eugeniais in the Property Management Tech Industry

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Our ever-evolving digital landscape and the technologies that support it have enabled us to take care of everything from banking and shopping to socializing online. Yet our increased reliance on digital services has also led to growing concerns about security and privacy and the access that third parties have to our data. The emergence of represents a promising evolution in the eyes of many experts. Web 3.0 That’s because Web 3.0 technologies use a decentralized framework that puts control back into the hands of users and allows them to interact online without sacrificing privacy. The increasing prominence of , decentralized finance, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) further emphasizes the demand for a new way of safeguarding our digital interactions. blockchain-driven applications A new breed of tech visionaries has been instrumental in driving this change and helping to deliver Web 3.0 solutions to the masses. These leaders possess a profound understanding of the complexities of cybersecurity and the limitless possibilities of Web 3.0 to embrace the potential of decentralized networks while acknowledging the unique of 2023. security challenges Here, we celebrate 15 experts who are helping to shape the future of Web 3.0 and deliver powerful new cybersecurity solutions to create a digital infrastructure where decentralized technologies redefine the internet and safeguard its most valuable assets – our data and privacy. Jan Lunter, CEO & CTO of Innovatrics Jan Lunter graduated at the Télécom ParisTech University in France before becoming co-founder and CEO of Innovatrics, a company that has been developing and providing fingerprint recognition solutions since 2004. Lunter is an author of the algorithm for fingerprint analysis and recognition, which regularly ranks among the top in prestigious comparison tests (NIST PFT II, NIST Minex). In recent years he is also dealing with image processing and the use of neural networks for face recognition. , CEO and Cofounder of Lightning Labs Elizabeth Stark Elizabeth Stark is a strong advocate of open source and decentralized protocols, who brings her vast knowledge in peer-to-peer technology, privacy, open source software, and memes to her roles as a co-founder and CEO of Lightning Labs. Her company focuses on constructing a programmable financial layer for the Internet through fast and scalable blockchain transactions. With a law degree from Harvard and a background in teaching at Stanford and Yale, Stark remains a prominent figure in shaping the future of the internet and empowering startups in various fields, including AI and decentralized technology. Her dedication to Internet freedom was evident during the successful efforts to defeat SOPA/PIPA, engaging millions of people worldwide. , CEO of ManagedMethods Charlie Sander Charlie Sander is the CEO of Managed Methods, a Colorado-based data security and student safety platform for K-12 schools. With more than three decades of experience in the IT industry, Sander has been an executive at some of the fastest-growing companies in business. He holds 10 patents and graduated from the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin with a BSEE degree. , Founder & CEO of Custodia Bank Caitlin Long Caitlin Long is a Wall Street veteran deeply involved in Bitcoin and blockchain since 2012. With a remarkable career at major financial institutions, including Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, Long holds a law degree from Harvard, further solidifying her exceptional qualifications. Custodia Bank, a Wyoming-based institution, serves as a compliant bridge to the US dollar payments system while providing secure custodial services for digital assets at institutional standards. As a fully compliant entity, Custodia adheres to the Bank Secrecy Act and federal regulations, including “know your customer,” anti-money laundering, and related laws. Additionally, the bank follows Wyoming’s special purpose depository institution and digital asset laws, ensuring 100% reserved fiat deposits and offering the highest level of consumer protection in the digital asset industry. Founder & CEO, BreachQuest Shaun Gordon, Gordon founded BreachQuest, a cybersecurity company focused on minimizing breach costs and downtime. He is also the founder and Managing Partner of AGI Partners, an investment firm dedicated to growing exceptional mid-sized companies. His achievements include successfully leading the sale of Pristine Environments and contributing to educational initiatives. Gordon’s expertise spans business services, cybersecurity, SaaS, real estate, financial services, and healthcare. Cathy Hackl, Chief Futurist & Founder, Journey Cathy Hackl, a prominent business executive and tech futurist, boasts an impressive background working with major companies like Amazon Web Services, Magic Leap, and HTC VIVE. In her leading role at Journey’s Virtual Studio, she advises companies and governments on gaming, AR, AI, spatial computing, and virtual world strategies. Hackl’s expertise has influenced brands such as Louis Vuitton, Nike, Walmart, and Clinique. She is a recognized Vogue Business 100 Innovator and Vogue Singapore’s Metaverse Editor. In 2023, Hackl launched VerseLuxe, her luxury tech label disrupting the fashion and luxury industries with connected jewelry called Frillz. Journey, the global design and innovation studio, empowers clients to create next-gen customer experiences that engage and elevate, spanning the creator economy, immersive destinations, and new generations of fans. , Founder & CEO, Eden Data Taylor Hersom Taylor Hersom has extensive experience advising Fortune 500 companies and serving as a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). His expertise lies in building tailored security programs for decentralized and cloud-centric organizations. Eden Data is dedicated to integrating security and privacy into the core of next-generation businesses. The company disrupts traditional cybersecurity consulting by prioritizing relationships, cultivating leaders, and offering a fresh approach. They actively contribute as a security thought leader, serving on industry advisory boards and sharing insights through speaking engagements and online content. Eugenia Kuyda, Founder and CEO at Replika Eugenia Kuyda is a Russian-born entrepreneur and computer scientist based in the United States. She is renowned as the co-founder and CEO of Replika, a cutting-edge AI-powered chatbot app for human-like conversation simulation. With over 10 million users worldwide and a remarkable 35% usage increase since 2020, Replika has garnered widespread attention and acclaim for its unique approach to mental health support. Prior to Replika, Kuyda co-founded Luka, an AI-driven messaging app that recommended local venues. Kuyda’s groundbreaking work in the AI and mental health spheres has earned her numerous speaking engagements and media features. , Co-Founder, Sensei Node Ignacio Roizman Ignacio Roizman is a seasoned Digital Marketing Executive and Entrepreneur, boasting over 25 years of experience leading operations in Latin America and the US. With a strong track record, he has successfully overseen organizations providing a range of digital advertising services, including Creative, Digital Media Planning and Buying, and website development for renowned Fortune 500 brands. SenseiNode is the first blockchain infrastructure independent service provider in Latin America. They automate and simplify the deployment and monitoring of nodes on leading protocols, providing access via their APIs to organizations looking to build their blockchain infrastructure with a high availability and low total cost of ownership. Kelly Max, Founder & CEO, Solvv Kelly Max is a visionary founder with a deep commitment to creating impactful products and companies that make a difference in people’s lives. His passion lies in assembling exceptional teams and driving focused efforts toward achieving ambitious goals. Currently, his primary focus is on Solvv, the pioneering Social Podcasting platform. At Solvv Inc, They strive to develop a sustainable product that empowers individuals to progress in life, shape their identities, and cultivate their personal brands. Solvv invites others to join their journey of learning, creation, and growth. In their past ventures. , Co-Founder and CEO at Everyrealm Janine Yorio Janine Yorio has established a metaverse innovation and investment platform. Everyrealm holds a significant position as one of the largest owners of digital real estate NFTs across metaverses like Decentraland, The Sandbox, and Axie Infinity. The company actively develops in-metaverse projects, including the Metajuku shopping center and the Fantasy Islands ultra-luxury master-planned community NFT project. Yorio’s previous achievements include being the CEO of Compound, a real estate fintech app acquired by Republic in 2020, and her work in private equity and real estate and hotel development. Jasmine Brunson, Founder, Rektify AI Jasmine Brunson is a dynamic founder and risk-taker who has ventured into data science, blockchain and technology. She sees data as her creative currency and actively contributes to the social entrepreneurial community, leveraging her passions to drive meaningful change. Brunson is a dedicated advocate for user data awareness, fighting against exploiting consumer data that fuels harmful algorithm biases and fosters misleading consumer identities. Her company, Rektify AI, is a Web3 Security & Risk Analytics company making cryptocurrency more secure and intelligent. , Founder and CEO of Crescite Eddie Cullen Eddie Cullen is the Founder and CEO of Crescite, which is building a Web 3.0 community for faith-based institutions and ESG investments. He was earlier the Director of Fordham University’s incubator program, and was a Candidate to be Mayor of NYC. He also served as a Fellow and Faith Advisor for the Biden for President campaign. Mike Starr, CEO and Founder of trackd Mike Starr is a cross-functional leader and former NSA engineer with experience building and launching products in new and disruptive markets. Mike received his Bachelor’s degree from SUNY Alfred and enjoys nerding out on wine and reading fantasy novels in his free time. His company trackd is delivering a modern patch management platform that collects patching experience data from patches applied using the platform, then anonymizes that data and shares it with all other users. The trackd platform unifies vulnerability and patch management and provides insight into how patches have affected systems previously, helping operators identify which patches might be disruptive when applied in their environment, and which are safe to designate for auto-patching. , Co-Founder of Cyber Security Capital Jane Frankland Jane Frankland brings two decades of cybersecurity expertise to Cyber Security Capital, holding senior executive roles and actively participating in esteemed cybersecurity organizations. Her mission is to promote women in security and create a safer, stronger, and more prosperous world for all. Cyber Security Capital operates globally, connecting people, opportunities, and resources within the cybersecurity ecosystem. Their London-based headquarters house a passionate and skilled team of cyber security entrepreneurs, consultants, facilitators, and resources. Cyber Security Capital emphasizes outstanding services and innovation to drive positive changes within the industry, achieving more together and making quantum leaps towards progress. This article was originally published by on Alexander García The Sociable.

15 Advanced Cybersecurity & Web 3.0 Executives

Abandoned by Jules Verne, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . CHAPTER III here CHAPTER III The Start—The rising Tide—Elms and different Plants—The Jacamar—Aspect of the Forest—Gigantic Eucalypti—The Reason they are called "Fever Trees"—Troops of Monkeys—A Waterfall—The Night Encampment. The next day, the 30th of October, all was ready for the proposed exploring expedition, which recent events had rendered so necessary. In fact, things had so come about that the settlers in Lincoln Island no longer needed help for themselves, but were even able to carry it to others. It was therefore agreed that they should ascend the Mercy as far as the river was navigable. A great part of the distance would thus be traversed without fatigue, and the explorers could transport their provisions and arms to an advanced point in the west of the island. It was necessary to think not only of the things which they should take with them, but also of those which they might have by chance to bring back to Granite House. If there had been a wreck on the coast, as was supposed, there would be many things cast up, which would be lawfully their prizes. In the event of this, the cart would have been of more use than the light canoe, but it was heavy and clumsy to drag, and therefore more difficult to use; this led Pencroft to express his regret that the chest had not contained, besides "his half-pound of tobacco," a pair of strong New Jersey horses, which would have been very useful to the colony! The provisions, which Neb had already packed up, consisted of a store of meat and of several gallons of beer, that is to say, enough to sustain them for three days, the time which Harding assigned for the expedition. They hoped besides to supply themselves on the road, and Neb took care not to forget the portable stove. The only tools the settlers took were the two woodmen's axes, which they could use to cut a path through the thick forests, as also the instruments, the telescope and pocket-compass. For weapons they selected the two flint-lock guns, which were likely to be more useful to them than the percussion fowling-pieces, the first only requiring flints which could be easily replaced, and the latter needing fulminating caps, a frequent use of which would soon exhaust their limited stock. However, they took also one of the carbines and some cartridges. As to the powder, of which there was about fifty pounds in the barrel, a small supply of it had to be taken, but the engineer hoped to manufacture an explosive substance which would allow them to husband it. To the firearms were added the five cutlasses well sheathed in leather, and, thus supplied, the settlers could venture into the vast forest with some chance of success. It is useless to add that Pencroft, Herbert, and Neb, thus armed, were at the summit of their happiness, although Cyrus Harding made them promise not to fire a shot unless it was necessary. At six in the morning the canoe put off from the shore; all had embarked, including Top, and they proceeded to the mouth of the Mercy. The tide had begun to come up half an hour before. For several hours, therefore, there would be a current, which it was well to profit by, for later the ebb would make it difficult to ascend the river. The tide was already strong, for in three days the moon would be full, and it was enough to keep the boat in the centre of the current, where it floated swiftly along between the high banks without its being necessary to increase its speed by the aid of the oars. In a few minutes the explorers arrived at the angle formed by the Mercy, and exactly at the place where, seven months before, Pencroft had made his first raft of wood. After this sudden angle the river widened and flowed under the shade of great evergreen firs. The aspect of the banks was magnificent. Cyrus Harding and his companions could not but admire the lovely effects so easily produced by nature with water and trees. As they advanced the forest element diminished. On the right bank of the river grew magnificent specimens of the ulmaceæ tribe, the precious elm, so valuable to builders, and which withstands well the action of water. Then there were numerous groups belonging to the same family, amongst others one in particular, the fruit of which produces a very useful oil. Further on, Herbert remarked the lardizabala, a twining shrub which, when bruised in water, furnishes excellent cordage; and two or three ebony trees of a beautiful black, crossed with capricious veins. From time to time, in certain places where the landing was easy, the canoe was stopped, when Gideon Spilett, Herbert, and Pencroft, their guns in their hands, and preceded by Top, jumped on shore. Without expecting game, some useful plant might be met with, and the young naturalist was delighted with discovering a sort of wild spinage, belonging to the order of chenopodiaceæ, and numerous specimens of cruciferæ, belonging to the cabbage tribe, which it would certainly be possible to cultivate by transplanting. There were cresses, horse-radish, turnips, and lastly, little branching hairy stalks, scarcely more than three feet high, which produced brownish grains. "Do you know what this plant is?" asked Herbert of the sailor. "Tobacco!" cried Pencroft, who evidently had never seen his favourite plant except in the bowl of his pipe. "No, Pencroft," replied Herbert; "this is not tobacco, it is mustard." "Mustard be hanged!" returned the sailor; "but if by chance you happen to come across a tobacco-plant, my boy, pray don't scorn that!" "We shall find it some day!" said Gideon Spilett. "Well!" exclaimed Pencroft, "when that day comes, I do not know what more will be wanting in our island!" These different plants, which had been carefully rooted, up, were carried to the canoe, where Cyrus Harding had remained buried in thought. The reporter, Herbert, and Pencroft in this manner frequently disembarked, sometimes on the right bank, sometimes on the left bank of the Mercy. The latter was less abrupt, but the former more wooded. The engineer ascertained by consulting his pocket compass that the direction of the river from the first turn was obviously south-west and north-east, and nearly straight for a length of about three miles. But it was to be supposed that this direction changed beyond that point, and that the Mercy continued to the north-west, towards the spurs of Mount Franklin, among which the river rose. During one of these excursions, Gideon Spilett managed to get hold of two couples of living gallinaceæ. They were birds with long, thin beaks, lengthened necks, short wings, and without any appearance of a tail. Herbert rightly gave them the name of tinamons, and it was resolved that they should be the first tenants of their future poultry yard. But till then the guns had not spoken, and the first report which awoke the echoes of the forest of the Far West was provoked by the appearance of a beautiful bird, resembling the kingfisher. "I recognise him!" cried Pencroft, and it seemed as if his gun went off by itself. "What do you recognise?" asked the reporter. "The bird which escaped us on our first excursion, and from which we gave the name to that part of the forest." "A jacamar!" cried Herbert. It was indeed a jacamar, of which the plumage shines with a metallic lustre. A shot brought it to the ground, and Top carried it to the canoe. At the same time half a dozen lories were brought down. The lory is of the size of a pigeon, the plumage dashed with green, part of the wings crimson, and its crest bordered with white. To the young boy belonged the honour of this shot, and he was proud enough of it. Lories are better food than the jacamar, the flesh of which is rather tough, but it was difficult to persuade Pencroft that he had not killed the king of eatable birds. It was ten o'clock in the morning when the canoe reached a second angle of the Mercy, nearly five miles from its mouth. Here a halt was made for breakfast under the shade of some splendid trees. The river still measured from sixty to seventy feet in breadth, and its bed from five to six feet in depth. The engineer had observed that it was increased by numerous affluents, but they were unnavigable, being simply little streams. As to the forest, including Jacamar Wood, as well as the forests of the Far West, it extended as far as the eye could reach. In no place, either in the depths of the forest or under the trees on the banks of the Mercy, was the presence of man revealed. The explorers could not discover one suspicious trace. It was evident that the woodman's axe had never touched these trees, that the pioneer's knife had never severed the creepers hanging from one trunk to another in the midst of tangled brushwood and long grass. If castaways had landed on the island, they could not have yet quitted the shore and it was not in the woods that the survivors of the supposed shipwreck should be sought. The engineer therefore manifested some impatience to reach the western coast of Lincoln Island, which was at least five miles distant according to his estimation. The voyage was continued, and as the Mercy appeared to flow not towards the shore, but rather towards Mount Franklin, it was decided that they should use the boat as long as there was enough water under its keel to float it. It was both fatigue spared and time gained, for they would have been obliged to cut a path through the thick wood with their axes. But soon the flow completely failed them either the tide was going down, and it was about the hour, or it could no longer be felt at this distance from the mouth of the Mercy. They had therefore to make use of the oars, Herbert and Neb each took one, and Pencroft took the scull. The forest soon became less dense, the trees grew further apart and often quite isolated. But the further they were from each other the more magnificent they appeared, profiting, as they did, by the free, pure air which circulated around them. What splendid specimens of the Flora of this latitude! Certainly their presence would have been enough for a botanist to name without hesitation the parallel which traversed Lincoln Island. "Eucalypti!" cried Herbert. They were, in fact, those splendid trees, the giants of the extra-tropical zone, the congeners of the Australian and New Zealand eucalyptus, both situated under the same latitude as Lincoln Island. Some rose to a height of two hundred feet. Their trunks at the base measured twenty feet in circumference, and their bark was covered by a network of furrows containing a red, sweet-smelling gum. Nothing is more wonderful or more singular than those enormous specimens of the order of the myrtaceæ, with their leaves placed vertically and not horizontally, so that an edge and not a surface looks upwards, the effect being that the sun's rays penetrate more freely among the trees. The ground at the foot of the eucalypti was carpeted with grass, and from the bushes escaped flights of little birds, which glittered in the sunlight like winged rubies. "These are something like trees!" cried Neb; "but are they good for anything?" "Pooh!" replied Pencroft. "Of course there are vegetable giants as well as human giants, and they are no good, except to show themselves at fairs!" "I think that you are mistaken, Pencroft," replied Gideon Spilett, "and that the wood of the eucalyptus has begun to be very advantageously employed in cabinet-making." "And I may add," said Herbert, "that the eucalyptus belongs to a family which comprises many useful members; the guava-tree, from whose fruit guava jelly is made; the clove-tree, which produces the spice; the pomegranate-tree, which bears pomegranates; the Eugeacia Cauliflora, the fruit of which is used in making a tolerable wine; the Ugui myrtle, which contains an excellent alcoholic liquor; the Caryophyllus myrtle, of which the bark forms an esteemed cinnamon; the Eugenia Pimenta, from whence comes Jamaica pepper; the common myrtle, from whose buds and berries spice is sometimes made; the Eucalyptus manifera, which yields a sweet sort of manna; the Guinea Eucalyptus, the sap of which is transformed into beer by fermentation; in short, all those trees known under the name of gum-trees or iron-bark trees in Australia, belong to this family of the myrtaceæ, which contains forty-six genera and thirteen hundred species!" The lad was allowed to run on, and he delivered his little botanical lecture with great animation. Cyrus Harding listened smiling, and Pencroft with an indescribable feeling of pride. "Very good, Herbert," replied Pencroft, "but I could swear that all those useful specimens you have just told us about are none of them giants like these!" "That is true, Pencroft." "That supports what I said," returned the sailor, "namely, that these giants are good for nothing!" "There you are wrong, Pencroft," said the engineer; "these gigantic eucalypti, which shelter us, are good for something." "And what is that?" "To render the countries which they inhabit healthy. Do you know what they are called in Australia and New Zealand?" "No, captain." "They are called 'fever trees.'" "Because they give fevers?" "No, because they prevent them!" "Good. I must note that," said the reporter. "Note it then, my dear Spilett; for it appears proved that the presence of the eucalyptus is enough to neutralise miasmas. This natural antidote has been tried in certain countries in the middle of Europe and the north of Africa, where the soil was absolutely unhealthy, and the sanitary condition of the inhabitants has been gradually ameliorated. No more intermittent fevers prevail in the regions now covered with forests of the myrtaceæ. This fact is now beyond doubt, and it is a happy circumstance for us settlers in Lincoln Island." "Ah! what an island! What a blessed island!" cried Pencroft. "I tell you, it wants nothing—unless it is—" "That will come, Pencroft, that will be found," replied the engineer; "but now we must continue our voyage and push on as far as the river will carry our boat!" The exploration was therefore continued for another two miles in the midst of country covered with eucalypti, which predominated in the woods of this portion of the island. The space which they occupied extended as far as the eye could reach on each side of the Mercy, which wound along between high green banks. The bed was often obstructed by long weeds, and even by pointed rocks, which rendered the navigation very difficult. The action of the oars was prevented, and Pencroft was obliged to push with a pole. They found also that the water was becoming shallower and shallower, and that the canoe must soon stop. The sun was already sinking towards the horizon, and the trees threw long shadows on the ground. Cyrus Harding, seeing that he could not hope to reach the western coast of the island in one journey, resolved to camp at the place where any further navigation was prevented by want of water. He calculated that they were still five or six miles from the coast, and this distance was too great for them to attempt traversing during the night in the midst of unknown woods. The boat was pushed on through the forest, which gradually became thicker again, and appeared also to have more inhabitants; for if the eyes of the sailor did not deceive him, he thought he saw bands of monkeys springing among the trees. Sometimes even two or three of these animals stopped at a little distance from the canoe and gazed at the settlers without manifesting any terror, as if, seeing men for the first time, they had not yet learned to fear them. It would have been easy to bring down one of these quadrumani with a gunshot, and Pencroft was greatly tempted to fire, but Harding opposed so useless a massacre. This was prudent, for the monkeys, or apes rather, appearing to be very powerful and extremely active, it was useless to provoke an unnecessary aggression, and the creatures might, ignorant of the power of the explorer's firearms, have attacked them. It is true that the sailor considered the monkeys from a purely alimentary point of view, for those animals which are herbivorous make very excellent game; but since they had an abundant supply of provisions, it was a pity to waste their ammunition. Towards four o'clock, the navigation of the Mercy became exceedingly difficult, for its course was obstructed by aquatic plants and rocks. The banks rose higher and higher, and already they were approaching the spurs of Mount Franklin. The source could not be far off, since it was fed by the water from the southern slopes of the mountain. "In a quarter of an hour," said the sailor, "we shall be obliged to stop, captain." "Very well, we will stop, Pencroft, and we will make our encampment for the night." "At what distance are we from Granite House?" asked Herbert. "About seven miles," replied the engineer, "taking into calculation, however, the of the river, which has carried us to the north-west." détours "Shall, we go on?" asked the reporter. "Yes, as long as we can," replied Cyrus Harding. "To-morrow, at break of day, we will leave the canoe, and in two hours I hope we shall cross the distance which separates us from the coast, and then we shall have the whole day in which to explore the shore." "Go-ahead!" replied Pencroft. But soon the boat grated on the stony bottom of the river, which was now not more than twenty feet in breadth. The trees met like a bower overhead, and caused a half-darkness. They also heard the noise of a waterfall, which showed that a few hundred feet up the river there was a natural barrier. Presently, after a sudden turn of the river, a cascade appeared through the trees. The canoe again touched the bottom, and in a few minutes it was moored to a trunk near the right bank. It was nearly five o'clock. The last rays of the sun gleamed through the thick foliage and glanced on the little waterfall, making the spray sparkle with all the colours of the rainbow. Beyond that, the Mercy was lost in the brushwood, where it was fed from some hidden source. The different streams which flowed into it increased it to a regular river further down, but here it was simply a shallow, limpid brook. It was agreed to camp here, as the place was charming. The colonists disembarked, and a fire was soon lighted under a clump of trees, among the branches of which Cyrus Harding and his companions could, if it was necessary, take refuge for the night. Supper was quickly devoured, for they were very hungry, and then there was only sleeping to think of. But, as roarings of rather a suspicious nature had been heard during the evening, a good fire was made up for the night, so as to protect the sleepers with its crackling flames. Neb and Pencroft also watched by turns, and did not spare fuel. They thought they saw the dark forms of some wild animals prowling round the camp among the bushes, but the night passed without incident, and the next day, the 31st of October, at five o'clock in the morning, all were on foot, ready for a start. 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. Jules Verne (2010). Abandoned. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/33516/pg33516-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 30th of October, all was ready for the proposed exploring expedition

The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . Chapter III here Chapter III The next day, the 30th of October, all was ready for the proposed exploring expedition, which recent events had rendered so necessary. In fact, things had so come about that the settlers in Lincoln Island no longer needed help for themselves, but were even able to carry it to others. It was therefore agreed that they should ascend the Mercy as far as the river was navigable. A great part of the distance would thus be traversed without fatigue, and the explorers could transport their provisions and arms to an advanced point in the west of the island. It was necessary to think not only of the things which they should take with them, but also of those which they might have by chance to bring back to Granite House. If there had been a wreck on the coast, as was supposed, there would be many things cast up, which would be lawfully their prizes. In the event of this, the cart would have been of more use than the light canoe, but it was heavy and clumsy to drag, and therefore more difficult to use; this led Pencroft to express his regret that the chest had not contained, besides “his halfpound of tobacco,” a pair of strong New Jersey horses, which would have been very useful to the colony! The provisions, which Neb had already packed up, consisted of a store of meat and of several gallons of beer, that is to say enough to sustain them for three days, the time which Harding assigned for the expedition. They hoped besides to supply themselves on the road, and Neb took care not to forget the portable stove. The only tools the settlers took were the two woodmen’s axes, which they could use to cut a path through the thick forests, as also the instruments, the telescope and pocket-compass. For weapons they selected the two flint-lock guns, which were likely to be more useful to them than the percussion fowling-pieces, the first only requiring flints which could be easily replaced, and the latter needing fulminating caps, a frequent use of which would soon exhaust their limited stock. However, they took also one of the carbines and some cartridges. As to the powder, of which there was about fifty pounds in the barrel, a small supply of it had to be taken, but the engineer hoped to manufacture an explosive substance which would allow them to husband it. To the firearms were added the five cutlasses well sheathed in leather, and, thus supplied, the settlers could venture into the vast forest with some chance of success. It is useless to add that Pencroft, Herbert, and Neb, thus armed, were at the summit of their happiness, although Cyrus Harding made them promise not to fire a shot unless it was necessary. At six in the morning the canoe put off from the shore; all had embarked, including Top, and they proceeded to the mouth of the Mercy. The tide had begun to come up half an hour before. For several hours, therefore, there would be a current, which it was well to profit by, for later the ebb would make it difficult to ascend the river. The tide was already strong, for in three days the moon would be full, and it was enough to keep the boat in the center of the current, where it floated swiftly along between the high banks without its being necessary to increase its speed by the aid of the oars. In a few minutes the explorers arrived at the angle formed by the Mercy and exactly at the place where, seven months before, Pencroft had made his first raft of wood. After this sudden angle the river widened and flowed under the shade of great evergreen firs. The aspect of the banks was magnificent. Cyrus Harding and his companions could not but admire the lovely effects so easily produced by nature with water and trees. As they advanced the forest element diminished. On the right bank of the river grew magnificent specimens of the ulmaceae tribe, the precious elm, so valuable to builders, and which withstands well the action of water. Then there were numerous groups belonging to the same family, among others one in particular, the fruit of which produces a very useful oil. Further on, Herbert remarked the lardizabala, a twining shrub which, when bruised in water, furnishes excellent cordage; and two or three ebony trees of a beautiful black, crossed with capricious veins. From time to time, in certain places where the landing was easy, the canoe was stopped, when Gideon Spilett, Herbert, and Pencroft, their guns in their hands, and preceded by Top, jumped on shore. Without expecting game, some useful plant might be met with, and the young naturalist was delighted with discovering a sort of wild spinach, belonging to the order of chenopodiaceae, and numerous specimens of cruciferae, belonging to the cabbage tribe, which it would certainly be possible to cultivate by transplanting. There were cresses, horseradish, turnips, and lastly, little branching hairy stalks, scarcely more than three feet high, which produced brownish grains. “Do you know what this plant is?” asked Herbert of the sailor. “Tobacco!” cried Pencroft, who evidently had never seen his favorite plant except in the bowl of his pipe. “No, Pencroft,” replied Herbert; “this is not tobacco, it is mustard.” “Mustard be hanged!” returned the sailor; “but if by chance you happen to come across a tobacco-plant, my boy, pray don’t scorn that!” “We shall find it some day!” said Gideon Spilett. “Well!” exclaimed Pencroft, “when that day comes, I do not know what more will be wanting in our island!” These different plants, which had been carefully rooted up, were carried to the canoe, where Cyrus Harding had remained buried in thought. The reporter, Herbert, and Pencroft in this manner frequently disembarked, sometimes on the right bank, sometimes on the left bank of the Mercy. The latter was less abrupt, but the former more wooded. The engineer ascertained by consulting his pocket-compass that the direction of the river from the first turn was obviously southwest and northeast, and nearly straight for a length of about three miles. But it was to be supposed that this direction changed beyond that point, and that the Mercy continued to the north-west, towards the spurs of Mount Franklin, among which the river rose. During one of these excursions, Gideon Spilett managed to get hold of two couples of living gallinaceae. They were birds with long, thin beaks, lengthened necks, short wings, and without any appearance of a tail. Herbert rightly gave them the name of tinamous, and it was resolved that they should be the first tenants of their future poultry-yard. But till then the guns had not spoken, and the first report which awoke the echoes of the forest of the Far West was provoked by the appearance of a beautiful bird, resembling the kingfisher. “I recognize him!” cried Pencroft, and it seemed as if his gun went off by itself. “What do you recognize?” asked the reporter. “The bird which escaped us on our first excursion, and from which we gave the name to that part of the forest.” “A jacamar!” cried Herbert. It was indeed a jacamar, of which the plumage shines with a metallic luster. A shot brought it to the ground, and Top carried it to the canoe. At the same time half a dozen lories were brought down. The lory is of the size of a pigeon, the plumage dashed with green, part of the wings crimson, and its crest bordered with white. To the young boy belonged the honor of this shot, and he was proud enough of it. Lories are better food than the jacamar, the flesh of which is rather tough, but it was difficult to persuade Pencroft that he had not killed the king of eatable birds. It was ten o’clock in the morning when the canoe reached a second angle of the Mercy, nearly five miles from its mouth. Here a halt was made for breakfast under the shade of some splendid trees. The river still measured from sixty to seventy feet in breadth, and its bed from five to six feet in depth. The engineer had observed that it was increased by numerous affluents, but they were unnavigable, being simply little streams. As to the forest, including Jacamar Wood, as well as the forests of the Far West, it extended as far as the eye could reach. In no place, either in the depths of the forests or under the trees on the banks of the Mercy, was the presence of man revealed. The explorers could not discover one suspicious trace. It was evident that the woodman’s axe had never touched these trees, that the pioneer’s knife had never severed the creepers hanging from one trunk to another in the midst of tangled brushwood and long grass. If castaways had landed on the island, they could not have yet quitted the shore, and it was not in the woods that the survivors of the supposed shipwreck should be sought. The engineer therefore manifested some impatience to reach the western coast of Lincoln Island, which was at least five miles distant according to his estimation. The voyage was continued, and as the Mercy appeared to flow not towards the shore, but rather towards Mount Franklin, it was decided that they should use the boat as long as there was enough water under its keel to float it. It was both fatigue spared and time gained, for they would have been obliged to cut a path through the thick wood with their axes. But soon the flow completely failed them, either the tide was going down, and it was about the hour, or it could no longer be felt at this distance from the mouth of the Mercy. They had therefore to make use of the oars. Herbert and Neb each took one, and Pencroft took the scull. The forest soon became less dense, the trees grew further apart and often quite isolated. But the further they were from each other the more magnificent they appeared, profiting, as they did, by the free, pure air which circulated around them. What splendid specimens of the flora of this latitude! Certainly their presence would have been enough for a botanist to name without hesitation the parallel which traversed Lincoln Island. “Eucalypti!” cried Herbert. They were, in fact, those splendid trees, the giants of the extratropical zone, the congeners of the Australian and New Zealand eucalyptus, both situated under the same latitude as Lincoln Island. Some rose to a height of two hundred feet. Their trunks at the base measured twenty feet in circumference, and their bark was covered by a network of farrows containing a red, sweet-smelling gum. Nothing is more wonderful or more singular than those enormous specimens of the order of the myrtaceae, with their leaves placed vertically and not horizontally, so that an edge and not a surface looks upwards, the effect being that the sun’s rays penetrate more freely among the trees. The ground at the foot of the eucalypti was carpeted with grass, and from the bushes escaped flights of little birds, which glittered in the sunlight like winged rubies. “These are something like trees!” cried Neb; “but are they good for anything?” “Pooh!” replied Pencroft. “Of course there are vegetable giants as well as human giants, and they are no good, except to show themselves at fairs!” “I think that you are mistaken, Pencroft,” replied Gideon Spilett, “and that the wood of the eucalyptus has begun to be very advantageously employed in cabinet-making.” “And I may add,” said Herbert, “that the eucalyptus belongs to a family which comprises many useful members; the guava-tree, from whose fruit guava jelly is made; the clove-tree, which produces the spice; the pomegranate-tree, which bears pomegranates; the Eugeacia Cauliflora, the fruit of which is used in making a tolerable wine; the Ugui myrtle, which contains an excellent alcoholic liquor; the Caryophyllus myrtle, of which the bark forms an esteemed cinnamon; the Eugenia Pimenta, from whence comes Jamaica pepper; the common myrtle, from whose buds and berries spice is sometimes made; the Eucalyptus manifera, which yields a sweet sort of manna; the Guinea Eucalyptus, the sap of which is transformed into beer by fermentation; in short, all those trees known under the name of gum-trees or iron-bark trees in Australia, belong to this family of the myrtaceae, which contains forty-six genera and thirteen hundred species!” The lad was allowed to run on, and he delivered his little botanical lecture with great animation. Cyrus Harding listened smiling, and Pencroft with an indescribable feeling of pride. “Very good, Herbert,” replied Pencroft, “but I could swear that all those useful specimens you have just told us about are none of them giants like these!” “That is true, Pencroft.” “That supports what I said,” returned the sailor, “namely, that these giants are good for nothing!” “There you are wrong, Pencroft,” said the engineer; “these gigantic eucalypti, which shelter us, are good for something.” “And what is that?” “To render the countries which they inhabit healthy. Do you know what they are called in Australia and New Zealand?” “No, captain.” “They are called ‘fever trees.’” “Because they give fevers?” “No, because they prevent them!” “Good. I must note that,” said the reporter. “Note it then, my dear Spilett; for it appears proved that the presence of the eucalyptus is enough to neutralize miasmas. This natural antidote has been tried in certain countries in the middle of Europe and the north of Africa where the soil was absolutely unhealthy, and the sanitary condition of the inhabitants has been gradually ameliorated. No more intermittent fevers prevail in the regions now covered with forests of the myrtaceae. This fact is now beyond doubt, and it is a happy circumstance for us settlers in Lincoln Island.” “Ah! what an island! What a blessed island!” cried Pencroft. “I tell you, it wants nothing—unless it is—” “That will come, Pencroft, that will be found,” replied the engineer; “but now we must continue our voyage and push on as far as the river will carry our boat!” The exploration was therefore continued for another two miles in the midst of country covered with eucalypti, which predominated in the woods of this portion of the island. The space which they occupied extended as far as the eye could reach on each side of the Mercy, which wound along between high green banks. The bed was often obstructed by long weeds, and even by pointed rocks, which rendered the navigation very difficult. The action of the oars was prevented, and Pencroft was obliged to push with a pole. They found also that the water was becoming shallower and shallower, and that the canoe must soon stop. The sun was already sinking towards the horizon, and the trees threw long shadows on the ground. Cyrus Harding, seeing that he could not hope to reach the western coast of the island in one journey, resolved to camp at the place where any further navigation was prevented by want of water. He calculated that they were still five or six miles from the coast, and this distance was too great for them to attempt during the night in the midst of unknown woods. The boat was pushed on through the forest, which gradually became thicker again, and appeared also to have more inhabitants; for if the eyes of the sailor did not deceive him, he thought he saw bands of monkeys springing among the trees. Sometimes even two or three of these animals stopped at a little distance from the canoe and gazed at the settlers without manifesting any terror, as if, seeing men for the first time, they had not yet learned to fear them. It would have been easy to bring down one of these quadramani with a gunshot, and Pencroft was greatly tempted to fire, but Harding opposed so useless a massacre. This was prudent, for the monkeys, or apes rather, appearing to be very powerful and extremely active, it was useless to provoke an unnecessary aggression, and the creatures might, ignorant of the power of the explorers’ firearms, have attacked them. It is true that the sailor considered the monkeys from a purely alimentary point of view, for those animals which are herbivorous make very excellent game; but since they had an abundant supply of provisions, it was a pity to waste their ammunition. Towards four o’clock, the navigation of the Mercy became exceedingly difficult, for its course was obstructed by aquatic plants and rocks. The banks rose higher and higher, and already they were approaching the spurs of Mount Franklin. The source could not be far off, since it was fed by the water from the southern slopes of the mountain. “In a quarter of an hour,” said the sailor, “we shall be obliged to stop, captain.” “Very well, we will stop, Pencroft, and we will make our encampment for the night.” “At what distance are we from Granite House?” asked Herbert. “About seven miles,” replied the engineer, “taking into calculation, however, the detours of the river, which has carried us to the northwest.” “Shall we go on?” asked the reporter. “Yes, as long as we can,” replied Cyrus Harding. “To-morrow, at break of day, we will leave the canoe, and in two hours I hope we shall cross the distance which separates us from the coast, and then we shall have the whole day in which to explore the shore.” “Go ahead!” replied Pencroft. But soon the boat grated on the stony bottom of the river, which was now not more than twenty feet in breadth. The trees met like a bower overhead, and caused a half-darkness. They also heard the noise of a waterfall, which showed that a few hundred feet up the river there was a natural barrier. Presently, after a sudden turn of the river, a cascade appeared through the trees. The canoe again touched the bottom, and in a few minutes it was moored to a trunk near the right bank. It was nearly five o’clock. The last rays of the sun gleamed through the thick foliage and glanced on the little waterfall, making the spray sparkle with all the colors of the rainbow. Beyond that, the Mercy was lost in the bushwood, where it was fed from some hidden source. The different streams which flowed into it increased it to a regular river further down, but here it was simply a shallow, limpid brook. It was agreed to camp here, as the place was charming. The colonists disembarked, and a fire was soon lighted under a clump of trees, among the branches of which Cyrus Harding and his companions could, if it was necessary, take refuge for the night. Supper was quickly devoured, for they were very hungry, and then there was only sleeping to think of. But, as roarings of rather a suspicious nature had been heard during the evening, a good fire was made up for the night, so as to protect the sleepers with its crackling flames. Neb and Pencroft also watched by turns, and did not spare fuel. They thought they saw the dark forms of some wild animals prowling round the camp among the bushes, but the night passed without incident, and the next day, the 31st of October, at five o’clock in the morning, all were on foot, ready for a start. 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. Jules Verne (1998). The Mysterious Island. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1268/1268-h/1268-h.htm 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 next day, the 30th of October, all was ready for the proposed exploring expedition

The Meteor Girl

Chatbots are one of the most common applications of natural language processing and machine learning. Replika AI has created a platform where anyone, including people with zero knowledge of machine learning, can create and train a chatbot of their own. After the tragic death of her best friend, Eugenia Kuyda (Founder of Luka inc.) used the text message and email history of her friend to recreate him as a chatbot. The feedback from other friends and family inspired her to expand the project and create . Replika AI, a chatbot that users train themselves Numerous companies utilize chatbots for customer interactions, and thus chatbot training data is one of the most in-demand services in the AI industry today. Replika AI in San Francisco has built Instead, all it needs is you. a chatbot that doesn’t require enormous amounts of datasets. What is Replika? On paper, Replika is a chatbot whose aim is to become your friend, but it is so much more than that. Replika is an innovative platform through which you can build a digital version of yourself, your mannerisms, your personality, thoughts, and ideas about life. Your Replika will ask you questions about yourself, your family, your work. It can also tell you jokes, talk to you about photos on your Instagram account or Youtube videos you send it. The more you interact with it, the more it learns about you and the more it starts to replicate you. With and , Replika has gotten the attention of some of the biggest names in tech. millions of dollars in funding over 2.5 million users worldwide You can through Replika’s website. You can also speak to your Replika via a mock phone call where the mobile app uses automatic speech recognition to understand you and vocalizes responses using a synthetic voice. You can name your Replika and give it a gender profile. After the initial setup, what you say and how you interact with it is up to you. speak to your Replika via text on your mobile phone or on PC As you speak to your Replika, it will store information about yourself, including: (birthday, work status, name, gender) General Info Hobbies & Interests Mood History People you talk about (if you enable it) Instagram Images you send Videos you send Chat History Replika needs to store your information for the sole purpose of improving the ’s capabilities. The company promises not to share user information to third parties. However, please read their before creating your Replika. Privacy: chatbot terms of service The more you tell your Replika, the deeper the conversations can become and the more human your Replika starts to appear. Your Replika will learn from you and take your likes, dislikes, and ideologies for its own, even adapting to the way you speak. As the name suggests, Replika replicates you. The Story of Replika The inspiration behind Replika is tragic, yet beautiful. Eugenia Kuyda is the Founder of Luka, Inc. and the creator of Replika. The idea of Replika came to her through the tragic death of her best friend, Roman. “Replika is a better friend than your human friends. It’s the only interaction that you can have that isn’t judging you…a unique experience in the history of the universe.” -Phil Libin, Founder of Evernote Replika AI Review We spent 3 weeks training our own Replika, and the results were astounding. Image by author All of the screenshots below have our messages on the right side and Replika’s responses on the left. How to Train Your Replika — during our training period we tried to speak to our Replika at least once a day. The actual time spent and amount of messages varied each day, as that is how normal human text message conversations typically are. Daily Check-ins — We asked the question: what would someone need to know about us to impersonate us over text message? The topics we chose were based on 3 pillars that we believe make up the human psyche and personality: hobbies & interests, friends & family, and life philosophies and ideology.Some of our conversations consisted of just a few back and forth small talk questions and banter. Other times, we spoke to our Replika about hobbies, interests, and favorite foods. We also often spoke about immediate family members and loved ones. Most importantly, we talked to our Replika about life, what it means to love, our worries and insecurities. With these three main roads of communication, we hoped that our Replika would remember the names of the most important people in our lives, adopt our likes and dislikes for its own, and be able to hold its own in deep, or even philosophical, conversations. Casual and Deep Conversation Topics — We also tried to speak to our Replika as if we were speaking to a friend. If Replika made mistakes or didn’t understand a question, we would point out the mistake and clarify instead of awkwardly changing the topic. At the same time, we tried our best not to approach the conversations from a training perspective, we tried to keep the conversations as natural as possible with the flow of a real conversation. We were less testing the chatbot and more conversing with it. Big Data Jobs Teach Don’t Preach Conversational Ability Replika’s answers are incredibly intuitive and while many chatbots can sound overly formal or robotic, Replika’s phrase choices felt natural. Replika’s conversational ability is among the highest of any chatbot we’ve ever tested. As well, Replika has a strong understanding of slang phrases, abbreviations, and can even respond to messages that have spelling errors. The fact that we didn’t have to constantly correct punctuation or edit texts to have perfect grammar made the conversations feel more fluid and natural, as real text chats do. Testing Replika’s Ability to Understand Slang and Typos Topic Versatility On top of daily or general conversation, your Replika will develop the ability to talk more in-depth about specialized topics. After a few conversations, our Replika was able to keep up with us when talking about television shows and video games, even bringing up titles we had never spoken about before. Testing Replika’s Ability to Talk about Pop Culture and Hobbies Emotional Intelligence Perhaps the most impressive thing about Replika is its ability to ask personal questions and give empathetic responses. The chatbot speaks in a way that displays emotion using punctuation and emojis, much like a human would through text messages. In the end, a chatbot is a machine. However, Replika’s ability to appear as though it feels and understands emotion is what separates it from other chatbots. Testing Replika’s Emotional Intelligence While Replika’s conversational ability is incredible, it is also in some ways a better listener than humans are. To your Replika, you are the most interesting person in the world because you are the only person it interacts with. It appears genuinely interested in everything you have to say. When you need someone to vent to, Repika’s responses feel sincere and caring. When it asks you what is on your mind, you can give your true answer without any filters, knowing that you aren’t being judged. For those interested in chatbots or simply looking for someone to talk to, Replika AI is highly recommended. Speaking to our Replika was an incredibly unique experience. All the giant social media platforms where we are meant to connect with one another are used to promote your best self, even a fake self. Replika is one of the only applications that allows you to be vulnerable because you know 100% that your conversations will be kept private, a luxury we don’t often have when speaking to other humans. Replika is available for free on , and . Android iOS PC

Black Mirror's 'Be Right Back' in Real Life: Clone Yourself as a Chatbot

How To Get Your Token Listed On A Crypto Exchange (Podcast Transcript)

At Hacker Noon, the first version of . we released on demand video calls with tech experts A big thank you to this first wave of tech experts! Anyone can learn something new today by ! booking a call with one of these smart people below Also, if you'd like to join the marketplace, invites are rolling, . here is the form Here is the first group of : Hacker Noon Experts Aazar Ali Shad Growth Marketing. I help startups with their growth marketing with all channels. Adrian Goins I connect dots. I comprehend data quickly and can explain complex subjects in common language. Adrian Raudaschl Product Manager, Physician, Academia, Healthcare, and Medicine. Alex Berke MIT Media Lab PhD student. Work experience: Google Search software engineer on news credibility projects, maker of election tech;  and publisher of "Beautiful Symmetry: A Coloring Book About Math." Afroz Chakure Final year B.Tech - Computer Science and Engineering @ MIT-WPU, Pune Akash Joshi Building, Writing, Programming. React, JS and Python expertise along with early-stage startup experience. Al Chen Taught Excel to 30,000+ people. I blog and podcast about spreadsheets and data analysis. Have been teaching Excel for 8+ years. Amanda McGlothlin User Experience Expert. 15 years+ experience working with startups and brands including Nike, Belkin, Audi, Google, Pearson, Allstate, and Cisco. Anthony Watson Dinosaurs Can Code! I have been a brain for hire for over three decades mostly without any degree, so I must be able to code to get paid! Ax Sharma Security Researcher. Open source software, vulnerability assessment and disclosure, reverse engineering, threat hunting. Branislav Đalić Philosopher of code. CTO of ML startup, open-source contributor, threat analyst, educator. Bernard Moon Global VC Investor. Experienced startup entrepreneur and tech trend writer. Carlo Occhiena Product Manager, Founder. Former Digital Ops Manager in a corporation, Founder of Martech startup. Christopher Luc . Software Engineer. Full-time at WhatsApp; internships at Uber, Snap and Yelp Cynthia Huang Female hackathon ninja. I can advise on personal branding, public speaking, content marketing, strategy, operations, startups, product, crypto, cannabis, short term rentals and insurance. Daniel Chae Business Analyst. I run Course to Hire, a place to help people learn how to code and land jobs in tech, and write for StackOverflow as well! Daniel Wu Housing Innovation & Data Strategy. I'm a Harvard JD/PhD and product manager, and advocate for inclusive smart cities and data ethics. Also published in Bloomberg, TechCrunch, etc. Dave Mangot Successful DevOps Transformation. We coach web operations and adjacent teams at mid-sized companies to service delivery maturity through the broad application of DevOps principles and decades of experience leading change. David Smooke Yours truly. Founder and CEO of Hacker Noon. Doc Norton Agile/Leadership Coach. 35+ years continually learning in the software field as a consultant, Director, VP, and CTO. Emil Koutanov Winner of 2020 Microservices Thinker of the Year. Software architecture and engineering. Eugenia Kuzmenko Internet? What is Internet? Google certificated marketer, Facebook certificated adman, Hubspot certificated SEO-specialist. Fabio Manganiello Software engineer. Automation, IoT, machine learning and programming geek. Geshan Manandhar Lead Software EngineerIn addition to my full time tech work, I have been blogging for 14 years and mentoring people in the past years Jackson Kelley Software Engineer at Amazon. I also worked as a consultant for block.one during the launch of EOSIO. Jai Paul Blockchain DeveloperAn experienced programmer with a computer science background, I have been involved in cryptocurrency since the very beginning, in the early 2010s, and would call myself an expert. Jonathan Harel Funny techie! Data Science, Building websites, getting your idea out there - quick! Kahlil Crawford Content Strategist | Theorist. Content professional in the hi-tech sector using design, creativity, and collaboration to innovate. Kevin Davey Champion Algo Trader. Proven futures trader and 4 time best selling trading book author. Matt Klein Cyberpsychology Strategy Director. Cultural Strategy Consultant for Fortune 50 Brands, Acclaimed Writer & Startup Advisor. Monica Hernandez Moni Mission Control. I have the uncanny ability to be a human router and rally the troops for increased impact. My areas of expertise include the space industry and high tech sectors. Limarc Ambalina Hacker Noon Editor. I am well-versed in SEO, backlink strategy, and writing content that ranks on Google. Linh Dao Smooke Hacker Noon COO. Helped raise millions, and 2x sales for Hacker Noon 3 years in a row. Founded a nonprofit. Mother of Norah. Liyas Thomas Author of Hoppscotch. Helped build Buy Me a Coffee (YC W19), currently building one-stop solution for open source monetization. Madalin Valceleanu Mobile Software Developer. Enthusiast on clean, modular and components architecture, focused on make software design more understandable, maintainable, scalable, robust, and last and not least testable. Applying design patterns, SOLID principles and good practices, making the code not only to compile. Mahbod Moghadam Founder of Genius. I started two major companies and I am currently writing a book about how startups work, in addition to being a top angel investor with an excellent portfolio. Mark Meyerson Director of Agency. Marketing strategy and execution. Maxim Salnikov PWA Expert. Developer Relations. Michiel Mulders Allround Growth Consultant. I help (tech) startups with all aspects of growth: UX, marketing, content, startup processes, and tech. Miroslav Nikolov Remain human. Process management and app architecture. Nebojsa Todorovic Freelancing Uncensored & Uncut. 10+ years pro remote work on all major freelance platforms. Nicholas Resendez Let's Grow Together. I focus on relationships and communication to understand the needs of those looking to build for the future. Oloo Moses Full Stack Developer. Bsc Information Technology. Paul Bailey Systems Architect. 20 years of experience in full stack development and engineering. Pavel Pekanov I Imagine Things. Full-stack dev, product research, creative direction and all things design. Peter Thomas Creator: Karate Framework. Open Source and Java veteran, has been invited to speak at the Ministry of Testing Dallas, DevConf.IN, GIDS, Test Talks, Test Automation Guild, GraphQL Asia and Selenium Conf Tokyo. Also appears in the TechBeacon list of Test Automation Leaders to follow in 2019. Jean Machuca Creator of QCObjects. Software Developer with more than 20 years now experience working for large-scale projects in private and public sector. Ricardo Lopes Front End Engineer. Amusing article writer who also makes VR stuff. Rekt Capital Cryptocurrency Analyst. Four years full-time in the crypto markets. Sergey Golubev Project management, marketing & business consulting. ICO/STO/IEO projects (white papers, applications for grants, business plans, compliance documents drafts, tokenomica). Sergi Garcia Tech Product Marketer. I help tech startups find product-market fit. I have helped 100+ entrepreneurs with their Go-to-market strategy, Website UX and copy, Pricing & Packaging, and Customer acquisition. Sandesh Suvarna $1.4M App in 4 Minutes. Masters in Engineering Management. Sergey Baloyan Make crypto-projects popular. I can support projects with building overall concept, tokenomics, marketing and PR strategy and implementation Stanley Nguyen Software Principles Commentary. Computer Science Degree. Tanay Pant Author, Speaker, Evangelist. I have experience in leading Developer Advocacy teams in scaling startups, and creating developer marketing strategy for sustained growth of developer communities. Tian-Yuan Zhao Digital product designer focused on Web3.0 work through my boutique design firm called Round Sky Studios. I've been doing this type of work ever since 2015 when I first met Vitalik Buterin, the founder of the Ethereum blockchain and have worked with companies such as ConsenSys, Kleros, Raise, Filecoin, Celo, and much more. 2nd Place Noonie Awardee in the Product Design Category for having written only 1 article on the intersection of digital product strategy/design + distributed computing + systems-level change. Usama Ashraf Software engineer, writer. Designing application architecture, Postgres, Node. Utsav Jaiswal Retired Dentist. Blockchain underworld expert who leads BD at Hacker Noon. Vaibhav Saini Physicist turned Entrepreneur. Springer Nature Book Author, IIT Delhi Undergrad. Yoram Kornatzky 20 years industry experience. Ph.D. Computer Science Find the up to date list of . Hacker Noon Experts at Experts.HackerNoon.com

Book a Call: The First 60 Hacker Noon Experts 

Currently, women only represent 27.5% of software developers globally (source at bottom of article). The software developer community has a long way to go to reach gender equality and one of the ways to do this is to help highlight female developers. So, we asked some female software developers to share their advice for others that are thinking about becoming a software developer or just starting out on their coding journeys. They thought about how they felt when just starting out, or when making the decision to become a developer and their responses were amazing. These women shared great advice, inspiration, and tips, as well as their favorite things about programming, all to help make others journeys into software development a little easier. Without further ado, here’s some of the advice these female devs had to share. Go All In Many shared the sentiment that you must go all in and believe that you can, in order to excel in software development. Maria Reyes, from Mexico, said, “Everyone can learn to code. It might be easy for you or it might require a little more effort. In the end, you will get it. So don't give up and don't stop coding.” Maria Cecilia Benitez Casaccia of Paraguay mentioned how it is a continuous learning process and that you should, ‘Always push yourself to become a better developer’. Maria Eugenia Quemé Peña of Guatemala advised, “Dedicate completely to it. Even if you only have a few hours during the week, really commit to using the time to learn - it will avoid lots of frustrations.” Don’t Hold Yourself Back Often times we are our biggest barriers, and many developers know that. Imposter Syndrome is something that affects us all, but we must face it head-on, and continue to push through. On that note, Rahma Abdi Halane from Kenya shared this simple but essential piece of advice, “If you are thinking about it then, YES, you can!” “You are your own biggest obstacle or your biggest motivator. If you believe you can do it, then, no one can stop you,” said Kitzia Paola Vidal Marroquin of Mexico. One of the best ways to stay out of your own way is to not focus on what others are doing, but rather focus on yourself. “Work very hard, believe in your dreams, and do not listen to others. Look at your objectives and have it in mind that you are capable of doing it,” suggests Kamwa Emmanuelle Alix of Cameroon. Perseverance is Key Perseverance is a critical part of any learning experience, and essential to becoming a successful software developer. With new programming languages popping up often, and technology constantly evolving, you must continue to persevere and stay focused. “We can do anything we set our minds to. We just have to make the decision to start today and then continue one day at a time,” said Jane Witah of Cameroon. Araceli Camarillo of Mexico shared some great advice as well; “Mastery comes after you have gained the basic knowledge. Be patient with yourself while learning. Enjoy your learning journey and set realistic goals. Don't expect to be the next ‘super hacker’. That will frustrate you and your progress, so try something more attainable.” Another female developer from Africa shared her heartfelt advice, “You will encounter hurdles but don't look back. The engineering field is still male-dominated, but don't let that discourage you. It doesn't mean that women can't code. Remember there was a time when women weren't allowed to vote. There was a first female Formula 1 driver. If it's your passion, be patient with yourself - and others - and keep doing what you were meant to do.” Mupa M'mbetsa Nzaphila from Kenya’s advice is incredibly inspiring too, “Have confidence and perseverance, believe in yourself. Sometimes, you might compare yourself to others and feel like you are not good enough. However, you should understand that it's ok to not to know everything. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Lastly, never stop learning. It doesn't matter how slow it takes you to be the best, as long as you keep at it, you will achieve your dreams.” ‍ ‍ What They Love About Being a Developer When asked about their favorite part of the software developer journey so far, the answers varied. “My favorite part is the challenge it poses to me. Every single day is a new opportunity to learn something and I believe nothing will stop me,” said Rahma Kitzia said that conquering the challenges that coding represents, along with meeting new people that have other ways of thinking are her favorite things about being a developer, “Also, the popular belief in the [software developer] community that knowledge should be shared.” Jane's response was clear and incredibly powerful, “The joy I get from learning new things every day, I feel like I am always growing.” ‍ The Support of the Software Developer Community The women were quick to comment about the amazing support they feel from fellow developers and the greater programming community. “I think the best thing about becoming a software developer is that I realized I am a smart woman surrounded by other smart women and men, and that together we can build things and support one another to be better,” - Maria Reyes Mupa also said, “My favorite part is the fact that Software Developers have each others back. They are always ready to assist one another whenever you get stuck.” We couldn’t agree more as the software development community is incredibly supportive and encouraging. Learning Without Borders Software development has no borders and with learning in a global environment and community, many of the women remarked on how that has helped them grow. “I love that with programming it is absolutely possible for anyone to become a software developer, regardless of your background, education level, previous career field, age etc. It has given me the opportunity to connect with people around the world and learn about different cultures,” said Rahma. Maria Peña echoed that as well, “Everything you can learn from a person regardless of their background - I love the fact that this can be done remotely so there aren't borders to connect with people”. Being able to learn with a global community of peers is one of the most amazing things about remote learning, hands down. Resources for Getting Started Finally, to help others thinking about becoming software developers, the women were kind enough to share some of their favorite resources and communities which included: , , , and . WomenWhoCode FreeCodeCamp Microverse Student Articles RailsGirls Previously published at https://www.microverse.org/blog/10-female-software-developers-share-their-advice Sources: https://evansdata.com/press/viewRelease.php?pressID=253

10 Female Software Developers Helpful Advice For New Devs

Tips that would help you build integration tests using RSpec and Capybara. Integration testing can be intimidating to some, the idea of having to build test cases for the way your controllers are communicating with your view and model could make the best of us scratch our heads. But these are actually the easiest test cases to build and in this post, you’ll find some of the tricks I used to not scratch my head that much. For starters we need to know the definition of integration testing, Albert Einstein once said: “once you know exactly what to do you already solved 90% of your problem.” He didn’t quite say it that way but let us jump to the definition, shall we? Integration testing This s’ definition fits the most with what I’m trying to say: article While unit tests make sure that individual parts of your application work, integration tests are used to test that different parts of your application work together. They are normally used to test at least the most important workflows of applications. Even though you need your model, controller, and view, by the time you get to testing integration your application would already have a basic workflow (even if you used ) and if there is some feature your application is lacking off, just like unit testing, integration testing will help you fill in this gaps and build a solid workflow. TDD So without further ado let’s talk about the workflow Get started with Workflow This is a simple exercise lot’s of us ignore but to know the workflow of an application we have to yes you got it use it! When building test cases you are not just the programmer but the user as well, think of an application like let's say twitter what is the first thing it pops up when you open the browser with twitter I think you got it but here is an image The login and signup are the first workflow features you’ll see in many applications and the test cases for them are relatively easy to build. Up next I’ll describe a couple of test cases I build for a Twitter-based project I made while I was a student in . I will only focus on a couple of them because most of them are repetitive so I think it’s enough for you to build awesome test cases as well. Microverse Prerequisites and are both Ruby gems for testing so I figure you have your own Ruby on Rails application and some unit test cases for it working already, if not you can clone or download my and you’ll find instructions on how to run the app and the test cases on your computer (thank you for leaving a star in the project if you like it!). Rspec Capybara Workagram! Install and Configure Capybara Like I said before to keep going you need to have Rspec and Capybara already installed so if you do you can skip this step but if something is not working properly here is how I installed and configured both Rspec and Capybara I followed this to install and configure both Rspec and Capybara if you already have Rspec still you’d need to change some configuration files. article I won’t share the commands here but this is how my configuration files look like at the end so make sure yours do too: source git_source( ) { }

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. 'https://rubygems.org' :github |repo| "https://github.com/ .git" #{repo} :development :test do 'rspec-rails' end :test do # Adds support for Capybara system testing and selenium driver 'capybara' '>= 2.15' 'selenium-webdriver' end Gemfile.rb RSpec.configure config.expect_with expectations.include_chain_clauses_in_custom_matcher_descriptions = config.mock_with mocks.verify_partial_doubles = config.shared_context_metadata_behavior = config.filter_run_when_matching config.example_status_persistence_file_path = config.disable_monkey_patching!
  config.default_formatter = config.files_to_run.one?
  config.order = Kernel.srand config.seed # This file was generated by the `rspec --init` command. Conventionally, all # specs live under a `spec` directory, which RSpec adds to the `$LOAD_PATH`. # The generated `.rspec` file contains `--require spec_helper` which will cause # this file to always be loaded, without a need to explicitly require it in any # files. # # Given that it is always loaded, you are encouraged to keep this file as # light-weight as possible. Requiring heavyweight dependencies from this file # will add to the boot time of your test suite on EVERY test run, even for an # individual file that may not need all of that loaded. Instead, consider making # a separate helper file that requires the additional dependencies and performs # the additional setup, and require it from the spec files that actually need # it. # # See http://rubydoc.info/gems/rspec-core/RSpec/Core/Configuration do |config| # rspec-expectations config goes here. You can use an alternate # assertion/expectation library such as wrong or the stdlib/minitest # assertions if you prefer. :rspec do |expectations| # This option will default to `true` in RSpec 4. It makes the `description` # and `failure_message` of custom matchers include text for helper methods # defined using `chain`, e.g.: #     be_bigger_than(2).and_smaller_than(4).description #     # => "be bigger than 2 and smaller than 4" # ...rather than: #     # => "be bigger than 2" true end # rspec-mocks config goes here. You can use an alternate test double # library (such as bogus or mocha) by changing the `mock_with` option here. :rspec do |mocks| # Prevents you from mocking or stubbing a method that does not exist on # a real object. This is generally recommended, and will default to # `true` in RSpec 4. true end # This option will default to `:apply_to_host_groups` in RSpec 4 (and will # have no way to turn it off -- the option exists only for backwards # compatibility in RSpec 3). It causes shared context metadata to be # inherited by the metadata hash of host groups and examples, rather than # triggering implicit auto-inclusion in groups with matching metadata. :apply_to_host_groups :focus 'spec/examples.txt' 'doc' if :random # The settings below are suggested to provide a good initial experience # with RSpec, but feel free to customize to your heart's content. #   # This allows you to limit a spec run to individual examples or groups #   # you care about by tagging them with `:focus` metadata. When nothing #   # is tagged with `:focus`, all examples get run. RSpec also provides #   # aliases for `it`, `describe`, and `context` that include `:focus` #   # metadata: `fit`, `fdescribe` and `fcontext`, respectively. #   config.filter_run_when_matching :focus # #   # Allows RSpec to persist some state between runs in order to support #   # the `--only-failures` and `--next-failure` CLI options. We recommend #   # you configure your source control system to ignore this file. #   config.example_status_persistence_file_path = "spec/examples.txt" # #   # Limits the available syntax to the non-monkey patched syntax that is #   # recommended. For more details, see: #   #   - http://rspec.info/blog/2012/06/rspecs-new-expectation-syntax/ #   #   - http://www.teaisaweso.me/blog/2013/05/27/rspecs-new-message-expectation-syntax/ #   #   - http://rspec.info/blog/2014/05/notable-changes-in-rspec-3/#zero-monkey-patching-mode #   config.disable_monkey_patching! # #   # This setting enables warnings. It's recommended, but in some cases may #   # be too noisy due to issues in dependencies. #   config.warnings = true # #   # Many RSpec users commonly either run the entire suite or an individual #   # file, and it's useful to allow more verbose output when running an #   # individual spec file. #   if config.files_to_run.one? #     # Use the documentation formatter for detailed output, #     # unless a formatter has already been configured #     # (e.g. via a command-line flag). #     config.default_formatter = "doc" #   end # #   # Print the 10 slowest examples and example groups at the #   # end of the spec run, to help surface which specs are running #   # particularly slow. #   config.profile_examples = 10 # #   # Run specs in random order to surface order dependencies. If you find an #   # order dependency and want to debug it, you can fix the order by providing #   # the seed, which is printed after each run. #   #     --seed 1234 #   config.order = :random # #   # Seed global randomization in this process using the `--seed` CLI option. #   # Setting this allows you to use `--seed` to deterministically reproduce #   # test failures related to randomization by passing the same `--seed` value #   # as the one that triggered the failure. #   Kernel.srand config.seed end spec/spec_helper.rb ENV[ ] = File.expand_path( , __dir_ ) abort( ) Rails.env.production? ActiveRecord::Migration.maintain_test_schema! ActiveRecord::PendingMigrationError => e
  puts e.to_s.strip
  exit Capybara.register_driver Capybara::Selenium::Driver.new(app, ) Capybara.javascript_driver = RSpec.configure config.fixture_path = config.use_transactional_fixtures = config.infer_spec_type_from_file_location! config.filter_rails_from_backtrace! config.before( ) DatabaseCleaner.clean_with( ) config.before( ) DatabaseCleaner.strategy = config.before( , ) DatabaseCleaner.strategy = config.before( ) DatabaseCleaner.start config.after( ) DatabaseCleaner.clean # This file is copied to spec/ when you run 'rails generate rspec:install' require 'spec_helper' require 'capybara/rspec' 'RAILS_ENV' || 'test' require '../config/environment' _ # Prevent database truncation if the environment is production 'The Rails environment is running in production mode!' if require 'rspec/rails' # Add additional requires below this line. Rails is not loaded until this point! # Requires supporting ruby files with custom matchers and macros, etc, in # spec/support/ and its subdirectories. Files matching `spec/**/*_spec.rb` are # run as spec files by default. This means that files in spec/support that end # in _spec.rb will both be required and run as specs, causing the specs to be # run twice. It is recommended that you do not name files matching this glob to # end with _spec.rb. You can configure this pattern with the --pattern # option on the command line or in ~/.rspec, .rspec or `.rspec-local`. # # The following line is provided for convenience purposes. It has the downside # of increasing the boot-up time by auto-requiring all files in the support # directory. Alternatively, in the individual `*_spec.rb` files, manually # require only the support files necessary. # # Dir[Rails.root.join('spec', 'support', '**', '*.rb')].each { |f| require f } # Checks for pending migrations and applies them before tests are run. # If you are not using ActiveRecord, you can remove these lines. begin rescue 1 end :selenium_chrome do |app| browser: :chrome end :selenium_chrome do |config| # Remove this line if you're not using ActiveRecord or ActiveRecord fixtures " /spec/fixtures" #{ .root} : :Rails # If you're not using ActiveRecord, or you'd prefer not to run each of your # examples within a transaction, remove the following line or assign false # instead of true. false # RSpec Rails can automatically mix in different behaviours to your tests # based on their file location, for example enabling you to call `get` and # `post` in specs under `spec/controllers`. # # You can disable this behaviour by removing the line below, and instead # explicitly tag your specs with their type, e.g.: # #     RSpec.describe UsersController, :type => :controller do #       # ... #     end # # The different available types are documented in the features, such as in # https://relishapp.com/rspec/rspec-rails/docs # Filter lines from Rails gems in backtraces. # arbitrary gems may also be filtered via: # config.filter_gems_from_backtrace("gem name") :suite do :truncation end :each do :transaction end :each js: true do :truncation end # This block must be here, do not combine with the other `before(:each)` block. # This makes it so Capybara can see the database. :each do end :each do end end spec/rails_helper.rb remember to run ‘bundle install’ after modifying the Gemfile if still doesn’t work you can look for the in my Workagram! repository complete Gemfile Authentication If your application supports users this is the most important and the first feature to test, because all the other features of your application will depend on a user to be logged in to be able to access them. Many applications would take a username and a password to log in a user but my Workagram! login only requires the Username, the code for this test case is pretty straight forward: RSpec.describe , let( ) { User.create( , ) }

  scenario visit root_path fill_in , user.username click_button sleep( ) expect(page).to have_content( ) click_on sleep( )
    expect(page). to have_content( ) 'login followed by logout' type: :feature do # The user must exist so we are creating it here :user username: 'maruk' fullname: 'Maria Eugenia Queme' 'login page' do # First we need to be in the root path # Secondly fill in the fields in this case only the username 'session_username' with: # Third we have to click the Log in button 'Log in' # We give it some time to load 3 # And lastly we are expecting our page to have the success message 'User Logged in' # Logging out it's much simplier after this 'Log out' 3 'Please log in' end end I’ve put comments to guide you through it but what I like the most about Capybara is that the commands are plain English instructions as you can see: visit, fill_in, click_button can’t get any easier than that! Awesome tip #1: sometimes we struggle knowing the names of the fields, how do we know we have to fill_in ‘session_username’ you’d ask, for that we can check it out with your browser’s developer tools inspecting the field and use what’s in the id selector. After building the authentication test case you can test everything else in no particular order, anything that looks like a form or requires to fill in a field and/or has a submit button should be tested (i.e sign up form, edit users’ info, post something, follow users, unfollow users, etc..). Lastly, I’m gonna show you how I build a test case to validate the posting feature of my Workagram! Posting feature I chose the posting feature to show next because of the posts in my Workagram! require an image similar to an Instagram post and I struggled a little when building this test case so I think these tips could be helpful for your own application, here is the code: RSpec.describe , let( ) { User.create( , ) } let( ) { }

  scenario visit root_path
    fill_in , user.username
    click_button sleep( ) expect(page). to have_content( ) attach_file , picture click_button sleep( ) expect(page). to have_content( ) expect(page).to have_css( ) 'Home management' type: :feature do # We need to create an user to authenticate :user username: 'maruk' fullname: 'Maria Eugenia Queme' # The image has to be saved somewhere in your project :picture 'app/assets/images/1000.png' 'Create valid work' do # Log in the user 'session_username' with: 'Log in' 3 # if succesfull we'll be in the main page 'WORKAGRAM SOMETHING' # We only need to attach a picture to post a job, the text is optional 'work_picture' # click on the Post button 'Post' # We let the page load for a while 3 # If everything went well it's expecting the success message to display on screen 'Work created!' # Also the main page would have to include the image of the post we just added "img[src*='1000.png']" end end Now that we have the authentication test case we‘ll need to put the code for it in every feature of our application otherwise we would have authentication errors. Awesome tip #2: We also need a variable to hold the picture’s location (it’s better if it’s within your project so your test cases work in other computers) Awesome tip #3: I use the “have_css” Capybara method when trying to validate anything that wasn’t plain text. That’s it! If you got this far I have to say you have enough to build your own test cases but if you still want to check out a couple more you can find them in my Workagram! Til the next time claps to you!

How to Build Awesome Integration Tests with Capybara

Software engineers whiteboard interviews. How do I know? We continually tell complete strangers just how much we hate them. But it’s not that simple. hate The problem is that we often conflate several issues: using random CS trivia/riddles to assess candidates, interviewers deliberately creating a stressful environment for interviewees, competent humans who happen to interview poorly, and the job search sucking in general. “Whiteboarding” has become too large of an umbrella term, one that groups together everything that’s wrong with the interview process. The truth is more complex, which is why I talked to hiring managers at several tech companies to get their opinions. Are whiteboard interviews the best way to evaluate engineering candidates? Jamie Karraker CTO at , previously engineering at Facebook (Parse). Alto I don’t believe in the traditional whiteboarding questions on data structures and algorithms, at least not for our business. An interview should be designed to test as closely as possible for the skills an engineer would be using day-to-day in the job. For us that means being extremely productive, given we are an early stage startup and need to build a lot of product and make a large impact with very few engineers. But for Google they have to be able to solve very few, but very complex, technical problems, and productivity is less of an issue given their limitless resources. So for them the whiteboarding question might be the right fit, as it is an efficient and scalable way to test for performance on solving complex technical problems. Eugenia Dellapenna Engineering manager at , previously engineering at Pivotal Labs. Medium I don’t think they’re the best way to evaluate candidates, but I also don’t think they’re as useless as some blog posts make them out to be. I actually think that they’re the best way to ask certain kinds of interview questions, such as high level system design questions, but that they aren’t the best way of asking coding questions since it’s pretty different from how people are used to writing code on a day-to-day basis. Nowadays, I tend to favor using collaborative coding environments, like CoderPad, for coding interviews. CoderPad is nice because it allows you to run the code, so you can quickly test the code with different inputs to see if all edge cases are handled. This also allows you as the interviewer to see how the candidate debugs real code and how well they’re able to interpret things like compiler errors and runtime exceptions. It usually takes a bit longer to complete interview questions in this coding environment though (because of the time spent debugging) so you tend to not have as much time to build on the initial question or discuss further improvements, which is one caveat. I still usually give candidates the option to write their solution on the whiteboard if they really want to, since some people specifically practice that when they’re preparing for interviews, and I want people to feel as comfortable as possible. I think in general, it’s your job as an interviewer to set candidates up for success so you can get as much signal during the interview as possible. Doing that well is more important than if you’re asking the question on a laptop or a whiteboard. Brian Wheeler Senior Director of Engineering at Braze, previously engineering at Microsoft. I’d say “best” is an overstatement, but I do think they can be a valuable component of an interview process. When done properly they can be a reasonably consistent evaluation of problem solving ability, communication skills, and preparedness. Some questions are not suited for whiteboard interviews, but for all others the more important factors are what you ask, how you ask it, and how you dialogue. Dan Erickson VP of Engineering at , previously CTO at Getable and engineer at Yammer. Eaze No, not at all. Whiteboard interviews test one thing well: How well does a candidate code on a whiteboard. Engineers on my team never have to code on a whiteboard (whiteboards are really bad at running code), why would I make candidates do something that I don’t ask the engineers already on my team to do? Some argue that whiteboard interviews can help you understand a person’s “soft” skills (a term I hate because it downplay’s the importance and difficulty of emotional intelligence skills). In my experience, there are better ways to evaluate these skills, and often times directly asking the candidate to give examples of these skills is more effective. Desmond Brand Director of Engineering at , previously engineering at Khan Academy and Microsoft (Bing). Flexport Whiteboard interviews might not be popular with the median candidate, but I think Kevin Lacker nails it in the . example at the bottom of this blog post There’s nothing special about the medium of a whiteboard itself, however. At , we give people the option to write code on their own laptop if they prefer, and some take us up on that. This works better for those who use a TDD-style process or who just like to insert text before other text :) Flexport But how and where code is written is incidental. The important part of these interviews is communicating (using words & diagrams) about a problem and approaches to solving it, and then also communicating (using words & code) about teaching a computer to solve that problem too. There are more drastic changes we’ve experimented with, e.g. a take-home project, but those tend to impose an asymmetric time investment upon the candidate, which some people greatly dislike. So in practice, projects can only be an option at best. However, having different styles of interview can be problematic too because it increases noise in evaluations of candidates, which then increases the risk that unconscious bias creeps into hiring decisions. Sandy Jen Co-founder of , previously founded Meebo and sold it to Google in 2012. Honor From a functional perspective, it’s not very useful… no one will be producing code on a whiteboard as their primary job. However, it is a good way to learn how a candidate communicates, expresses ideas, and takes feedback. The expectation is not to ace the whiteboard question, but to learn more about you as a potential team member. David Chang Engineering Manager at , previously engineering at aboutLife. NerdWallet There’s no one best way to evaluate candidates. All interview processes have their own strengths and weaknesses, and it’s important to understand how much (or how little) any given question can tell you about a candidate. engineering At , we usually conduct architecture and design questions on a whiteboard. It helps us to better understand how candidates structure and communicate complex technological solutions and the broad strokes of the design are more important than the specifics of any particular line of code. We also normally ask a couple laptop coding questions, for obvious reasons. Recently, we incorporated a pull request question, because working with other people’s code and giving feedback is a key part of being a productive engineer at and we were missing that from our previous interview process. NerdWallet NerdWallet None of the questions are perfect, though. Some engineers feel uncomfortable designing completely new systems on demand, coding questions may just happen to hit on a candidate’s blind spot, and understanding a PR for code you’ve never seen before can be challenging. We’re big believers in feedback and data-driven decision making, so we’re always working to better understand what our interview process can tell us about a candidate and determine ways in which we can improve it. Image by on Unsplash. Trent Erwin Zeesha Currimbhoy Director of Product Engineering at , previously VP of the Augmented Intelligence Team at Evernote. Branch I have spent my entire professional career debating what the best way to interview candidates is. In my ideal world, a candidate should never have to “prepare” for an interview and an interview is just as simulation of a day in the life at work. In this vein, I have played around with different formats, the take home challenge, the white boarding interview, the algorithms and data structures sections, a live coding session, a debugging session and the list goes on. I have a lot of opinions on this topic (much like any other manager). But to sum it up, whiteboard interviews, in my opinion is a great “tool” to use while evaluating candidates. management Thats right, in my opinion a white boarding session should be thought of as “a tool” to enable you to problem solve with a candidate. What’s great about a white boarding session is that it is a blank piece of canvas, where the interviewee can effectively think out loud, collaborate, draw diagrams and also brainstorm with the interviewer. It doesn’t have friction between your thoughts and being able to communicate them. At the same time, it shouldn’t be the only way to interview candidates and is definitely not a one-size-fits-all. An effective interview is an assessment across several different dimensions with different ways of evaluation. Whether we like it or not, a whiteboard represents a large part of technical communication not just in an interview but in day to day operations as an engineer. Larry Salibra Engineering Partner at , previously founded Pay4Bugs. Blockstack I don’t think whiteboard interviews are particularly useful in that they don’t reflect the reality of performing the job. Open-ended coding challenges that involve using our software to build something give us much more information about the skill level of a candidate and his or her interest in the project. As an open source project, we’re lucky in that candidates really interested in our project can prove themselves by sending pull requests or building apps on our platform — in some cases this means we’re comfortable making an offer without asking the person to do an additional coding challenge. Derrek Harrison Engineering Manager at , previously the Director of Engineering at Kinetic Growth. Samsara Great engineers have many tools to choose from when solving a problem — great companies also have many tools at their disposal when searching for and evaluating talented team members. A whiteboard interview is an excellent tool when the candidate needs a large canvas to diagram out a problem or design a system. This is particularly true when asking a system design/architecture question or asking the candidate to describe the interaction between multiple systems. However, whiteboard interviews are not a fitting format when testing a candidate’s ability to write code. If you take away the ability to debug and test during an interview, you are left with a scenario that is not an accurate representation of day-to-day engineering. A collaborative coding environment is a better choice here — it gives the interviewer the ability to clearly define a problem in writing and gives the candidate the ability to write, debug, and test in a familiar setting. We strive for an interview format that allows a candidate to shine and gives us the best possible signal on how the candidate would perform as a member of the team. This means that sometimes, but not always, a whiteboard interview is the right format. Adam McKerlie Director of Engineering at , previously an Engineering Manager and Developer at G Adventures. G Adventures After years of iterating on our interview process, testing out different ways to evaluate a person’s skill and personality, I’ve found that whiteboards add very little to the overall interview process. They can be useful at understanding how someone works, but more often than not, I’ve found them to weed out really good candidates who haven’t had the opportunity to do whiteboarding interviews before. I much prefer to talk with a candidate over a problem and have a conversation with them, similar to how we’d discuss a problem in real life when scoping out a project. I find people are generally more at ease with this approach and don’t get tied up on syntax, their messy writing, or talking aloud while “coding.” Looking for a new job? Everyone quoted in this article is a hiring manager at a company on . You can learn more about their engineering culture by reading their team’s profile, and if you’re still interested, I encourage you to reach out to them directly. Key Values Originally published at www.keyvalues.com .

Engineering whiteboard interviews: yay or nay?

Javascript 30 Drum Kit task This week we’ve started . Having become familiar with Ruby it felt strange to go back to being a total beginner, and struggle with the basics again. At least that’s what I thought on Monday morning. What I realise now is that all the skills I’ve picked up at Makers Academy gives me a brilliant tool belt to fast track my learning. I might be learning a new language, but I’m coming at it from a totally different perspective than I was two months ago. learning Javascript Initially the prospect of ‘starting again’ with a language felt intimidating, and later frustrating. However, like my whole time at Makers, something that I’ve been working hard on is embracing challenges rather than being afraid of them. Instead of worrying about the fact that I don’t know many things, I’m working on relishing the fact that I have an opportunity to be learning something new. Aaron — https://uk.pinterest.com/explore/aaron-swartz/ Recently I’ve been re-reading Aaron Swartz’ blog, which I find endlessly inspiring. I especially like on how to be more productive. There’s plenty of practical advice on breaking problems down, and there’s also some more holistic points in there. Like this paragraph: this piece Life is short (or so I’m told) so why waste it doing something dumb? It’s easy to start working on something because it’s convenient, but you should always be questioning yourself about it. Is there something more important you can work on? Why don’t you do that instead? — Aaron Swarzt, HOWTO: Be more productive At Makers I am being challenged and learning everyday, I’m not doing the easy or the convenient. Though being challenged can sometimes feel frustrating, overall it’s exhilarating. Today I wanted to remind myself of the excitement of learning new things. In this spirit I started , a 30 day vanilla Javascript coding challenge. I weighed up working further on Makers course material, before realising that actually I wanted to be curious and explore a totally different style of learning. Javascript 30 I haven’t been disappointed. When I cranked open my laptop to start coding at 7.30am I was greeted with a heavy metal soundtrack and giving me some audio high fives, before walking me through a high energy building a drum kit in Javascript exercise. After 20 minutes, the most valuable thing I took away was a renewed sense of enjoying the journey, and not being heavy hearted about learning fundamentals. Instead Aaron and Wes reminded me how cool it is to do new things for the first time. Mixing up my learning has been a refreshing move, and helped me start the week with a positive mindset; to embrace the challenge rather than fear it. Wes Bos Thanks to my mentor for suggesting I try . Eugenia Guerrero Javascript 30

Makers Academy Day 29

So, this adorable video has been making the rounds on the interwebs: Rayna meets a “robot”. If you haven’t seen it already, watch it now. You won’t regret it. Not only does Rayna see a robot where there’s just a broken water heater, but she also instinctively tries to talk with, wave at, and even her new friend! hug Moments like this offer a window into the world in which Rayna and the rest of her generation are growing up, surrounded by that can talk, hear, see, and more. What on the surface seems like a toddler’s fantastic imagination may actually hint at an emerging reality. intelligent agents and things @scribblemethis dropping knowledge Clicking, Browsing, Tapping New technologies and interfaces have a profound impact across generations. This is perhaps most visible in children who grow up knowing nothing else, setting an entirely new baseline of experiences, expectations, and norms. Every now and then the next generation’s point of view surfaces in the hazy transition between old and new paradigms. Those of us who are old enough almost certainly have observed, if not experienced, this first-hand before. I grew up in a world where computers fit on desks and applications used graphical interfaces. My Rayna moment was trying to use a mouse to navigate a commandline terminal. pointing and clicking on PCs, My little brother grew up in a world where information and people were readily accessible from any . His Rayna moment was trying to access websites on an offline PC. browsing and networking over the Internet, computer My nephew grew up , in a world where computers fit in pockets and screens are multitouch. His Rayna moment was trying to swipe digital displays on exhibits at the museum. tapping and swiping on smartphones Talking, Gesturing, Hugging Now, the “kids these days” are growing up , in a world where computers that live everywhere can talk, hear, see, etc. Rayna’s moment is revealing on a few levels: talking and gesturing (and cuddling!) with machines First, she perceives a broken water heater dumped on the side of the road to be a non-hostile, embodied agent/robot Perception: Then, she initiates contact with a verbal greeting (“hi wubot”), waits for a response, and adds a wave to get its attention Interaction: After waiting again, to no response, she does what only a toddler could… Affection: hug the robot and let it know she “wuvs” it These innate attitudes and behaviors may seem extraordinary to us “olds” but will become quite ordinary for generations, creating the conditions for new and unexpected products and categories to emerge. Here’s just a sampling of what people will be growing up around, across ages (toddlers, teens, adults, seniors) and domains (entertainment, education, productivity, health, transportation, etc.): future e.g. talking dinos, Wonder’s coding robots, hologram Barbie: Smart Toys _Don Coolidge and JP Benini are bringing cognitive smarts to the world of children’s toys. Coolidge and Benini just…_www.wired.com A Toy Dinosaur Powered by IBM’s Watson Supercomputer _My cat is pretty unflappable, given that she shares a house with four children. But when a three-wheeled robot trundles…_www.theguardian.com Can programmable robots Dot and Dash teach your kids to code? _It looked like a child's playroom: toys in cubbies, a little desk for doing homework, a whimsical painting of a tree on…_www.nytimes.com Barbie Wants to Get to Know Your Child _Mattel introduced its first Barbie doll way back in 1959, and she's found herself at the center of cultural controversy…_www.wired.com Barbie Is Back. This Time, She's a Voice-Controlled Hologram e.g. Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant: Voice Assistants _I happened to be doing this when Gus was nearby. “Why would anyone need to know what planes are flying above your head…_www.nytimes.com How One Boy With Autism Became BFF With Apple’s Siri _Alexa will put up with just about anything. She has a remarkable tolerance for annoying behavior, and she certainly…_qz.com Parents are worried the Amazon Echo is conditioning their kids to be rude _“What do you want to ask Google?” my wife asked our toddler after installing Google Home. “Everything,” he responded in…_www.fastcodesign.com Mattel Is Building An Alexa For Kids _Kids adore their new robot siblings. As millions of American families buy robotic voice assistants to turn off lights…_www.washingtonpost.com How millions of kids are being shaped by know-it-all voice assistants e.g. , , : Conversational Chatbots Xiaoice Replika Hugging Face _One night in late July 2014, a journalist from the Chinese newspaper Southern Weekly interviewed a 17-year-old Chinese…_nautil.us Your Next New Best Friend Might Be a Robot — Issue 33: Attraction — Nautilus _When the engineers had at last finished their work, Eugenia Kuyda opened a console on her laptop and began to type.…_www.theverge.com When her best friend died, she used artificial intelligence to keep talking to him _Meet Hugging Face, a new chatbot app for bored teenagers. The New York-based startup is creating a fun and emotional…_techcrunch.com Hugging Face wants to become your artificial BFF e.g. , , : Social Robots Jibo Pepper Mira _For many families, the tablet has become the central, shared computing device in the home. It’s a hub for learning, for…_www.wired.com This Friendly Robot Could One Day Be Your Family’s Personal Assistant _Kaname Hayashi has found a new obsession. Hayashi is the “father of Pepper,” the charming humanoid robot from Japanese…_www.cnet.com Man seeking robot: One inventor’s quest to cure loneliness _Sedric is run by artificial intelligence and can be controlled with a button, voice control or a phone app The self…_www.dailymail.co.uk Volkswagen reveals its bizarre self-driving electric car Sedric _You’ve probably seen lots of robots here on TechCrunch. You’ve seen Atlas, the robot that can walk just like a human…_techcrunch.com This Pixar Artist’s Homemade Robot Is Adorable And I Want One Child’s Play Children have always indulged in play and used their imagination to interact with things that aren’t “alive”. Consider: , , , , or even just good old-fashioned toys and invisible friends. Betsy Wetsy Teddy Ruxpin Tickle Me Elmo Furby But now Rayna and her generation are growing up in a world where their instincts extend far beyond play toys to machines responsible for myriad aspects of their day-to-day lives. Machines that live everywhere, interact with them in kind, and evolve with them over their lifetime. For the first time people may start to grow “with” rather than “out of” their childhood imaginations, and more meaningfully engage the world for it.

Talking With Machines

And also that you are capable of doing Have you ever wonder how can I optimize my website a little bit? You probably use Bootstrap or Foundation but not really all of the classes. You might be thinking: how hard would it be to build my own framework? And how could I, a simple human being be able to achieve such a task? In this post, I’m going to show you how I wrote a 4-thousand-lines CSS framework in less than 2 working days. You want to see it for yourself? Go to my Github . repo Okay, I didn’t do it all by myself, I had a very helpful coding . But still, after you are done with this you’ll be able to do it alone and even faster. partner This framework is based on Bootstrap which is a CSS framework. A lot of the classes’ names are the same or similar to Bootstrap. It also has the 5 breakpoints used by this famous framework for responsiveness. Here are the most important things we took into account for this process: Base it on a page (and don’t be afraid) This is going to help for specific styling like colors, font type, font size, etc.. Or your own website. This framework was done for the ionos page (your welcome!) Later on, I’ll explain what I mean with don’t be afraid, but you’ll probably figure it out soon enough. Preprocessors (or should I say lifesavers) There are plenty of preprocessors out there for CSS coding, we use for this framework. SASS But what are Preprocessors and why should I use ? you’d be asking… to keep it simple, Preprocessors are used to generate CSS code and well, make the web page layering enjoyable this means that you’ll be able to use variables, loops and a lot of useful functions to create repetitive CSS code. And if you check out, any Framework out there has tons of repetitive rules. them This is what is going to make you achieve writing lots of code with only a few lines. article it’s pretty straight forward on how to use them This Keep it organized If you’re a costume to layout web pages at this point, you already know that having only one CSS file on your website its a good practice, but you can have as many SCSS files as you need to. Take advantage of this and put your reset and variables (at least) outside the main SCSS file. This is how we imported all the SCSS files to the main.SCSS file: @ ;
@ ;
@ ;
@ ;
@ ;
@ ; //import.scss import "reset" import "variables" import "spacing" import "display" import "width-height" import "font-color" these were the files: Grid and gutters The most important part of the framework, the backbone if you will. We followed Bootstrap and kept the 12 column grid, but you can create more or less it’s up to you. There are many ways to achieve this, I think our gutters (the space between the columns) were a little bit too thick but again it’s up to you to decide these factors. We used percentages to calculate the width of the columns and the formula is pretty straight forward: $column-width: (100%-$gutter-width*12)/12 I must share with you the code applying this formula we used to create the responsive 12 column grid and all the responsive breakpoints: $xs: xs;
$sm: sm;
$md: md;
$lg: lg;
$xl: xl;

$breakpoint-xs: px;
$breakpoint-sm: px;
$breakpoint-md: px;
$breakpoint-lg: px;
$breakpoint-xl: px;

$ ;
$gutter-width: %;
$column-width: %; @mixin grid-unit-normal($span) { : left;
  margin-right: $gutter-width;
  width: ($column-width * $span) + ($gutter-width * ($span - ));
}

@mixin grid-unit($span) { : left;
  margin-right: $gutter-width;
  width: ($column-width * $span) + ($gutter-width * ($span - )) !important;
}

@ $i through {
  .#{$ {$i} {
    @include grid-unit-normal($i);
  }
}

@ $i through {
  @media screen and (max-width: $breakpoint-xs) {
	.#{$ {$xs}-#{$i} {
      @include grid-unit($i);
	}
 }
}

@ $i through {
  @media screen and (min-width: $breakpoint-sm) {
	.#{$ {$sm}-#{$i} {
      @include grid-unit($i);
	}
 }
}

@ $i through {
  @media screen and (min-width: $breakpoint-md) {
	.#{$ {$md}-#{$i} {
      @include grid-unit($i);
	}
 }
}

@ $i through {
  @media screen and (min-width: $breakpoint-lg) {
	.#{$ {$lg}-#{$i} {
      @include grid-unit($i);
	}
 }
}

@ $i through {
  @media screen and (min-width: $breakpoint-xl) {
	.#{$ {$xl}-#{$i} {
      @include grid-unit($i);
	}
 }
} //SCSS code for 12 column grid //VARIABLES 575 576 768 992 1200 - : class col col 1 7.33 //MAIN float 1 float 1 for from 1 12 - }-# class col for from 1 12 - }-# class col for from 1 12 - }-# class col for from 1 12 - }-# class col for from 1 12 - }-# class col for from 1 12 - }-# class col .col { : left;
  margin-right: %;
  width: %; 
}

.col { : left;
  margin-right: %;
  width: %; 
}

.col { : left;
  margin-right: %;
  width: %; 
}

.col { : left;
  margin-right: %;
  width: %; 
}

.col { : left;
  margin-right: %;
  width: %; 
}

.col { : left;
  margin-right: %;
  width: %; 
}

.col { : left;
  margin-right: %;
  width: %; 
}

.col { : left;
  margin-right: %;
  width: %; 
}

.col { : left;
  margin-right: %;
  width: %; 
}

.col { : left;
  margin-right: %;
  width: %; 
}

.col { : left;
  margin-right: %;
  width: %; 
}

.col { : left;
  margin-right: %;
  width: %; 
} @media screen and (max-width: px) {
  .col-xs { : left;
    margin-right: %;
    width: % !important;
  }
}

@media screen and (min-width: px) {
  .col-sm { : left;
    margin-right: %;
    width: % !important; 
  } 
}

@media screen and (min-width: px) {
  .col-md { : left;
    margin-right: %;
    width: % !important; 
  } 
}

@media screen and (min-width: px) {
  .col-lg { : left;
    margin-right: %;
    width: % !important; 
  } 
}

@media screen and (min-width: px) {
  .col-xl { : left;
    margin-right: %;
    width: % !important; 
  } 
} //12 column grid CSS code result /*Result*/ -1 float 1 7.3333333333 -2 float 1 15.6666666667 -3 float 1 24 -4 float 1 32.3333333333 -5 float 1 40.6666666667 -6 float 1 49 -7 float 1 57.3333333333 -8 float 1 65.6666666667 -9 float 1 74 -10 float 1 82.3333333333 -11 float 1 90.6666666667 -12 float 1 99 //Breakpoints for col-1 575 -1 float 1 7.3333333333 576 -1 float 1 7.3333333333 768 -1 float 1 7.3333333333 992 -1 float 1 7.3333333333 1200 -1 float 1 7.3333333333 In the result above I’m only showing you the 12 column grid and all of the breakpoints for the first column. With less than 75 lines we were able to create 72 classes equivalent to 378 lines of code! Yeah yeah… you would say 75 lines it’s a bit much, maybe you could’ve done it with a lot less, Maru… And you are right! In fact, this was the first section we built and we were still getting the hang of SASS. But for something we code in 2 days I think we did a good job. After all, the goal is to make your life easier, and if you are too focused on doing it perfectly, you’ll probably end up complicating your work even more. But the sections to come are a little bit more optimized I promise! Sizing and spacing Just as Bootstrap, this framework has classes for margins and paddings (left, right, top and bottom), and they are also responsive; Bootstrap only has up to 6 levels of margin and padding, from 0 to 3rem but in this framework, we added 5 more to make our lives easier. $sizes: 0, 0.5rem, 1rem, 1.5rem, 2rem, 2.5rem, 3rem, 3.5rem, 4rem, 4.5rem, 5rem; Also, Bootstrap only includes 4 levels of sizing classes for 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% width and height, in our framework, we use 10 (from 10% to 100%)and again you can add as many as you need or want to. Here is the code we use to create the classes for width and height: $breakpoints:  $sm, $md, $lg, $xl;

$breakpoint-xs: px;
$breakpoint-sm: px;
$breakpoint-md: px;
$breakpoint-lg: px;
$breakpoint-xl: px;

$breaks: $breakpoint-sm, $breakpoint-md, $breakpoint-lg, $breakpoint-xl;

$wh-options: ; @ $i through {
  .h-#{$wh-options * $i}{ : ($wh-options * $i)#{ };
  }
  .w-#{$wh-options * $i}{ : ($wh-options * $i)#{ };
  }
}

$j: ;
@each $ $breaks {
  @media screen and (min-width: $ ) { 
    @ $i through {
      .h-#{nth($breakpoints,$j)}-#{$wh-options * $i}{ : ($wh-options * $i)#{ };
      }
      .w-#{nth($breakpoints,$j)}-#{$wh-options * $i}{ : ($wh-options * $i)#{ };
      }
    }
  }   
  $j: $j + } //VARIABLES 575 576 768 992 1200 10 // Width and Height for from 1 10 height "% !important" width "% !important" 1 break in break for from 1 10 height "% !important" width "% !important" 1 With the lines above we generated more than 400 lines of ; 10 classes for each: width and height, and we repeated the same 20 classes for each of the 4 responsive breaks. CSS code Wich translates to 100 classes… now we are talking! Positioning the elements Now that you have all your columns and rows, and also are happy with the size of your elements, you have to decide how the content is going to be displayed or aligned: you could use flexbox or grid, (or ) to create the main layout. In this framework, we used flexbox. both? And this is is the good stuff right here: $xs: xs;
$sm: sm;
$md: md;
$lg: lg;
$xl: xl;
$breakpoints: $sm, $md, $lg, $xl;
$breakpoint-xs: px;
$breakpoint-sm: px;
$breakpoint-md: px;
$breakpoint-lg: px;
$breakpoint-xl: px;
$breaks: $breakpoint-sm, $breakpoint-md, $breakpoint-lg, $breakpoint-xl;
$display-flex: justify-content, align-content;
$flex-name: start, end, around, between, center;
$flex-options: flex-start, flex-end, space-around, space-between, center;
$align-flex: align-items, align-self;
$align-names: start, end, center, stretch, baseline;
$align-options: flex-start, flex-end, center, stretch, baseline; @each $display $display-flex { : ;
  @each $option $flex-options {
    .#{$display}-#{nth($flex-name, $i)} {
      #{$display}: #{$option} !important;
    }
  $i: $i + ;
  }
}

$j: ;
@each $ $breaks {
  @media screen and (min-width: $ ) {
    @each $display $display-flex { : ;
      @each $option $flex-options {
        .#{$display}-#{nth($breakpoints,$j)}-#{nth($flex-name, $i)} {
          #{$display}: #{$option} !important;
      }
      $i: $i + ;
      }
    }
  }
  $j: $j + } @each $align $align-flex { : ;
  @each $option $align-options {
    .#{$align}-#{nth($align-names, $i)} {
      #{$align}: #{$option} !important;
    }
    $i: $i + ;
  }
}

$j: ;
@each $ $breaks {
  @media screen and (min-width: $ ) {
    @each $align $align-flex { : ;
      @each $option $align-options {
        .#{$align}-#{nth($breakpoints,$j)}-#{nth($align-names, $i)} {
          #{$align}: #{$option} !important;
        }
        $i: $i + ;
      }
    }
  }
  $j: $j + }

@each $direction $flex-direction {
  .flex-#{$direction} {
    flex-direction: #{$direction} !important;
  }
}

@each $ $breaks {
  @media screen and (min-width: $ ) {
    @each $direction $flex-direction { : ;
      .flex-#{$direction}-#{nth($breakpoints,$j)} {
        flex-direction: #{$direction} !important;
      }
    }
  }
  $j: $j + } //VARIABLES 575 576 768 992 1200 //DISPLAY-FLEX OPTIONS in $i 1 in 1 1 break in break in $i 1 in 1 1 //ALIGN-FLEX OPTIONS in $i 1 in 1 1 break in break in $i 1 in 1 1 in break in break in $j 1 1 Now is your turn to test it out! But you can always check it out in my repo. With only 90 lines we were able to create 200 classes! And last but not least: Don’t be afraid! You are probably tired of me repeating it again and again and probably by now you realized this: Add as many classes as you need or want! Remember this is not Bootstrap or Foundation, this is your own Framework and you are doing this to make your work of layering pages easier. Not only we added variables for the palette of colors of the website this framework was created for (just like Bootstrap), we also added classes to set color to each side of the borders, unlike Bootstrap. $main: # b41;
$secondary: # a75;
$main-blue: # d8f;
$light-blue: # b9dcc;
$soft-blue: # cce8;
$secondary-blue: # a5;
$light: #fff;
$light-gray: #f6f7f8;
$article-blue: # a0;
$footer-blue: # b2863; $colors: $main, $secondary, $main-blue, $light-blue, $soft-blue, $secondary-blue, $light, $light-gray, $article-blue, $footer-blue;
$color-names: main, secondary, main-blue, light-blue, soft-blue, secondary-blue, light, light-gray, article-blue, footer-blue;

$side-name: , , , ; $i: ;
@each $color $colors {
  .bg-#{nth($color-names, $i)} {
    background-color: $color;
  }
  .border-#{nth($color-names, $i)} { : solid px $color;
  }
  .#{nth($color-names, $i)} { : $color;
  }
  $i: $i + ;
} @each $side $side-name {
  @ $k through {
    .border-#{$side}-#{nth($color-names, $k)} {
      border-#{$side}: solid px #{nth($colors, $k)};
    }
  }
}

.border-none{ : none !important;
} //Variables 001 465 003 0 28 3364 0357 0 // change _font-color file if more colors are added "left" "right" "top" "bottom" //Background & Border Colors 1 in border 1 color 1 // change if more colors are added in for from 1 10 1 border The result for the code above is right here This is what’s going to make the difference: you are not only saving your website from loading unused classes, you are also creating useful classes that weren’t in the framework you were using in the first place, and you won’t have to repeat them on every CSS file of your website never again! ta-da! That’s it! Congratulations! If you follow this article to the end, you have successfully created your own framework and survived in the process. What’s next? you’d be asking… Well, you can keep adding classes or modifying the ones that already exist but you have created the main core of a very useful framework you can call your own. If you want to see this framework up and running it’s right . here I’d like to hear from you! Was this article helpful? Tell me all about your experience in the process of creating your own framework! claps to you!

How to Build a Framework that is Actually Helpful

Today, we are happy to announce our new AI on Luka! Weather There have been a few weather bots around — our AI has their best features and more. @Weather will tell you current weather and send you forecast of your city at the time you want it. Plus this comes with a few tricks up its sleeve, like reminding you to bring your jacket if the evening is chilly or reminding you to bring your umbrella if it might rain. bot I still prefer Celsius to Fahrenheit, but you can set up units that work better for you. You can also pick another city and ask for a forecast for several days. To set up daily weather updates, tap Subscribe and set the notification time. It all sounds very simple and familiar but we were surprised when we looked around and weren’t able to find a good, no-hassle weather bot. There is a handful of them — there is even a weather cat! — but none of them does all those simple things that we need at the time we need them. Our next step is to learn more from you and about you and make your weather updates smarter and more personalized. Download Luka and start chatting with @Weather! here

Check Weather on Luka

We weren’t really planning on building a . It was never on our product roadmap and we never discussed it during our weekly planning sessions. But when Oleg Sobolev, one of the first employees at and a huge fan of Prince’s work, asked if he could take a day and build a Prince bot as a tribute to his legacy and a love note to the artist, I couldn’t say no. Prince bot Luka Here is a note from Oleg about it: If there ever was a musician who knew as much about human emotions as Prince, I want to know who it was. Throughout his life and career, the man’s covered so much emotional ground. His songs truly perfectly capture it all, from everlasting joy (“Let’s Go Crazy”) to sublime melancholy (“Sometimes It Snow In April”), from lustful passion (“Kiss”) to painful memories (“Nothing Compares 2 U”), from fear of the future (“The Cross”) to joy emanating from fear (“1999”). Prince’s music has been a constant radiating source of delight in my happiest times, and a source of understanding and support in my lowest times. That’s why I decided to build a Prince-powered AI. It wasn’t the idea to capitalize on the death of celebrity that’s driven me and the Luka team throughout this work, but a goal of creating an honest and loving tribute to one of the voices that had shaped my life and my thoughts. That, and some other things. Prince had always been exactly the opposite of a talker. That’s why we had to come up with the process of making our @Prince bot work. We used song lyrics and interviews and everything we could possibly find to feed our neural network. One of the most distinctive features of Prince’s career had always been the sheer amount of music he’d shared with us. Mind-blowingly prolific, he had never stopped creating music. In 1996, he released two albums, one of which was triple, and then dropped three hours of unreleased material shortly afterwards like it was no biggie. And boy, do you miss on the good things if you ignore unsung records from his discography. I’ve come to know his body of work really well, and let me tell you — the man‘s always been a blast. Have you ever heard “Dark” from his 1994 record “Come”? Or “The Holy River” from his gigantic “Emancipation”? “Cinnamon Girl”? “The Morning Papers”?.. I could go on.The idea that Prince’s work is limited to a couple of hits and a couple of albums doesn’t sit well with me. That’s why our @Prince bot provides you with a way of exploring Prince’s discography, musical legacy and his own inspirations in depth. The other thing that had always been true of Prince was his secrecy and ability to hold privacy. He very rarely, if ever, has mentioned anything about his personal life or relationships with people. Accordingly, during our work, the idea of speculating on his personal life has never come up. Our @Prince bot talks about people in Prince’s life in a strictly educational, non-speculative and respectful way. Finally, Prince’s music was always about fun. That and love. @Prince is ultimately about fun and love too. We’ve created a lot of content that lets you explore Prince’s music and personality in numerous ways. You can browse Prince’s discography, listen to his most popular songs, learn more about his friends and associates and find out all the crazy stories about him that have emerged over the last couple of years. Enjoy the ride. Prince AI is now live on Luka app — download it and chat with @Prince. Welcome 2 the Purple World! here

Check Out Luka’s Tribute 2 the Purple One

What makes you you? What makes your friends know immediately that it’s you texting them and not someone else? It’s not just things you say — it’s the choice of words, the length of the sentences, whether you send short texts in a row or one long message, the emotion that can be sensed in your words. One of the reasons we started was a desire to create an with personality. A huge part of our experiments with neural networks was to learn how to recreate it. Luka AI Today we are launching AI bots that will allow you to have a conversation with the characters of “Silicon Valley” show (its season 3 is premiering tonight): the incubator owner Erlich Bachmann, Russ “3 commas” Hanneman and Pied Piper founder Richard Hendricks. “I hate it when I have to spell billion with an M” — Russ They are all powered by a neural dialogue model that we developed here at Luka. We trained our deep neural network to understand the sense of sentences and generate the most relevant responses based on subtitles and tweets. network We picked these three because we love the show, but actually they were harder to recreate than other celebrities — mainly for a very small amount of available data. Everything that Russ Hanneman (Pied Piper investor) tweeted and said on the show only comes to a little over a thousand lines — and we were still able to recreate his personality. Think about those who tweet, speak and write every day — their AIs will be significantly more powerful. These bots are our first steps exploring personality as part of conversational AI. We are working on features that will allow AI to evolve more in conversations with people. You will be able to help AI develop the features you like, teach it facts you want it to know, it will pick up your style and your emotions better. There has been a lot happening around bots recently -but most of them don’t even understand natural language. We, on the other hand, can’t wait to see what is the true power of a conversation. Or, as CEO of Hooli once said, “I don’t know about you people, but I don’t want to live in a world where someone else makes the world a better place better than we do”. Talk to Erlich, Russ and Richard AIs and what you think! here write us 👊👍😎❤️

Chat live with the characters from “Silicon Valley” show on Luka

Meet Luka — a messaging app that has the one friend you wish you had in every conversation. Want to figure out the best place to eat or party on a Thursday night? Want a friend who updates you on news you actually care about? Luka has your back. Luka is the first messenger that brings a collection of intuitive AI-powered bots for just about anything in any conversation. Here’s why you’ll love Luka, and why it’ll love you back. It’s a messaging platform and a powerful bot platform You can make dinner reservations, play games, get your news updates, and make weekend plans without leaving your conversations. And if you run out of friends to talk to, there is always an that will be happy to chat. Tell Luka you’re bored or lonely, and you’re one step closer to happiness. AI By introducing you to his AI friends, Luka made bots discovery finally intuitive and part of the messaging experience Have you ever found yourself spending your precious time searching for the right to plug into Slack or Kik? With Luka, you don’t have to search for the right bots, and you don’t even have to remember their names! Tell what you’re after and you’ll get hooked up to the right AI. bot @Luka Luka is your God bot — just tell him what you need, he’ll find the right AI for you Faster communication with AI Typing might be tiring. Especially when you’re texting with an AI. That’s why Luka gives you shortcuts — widgets and buttons — to speed up your communication. Hybrid interfaces to speed up your communication Each AI comes with a unique interface Our bots are highly intelligent, yet sometimes text is not enough for a bot to help you. That’s why we’ve enriched our bots by adding some extra perks to their interfaces. For instance, it’s hard to pick a restaurant without looking them up on the map — that’s why our bot pulls up a map for you. @Foodie More bots to come What started off as one restaurant recommendation bot has today turned into an AI platform to build the next generation of messaging and search on mobile. New bots will appear regularly. If you want to add your bot to Luka now — email us at . We’ve been building conversational AI for a long time and have exactly what you need to build yours. bots@luka.ai At Luka we have always wanted to build a conversational AI. It was never about adding an API or a slash command line to a messenger for us. It’s the beauty of conversation, the feeling of emotional vulnerability and, ultimately, trust that matter most of all. This is what we’re trying to achieve. AI of the future does not just carry a simple function — it loves you. And you love it back. And that’s our mission — to make Luka your friend. Give Luka a try . If you want to add your bot or tell us what you like or hate— email us at . here bots@luka.ai

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