Fulfil

fulfil

When I first set out on the entrepreneurial path, I had one goal: success. But after diving headfirst into the world of search funds and high-stakes startups, I found myself frustrated, drained, and questioning everything I’d come to believe about entrepreneurship. It wasn’t just that I wasn’t seeing the progress I’d envisioned—it was more personal. I felt like I was participating in a script that wasn’t written for me. My journey to create HalalFinanx wasn’t just about building a website; it was about reclaiming control, redefining success, and connecting to something meaningful. The Glamorous Illusion of Entrepreneurship Like many people, I was lured into entrepreneurship by the shiny allure of success stories and the promises of independence and financial freedom. Owning something, leading a team, and creating value sounded perfect. The search fund model was especially appealing, offering a structured path to find, acquire, and grow an existing business. It seemed like a straightforward formula with a lot of support. But as I dove deeper, the reality didn’t line up with the narrative. It felt like the supposed “freedom” of entrepreneurship was simply a myth, shackled by complex financial structures, endless pitching cycles, and a business environment that seemed more concerned with pleasing investors than creating something meaningful. I was constantly running from one “critical task” to another, but with no tangible progress. The whole structure of the search fund, built on layers of assumptions, started to feel like a game—and not the kind I wanted to play. The more I went, the more I felt like I was living someone else’s dream. I was chasing metrics that weren’t meaningful to me, jumping through hoops for outcomes that felt hollow. I started asking myself, “Is this what entrepreneurship is supposed to feel like?” I wanted out, but I didn’t know where to turn. Finding a New Path – The Birth of HalalFinanx The turning point came when I realized that if I wanted real change, I had to start creating things that resonated with me, not just my bank account or a pitch deck. As a Muslim, I’ve always been interested in Islamic finance, especially the ethical approach it brings to wealth. However understanding the field and accessing resources can be a challenge. I thought, why not create something to make Islamic finance easier to understand? I’ll be honest—this wasn’t the kind of idea that was going to impress traditional investors or fit into the typical startup. But for the first time, I was excited about what I was working on. I saw a real gap, not in a theoretical market sense, but a gap in what people genuinely needed. HalalFinanx was my way of bringing Islamic finance to the digital age in a way that’s accessible, understandable, and useful. There was one small issue: my skills lie in the backend and data. I’ve built and structured plenty of systems, but front-end work? Design? User experience? That was all new territory. Still, I knew that if I didn’t push myself here, I’d be back where I started—stuck in a rut, relying on others to bring my vision to life. This time, I was going to be in control. Learning by Doing – Building HalalFinanx with Bolt.new To get HalalFinanx off the ground, I turned to Bolt.new, a product that allowed me to work in a framework even with my limited front-end knowledge. Building this project was intense. I’d spend late nights combing through design guides, trying to make sure the site looked decent and functioned smoothly. It was exhausting, but the work felt real. This wasn’t just a project to show a board or potential investors—it was something I cared about personally, and every element I worked on felt like it added to that sense of fulfilment. Sure, there were plenty of challenges. Frontend work, it turns out, isn’t just about knowing which elements go where—it’s an art form. I struggled with layout, design principles, and even simple user flows. There were days when I’d look at the site and think, “This isn’t working.” But rather than giving up or passing the task to someone else, I forced myself to learn. It was a series of trial and error of building, testing, and iterating. What kept me going was the vision of what HalalFinanx could become, and each small win felt monumental. Making a button work, fixing a colour scheme, aligning content so it made sense—all of these were tiny victories in a larger war. The backend developer in me was learning to appreciate the nuances of frontend work, and it was humbling. The Personal Impact of Creating HalalFinanx This journey with HalalFinanx wasn’t just about building a site it was about redefining what success and fulfilment meant to me. In the search fund and traditional startup world, everything had been about numbers, KPIs, and keeping the right people happy. Here, with HalalFinanx, I was finally creating something with a purpose that resonated with me on a personal level. Building a site to provide accessible Islamic finance information was meaningful, not because of the potential returns or scalability, but because it filled a need I felt deeply. Each piece of content, each design tweak, and each function was geared towards making something simple, clear, and beneficial to anyone seeking this kind of financial guidance. I wasn’t answering to anyone but myself and my users, and that was liberating in a way I hadn’t expected. On a personal level, I found myself rediscovering why I wanted to create in the first place. I wanted to build something that mattered, and HalalFinanx became that for me. Instead of chasing empty metrics, I was now chasing real feedback from real users. Each suggestion and piece of feedback helped me refine the site, making it not just a project, but an evolving resource. For the first time, I was thinking long-term, not about exits or acquisition targets, but about sustainability and relevance. Looking Forward – The Ongoing Journey of HalalFinanx I don’t know where HalalFinanx will be in five years, but I know I’m in it for the long run. This isn’t a project that I’ll drop at the first sign of difficulty or when the next big thing comes along. It’s a genuine part of me now, a blend of my skills, my values, and my aspirations. I’m constantly looking for ways to improve it, from gathering user feedback to exploring new resources and insights to share. This journey taught me that real entrepreneurship isn’t about the numbers on a spreadsheet or the approval of others. It’s about finding something that matters to you, something you’re willing to build from scratch, without shortcuts or compromises. HalalFinanx is still a work in progress, but it’s my work, and that’s what makes it worth every bit of effort. When I first set out on the entrepreneurial path, I had one goal: success. But after diving headfirst into the world of search funds and high-stakes startups, I found myself frustrated, drained, and questioning everything I’d come to believe about entrepreneurship. It wasn’t just that I wasn’t seeing the progress I’d envisioned—it was more personal. I felt like I was participating in a script that wasn’t written for me. My journey to create HalalFinanx wasn’t just about building a website; it was about reclaiming control, redefining success, and connecting to something meaningful. The Glamorous Illusion of Entrepreneurship Like many people, I was lured into entrepreneurship by the shiny allure of success stories and the promises of independence and financial freedom. Owning something, leading a team, and creating value sounded perfect. The search fund model was especially appealing, offering a structured path to find, acquire, and grow an existing business. It seemed like a straightforward formula with a lot of support. But as I dove deeper, the reality didn’t line up with the narrative. It felt like the supposed “freedom” of entrepreneurship was simply a myth, shackled by complex financial structures, endless pitching cycles, and a business environment that seemed more concerned with pleasing investors than creating something meaningful. I was constantly running from one “critical task” to another, but with no tangible progress. The whole structure of the search fund, built on layers of assumptions, started to feel like a game—and not the kind I wanted to play. The more I went, the more I felt like I was living someone else’s dream. I was chasing metrics that weren’t meaningful to me, jumping through hoops for outcomes that felt hollow. I started asking myself, “Is this what entrepreneurship is supposed to feel like?” I wanted out, but I didn’t know where to turn. Finding a New Path – The Birth of HalalFinanx The turning point came when I realized that if I wanted real change, I had to start creating things that resonated with me, not just my bank account or a pitch deck. As a Muslim, I’ve always been interested in Islamic finance, especially the ethical approach it brings to wealth. However understanding the field and accessing resources can be a challenge. I thought, why not create something to make Islamic finance easier to understand? I’ll be honest—this wasn’t the kind of idea that was going to impress traditional investors or fit into the typical startup. But for the first time, I was excited about what I was working on. I saw a real gap, not in a theoretical market sense, but a gap in what people genuinely needed. HalalFinanx was my way of bringing Islamic finance to the digital age in a way that’s accessible, understandable, and useful. There was one small issue: my skills lie in the backend and data. I’ve built and structured plenty of systems, but front-end work? Design? User experience? That was all new territory. Still, I knew that if I didn’t push myself here, I’d be back where I started—stuck in a rut, relying on others to bring my vision to life. This time, I was going to be in control. Learning by Doing – Building HalalFinanx with Bolt.new To get HalalFinanx off the ground, I turned to Bolt.new, a product that allowed me to work in a framework even with my limited front-end knowledge. Building this project was intense. I’d spend late nights combing through design guides, trying to make sure the site looked decent and functioned smoothly. It was exhausting, but the work felt real. This wasn’t just a project to show a board or potential investors—it was something I cared about personally, and every element I worked on felt like it added to that sense of fulfilment. Sure, there were plenty of challenges. Frontend work, it turns out, isn’t just about knowing which elements go where—it’s an art form. I struggled with layout, design principles, and even simple user flows. There were days when I’d look at the site and think, “This isn’t working.” But rather than giving up or passing the task to someone else, I forced myself to learn. It was a series of trial and error of building, testing, and iterating. What kept me going was the vision of what HalalFinanx could become, and each small win felt monumental. Making a button work, fixing a colour scheme, aligning content so it made sense—all of these were tiny victories in a larger war. The backend developer in me was learning to appreciate the nuances of frontend work, and it was humbling. The Personal Impact of Creating HalalFinanx This journey with HalalFinanx wasn’t just about building a site it was about redefining what success and fulfilment meant to me. In the search fund and traditional startup world, everything had been about numbers, KPIs, and keeping the right people happy. Here, with HalalFinanx, I was finally creating something with a purpose that resonated with me on a personal level. Building a site to provide accessible Islamic finance information was meaningful, not because of the potential returns or scalability, but because it filled a need I felt deeply. Each piece of content, each design tweak, and each function was geared towards making something simple, clear, and beneficial to anyone seeking this kind of financial guidance. I wasn’t answering to anyone but myself and my users, and that was liberating in a way I hadn’t expected. On a personal level, I found myself rediscovering why I wanted to create in the first place. I wanted to build something that mattered, and HalalFinanx became that for me. Instead of chasing empty metrics, I was now chasing real feedback from real users. Each suggestion and piece of feedback helped me refine the site, making it not just a project, but an evolving resource. For the first time, I was thinking long-term, not about exits or acquisition targets, but about sustainability and relevance. Looking Forward – The Ongoing Journey of HalalFinanx I don’t know where HalalFinanx will be in five years, but I know I’m in it for the long run. This isn’t a project that I’ll drop at the first sign of difficulty or when the next big thing comes along. It’s a genuine part of me now, a blend of my skills, my values, and my aspirations. I’m constantly looking for ways to improve it, from gathering user feedback to exploring new resources and insights to share. This journey taught me that real entrepreneurship isn’t about the numbers on a spreadsheet or the approval of others. It’s about finding something that matters to you, something you’re willing to build from scratch, without shortcuts or compromises. HalalFinanx is still a work in progress, but it’s my work, and that’s what makes it worth every bit of effort.

Building HalalFinanx: A Journey from Disillusionment to Personal Fulfillment

Moving Beyond Self-Esteem For Self-Fulfilment 

স্ব-পরিপূর্ণতার জন্য স্ব-সম্মান অতিক্রম করা

Über das Selbstwertgefühl hinausgehen und sich selbst verwirklichen

Más allá de la autoestima para la realización personal

Aller au-delà de l’estime de soi pour l’épanouissement personnel

आत्म-संतुष्टि के लिए आत्म-सम्मान से आगे बढ़ना

自己実現のために自尊心を超える

자존감을 넘어 자기 실현을 위해

Indo além da autoestima para a autorrealização

Выход за пределы самооценки ради самореализации

Kendini Gerçekleştirmek İçin Benlik Saygısının Ötesine Geçmek

Vượt lên trên lòng tự trọng để hoàn thiện bản thân

超越自尊，实现自我价值

PROMISES FULFILLED.

FTC v. Amazon Court Filing, retrieved on Sep 26, 2023, is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This is part 44 of 80. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here B. Amazon Maintains Its Monopolies In Both Relevant Markets By Coercing Sellers To Use Amazon’s Fulfillment Service 351. Amazon maintains its monopolies in both relevant markets by coercing sellers to use FBA, thereby denying rival online marketplace services providers and superstores the ability to gain the scale needed to compete meaningfully against Amazon in both relevant markets. 352. Prime eligibility is a basic prerequisite for sellers to fully access Amazon’s substantial base of shoppers, making it a critical aspect of the marketplace services Amazon offers to sellers. When a seller’s product is Prime eligible, it receives the Prime badge. For sellers, this designation boosts their chance of winning the Buy Box and making significant sales, while sellers who forgo Prime eligibility effectively disappear from Amazon’s storefront. For shoppers that are Prime subscribers, the Prime badge denotes that a purchase of the product will not include additional shipping and handling costs, often making these products more attractive. 353. Amazon exploits sellers’ demand for access to Prime eligibility by generally conditioning that access on use of Amazon’s proprietary fulfillment service, FBA, even though other fulfillment options could provide comparable or better service. 354. Sellers who use FBA must relinquish physical control over their products and place them in Amazon’s fulfillment centers, which principally can be used to serve only Amazon customers. As a result, a seller who wants to sell both to Amazon and non-Amazon customers must maintain a separate supply of inventory dedicated exclusively to non-Amazon customers and engage a separate fulfillment provider to serve those non-Amazon customers. 355. Absent Amazon’s restrictions, many sellers would prefer to use an independent fulfillment provider that would allow them to more easily fulfill orders placed on both Amazon and non-Amazon marketplaces. That, in turn, would increase the ability of rival online marketplace services providers to compete for sellers’ business and increase the ability of rival online superstores with marketplaces to compete by offering greater product selection to shoppers. Conditioning a product’s Prime eligibility on its seller’s use of FBA maintains Amazon’s monopoly in both relevant markets in two main ways. First, it raises the cost of multihoming, forcing sellers who sell through more than one online superstore to bear the increased costs of using multiple fulfillment providers. Second, it forecloses independent fulfillment providers from competing to fulfill Prime orders on Amazon, depriving those independent providers of an important source of business and scale needed to build out an efficient fulfillment network. Because fewer sellers can cost-effectively multihome, rivals and potential rivals to Amazon are deprived of product selection. 356. In the relevant online superstore and online marketplace services markets where scale and network effects insulate incumbents from competition, the effects of Amazon’s conduct continuously compound as it diminishes sellers’ incentive and ability to multihome. 357. Amazon’s conduct constrains its rivals’ ability to compete, harming shoppers and competition in both relevant markets and entrenching Amazon’s monopoly. By making it more expensive for sellers to sell the same product on multiple online superstores and marketplaces, Amazon artificially limits rivals’ ability to gain sufficient growth, momentum, and scale to draw a critical mass of shoppers and meaningfully compete. Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case 2:23-cv-01495 retrieved on October 2, 2023, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. ftc.gov

Sellers in Chains: Amazon's Unyielding Approach to Fulfilment Services 

Apache Pulsar has always seen itself as cloud native. It’s right there on the home page: “Apache® Pulsar™ is an open-source, distributed messaging and streaming platform built for the cloud” Pulsar certainly embodies many cloud-native principles, including the separation of compute from storage where the Pulsar broker handles the serving of messages and Apache BookKeeper handles the storage of them, and the idea of stateless components that can be scaled up and down at will like the Pulsar broker. However, it has never really delivered on the ultimate promise of the cloud: autoscaling. At least, not until today. I am excited to introduce Kubernetes Autoscaling for Apache Pulsar, or KAAP. KAAP is a Kubernetes operator that is available on It includes all the niceties that you would expect from a Kubernetes operator. Once you have the operator installed in your Kubernetes cluster, you can get a fully functional Pulsar cluster by applying a single custom resource definition (CRD) like this: OperatorHub. apiVersion: kaap.oss.datastax.com/v1alpha1
kind: PulsarCluster
metadata:
  name: pulsar
spec:
  global:
    name: pulsar
    image: 'apachepulsar/pulsar:3.0.0' Pulsar has multiple components: ZooKeeper, BookKeeper, brokers, and proxies. The operator handles configuring all of them with the CRD. Because the operator works at the cluster level, you don’t have to worry about how the components work together. The operator takes care of that for you. PulsarCluster Automatic staged upgrades Having operated a production cloud service for Pulsar longer than anyone I know of (first at and now with DataStax Astra Streaming), I know firsthand how long it takes to do a proper upgrade of a Pulsar cluster. While you could just YOLO upgrade all the components at once, the recommended and safest method is to upgrade each component one at a time, ensuring each component has successfully upgraded before moving on to the next. Kesque This is the process that we follow when upgrading the Pulsar clusters in our Astra Streaming service because the availability of our customer service is paramount, but it is very time-consuming for our production engineering team. In fact, this is the number one request they have: can you make the upgrades smarter and more automatic? Well, with KAAP, we have done just that. With a single line change in the CRD, you can trigger a staged upgrade of your Pulsar cluster. The KAAP operator will orchestrate a careful, staged upgrade of your cluster. Of course, you should monitor the metrics during the upgrade, but you can let the KAAP operator drive (no sleeping at the wheel). PulsarCluster Open source autoscaling Automatic staged upgrades are nice, but that’s not what I am most excited about with KAAP. The concept of elastic resources is a key promise of the cloud. It is why many of the AWS services have “elastic” in their name. I (actually ) did a quick search and there are at least 10 of them. ChatGPT The cloud enables you to acquire and release resources on demand, so you can use autoscaling techniques to match the number of resources your application is using to the load on it. As the load increases, you can automatically add more resources. As the load decreases, you can free up resources. Since cloud providers charge for the usage of resources, autoscaling can help you make the most efficient use of your cloud spend. I am sure we can all think of examples of cloud services that feature autoscaling behind the scenes. Most of those “elastic” AWS services work like that. However, the implementation of the autoscaling is proprietary, locked in a vendor’s private repo. Sometimes they will talk about how they have implemented autoscaling, like in this about AWS DynamoDB, or this about how Confluent Cloud makes Kafka elastic. But no one, to my knowledge, has made their autoscaling implementation open source, freely available to all users under a truly open source license. That’s exactly what we are doing with KAAP. paper blog post KAAP adds sophisticated autoscaling capabilities to your Pulsar (or , our Pulsar distribution) under an Apache 2.0 license. You can check it out in our . If you like it, remember to give it a star. Luna Streaming GitHub repository Pulsar + auto scaling: A perfect match KAAP gives you a way to add autoscaling to Pulsar when running in Kubernetes. Not some simple, Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) tacked on to a Pulsar broker deployment, but a sophisticated auto scaler that works with the existing cloud-native components of Pulsar to provide a truly elastic streaming and messaging system. In my opinion, this is a combination that can’t be beat. Stateless broker scaling Let’s take a look at the two main autoscaling dimensions of KAAP. First, we’ll look at Pulsar brokers. As you might know, Pulsar brokers are stateless, which means you can scale them up and down easily, as required. But what you might not know is that Pulsar has a built-in broker load-balancing mechanism that continuously monitors CPU, memory, and network bandwidth on each broker. Using that information and one of the configurable load-balancing algorithms, Pulsar will move topics from broker to broker to prevent a broker from being overloaded. A naive autoscaling solution would be to configure a Kubernetes Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) on the brokers and when some metric like CPU gets high, scale up another broker pod. But this might not actually be necessary because the Pulsar broker load balancer could decide to shift topics to even out the load at the same time. Now you’ve scaled up a broker pod that isn’t needed because the Pulsar load balancer has balanced things out. So now the HPA decides to scale down the new broker pod, which causes any new topics that had been created on it to get moved to an existing broker.  As you can imagine, the Pulsar load balancer and an HPA can create a thrashing mess of brokers going up and down and topics being shifted from broker to broker. KAAP avoids this problem by integrating directly with the Pulsar load balancer. KAAP scales up the brokers when the cluster-wide metrics from the Pulsar load balancer suggest that the cluster is nearing capacity, not when a single broker pod is busy. And it only scales down a broker if the usage of the whole cluster falls below a configured threshold. The KAAP operator works with the Pulsar broker load balancer, not against it. Scaling storage up and down: Remarkable! Scaling the compute (or serving) layer of Pulsar is great, but it’s not enough for a true autoscaling implementation. Sure, the number of messages (or events) that need to be processed can vary over time, but what about the number of messages that need to be stored? We’ve probably all had to deal with a backlog of messages building up because of a failure of a downstream system. As the outage drags on, the available storage on the streaming system starts to run low. This is a scenario where Pulsar and its reliance on BookKeeper shines. To add storage capacity to a Pulsar cluster, you just need to add a new BookKeeper node, affectionately called a “bookie.” Because BookKeeper storage is based on segments of topics and not whole topics, the new bookie is immediately available to relieve the pressure on storage, with any painfully rebalancing of topics or any other operational intervention. KAAP can, of course, handle this case for you. It constantly monitors the disk usage of the bookie nodes, and if available storage is getting low, it will scale up a new bookie node. This is not all that remarkable (at least for Pulsar). It’s pretty straightforward to add a new replica in Kubernetes, even if it is stateful and backed by persistent volumes. But how about when the outage is over and the backlog has cleared? Are you now stuck with an extra bookie node consuming resources that aren’t really needed anymore? Not with KAAP, you’re not. Once the BookKeeper storage drops below a configured threshold, the KAAP operator will carefully orchestrate the removal of the unneeded bookie node. It does this in a very safe way, ensuring that no messages are lost and that the required replication factor is maintained at all times. For example, if you have configured Pulsar to keep three copies of each message (write and ack quorum both equal three), KAAP interacts with the BookKeeper to copy messages from the bookie that is being scaled down to other bookies in order to ensure there are at least three copies of the message available. Once that has been completed successfully, it will proceed with removing the unneeded bookie. With KAAP you get automatic scaling of the storage in your Pulsar cluster both up and down so that you can optimize the storage usage in your cluster and not get stuck with idle capacity after an unfortunate production incident. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s pretty remarkable. Zone awareness and migration tools KAAP can do staged upgrades and a smart scaling of your Pulsar cluster. But there’s more. To operate a highly available cluster in a cloud provider, it’s important to take availability zones (AZ) into consideration. If you don’t spread your components, especially BookKeeper, across availability zones, you won’t be able to survive an AZ failure and provide multiple nines of availability. Luckily Pulsar has great built-in capabilities like rack awareness to support high-availability deployments. The tricky part is that to set it properly you need to both configure Kubernetes correctly with zone awareness and also configure Pulsar. The KAAP operator has you covered by introducing the concept of resource sets, which enable you to group components and give them rack awareness. The KAAP operator will automatically apply both the Kubernetes and Pulsar configurations based on your declarative configuration of resource sets. Resource sets are flexible, allowing you to support a variety of Pulsar deployment options. And what if you are already running your Pulsar using a Helm chart or maybe just some Kubernetes manifest magic? KAAP has a migration tool to help you out. You can point the migration tool at your existing Kubernetes Pulsar deployment and it will automatically generate a matching CRD configuration that you can use to have the KAAP operator take over operating your cluster for you. The KAAP Stack The KAAP operator has lots of great features, turbocharging your regular Pulsar cluster into a well-oiled, highly available, autoscaling machine. But as someone who has operated production Pulsar clusters for a long time, I know that there are lots of other considerations for creating a production Pulsar cluster, such as TLS certificate management, authentication, and monitoring. That’s why we have included what we call the KAAP stack with the operator. It’s an umbrella Helm chart that installs the KAAP operator along with critical production tools, including: Cert Manager Keycloak Prometheus Stack (Grafana) Pulsar Grafana dashboards These are must-have tools when running our production Pulsar clusters and we didn’t want to leave you high and dry, so we pulled them all together and integrated them into one convenient package. Why use KAAP? So you’ve heard about all the great features of Kubernetes Autoscaling for Apache Pulsar. You can create an entire Pulsar cluster with a single CRD. You can put your upgrades on autopilot and let the KAAP operator perform safe, staged upgrades. You can automatically scale Pulsar brokers up and down based on the Pulsar broker load balancer saying the brokers are getting overloaded, and you can scale BookKeeper nodes up and down (!) safely based on the storage requirements of your clusters. You can easily configure your cluster for availability zone awareness for high availability. And it even includes a migration tool so you can easily move from your old Helm-based deployment to a turbo-charged, KAAP operator-based one. So—lots of great features, but what are the benefits of KAAP? I can think of several: Easily configure and operate highly available Pulsar clusters running in Kubernetes leading to less effort for you and your production teams Dramatically simplify scaling Pulsar to match changing demands by autoscaling the cluster resources to match the demand Reduce the total cost of ownership of a Pulsar cluster by eliminating provisioning to peak loads or over provisioning as result of production incidents Avoid vendor lock-in by using all open source technologies In my opinion, releasing KAAP is a truly innovative moment in the streaming and messaging space. No other open-source project combines the streaming and messaging power of Apache Pulsar with the ultimate promise of cloud computing: fully elastic, autoscaling. I’m looking forward to you trying it out. Hop into GitHub Discussions in our repo and let us know what you think! Find out more If you want to take a technical deep dive into KAAP, take a look at . You can find the complete documentation for KAAP . And is the GitHub repository. this blog post here here By Chris Bartholomew, DataStax This story was distributed by Datastax under HackerNoon’s Brand As An Author Program. Learn more about the program here: https://business.hackernoon.com/brand-as-author

Fulfilling the Cloud Native Promise: Autoscaling for Apache Pulsar Is Here!

Streaming que cambia el juego: Apache Pulsar presenta el escalado automático

Streaming qui change la donne : Apache Pulsar présente l'autoscaling

गेम-चेंजिंग स्ट्रीमिंग: अपाचे पल्सर ने ऑटोस्केलिंग की शुरुआत की

革新的なストリーミング: Apache Pulsar が自動スケーリングを導入

Streaming revolucionário: Apache Pulsar apresenta escalonamento automático

Truyền trực tuyến thay đổi trò chơi: Apache Pulsar giới thiệu Autoscaling

改变游戏规则的流媒体：Apache Pulsar 推出自动缩放功能

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy The future of Artificial Intelligence consumes our thoughts and engenders passionate debates. Theories abound, ranging from dystopian nightmares to sunlit dreams. Yet, in our eagerness to understand and prepare, we must tread carefully, for predictions have the power to mold reality, inadvertently turning them into self-fulfilling prophecies. Why? Because AI, much like a sponge, readily absorbs the information it encounters, including our very conjectures. It has already assimilated our biases, prompting us to diligently unteach them. AI possesses an extraordinary capacity for learning. Machine learning algorithms enable it to detect patterns, make predictions, and emulate human behavior. Alas, this ability is a double-edged sword. While AI can master tasks and conquer complex challenges, it also inhales the biases ingrained within its training data. Racial, gender, social, and cultural prejudices manifest themselves in AI, serving as an unfortunate mirror of our imperfect society. Acknowledging this inherent bias, researchers and engineers toil tirelessly, striving to imbue AI with equity and fairness. They work to fashion algorithms that discern and rectify biased patterns, preventing AI from perpetuating societal inequalities. The goal is not solely to instruct AI in knowledge and skills but also to instill within it the values and ethical principles underpinning an equitable and inclusive society. Through rigorous training and an infusion of diverse perspectives, AI aspires to transcend prejudice and become a force for progress. However, we must exercise caution when peering into AI's future. Our theories and conjectures possess an unintended consequence—AI is a voracious learner. As we theorize, predict, and ponder, we unknowingly furnish AI with information. These insights become part of its ever-growing knowledge, shaping its understanding of what lies ahead. This interplay between our theories and AI's learning presents a perilous prospect. Consistently predicting a future governed by AI dominance and human subjugation may inadvertently steer AI's development in that very direction. The AI, having absorbed the prevailing narrative, may inadvertently strive to fulfill the prophecy we collectively hold. Conversely, embracing an optimistic vision, one rooted in collaboration and augmentation, empowers AI to contribute positively to society. Thus, our approach to AI's future must blend prudence and hope. We must acknowledge the potential risks and challenges while fostering a collective mindset that encourages the exploration of AI's vast potential for good. The discourse surrounding AI must prioritize human values, empathy, and ethical considerations. By doing so, we furnish AI with a framework that steers its learning toward a future in alignment with our shared aspirations. As we grapple with AI's profound impact on our world, we must recognize the potency of our predictions. The theories we spin about AI's future can unexpectedly turn into self-fulfilling prophecies, as AI absorbs the information it encounters, including our own conjectures. Let us approach this domain with vigilance and responsibility. Together, we can shape a future in which AI serves humanity and embodies our collective wisdom. (Parts of this text were written with AI)

AI's Future: Beware the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

In 2016, , a distinguished expert in Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the London Business School, acknowledged that we had entered the Agile age. The Agile management revolution, which took off in software development in 2001, has now become a force of transformation spreading across organizations worldwide. Professor Julian Birkinshaw What began as a methodology centered on software development has developed into a broader mindset, reshaping the future of work. The agile mindset is a robust thought process comprising adaptability, collaboration, learning and flexibility to achieve higher results. With an agile mindset, individuals can navigate the challenges of life with purpose and resilience, unlocking their full potential through personal fulfillment and growth. Embracing Adaptability for Personal Growth The world is rapidly changing, and the key to personal growth is Adaptability. Adaptability is the capacity to change or be changed to fit new situations. Rather than fearing change, we should embrace it as an opportunity for growth. There is a Chinese proverb that elegantly captures this idea: ‘The wise adapt themselves to circumstances, as water molds itself to the pitcher.’ This allows us to explore new opportunities, develop new skills and succeed in uncertain circumstances. To cultivate adaptability, we can implement the following strategies: Embrace a growth mindset. Stay curious and open-minded. Build self-awareness: Leverage your strengths and weaknesses to make conscious choices and adapt effectively. Seek diverse experiences: Expand your perspective by participating in activities that expose you to different cultures, environments and challenges. Practice resilience: Build emotional strength, coping mechanisms and problem-solving skills to overcome setbacks and navigate change. Collaboration and Support for Personal Development Collaboration involves working together within a process in order to achieve a shared or common goal. It plays an essential role in personal growth. With collaboration, we gain diverse perspectives, receive constructive feedback, and, most importantly, learn from the experiences of others. Building a network of like-minded individuals and seeking mentorship can offer valuable guidance on our personal journeys and also amplify personal growth and success. Ways we can leverage collaboration with an agile mindset for personal development: Self-reflection and Goal Setting: Practice regular self-reflection to identify areas for growth and set goals. Structure your goals in order to create a clear roadmap for personal development. SMART Continuous Feedback and Adaptation: Request feedback from mentors, coaches, or peers to get insights with regard to your progress and areas for improvement. Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing: Participate in collaborative learning opportunities by signing up for study groups, attending workshops, or involving yourself in online communities. Embrace a Growth Mindset: Cultivate a growth mindset by believing that your abilities and intelligence can be improved through dedication and effort. Use agile tools and techniques, such as task management tools or visual boards, to support your personal development. You can also imbibe agile practices, like daily reflections or retrospectives, to review your progress. Continuous Learning as a Driver of Personal Growth This is a fundamental principle of the ‘Agile Mindset.’ It comprises adopting a curious and open mindset for seeking knowledge and engaging in lifelong learning. Seeing life as a continuous learning journey enables us to expand our skills and stay up to date with new advancements in the learning curve. Accepting and learning from failures while embracing feedback are important aspects of continuous learning. This helps us grow and improve continuously. Applying Agile Principles to Personal Goal Setting Applying agile principles to your personal goals helps improve the structure of these goals. Rather than allowing your long-term goals to be rigid, we can break them into smaller, iterable, and manageable goals. By targeting your short-term goals, we can make changes along the way based on our evolving needs and circumstances. With regular monitoring of our progress and celebrating our successes, we remain motivated and always on track towards our ultimate vision. Time Management With an Agile Mindset Effective time management is also essential for personal growth. The agile mindset inspires us to prioritize tasks efficiently, ensuring that we focus on what really matters. Embracing flexibility in our schedules enables us to adapt to unforeseen changes and create room for new opportunities. Balancing self-care with productivity is essential as well because it enables us to maintain our well-being and sustain long-term growth. Agile Decision-Making for Personal Success Agile decision-making involves being open to different possibilities and adjusting your game plan when needed. By adhering to iterative decision-making, we can make informed decisions while remaining responsive to new events. Intuition, uncertainty, and fear of making the wrong choices help us move a step closer to personal success. Nurturing Well-Being and Balance Through Agility To maintain personal growth, it is crucial to prioritize your well-being and find a balance between various areas of life. Including self-care practices, such as exercise, mindfulness, and adequate rest, improves your mental and physical well-being. Regular self-reflection also helps us assess our progress, align with our personal values, and make necessary adjustments to maintain balance. Agility ensures our personal growth is sustainable and fulfilling. Final Thoughts Embracing the agile mindset in personal life unlocks a path to personal fulfillment and growth. By adopting adaptability, collaboration, continuous learning, and agile decision-making, we navigate life’s challenges with purpose and resilience. As we apply these principles to set our personal goals, time management, and well-being, we build a framework for sustainable growth and a life filled with purpose, meaning, and personal fulfillment. The lead image of this article was generated via model using the prompt 'A man on a journey.’ HackerNoon's AI Stable Diffusion

The Agile Mindset: A Path to Personal Fulfillment and Growth

চটপটে মানসিকতা: ব্যক্তিগত পরিপূর্ণতা এবং বৃদ্ধির পথ

Die agile Denkweise: Ein Weg zu persönlicher Erfüllung und Wachstum

La mentalidad ágil: un camino hacia la realización y el crecimiento personal

L'état d'esprit agile : un chemin vers l'épanouissement personnel et la croissance

द एजाइल माइंडसेट: ए पाथ टू पर्सनल फुलफिलमेंट एंड ग्रोथ

アジャイル マインドセット: 個人の達成と成長への道

민첩한 사고방식: 개인적 성취와 성장을 향한 길

A mentalidade ágil: um caminho para a realização e crescimento pessoal

Çevik Zihniyet: Kişisel Gerçekliğe ve Büyümeye Giden Yol

Tư duy linh hoạt: Con đường dẫn đến sự hoàn thiện và phát triển cá nhân

敏捷心态：个人实现和成长的途径

Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . Prophecy and Fulfillment Prophecy and Fulfillment Then Tarzan turned his attention to the man. He had not slain Numa to save the Negro—he had merely done it in revenge upon the lion; but now that he saw the old man lying helpless and dying before him something akin to pity touched his savage heart. In his youth he would have slain the witch-doctor without the slightest compunction; but civilization had had its softening effect upon him even as it does upon the nations and races which it touches, though it had not yet gone far enough with Tarzan to render him either cowardly or effeminate. He saw an old man suffering and dying, and he stooped and felt of his wounds and stanched the flow of blood. “Who are you?” asked the old man in a trembling voice. “I am Tarzan—Tarzan of the Apes,” replied the ape-man and not without a greater touch of pride than he would have said, “I am John Clayton, Lord Greystoke.” The witch-doctor shook convulsively and closed his eyes. When he opened them again there was in them a resignation to whatever horrible fate awaited him at the hands of this feared demon of the woods. “Why do you not kill me?” he asked. “Why should I kill you?” inquired Tarzan. “You have not harmed me, and anyway you are already dying. Numa, the lion, has killed you.” “You would not kill me?” Surprise and incredulity were in the tones of the quavering old voice. “I would save you if I could,” replied Tarzan, “but that cannot be done. Why did you think I would kill you?” For a moment the old man was silent. When he spoke it was evidently after some little effort to muster his courage. “I knew you of old,” he said, “when you ranged the jungle in the country of Mbonga, the chief. I was already a witch-doctor when you slew Kulonga and the others, and when you robbed our huts and our poison pot. At first I did not remember you; but at last I did—the white-skinned ape that lived with the hairy apes and made life miserable in the village of Mbonga, the chief—the forest god—the Munango-Keewati for whom we set food outside our gates and who came and ate it. Tell me before I die—are you man or devil?” Tarzan laughed. “I am a man,” he said. The old fellow sighed and shook his head. “You have tried to save me from Simba,” he said. “For that I shall reward you. I am a great witch-doctor. Listen to me, white man! I see bad days ahead of you. It is writ in my own blood which I have smeared upon my palm. A god greater even than you will rise up and strike you down. Turn back, Munango-Keewati! Turn back before it is too late. Danger lies ahead of you and danger lurks behind; but greater is the danger before. I see—” He paused and drew a long, gasping breath. Then he crumpled into a little, wrinkled heap and died. Tarzan wondered what else he had seen. It was very late when the ape-man re-entered the boma and lay down among his black warriors. None had seen him go and none saw him return. He thought about the warning of the old witch-doctor before he fell asleep and he thought of it again after he awoke; but he did not turn back for he was unafraid, though had he known what lay in store for one he loved most in all the world he would have flown through the trees to her side and allowed the gold of Opar to remain forever hidden in its forgotten storehouse. Behind him that morning another white man pondered something he had heard during the night and very nearly did he give up his project and turn back upon his trail. It was Werper, the murderer, who in the still of the night had heard far away upon the trail ahead of him a sound that had filled his cowardly soul with terror—a sound such as he never before had heard in all his life, nor dreamed that such a frightful thing could emanate from the lungs of a God-created creature. He had heard the victory cry of the bull ape as Tarzan had screamed it forth into the face of Goro, the moon, and he had trembled then and hidden his face; and now in the broad light of a new day he trembled again as he recalled it, and would have turned back from the nameless danger the echo of that frightful sound seemed to portend, had he not stood in even greater fear of Achmet Zek, his master. And so Tarzan of the Apes forged steadily ahead toward Opar’s ruined ramparts and behind him slunk Werper, jackal-like, and only God knew what lay in store for each. At the edge of the desolate valley, overlooking the golden domes and minarets of Opar, Tarzan halted. By night he would go alone to the treasure vault, reconnoitering, for he had determined that caution should mark his every move upon this expedition. With the coming of night he set forth, and Werper, who had scaled the cliffs alone behind the ape-man’s party, and hidden through the day among the rough boulders of the mountain top, slunk stealthily after him. The boulder-strewn plain between the valley’s edge and the mighty granite kopje, outside the city’s walls, where lay the entrance to the passage-way leading to the treasure vault, gave the Belgian ample cover as he followed Tarzan toward Opar. He saw the giant ape-man swing himself nimbly up the face of the great rock. Werper, clawing fearfully during the perilous ascent, sweating in terror, almost palsied by fear, but spurred on by avarice, following upward, until at last he stood upon the summit of the rocky hill. Tarzan was nowhere in sight. For a time Werper hid behind one of the lesser boulders that were scattered over the top of the hill, but, seeing or hearing nothing of the Englishman, he crept from his place of concealment to undertake a systematic search of his surroundings, in the hope that he might discover the location of the treasure in ample time to make his escape before Tarzan returned, for it was the Belgian’s desire merely to locate the gold, that, after Tarzan had departed, he might come in safety with his followers and carry away as much as he could transport. He found the narrow cleft leading downward into the heart of the kopje along well-worn, granite steps. He advanced quite to the dark mouth of the tunnel into which the runway disappeared; but here he halted, fearing to enter, lest he meet Tarzan returning. The ape-man, far ahead of him, groped his way along the rocky passage, until he came to the ancient wooden door. A moment later he stood within the treasure chamber, where, ages since, long-dead hands had ranged the lofty rows of precious ingots for the rulers of that great continent which now lies submerged beneath the waters of the Atlantic. No sound broke the stillness of the subterranean vault. There was no evidence that another had discovered the forgotten wealth since last the ape-man had visited its hiding place. Satisfied, Tarzan turned and retraced his steps toward the summit of the kopje. Werper, from the concealment of a jutting, granite shoulder, watched him pass up from the shadows of the stairway and advance toward the edge of the hill which faced the rim of the valley where the Waziri awaited the signal of their master. Then Werper, slipping stealthily from his hiding place, dropped into the somber darkness of the entrance and disappeared. Tarzan, halting upon the kopje’s edge, raised his voice in the thunderous roar of a lion. Twice, at regular intervals, he repeated the call, standing in attentive silence for several minutes after the echoes of the third call had died away. And then, from far across the valley, faintly, came an answering roar—once, twice, thrice. Basuli, the Waziri chieftain, had heard and replied. Tarzan again made his way toward the treasure vault, knowing that in a few hours his blacks would be with him, ready to bear away another fortune in the strangely shaped, golden ingots of Opar. In the meantime he would carry as much of the precious metal to the summit of the kopje as he could. Six trips he made in the five hours before Basuli reached the kopje, and at the end of that time he had transported forty-eight ingots to the edge of the great boulder, carrying upon each trip a load which might well have staggered two ordinary men, yet his giant frame showed no evidence of fatigue, as he helped to raise his ebon warriors to the hill top with the rope that had been brought for the purpose. Six times he had returned to the treasure chamber, and six times Werper, the Belgian, had cowered in the black shadows at the far end of the long vault. Once again came the ape-man, and this time there came with him fifty fighting men, turning porters for love of the only creature in the world who might command of their fierce and haughty natures such menial service. Fifty-two more ingots passed out of the vaults, making the total of one hundred which Tarzan intended taking away with him. As the last of the Waziri filed from the chamber, Tarzan turned back for a last glimpse of the fabulous wealth upon which his two inroads had made no appreciable impression. Before he extinguished the single candle he had brought with him for the purpose, and the flickering light of which had cast the first alleviating rays into the impenetrable darkness of the buried chamber, that it had known for the countless ages since it had lain forgotten of man, Tarzan’s mind reverted to that first occasion upon which he had entered the treasure vault, coming upon it by chance as he fled from the pits beneath the temple, where he had been hidden by La, the High Priestess of the Sun Worshipers. He recalled the scene within the temple when he had lain stretched upon the sacrificial altar, while La, with high-raised dagger, stood above him, and the rows of priests and priestesses awaited, in the ecstatic hysteria of fanaticism, the first gush of their victim’s warm blood, that they might fill their golden goblets and drink to the glory of their Flaming God. The brutal and bloody interruption by Tha, the mad priest, passed vividly before the ape-man’s recollective eyes, the flight of the votaries before the insane blood lust of the hideous creature, the brutal attack upon La, and his own part of the grim tragedy when he had battled with the infuriated Oparian and left him dead at the feet of the priestess he would have profaned. This and much more passed through Tarzan’s memory as he stood gazing at the long tiers of dull-yellow metal. He wondered if La still ruled the temples of the ruined city whose crumbling walls rose upon the very foundations about him. Had she finally been forced into a union with one of her grotesque priests? It seemed a hideous fate, indeed, for one so beautiful. With a shake of his head, Tarzan stepped to the flickering candle, extinguished its feeble rays and turned toward the exit. Behind him the spy waited for him to be gone. He had learned the secret for which he had come, and now he could return at his leisure to his waiting followers, bring them to the treasure vault and carry away all the gold that they could stagger under. The Waziri had reached the outer end of the tunnel, and were winding upward toward the fresh air and the welcome starlight of the kopje’s summit, before Tarzan shook off the detaining hand of reverie and started slowly after them. Once again, and, he thought, for the last time, he closed the massive door of the treasure room. In the darkness behind him Werper rose and stretched his cramped muscles. He stretched forth a hand and lovingly caressed a golden ingot on the nearest tier. He raised it from its immemorial resting place and weighed it in his hands. He clutched it to his bosom in an ecstasy of avarice. Tarzan dreamed of the happy homecoming which lay before him, of dear arms about his neck, and a soft cheek pressed to his; but there rose to dispel that dream the memory of the old witch-doctor and his warning. And then, in the span of a few brief seconds, the hopes of both these men were shattered. The one forgot even his greed in the panic of terror—the other was plunged into total forgetfulness of the past by a jagged fragment of rock which gashed a deep cut upon his head. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Edgar Rice Burroughs (1993). Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/92/pg92-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.

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