverage.” From Wikipedia: Test coverage is a percentage measure of the degree to which the source code of a program is executed when a particular test suite is run. A program with high test coverage means that more or all of its source code gets executed during unit testing, implying that the code base would have a lower chance of undiscovered bugs. Code Coverage is different when it comes to JavaScript and CSS. Of course, you can still write unit tests for JavaScript, but within the context of the browser environment, JavaScript and CSS coverage mean the following: CSS: what percentage of CSS gets utilized when it loads into the browser? More precisely, what percentage of nodes from the CSSOM get matched to nodes in the DOM? JavaScript: what percentage of JavaScript functionality is executed by the browser? If we determine just how much of the referenced JavaScript and CSS assets are utilized by the browser, we can refactor or reimplement files to be more conscious of what they try to achieve on the page. If we only load the JavaScript and CSS required for the page, this reduces bundle sizes, transfer sizes and overall Paint time, leading to a great user experience. Auditing Code Coverage in Chrome Many Chrome users must be aware of the Code Coverage panel in DevTools. To view it, open DevTools, go to the context menu, click "More tools,” and select "Coverage.” When the panel opens, you have two options: Reload the page with a Code Coverage Audit Record code coverage attributed to your interactions. After each audit, the panel will list all JavaScript and CSS-loaded resources. Clicking on a line item will display the source code with a vertical bar down the left. Sections of the bar will be colored green or red. Code blocks will be highlighted in red or green when reviewing the Sources panel for each request. Any code block highlighted in red is code that got loaded but not executed by the browser. The line item will also summarise the Total Unused Bytes and a percentage measure of unused code. How to handle poor Code Coverage Handling poor Code Coverage can be a challenge. It's hard work and may lead you down a path of a complete refactor. I grimace at the word "refactor", so let's chat about some higher-level wins first. CSS Wins Several tools are doing an excellent job of ensuring 100% CSS Code Coverage. PurgeCSS (leveraged by Tailwind) does a great job of removing unused CSS styles. You can implement PurgeCSS into any tech stack, so you are not married to Tailwind if you're not a fan. Even WordPress Gutenberg released a nifty filter for only loading Block Library CSS when a block is on the page. Using more modern CSS approaches can yield incredible results in the React space. You can leverage CSS Modules, Vanilla Extract and Linaria to help reduce the impact of unused CSS. JavaScript Wins There are some minor wins in the actual execution of JavaScript. Optimizing code for a high percentage measure is about what approach you're taking to the feature you're trying to build and when and how that feature gets executed in the browser. More often than not, it boils down to planning and architecture. It's worthwhile looking into recommended performance best practices like Route-based Code Splitting, Tree Shaking, Dynamic Import, Facade Patterns and Import on Interaction/Visibility. Build Tool Wins Webpack is a sophisticated build manager that aids in code-splitting, tree-shaking, and other JavaScript wins that can, without a doubt, speed you along on the coverage front. As this space constantly evolves, keep looking for newer versions of build tools or even new build tools offering more performant features. Dead Ends / Not Worth The Effort When it comes to gaining a high percentage measure with code coverage, two scenarios that will stop you dead in your tracks are: 3rd-party JavaScript and CSS Frameworks and Libraries. Generally speaking, we have little control over how third-party scripts execute. In this case, we only have three options: retain the script, remove the script, determine a way to defer the script execution. Frameworks and Libraries are more complex. Removing unused code from even the fastest frameworks is only sometimes possible. It's also essential to understand where the necessity of this fits in concerning the state of performance on your site. There's no need to optimize everything if it doesn't yield valuable results. Planning and Refactoring Technology stacks and architectures are your friends here. Each technology stack will expect something slightly different from you when selectively deciding how to deliver code that receives a high code coverage percentage. High Code Coverage is a gateway (in the long term) for bullet-proof performance. Ensure JavaScript code gets written to best performance practices. A well-molded build configuration and careful planning of site features can also bolster successful attempts at increasing code coverage. Conclusion High-percentage code coverage is a great way to ensure a lightweight and performant website. Many tools are available to help you identify, audit and remediate code that may have poorer-than-expected coverage across your site. Remember that your options become limited as soon as you buy into 3rd-party scripts and complex frameworks/libraries. The chances of 100% code coverage across both CSS and JavaScript are likely unrealistic. You may also have an incredibly complex site that warrants large payloads, making attaining impactful code coverage more difficult. Also published . here

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Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 by Various, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . THE DEVELOPMENTAL SIGNIFICANCE OF HUMAN PHYSIOGNOMY. here THE DEVELOPMENTAL SIGNIFICANCE OF HUMAN PHYSIOGNOMY. [Footnote: Abstract of a lecture delivered before the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, Jan. 20.1881, in exposition of principles laid down in The Hypothesis of Evolution, New Haven, 1870, p. 31.] By E. D. COPE. The ability to read character in the form of the human face and figure is a gift possessed by comparatively few persons, although most people interpret, more or less correctly, the salient points of human expression. The transient appearances of the face reveal temporary phases of feeling which are common to all men; but the constant qualities of the mind should be expressed, if at all, in the permanent forms of the executive instrument of the mind, the body. To detect the peculiarities of the mind by external marks has been the aim of the physiognomist of all times; but it is only in the light of modern evolutionary science that much progress in this direction can be made. The mind, as a function of part of the body, partakes of its perfections and its defects, and exhibits parallel types of development. Every peculiarity of the body has probably some corresponding significance in the mind; and the causes of the former are the remoter causes of the latter. Hence, before a true physiognomy can be attempted, the origin of the features of the face and general form must be known. Not that a perfect physiognomy will ever be possible. A mental constitution so complex as that of man cannot be expected to exhibit more than its leading features in the body; but these include, after all, most of what it is important for us to be able to read, from a practical point of view. The present essay will consider the probable origin of the structural points which constitute the permanent expression. These may be divided into three heads, viz.: Those of the general form or figure. Those of the surface or integument of the body, with its appendages. Those of the forms of the head and face. The principal points to be considered under each of these heads are the following: I. THE GENERAL FORM. The size of the head. The squareness or slope of the shoulders. The length of the arms. The constriction of the waist. The width of the hips. The length of the leg, principally of the thigh. The sizes of the hands and feet. The relative sizes of the muscles. II. THE SURFACES. 9. The structure of the hair (whether curled or not). The length and position of the hair. The size and shape of the nails. The smoothness of the skin. The color of the skin, hair, and irides. III. THE HEAD AND FACE. 14. The relative size of the cerebral to the facial regions. The prominence of the forehead. The prominence of the superciliary (eyebrow) ridges. The prominence of the alveolar borders (jaws). The prominence and width of the chin. The relation of length to width of skull. The prominence of the malar (cheek) bones. The form of the nose. The relative size of the orbits and eyes. The size of the mouth and lips. The significance of these, as of the more important structural characters of man and the lower animals, must be considered from two standpoints, the paleontological and the embryological. The immediate paleontological history of man is unknown, but may be easily inferred from the characteristics displayed by his nearest relatives of the order Quadrumana. If we compare these animals with man, we find the following general differences. The numbers correspond to those of the list above given: I. As to General Form.--(3) In the apes the arms are longer; (8) the extensor muscles of the leg are smaller. II. As to Surface.--(9) The body is covered with hair which is not crisp or woolly; (10) the hair of the head is short; (18) the color of the skin, etc., is dark. III. As to Head and Face.--(14) The facial region of the skull is large as compared with the cerebral; (15) the forehead is not prominent, and is generally retreating; (16) the superciliary ridges are more prominent; (17) the edges of the jaws are more prominent; (18) the chin is less prominent; (20) the cheek bones are more prominent; (21) the nose is without bridge, and with short and flat cartilages; (22) the orbits and eyes are smaller (except in Nyctipithecus); (24) the mouth is small and the lips are thin. It is evident that the possession of any one of the above characteristics by a man approximates him more to the monkeys, so far as it goes. He retains features which have been obliterated in other persons in the process of evolution. In considering the physiognomy of man from an embryological standpoint, we must consider the peculiarities of the infant at birth. The numbers of the following list correspond with those already used (Fig. 3). I. As to the General Form.--(1) The head of the infant is relatively much larger than in the adult; (3) the arms are relatively longer; (4) there is no waist; (6) the leg, and especially the thigh, is much shorter. II. As to the Surfaces.--(10) The body is covered with fine hair, and that of the head is short. III. The Head and Face.--(14) The cerebral part of the skull greatly predominates over the facial; (16) the superciliary ridges are not developed; (17) the alveolar borders are not prominent; (20) the malar bones are not prominent; (21) the nose is without bridge and the cartilages are flat and generally short; (22) the eyes are larger. It is evident that persons who present any of the characters cited in the above list are more infantile or embryonic in those respects than are others; and that those who lack them have left them behind in reaching maturity. We have now two sets of characters in which men may differ from each other. In the one set the characters are those of monkeys, in the other they are those of infants. Let us see whether there be any identities in the two lists, i. e., whether there be any of the monkey-like characters which are also infantile. We find the following to be such: I. As to General Form.--(3) The arms are longer. II. Surface.--(10) The hair of the head is short, and the hair on the body is more distributed. III. As to Head and Face.--(21) The nose is without bridge and the cartilages are short and flat. Three characters only out of twenty-three. On the other hand, the following characters of monkey-like significance are the opposites of those included in the embryonic list: (14) The facial region of the skull is large as compared with the cerebral; (15) the forehead is not prominent; (16) the superciliary ridges are more prominent; (17) the edges of the jaws are more prominent. Four characters, all of the face and head. It is thus evident that in attaining maturity man resembles more and more the apes in some important parts of his facial expression. It must be noted here that the difference between the young and embryonic monkeys and the adults is quite the same as those just mentioned as distinguishing the young from the adult of man (Figs. 1 and 2). The change, however, in the case of the monkeys is greater than in the case of man. That is, in the monkeys the jaws and superciliary ridges become still more prominent than in man. As these characters result from a fuller course of growth from the infant, it is evident that in these respects the apes are more fully developed than man. Man stops short in the development of the face, and is in so far more embryonic.[1] The prominent forehead and reduced jaws of man are characters of "retardation." The characters of the prominent nose with its elevated bridge, is a result of "acceleration," since it is a superaddition to the quadrumanous type from both the standpoints of paleontology and embryology.[2] The development of the bridge of the nose is no doubt directly connected with the development of the front of the cerebral part of the skull and ethmoid bone, which sooner or later carries the nasal bones with it. [Footnote 1: This fact has been well stated by C. S. Minot in the Naturalist for 1882, p. 511.] [Footnote 2: See Cope, The Hypothesis of Evolution, New Haven, 1870, p. 31.] If we now examine the leading characters of the physiognomy of three of the principal human sub-species, the Negro, the Mongolian, and the Indo-European, we can readily observe that it is in the two first named that there is a predominance of the quadrumanous features which are retarded in man; and that the embryonic characters which predominate are those in which man is accelerated. In race description the prominence of the edges of the jaws is called prognathism, and its absence orthognathism. The significance of the two lower race characters as compared with those of the Indo-European is as follows: Negro.--Hair crisp (a special character), short (quadrum. accel.); prognathous (quadrum. accel.); nose flat, without bridge (quadrum. retard)[1]; malar bones prominent (quadrum. accel.); beard short (quadrum. retard.); arms longer (quadrum. accel.); extensor muscles of legs small (quadrum. retard.). [Footnote 1: In the Bochimans, the flat nasal bones are co-ossified with the adjacent elements as in the apes (Thulié).] Mongolian.--Hair straight, long (accel.); jaws prognathous (quadrum. accel.); nose flat or prominent with or without bridge; malar bones prominent (quadrum. accel.); beard none (embryonic); arms shorter (retard.); extensor muscles of leg smaller (quad. retard.). Indo-European.--Hair long (accel.); jaws orthognathous (embryonic retard.); nose (generally) prominent with bridge (accel.); malar bones reduced (retard.); beard long (accel.); arms shorter (retard.); extensor muscles of the leg large (accel.). The Indo-European race is then the highest by virtue of the acceleration of growth in the development of the muscles by which the body is maintained in the erect position (extensors of the leg), and in those important elements of beauty, a well-developed nose and beard. It is also superior in these points in which it is more embryonic than the other races, viz., the want of prominence of the jaws and cheekbones, since these are associated with a greater predominance of the cerebral part of the skull, increased size of cerebral hemispheres, and greater intellectual power. A comparison between the two sexes of the Indo-Europeans expresses their physical and mental relations in a definite way. I select the sexes of the most civilized races, since it is in these, according to Broca and Topinard, that the sex characters are most pronounced. They may be contrasted as follows. The numbers are those of the list already used. I first consider those which are used in the tables of embryonic, quadrumanous, and race characters: MALE.                       FEMALE.
               I. _The General Form_.
   2. Shoulders square.          Shoulders slope.
   4. Waist less constricted.    Waist more constricted.
   5. Hips narrower.             Hips wider.
   6. Legs longer.               Legs shorter (very frequently).
   8. Muscles larger.            Muscles smaller.


               II. _The Integuments, etc_.
  10. More hair on body, that    Less hair on body, that of head
      of head shorter; beard.    longer; no beard.
  12. Skin rougher (generally).  Skin smoother.


               III. _The Head and Face_.
  16. Superciliary ridges more   Superciliary ridges low.
      prominent.
  22. Eyes often smaller.        Eyes often larger. The characters in which the male is the most like the infant are two, viz., the narrow hips and short hair. Those in which the female is most embryonic are five, viz., the shorter legs, smaller muscles, absence of beard, low superciliary ridges, and frequently larger eyes. To these may be added two others not mentioned in the above lists; these are 1, the high pitched voice, which never falls an octave, as does that of the male; and 2, the structure of the generative organs, which in all mammalia more nearly resemble the embryo and the lower vertebrata in the female than in the male. Nevertheless, as Bischoff has pointed out, one of the most important distinctions between man and the apes is to be found in the external reproductive organs of the female. From the preceding rapid sketch the reader will be able to explain the meaning of most of the peculiarities of face and form which he will meet with. Many persons possess at least one quadrumanous or embryonic character. The strongly convex upper lip frequently seen among the lower classes of the Irish is a modified quadrumanous character. Many people, especially those of the Sclavic races, have more or less embryonic noses. A retreating chin is a marked monkey character. Shortness of stature is mostly due to shortness of the femur, or thigh; the inequalities of people sitting are much less than those of people standing. A short femur is embryonic; so is a very large head. The faces of some people are always partially embryonic, in having a short face and light lower jaw. Such faces are still more embryonic when the forehead and eyes are protuberant. Retardation of this kind is frequently seen in children, and less frequently in women. The length of the arms would appear to have grown less in comparatively recent times. Thus the humerus in most of the Greek statues, including the Apollo Belvidere, is longer than those of modern Europeans, according to a writer in the Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie of Paris, and resembles more nearly that of the modern Nubians than any other people. This is a quadrumanous approximation. The miserably developed calves of many of the savages of Australia, Africa, and America are well known. The fine, swelling gastroenemius and soleus muscles characterize the highest races, and are most remote from the slender shanks of the monkeys. The gluteus muscles developed in the lower races as well as in the higher distinguish them well from the monkeys with their flat posterior outline. It must be borne in mind that the quadrumanous indications are found in the lower classes of the most developed races. The status of a race or family is determined by the percentage of its individuals who do and do not present the features in question. Some embryonic characters may also appear in individuals of any race, as a consequence of special circumstances. Such are, however, as important to the physiognomist as the more normal variations. Some of these features have a purely physical significance, but the majority of them are, as already remarked, intimately connected with the development of the mind, either as a cause or as a necessary coincidence. I will examine these relations in a future article. 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 (2005). Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8742/pg8742-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

THE DEVELOPMENTAL SIGNIFICANCE OF HUMAN PHYSIOGNOMY

THE PRODUCTION OF AMMONIA FROM COAL

Mark Twain's Speeches by Mark Twain, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY here SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY ADDRESS AT A DINNER GIVEN BY COLONEL GEORGE HARVEY AT
          DELMONICO’S, DECEMBER 5, 1905, TO CELEBRATE THE SEVENTIETH
          ANNIVERSARY OF MR. CLEMENS’ BIRTH

          Mr. Howells introduced Mr. Clemens:

          “Now, ladies and gentlemen, and Colonel Harvey, I will try not
          to be greedy on your behalf in wishing the health of our
          honored and, in view of his great age, our revered guest.  I
          will not say, ‘Oh King, live forever!’ but ‘Oh King, live as
          long as you like!’” [Amid great applause and waving of napkins
          all rise and drink to Mark Twain.] Well, if I made that joke, it is the best one I ever made, and it is in the prettiest language, too.—I never can get quite to that height. But I appreciate that joke, and I shall remember it—and I shall use it when occasion requires. I have had a great many birthdays in my time. I remember the first one very well, and I always think of it with indignation; everything was so crude, unaesthetic, primeval. Nothing like this at all. No proper appreciative preparation made; nothing really ready. Now, for a person born with high and delicate instincts—why, even the cradle wasn’t whitewashed—nothing ready at all. I hadn’t any hair, I hadn’t any teeth, I hadn’t any clothes, I had to go to my first banquet just like that. Well, everybody came swarming in. It was the merest little bit of a village—hardly that, just a little hamlet, in the backwoods of Missouri, where nothing ever happened, and the people were all interested, and they all came; they looked me over to see if there was anything fresh in my line. Why, nothing ever happened in that village—I—why, I was the only thing that had really happened there for months and months and months; and although I say it myself that shouldn’t, I came the nearest to being a real event that had happened in that village in more than two years. Well, those people came, they came with that curiosity which is so provincial, with that frankness which also is so provincial, and they examined me all around and gave their opinion. Nobody asked them, and I shouldn’t have minded if anybody had paid me a compliment, but nobody did. Their opinions were all just green with prejudice, and I feel those opinions to this day. Well, I stood that as long as—well, you know I was born courteous, and I stood it to the limit. I stood it an hour, and then the worm turned. I was the worm; it was my turn to turn, and I turned. I knew very well the strength of my position; I knew that I was the only spotlessly pure and innocent person in that whole town, and I came out and said so: And they could not say a word. It was so true: They blushed; they were embarrassed. Well, that was the first after-dinner speech I ever made: I think it was after dinner. It’s a long stretch between that first birthday speech and this one. That was my cradle-song; and this is my swan-song, I suppose. I am used to swan-songs; I have sung them several times. This is my seventieth birthday, and I wonder if you all rise to the size of that proposition, realizing all the significance of that phrase, seventieth birthday. The seventieth birthday! It is the time of life when you arrive at a new and awful dignity; when you may throw aside the decent reserves which have oppressed you for a generation and stand unafraid and unabashed upon your seven-terraced summit and look down and teach—unrebuked. You can tell the world how you got there. It is what they all do. You shall never get tired of telling by what delicate arts and deep moralities you climbed up to that great place. You will explain the process and dwell on the particulars with senile rapture. I have been anxious to explain my own system this long time, and now at last I have the right. I have achieved my seventy years in the usual way: by sticking strictly to a scheme of life which would kill anybody else. It sounds like an exaggeration, but that is really the common rule for attaining to old age. When we examine the programme of any of these garrulous old people we always find that the habits which have preserved them would have decayed us; that the way of life which enabled them to live upon the property of their heirs so long, as Mr. Choate says, would have put us out of commission ahead of time. I will offer here, as a sound maxim, this: That we can’t reach old age by another man’s road. I will now teach, offering my way of life to whomsoever desires to commit suicide by the scheme which has enabled me to beat the doctor and the hangman for seventy years. Some of the details may sound untrue, but they are not. I am not here to deceive; I am here to teach. We have no permanent habits until we are forty. Then they begin to harden, presently they petrify, then business begins. Since forty I have been regular about going to bed and getting up—and that is one of the main things. I have made it a rule to go to bed when there wasn’t anybody left to sit up with; and I have made it a rule to get up when I had to. This has resulted in an unswerving regularity of irregularity. It has saved me sound, but it would injure another person. In the matter of diet—which is another main thing—I have been persistently strict in sticking to the things which didn’t agree with me until one or the other of us got the best of it. Until lately I got the best of it myself. But last spring I stopped frolicking with mince-pie after midnight; up to then I had always believed it wasn’t loaded. For thirty years I have taken coffee and bread at eight in the morning, and no bite nor sup until seven-thirty in the evening. Eleven hours. That is all right for me, and is wholesome, because I have never had a headache in my life, but headachy people would not reach seventy comfortably by that road, and they would be foolish to try it. And I wish to urge upon you this—which I think is wisdom—that if you find you can’t make seventy by any but an uncomfortable road, don’t you go. When they take off the Pullman and retire you to the rancid smoker, put on your things, count your checks, and get out at the first way station where there’s a cemetery. I have made it a rule never to smoke more than one cigar at a time. I have no other restriction as regards smoking. I do not know just when I began to smoke, I only know that it was in my father’s lifetime, and that I was discreet. He passed from this life early in 1847, when I was a shade past eleven; ever since then I have smoked publicly. As an example to others, and—not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain when awake. It is a good rule. I mean, for me; but some of you know quite well that it wouldn’t answer for everybody that’s trying to get to be seventy. I smoke in bed until I have to go to sleep; I wake up in the night, sometimes once, sometimes twice; sometimes three times, and I never waste any of these opportunities to smoke. This habit is so old and dear and precious to me that I would feel as you, sir, would feel if you should lose the only moral you’ve got—meaning the chairman—if you’ve got one: I am making no charges: I will grant, here, that I have stopped smoking now and then, for a few months at a time, but it was not on principle, it was only to show off; it was to pulverize those critics who said I was a slave to my habits and couldn’t break my bonds. To-day it is all of sixty years since I began to smoke the limit. I have never bought cigars with life-belts around them. I early found that those were too expensive for me: I have always bought cheap cigars—reasonably cheap, at any rate. Sixty years ago they cost me four dollars a barrel, but my taste has improved, latterly, and I pay seven, now. Six or seven. Seven, I think. Yes; it’s seven. But that includes the barrel. I often have smoking-parties at my house; but the people that come have always just taken the pledge. I wonder why that is? As for drinking, I have no rule about that. When the others drink I like to help; otherwise I remain dry, by habit and preference. This dryness does not hurt me, but it could easily hurt you, because you are different. You let it alone. Since I was seven years old I have seldom taken a dose of medicine, and have still seldomer needed one. But up to seven I lived exclusively on allopathic medicines. Not that I needed them, for I don’t think I did; it was for economy; my father took a drug-store for a debt, and it made cod-liver oil cheaper than the other breakfast foods. We had nine barrels of it, and it lasted me seven years. Then I was weaned. The rest of the family had to get along with rhubarb and ipecac and such things, because I was the pet. I was the first Standard Oil Trust. I had it all. By the time the drugstore was exhausted my health was established, and there has never been much the matter with me since. But you know very well it would be foolish for the average child to start for seventy on that basis. It happened to be just the thing for me, but that was merely an accident; it couldn’t happen again in a century. I have never taken any exercise, except sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any. Exercise is loathsome. And it cannot be any benefit when you are tired; and I was always tired. But let another person try my way, and see where he will come out. I desire now to repeat and emphasise that maxim: We can’t reach old age by another man’s road. My habits protect my life, but they would assassinate you. I have lived a severely moral life. But it would be a mistake for other people to try that, or for me to recommend it. Very few would succeed: you have to have a perfectly colossal stock of morals; and you can’t get them on a margin; you have to have the whole thing, and put them in your box. Morals are an acquirement—like music, like a foreign language, like piety, poker, paralysis—no man is born with them. I wasn’t myself, I started poor. I hadn’t a single moral. There is hardly a man in this house that is poorer than I was then. Yes, I started like that—the world before me, not a moral in the slot. Not even an insurance moral. I can remember the first one I ever got. I can remember the landscape, the weather, the—I can remember how everything looked. It was an old moral, an old second-hand moral, all out of repair, and didn’t fit, anyway. But if you are careful with a thing like that, and keep it in a dry place, and save it for processions, and Chautauquas, and World’s Fairs, and so on, and disinfect it now and then, and give it a fresh coat of whitewash once in a while, you will be surprised to see how well she will last and how long she will keep sweet, or at least inoffensive. When I got that mouldy old moral, she had stopped growing, because she hadn’t any exercise; but I worked her hard, I worked her Sundays and all. Under this cultivation she waxed in might and stature beyond belief, and served me well and was my pride and joy for sixty-three years; then she got to associating with insurance presidents, and lost flesh and character, and was a sorrow to look at and no longer competent for business. She was a great loss to me. Yet not all loss. I sold her—ah, pathetic skeleton, as she was—I sold her to Leopold, the pirate King of Belgium; he sold her to our Metropolitan Museum, and it was very glad to get her, for without a rag on, she stands 57 feet long and 16 feet high, and they think she’s a brontosaur. Well, she looks it. They believe it will take nineteen geological periods to breed her match. Morals are of inestimable value, for every man is born crammed with sin microbes, and the only thing that can extirpate these sin microbes is morals. Now you take a sterilized Christian—I mean, you take the sterilized Christian, for there’s only one. Dear sir, I wish you wouldn’t look at me like that. Threescore years and ten! It is the Scriptural statute of limitations. After that, you owe no active duties; for you the strenuous life is over. You are a time-expired man, to use Kipling’s military phrase: You have served your term, well or less well, and you are mustered out. You are become an honorary member of the republic, you are emancipated, compulsions are not for you, nor any bugle-call but “lights out.” You pay the time-worn duty bills if you choose, or decline if you prefer—and without prejudice—for they are not legally collectable. The previous-engagement plea, which in forty years has cost you so many twinges, you can lay aside forever; on this side of the grave you will never need it again. If you shrink at thought of night, and winter, and the late home-coming from the banquet and the lights and the laughter through the deserted streets—a desolation which would not remind you now, as for a generation it did, that your friends are sleeping, and you must creep in a-tiptoe and not disturb them, but would only remind you that you need not tiptoe, you can never disturb them more—if you shrink at thought of these things, you need only reply, “Your invitation honors me, and pleases me because you still keep me in your remembrance, but I am seventy; seventy, and would nestle in the chimney-corner, and smoke my pipe, and read my book, and take my rest, wishing you well in all affection; and that when you in your return shall arrive at pier No. 70 you may step aboard your waiting ship with a reconciled spirit, and lay your course toward the sinking sun with a contented heart.” 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. Mark Twain (2004). Mark Twain's Speeches. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3188/pg3188-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

SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY

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