ModernTax

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Introducing Our New JavaScript Standard Library

This story was originally published on by and . and contributed reporting. ProPublica Isaac Arnsdorf Ryan Gabrielson Mollie Simon Caroline Chen President Joe Biden has to immunize every American against COVID-19, and his administration says it’s using the full force of the federal government to get the doses . There’s a reason he can’t promise them sooner. ordered enough vaccines by July Vaccine supply chains are extremely specialized and sensitive, relying on expensive machinery, highly trained staff and finicky ingredients. Manufacturers have run into intermittent shortages of key materials, according to the ; the combination of surging demand and workforce disruptions from the pandemic has caused delays of four to 12 weeks for items that used to ship within a week, much like what happened when consumers were sent scrambling for household staples like , and . U.S. Government Accountability Office flour chicken wings toilet paper People often question why the administration can’t use the mighty Defense Production Act — which empowers the government to demand critical supplies before anyone else — to turbocharge production. But that law has its limits. Each time a manufacturer adds new equipment or a new raw materials supplier, they are required to run extensive tests to ensure the hardware or ingredients consistently work as intended, then submit data to the Food and Drug Administration. Adding capacity “doesn’t happen in a blink of an eye,” said Jennifer Pancorbo, director of industry programs and research at North Carolina State University’s Biomanufacturing Training and Education Center. “It takes a good chunk of weeks.” And adding supplies at any one point only helps if production can be expanded up and down the entire chain. “Thousands of components may be needed,” said Gerald W. Parker, director of the Pandemic and Biosecurity Policy Program at Texas A&M University’s Scowcroft Institute for International Affairs and a former senior official in the Department of Health and Human Services office for preparedness and response. “You can’t just turn on the Defense Production Act and make it happen.” The U.S. doesn’t have spare facilities waiting around to manufacture vaccines, or other kinds of factories that could be converted the way last year. General Motors began producing ventilators The GAO said the Army Corps of Engineers is helping to expand existing vaccine facilities, but it can’t be done overnight. Building new capacity would take two to three months, at which point the new production lines would still face weeks of testing to ensure they were able to make the vaccine doses correctly before the companies could start delivering more shots. “It’s not like making shoes,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview with ProPublica. “And the reason I use that somewhat tongue-in-cheek analogy is that people say, ‘Ah, you know what we should do? We should get the DPA to build another factory in a week and start making mRNA.’ Well, by the time a new factory can get geared up to make the mRNA vaccine exactly according to the very, very strict guidelines and requirements of the FDA ... we already will have in our hands the 600 million doses between Moderna and Pfizer that we contracted for. It would almost be too late.” Fauci added that the DPA works best for “facilitating something rather than building something from scratch.” The Trump administration deployed the Defense Production Act to give vaccine manufacturers priority in accessing crucial production supplies before anyone else could buy them. last year And the Biden administration used it to help Pfizer obtain specialized needles that can squeeze a sixth dose from the company’s vials, as well as for two critical manufacturing components: filling pumps and tangential flow filtration units. The pumps help supply the lipid nanoparticles that hold and protect the mRNA — the vaccines’ active ingredient, so to speak — and also fill vials with finished vaccine. The filtration units remove unneeded solutions and other materials used in the manufacturing process. These highly precise pieces of equipment are not typically available on demand, said Matthew Johnson, senior director of product management at Duke University’s Human Vaccine Institute, who works on developing mRNA vaccines, but not for COVID-19. “Right now, there is so much growth in biopharmaceuticals, plus the pinch of the pandemic,” he said. “Many equipment suppliers are sold out of production, and even products scheduled to be made, in some cases, sold out for a year or so looking forward.” In the meantime, the shortage of vaccines is creating widespread frustration and anxiety as eligible people struggle to get appointments and millions of others wonder how long it will be before it is their turn. , the U.S. had distributed 72.4 million doses and administered 56.3 million shots, but fewer than 16 million people have received both of the two doses that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require for full protection. As of Feb. 17 The Biden administration has said it is increasing vaccine shipments to states by 20%, to 13.5 million doses a week, and encouraged states to give out all their shots instead of holding on to some for second doses. But now that second-dose appointments are coming due, many jurisdictions are having to focus on those and stepping back from vaccinating uninoculated people. Even as the total number of vaccinations increased last week, the number of first doses fell to 6.8 million people, down from 7.8 million three weeks ago, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. At best, it will take until June for manufacturers to deliver enough doses for the roughly 266 million eligible Americans age 16 and over, according to public statements by the companies. That includes expected deliveries of Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose vaccine, which is widely expected to win emergency authorization from the FDA shortly after a public advisory committee meeting on Feb. 26. But Johnson & Johnson has fallen behind in manufacturing. The company told the it will have only 2 million doses ready to go by the time the vaccine is authorized, whereas its $1 billion with HHS scheduled 12 million doses by the end of February. GAO contract It’s not clear what held up Johnson & Johnson’s production line; the company has benefited from first-priority purchases thanks to the DPA, according to a senior executive close to the manufacturing process. A Johnson & Johnson spokesman declined to comment on the cause of the delay, but said the company still expects to ship 100 million U.S. doses by July. Vaccine supply won’t cover all Americans until late spring, at best Public statements from vaccine developers Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson illustrate how many people could be covered by the available U.S. supply from now until the end of the summer. Sources: , company press releases and statements, news reports, . Information as of Feb. 16. U.S. Census 2020 Demographic Analysis estimates GAO Moderna declined to comment on “operational aspects” of its manufacturing, but “does remain confident in our ability to meet contracted quantities” of its vaccine to the U.S. and other nations, a spokesperson said in a statement. Pfizer did not respond to ProPublica’s written questions. Ramping up production is especially challenging for Pfizer and Moderna, whose vaccines use an mRNA technology that’s never been mass-produced before. The companies started production even before they finished trials to see if the vaccines worked, another historic first. But it wasn’t as if they could instantly crank out millions of vaccines full blast, since they effectively had to invent a novel manufacturing process. “Putting together plans 12 months ago for a Phase 1 and 2 trial, and making enough to dose a couple hundred patients, was a big deal for the raw material suppliers,” said Johnson, the product manager at Duke University’s vaccine institute. “It's just going from dosing hundreds of patients a year ago to a billion.” Raw materials for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are also in limited supply. The manufacturing process begins by using common gut bacteria cells to grow something called “plasmids” — standalone snippets of DNA — that contain instructions to make the vaccine’s genetic material, said Pancorbo, the North Carolina State University biomanufacturing expert. Next, specific enzymes cultivated from bacteria are added to cause a chemical reaction that assembles the strands of mRNA, Pancorbo said. Those strands are then packaged in lipid nanoparticles, microscopic bubbles of fat made using petroleum or plant oils. The fat bubbles protect the genetic material inside the human body and help deliver it to the cells. Only a few firms specialize in making these ingredients, which have previously been sold by the kilogram, Pancorbo said. But they’re now needed by the metric ton — a thousandfold increase. Moderna and Pfizer need bulk, but also the highest possible quality. “There are a number of organizations that make these enzymes and these nucleotides and lipids, but they might not make it in a grade that is satisfactory for human consumption,” Pancorbo said. “It might be a grade that is satisfactory for animal consumption or research. But for injection into a human? That’s a different thing.” Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine follows a slightly more traditional method of growing cells in large tanks called bioreactors. This takes time, and the slightest contamination can spoil a whole batch. Since the process deals with living things, it can be more like growing plants than making shoes. “Maximizing yield is as much of an art as it is a science, as the manufacturing process itself is dependent on biological processes,” said Parker, the former HHS official. The vaccine developers are continuing to find tweaks that can expedite production without cutting corners. Pfizer is now delivering six doses in each vial instead of five, and Moderna has asked for permission to fill each of its bottles with 15 doses, up from 10. If regulators approve, it would take two or three months to change over production, Moderna spokesman Ray Jordan said on Feb. 13. “It helps speed up and lighten the logistical side of getting vaccines out,” said Lawrence Ganti, president of SiO2, an Alabama company that makes glass vials for the Moderna vaccine. SiO2 expanded production with in funding from the federal government last year, and Ganti said there aren’t any hiccups at his end of the line. $143 million Despite the possibility of sporadic bottlenecks and delays in the coming months, companies appear to have lined up their supply chains to the point that they’re comfortable with their ability to meet current production targets. Massachusetts-based Snapdragon Chemistry received almost $700,000 from HHS' Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to develop a new way of producing ribonucleoside triphosphates (NTPs), a key raw material for mRNA vaccines. Snapdragon’s technology uses a continuous production line, rather than the traditional process of making batches in big vats, so it’s easier to scale up by simply keeping production running for a longer time. Suppliers have told Snapdragon that they have their raw materials covered for now, according to Matthew Bio, the company’s president and CEO. “They’re saying, ‘We have established suppliers to meet the demand we have for this year,’” Bio said. Photo by on Mufid Majnun Unsplash

Why Making Vaccine Doses Is a Slow Process

This is by (source: ). Sollozzo is the co-host of The Meat Mafia Podcast. Twitter Thread Sollozzo @MrSollozzo 04-11-2022 12 Visuals that show why 70% of Americans are overweight or obese. 🧵 10 companies control almost all of the industrial food we eat. 70% of our crops are Genetically Modified (GMO). 4 Meat Packers control 80% of all meat that we consume. They undercharge the rancher and overcharge you the consumer. There is an overabundance of processed foods, including 47,000 products in your average grocery store. Our Doctors have become legalized drugs dealers and overprescribe medication rather than getting to the root cause of our illnesses. Our Pharmaceutical companies control our food (seed) supply. We broke the back of our small farmer and incentivized farms to be as large as possible. Look up Earl Butz to find out more. We demonize Saturated Fat (which we have eaten for thousands of years) and have replace it with Refined Grains and Sugars. The average American eats 130 pounds of sugar per year. We have replaced natural cooking fats (Ghee, Tallow, Butter) with Industrial Vegetable Oils made in a factory. We think that Fake Plant commodities like Beyond Meat are a healthier source than pure animal protein. 12: You've never shaken your local farmer's hand. They are incentivized to provide us with the best quality food possible. CC: @modernTman Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this thread and found it helpful, please RT the first tweet. And if you want to see me breakdown more Animal-based nutrition hit the follow button and and subscribe to our newsletter: @MrSollozzo @carniclemenza https://the-meat-mafia.ghost.io Feature image generated via Prompt of ‘Here's Why 70% of Americans Are Overweight or Obese’ HackerNoon Stable Diffusion

Here's Why 70% of Americans Are Overweight or Obese

This story was originally published on by . ProPublica Duaa Eldeib Even before the COVID-19 vaccine was authorized, there was a plan to discredit it. Leaders in the anti-vaccination movement attended an online conference in October 2020 — two months before the first shot was administered — where one speaker presented on “The 5 Reasons You Might Want to Avoid a COVID-19 Vaccine” and another referred to the “untested, unproven, very toxic vaccines.” But that was only the beginning. Misinformation seeped into every corner of social media, onto and into Instagram images, and Twitter posts. Pregnant people emerged as a target. Facebook feeds pregnancy apps A disinformation campaign preyed on their vulnerability, exploiting a deep psychological need to protect their unborn children at a moment when so much of the country was already gripped by fear. “It’s just so powerful,” said Imran Ahmed, the founder and chief executive officer of the U.S. nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate, which tracks online disinformation. A majority of the disinformation came from a group of highly organized, economically motivated actors, many of them selling supplements, books or even miracle cures, he said. They told people the vaccine may harm their unborn child or deprive them of the opportunity to become parents. Some even infiltrated online pregnancy groups and asked seemingly harmless questions, such as whether people had heard the vaccine could potentially lead to infertility. The Center for Countering Digital Hate found that nearly 70% of anti-vaccination content could be traced to 12 people, whom they dubbed . They reached millions of people and tested their messaging online, Ahmed said, to see what was most effective — what was most frequently shared or liked — in real time. The Disinformation Dozen “The unregulated and unmoderated effects of social media where people are allowed to spread disinformation at scale without consequences meant that this took hold very fast,” Ahmed said. “That’s had a huge effect on women deciding not to take the vaccine.” Some people, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., seized on the initial dearth of research into vaccines in pregnant people. “With no data showing COVID vaccines are safe for pregnant women, and despite reports of miscarriages among women who have received the experimental Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, Fauci and other health officials advise pregnant women to get the vaccine,” Kennedy posted in February 2021 on Facebook. Kennedy did not respond to requests for comment. Disinformation flourished, in part, because . Excluding pregnant people also omitted them from the data on the vaccine’s safety, which created a vacuum where disinformation spread. pregnant people were not included in the vaccine’s initial clinical trials Unsure about how getting the shots might affect their pregnancy — and without clear guidance at the time from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — pregnant people last year had some of the lowest vaccination rates among adults. The decision to delay or avoid vaccination, often made out of an abundance of caution and love for the baby growing inside of them, had dire consequences: Unvaccinated women who contracted COVID-19 while pregnant were at a higher risk of stillbirths — the death of a fetus at 20 weeks or more of pregnancy — and several other complications, including maternal death. Although initial clinical trials did not include pregnant people, the Food and Drug Administration ensured that vaccines met a host of regulatory safety standards before authorizing them. Citing numerous studies that have since come out showing the vaccine is safe, that people who are pregnant, breastfeeding or planning to become pregnant get vaccinated. the CDC now strongly recommends The major obstetric organizations, including and the , also urge pregnant people to get vaccinated. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine But two and a half years into the pandemic, misinformation is proving resilient. A May 2022 found more than 70% of pregnant people or those planning to become pregnant believed or were unsure whether to believe at least one of the following popular examples of misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine: that pregnant people should not get vaccinated; that it’s unsafe to get vaccinated while breastfeeding; or that the vaccine has been shown to cause infertility. None of which are true. Kaiser Family Foundation poll Dr. Laura Morris, a University of Missouri, Columbia family physician who delivers babies, has heard all those falsehoods and more from her patients. She has long relied on science to help encourage them to make well-informed decisions. But when officials rolled out the vaccine, she found herself without her most powerful tool, data. The disinformation didn’t have to completely convince people that the vaccine was dangerous; creating doubt often was sufficient. “That level of uncertainty is enough to knock them off the path to accepting vaccination,” Morris said. “Instead of seeing vaccines as something that will make them healthier and improve their pregnancy outcomes, they haven’t received the right information to make them feel confident that this is actually healthy.” Before COVID-19, Morris typically saw one stillbirth every couple of years. Since the pandemic started, she said she has been seeing them more often. All followed a COVID-19 diagnosis in an unvaccinated patient just weeks before they were due. Not only did Morris have to deliver the painful news that their baby had died, she also told them that the outcome might have been different had they been vaccinated. Some, she said, felt betrayed at having believed the lies surrounding the vaccine. “You have to have that conversation very carefully,” Morris said, “because this is a time where the people are feeling awful and grieving and there’s a lot of guilt associated with these situations that’s not deserved.” In December 2021, the Federation of State Medical Boards found a proliferation of misinformation about COVID-19 among health care workers. Two-thirds of state medical boards reported an increase in complaints about misinformation, but fewer than 1 in 4 of them reported disciplining the doctors or other health care workers. Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, an osteopath, was the speaker at the October 2020 conference who called the COVID-19 vaccine “toxic.” She later on the Enact Vaccine Choice and Anti-Discrimination Act. She falsely claimed that the vaccine could magnetize people. testified at an Ohio state House Health Committee hearing “They can put a key on their forehead, it sticks,” she said. “They can put spoons and forks all over them, and they could stick.” She also questioned the connection between the vaccine and 5G towers. Despite her statements, the State Medical Board of Ohio has not taken any disciplinary action against her. Her medical license remains active. Tenpenny did not respond to requests for comment. It’s difficult to know exactly how many doctors were disciplined, a term that can mean anything from sending them letters of guidance to revoking their license. State medical boards in some cases refused to disclose even the number of complaints received. Some records were made public if formal disciplinary action was taken, as in the case of Dr. Mark Brody. The Rhode Island physician sent a letter to his patients that the state medical board determined contained several falsehoods, including claims that “there exists the possibility of sterilizing all females in the population who receive the vaccination.” The Rhode Island Board of Medical Licensure and Discipline reprimanded him for the letter, then suspended his medical license after other professional conduct issues were uncovered. He surrendered his license in December. Brody said in an interview that he stands by the letter. He said the word “misinformation” has been politicized and used to discredit statements with which people disagree. “This term doesn’t really apply to science,” he said, “because science is an ever-evolving field where today’s misinformation is tomorrow’s information.” The Washington Medical Commission has received more than 50 complaints about COVID-19 misinformation since the start of the pandemic, a spokesperson there said. California does not track misinformation complaints specifically, but a Medical Board of California spokesperson said that, in that same time period, the group received more than 1,300 COVID-19-related complaints. They included everything from fraudulent promotion of unproven medications to the spreading of misinformation. “We were certainly surprised that more than half of boards said they had seen an increase in complaints about false or misleading information,” said Joe Knickrehm, vice president of communications for the Federation of State Medical Boards, which in April adopted a policy stating that “false information is harmful and dangerous to patients, and to the public trust in the medical profession.” Other groups, including The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, warned doctors about spreading misinformation. In October, the organization asked its members to sign a letter endorsing the COVID-19 vaccine, writing that “the spread of misinformation and mistrust in doctors and science is contributing to staggeringly low vaccination rates among pregnant people.” But the letter was never published. “We didn’t achieve the numbers we had hoped,” a spokesperson for the organization said, “and did not want to release it if it was not going to be compelling to patients.” The fact that some medical professionals have been spreading disinformation or failing to engage with their patients about the vaccine is profoundly disappointing, said Dr. Rachel Villanueva, a clinical assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine and president of the National Medical Association, which represents Black doctors. Research has shown that hearing directly from a health care provider can increase the likelihood that patients get vaccinated. And doctors, Villanueva said, have a responsibility to tell their patients the benefits of getting vaccinated and the risks of choosing not to. She has explained to her patients that although the vaccine development program was named Operation Warp Speed, for example, manufacturers followed proper safety protocols. “Before COVID, there already existed a baseline distrust of the health care system, especially for women of color, feeling marginalized and feeling dismissed in the health care system,” she said. “I think that just compounded the already lack of confidence that existed in the system.” Photo by on Camylla Battani Unsplash

The Misinformation Surrounding COVID Vaccines and Pregnancies

DynaCLI (Dynamic CLI) is a cloud-friendly, open source library for converting pure Python functions into Linux Shell commands. This article explains how makes writing Command Line Interfaces in Python easy and efficient, using as an example a function to generate a QR code that records a person’s vaccination status. DynaCLI This is a continuation of the article , which describes how to use different Python libraries like , , , , and to build CLI applications. To understand the motivations and use cases for DynaCLI, read the . To learn the differences between DynaCLI and alternatives, refer to . How to Write User-friendly Command Line Interfaces in Python argparse Click Typer docopt Fire Medium interview DynaCLI vs. Alternatives Motivation The basic idea behind DynaCLI is to accelerate and automate the process of building CLI applications as much as possible by focusing solely on Python code. Function arguments are converted to CLI commands, and DynaCLI generates help messages from the Python function docstrings. We’ll demonstrate this approach by generating a QR code that indicates a person’s vaccination status. Sounds interesting? Let’s start exploring… A conventional CLI building process Building CLIs, in general, is a two-step process: first, write the core code and, second, develop the CLI predefined as a set of arguments, as shown below. Let’s start by looking at the code from the original, reference ). article In this snippet, they are first writing methods to implement the core code. from dataclasses import dataclass, field, asdict
import requests
import shutil
from datetime import datetime

class ValidationException(Exception):
    pass

@dataclass
class Vaccination:
    manufacturer: str
    date: str

    def __post_init__(self):
        try:
            date = datetime.strptime(self.date, "%Y-%m-%d")
        except Exception:
            raise ValidationException("Vaccination date should be in format YYYY-MM-DD.")
        if date > datetime.today():
            raise ValidationException("Vaccination date should not be a future date.")
        if self.manufacturer.lower() not in ["pfizer","moderna","astrazeneca","janssen","sinovac"]:
            raise ValidationException("Your vaccine manufacturer is not approved.")

@dataclass
class QRCode:
    name: str
    birth: str
    vaccine: list[Vaccination] = field(default_factory=list)

def generate_qr_code(qr_code):
    code = asdict(qr_code)
    res = requests.get(f"http://api.qrserver.com/v1/create-qr-code/?data={code}", stream=True)
    if res.status_code == 200:
        with open("qr_code.png", "wb") as f:
            res.raw.decode_content = True
            shutil.copyfileobj(res.raw, f)
        return "QR code has been generated."
    else:
        raise Exception("QR code cannot be generated by QR Code Generator API.") Following that is the code needed to build the CLI. This example uses the argparse library (code snippet from the referenced article): def main():
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="Generate your vaccination QR code.")
    parser.add_argument("-n", "--name", type=str, help="Your name", required=True)
    parser.add_argument("-b", "--birth", type=str, help="Your birthday in YYYY-MM-DD format", required=True)
    parser.add_argument("-m", "--manufacturer", type=str, nargs="+", help="The vaccine manufacturer", required=True, choices=[
            "pfizer","moderna","astrazeneca","janssen","sinovac"])
    parser.add_argument("-d", "--date", type=str, nargs="+", help="The date of vaccination", required=True)
    args = parser.parse_args()
    
    if len(args.manufacturer) != len(args.date):
        logging.error(
            "The number of vaccine manufacturer doesn't match with the number of vaccine dates."
        )
        exit(1)
    
    qr_code = QRCode(name=args.name, birth=args.birth, vaccine=[Vaccination(args.manufacturer[i], args.date[i]) for i in range(len(args.date))])
    generate_qr_code(qr_code)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    try:
        main()
    except ValidationException as e:
        logging.error(e)
    except Exception as e:
        logging.exception(e) CLI Designing with DynaCLI With DynaCLI, we can skip the second part by designing our functions to be CLI-friendly. Functionally, the core logic is the same. To demonstrate the differences, we will update the original code as shown below. Before that, just quickly install DynaCLI to get ready: pip3 install dynacli Restructuring First of all, we would like to restructure the code. Thinking about the CLI design, there should be then feature-set (the actual Python package), which is for storing all commands, followed by to output the actual QR codes: ./qr-code green-badge generate $ tree green_badge -I __pycache__ green_badge
├── generate.py
└── __init__.py From the original code, we know that the vaccine manufacturers are a limited set of companies; this kind of information is a good fit for type Enum. from enum import Enum

class Manufacturer(Enum):
    pfizer = 1
    moderna = 2
    astrazeneca = 3
    janssen = 4
    sinovac = 5 Alternatively, we can use . I am going to use Enum here instead of Literal. By choosing this approach, we add some defensive control on input data as Enum will automatically validate the data without any redundant custom validator. Literal Therefore, we do not need a manufacturer validation inside anymore and can remove it. Going further, the whole purpose of here is validation, so we can replace this with . __post_init__ @dataclass TypedDict Our updated code file looks like this: generate.py class Vaccination(TypedDict):
    date: date
    manufacturer: Manufacturer


class QRCode(TypedDict):
    name: str
    birth: str
    vaccinations: list[Vaccination] CLI Building The second big step is to design the actual function in a way that it is going to accept all the necessary information as arguments: generate def generate(first_name: str, last_name: str, birth_date: str,  **vaccinations: Manufacturer) -> None:
    """
    Generate your vaccination QR code.

    Args:
        first_name (str): name of the vaccinated person
        last_name (str): surname of the vaccindate person
        birth_date (str): birthday of the vaccinated person in YYYY-MM-DD format
        **vaccinations (Manufacturer): vaccination information as date=manufacturer 

    Return: None
    """
    # TODO: handle duplicate or wrong dates.
    qr_code = QRCode(
        name=f"{first_name} {last_name}",
        birth=birth_date,
        vaccinations=[
            Vaccination(manufacturer=manufacturer, date=datetime.strptime(date, "%Y-%m-%d"))
            for date, manufacturer in vaccinations.items()
        ],
    )
    res = requests.get(
        f"http://api.qrserver.com/v1/create-qr-code/?data={qr_code}", stream=True
    )
    if res.status_code != 200:
        raise Exception("QR code cannot be generated by QR Code Generator API.")
    with open("qr_code.png", "wb") as f:
        res.raw.decode_content = True
        shutil.copyfileobj(res.raw, f)
    print("QR code has been generated.") Ideally, it should print a nice error message if one of the vaccination pairs contains wrong or duplicate date — but for the sake of simplicity, we just skip this step. The major change is that we are going to accept the date and the manufacturer name as key-value pairs. This is quite intuitive, isn’t it? The CLI call will look something like this: ./qr-code green-badge generate John Doe 1989-10-24 2021-01-01=pfizer 2021-06-01=pfizer The next important difference is that DynaCLI populates help messages from the docstrings in the methods containing the explanation of the arguments. …You are right, this is quite Pythonic; if the explanations are already added once, why not use the same information to build the help messages in the CLI. The rest of the code is the same — functionally the code logic is unchanged. CLI Entrypoint Now as the last step, we create the CLI entry point with DynaCLI. We have already provided the bootstrapper script, all you need is to provide the path for command: dynacli $ dynacli init qr-code path=. Successfully created CLI entrypoint qr-code at /home/ssm-user/OSS/medium-articles/how_to_convert_python_functions/code It will fill the qr-code script with some boilerplate, starter code, you need just change commented portions, in order to have a customized version of your CLI: #!/usr/bin/env python3

"""
DynaCLI bootstrap script # Change me
"""


import os
import sys
from typing import Final

from dynacli import main

cwd = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__))

__version__: Final[str] = "0.0.0" # Change me to define your own version


search_path = [cwd] # Change me if you have different path; you can add multiple search pathes
sys.path.extend(search_path)
# root_packages = ['cli.dev', 'cli.admin'] # Change me if you have predefined root package name
# main(search_path, root_packages) # Uncomment if you have root_packages defined

main(search_path) Change the commented sections, remove redundant comments and you are ready to go: #!/usr/bin/env python3

"""
Sample QR Generator
"""

import os
import sys

from dynacli import main

cwd = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__))

__version__ = '1.0'


search_path = [cwd]
sys.path.extend(search_path)

main(search_path) As you must have already noticed, there is no CLI pre-processing, adding arguments, version callback, etc. Everything is dead simple Python. DynaCLI grabs the version from and the CLI name from the `qr_code` docstring. version That’s it — the changes are done and we are ready to run the CLI. Getting help output: $ ./qr-code -h

usage: qr-code [-h] [-v] {green-badge} ...

Sample QR Generator

positional arguments:
  {green-badge}
    green-badge  Generate Green Badge

optional arguments:
  -h, --help     show this help message and exit
  -v, --version  show program's version number and exit The help message comes from the package file: green-badge __init__.py $ cat green_badge/__init__.py """
Generate Green Badge
""" __version__ = "2.0" Getting the version of the CLI itself: $ ./qr-code --version qr-code - v1.0 Now, let’s think about a different situation when you are porting an already developed package to be exposed by the CLI, and it has its own version set to v2.0. Should it mess with the CLI version? It is not ideal to have a single version for the package and the CLI. With DynaCLI, you can version your packages and even modules. Again, it is quite Pythonic: just add to package and to the module itself. __version__ __init__.py generate.py $ ./qr-code green-badge --version qr-code green-badge - v2.0 $ ./qr-code green-badge generate --version qr-code green-badge generate - v3.0 DynaCLI detects and the function in it. Only public names are exposed by the CLI and the function docstring is used to register the help message. generate.py generate Here, we would like to stress that, with DynaCLI, there is no need to begin writing things from scratch and redo the whole code. All you need is to import already existing functionality to an intermediate representation as we did in and register it in the CLI. generate.py This effectively conforms to the , where your original code is closed to modification but is open to being extended via CLI. Open/Closed Principle Our final version of looks like: generate.py import shutil
import requests

from datetime import date, datetime
from typing import Literal, TypedDict
from enum import Enum


__version__ = "3.0"


class Manufacturer(Enum):
    pfizer = 1
    moderna = 2
    astrazeneca = 3
    janssen = 4
    sinovac = 5


class Vaccination(TypedDict):
    date: date
    manufacturer: Manufacturer


class QRCode(TypedDict):
    name: str
    birth: str
    vaccinations: list[Vaccination]


def generate(first_name: str, last_name: str, birth_date: str,  **vaccinations: Manufacturer) -> None:
    """
    Generate your vaccination QR code.

    Args:
        first_name (str): name of the vaccinated person
        last_name (str): surname of the vaccindate person
        birth_date (str): birthday of the vaccinated person in YYYY-MM-DD format
        **vaccinations (Manufacturer): vaccination information as date=manufacturer 

    Return: None
    """
    # TODO: handle duplicate or wrong dates.
    qr_code = QRCode(
        name=f"{first_name} {last_name}",
        birth=birth_date,
        vaccinations=[
            Vaccination(manufacturer=manufacturer, date=datetime.strptime(date, "%Y-%m-%d"))
            for date, manufacturer in vaccinations.items()
        ],
    )
    res = requests.get(
        f"http://api.qrserver.com/v1/create-qr-code/?data={qr_code}", stream=True
    )
    if res.status_code != 200:
        raise Exception("QR code cannot be generated by QR Code Generator API.")
    with open("qr_code.png", "wb") as f:
        res.raw.decode_content = True
        shutil.copyfileobj(res.raw, f)
    print("QR code has been generated.") You can get help about the command(it is our Python function in fact) using: $ ./qr-code green-badge generate -h

usage: qr-code green-badge generate [-h] [-v] first_name last_name birth_date [vaccinations <name>=<value> ...]

positional arguments:
  first_name            name of the vaccinated person
  last_name             surname of the vaccindate person
  birth_date            birthday of the vaccinated person in YYYY-MM-DD format
  vaccinations <name>=<value>
                        vaccination information as date=manufacturer ['pfizer', 'moderna', 'astrazeneca', 'janssen', 'sinovac']

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -v, --version         show program's version number and exit In summary, the in this sample included: highlights of using DynaCLI We did not add or register any help messages — they were grabbed from the function docstrings. DynaCLI detects and registers them as pair. **kwargs <name>=<value> No special CLI pre-processing, adding arguments, or version callbacks were required. Now, it is time to run the command and generate a QR code with the arguments provided: $ ./qr-code green-badge generate Shako Rzayev 1989-10-24 2021-01-01=pfizer 2021-06-01=pfizer

QR code has been generated. That’s it. We have focused only on the core functionality, simplified basic features of a CLI application, and reshaped it to be more user-friendly. That’s how CLIs should be! The source code: how_to_convert_python_functions/code DynaCLI is an open source offering from BST LABS. Our goal is to make it easier for organizations to realize the full potential of cloud computing through a range of open source and commercial offerings. We are best known for , the Cloud AI Operating System, a development platform featuring Infrastructure-from-Code technology. BST LABS is a software engineering unit of . CAIOS BlackSwan Technologies

How to Build a User-Friendly CLI from Pure Python Functions

Oh Yeah, I've Heard of Algolia Before

Updated on January 12th, 2021 Since the publication of this report, multiple vaccines have gained approval and the largest-ever global vaccination campaign is rolling out, with nearly 30 million vaccine doses administered to people in over 40 countries.  However, this hasn’t stopped dark net vendors from touting fake offers of vaccines. In fact, the opposite has happened: the numbers of vaccine advertisements has exploded and the asking prices have doubled or even quadrupled. We believe this is because of a spike in demand from individuals who don’t wish to wait weeks or months to receive their vaccination from their countries’ governments. In the past month, we noticed that a dark net search for Covid-19 vaccines returns multiple pages of results, amounting to hundreds of advertisements, presenting an overall 400%-plus increase since early December. The screenshot below shows a simple search query that returned over 340 advertisements, in 34 pages, compared to just 8 pages of results from a similar query we ran early December. The prices of vaccines have also risen sharply. In our previous report we saw an average median price tag of $250. Now our research shows vendors have now doubled or even quadrupled their prices, asking $500 or even up to $1000 for an unspecified dose. The range of vaccine brands has also changed. Before approved vaccines started to be distributed globally, we saw sellers offering ‘made in China’ vaccines, which were unbranded and not FDA approved. Since the distribution of FDA-approved brands globally, most sellers are now advertising selling these as named brands, or simply not specifying the vaccine’s brand. To test how trustworthy a dark net transaction is, our researchers placed an order for a vaccine dose from a vendor, using Telegram for the interaction. We got the vendor’s contact details and phone number via a dark net forum and contacted them via their Telegram user name. We were offered a Chinese vaccine – with the price tag of $750. We made the payment using Bitcoin, sent our delivery address and asked for the shipment details. After a few days with no response, we received a message from the vendor saying the vaccine had been shipped to our address. A few days later, the vendor’s account was deleted and – you guessed it – we are still waiting to receive our package. This is just one example, but you can perhaps draw your own conclusions about how reliable a dark net transaction is likely to be. We also noticed that several vendors claim to supply vaccine doses in bulk, not just single shots. One of the vendors we communicated with claimed to be able to sell an order totaling in 10,000 vials, enough for 5000 people (every vaccine needs to be delivered in two doses, 21 days apart). Due to the size of the shipment the vendor suggested shipping it in 3 – 4 different shipments, at a total price of $30,000. Based on our experience of attempting to purchase a single dose, it is likely that a buyer would  never receive anything at all, let alone genuine approved vaccines. Published December 11th, 2020 Range of counterfeit coronavirus vaccines and medicines offered on darknet Vaccine-related phishing campaigns take advantage of the global race to deliver the shots Covid vaccine-related domains show sharp rise in parallel to news of successful results in clinical trials Although the Covid-19 pandemic continues to spread and disrupt our lives, societies and economies, there is now light appearing at the end of the tunnel. Several vaccines are being fast-tracked towards mass production in a race to overcome the coronavirus crisis and, in the longer term, to improve our response to future pandemics. The past year has seen an unprecedented global effort to develop shots that will bring the pandemic to an end, with the eyes of the world watching. Moreover, we are seeing progress. Inc. and BioNTech SE’s vaccine has already been , with other countries expected to follow suit in the coming weeks after a study showed it was 95% effective while vaccines from Inc. and the Russian Sputnik vaccine have achieved similar results, according to trial analyses. Plc and its partner, the University of Oxford, has also had favorable results for its vaccine. Pfizer approved for use in the UK Moderna AstraZeneca Unfortunately, while most of us are watching with hope, there are some watching with greed and malice in their minds, with the intent of capitalizing on people's concerns about Covid-19 and desire to be protected against the risk of catching it. Coronavirus 'medicines' and vaccines available on the dark net – at a price The news that coronavirus vaccines are now available and in the process of being administered at scale via the world countries healthcare systems has driven global interest and expectation. Yet for those who have the means and do not want to wait, there are of course vendors on the dark net claiming to have a range of vaccines for sale. Check Point Research (CPR) found a stream of posts on the dark net from sources claiming to have a range of “Coronavirus vaccines ” or “Coronavirus remedies” for sale. In fact, Europol, the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, has already issued an early notification on vaccine-related crime during the pandemic. warning The range of medicines advertised by these vendors is extensive, from “available corona virus vaccine $250” to “Say bye bye to COVID19=CHLOROQUINE PHOSPHATE”” to “Buy fast.CORONA-VIRUS VACCINE IS OUT NOW.”, and we have no way of knowing whether these are genuine. Screenshots of ads from the Darknet about covid-19 “remedies” and vaccines All of the vendors found only accept payments in bitcoin, minimizing the chance of being traced; casting further doubt on the authenticity of the medicines, they are selling. When researchers communicated with one vendor, they offered to sell an unspecified Covid-19 vaccine for 0.01 BTC (around US$300), and claimed that 14 doses were required. This advice contradicts official announcements, which state that some coronavirus vaccines two shots per person, each administered three weeks apart. require Coronavirus vaccine – just for $300 for 14 doses! (We cannot guarantee the vendor is a medical expert In this example, the seller claims to have stock from a leading pharmaceutical, a newly approved vaccine available for sale and delivery to the UK, U.S. and Spain that is just one WhatsApp or Telegram chat away! Supposed coronavirus vaccines for sale in the darknet In the following advert, we see a vendor offering Chloroquine as a regular coronavirus “treatment”, for only US$10 with the claim that “Hydroxychloroquine, a medicine for malaria that has been touted as a treatment for coronavirus.” This follows statements from outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump who touted the use of hydroxychloroquine to ward off coronavirus, in on to the advice from his own public health officials. contradicti Advert for cheap hydroxychloroquinine as a treatment for coronavirus Sharp rise in Covid-19 vaccine related domains in November November’s positive news about vaccine trials and imminent availability has also driven a surge in new web domains that relate to Covid-19 or vaccines being registered. Our data shows that since the beginning of November there were 1062 new domains, which contain the word “vaccine” that were registered, out of which 400 also contain “covid” or “corona”. 6 of these sites were found to be “suspicious”. These figures are equivalent to the previous 3 months (August, September and October) combined. New vaccine-related phishing email campaigns Besides trying to sell fake Covid-19 medications and vaccines, threat actors are also using vaccine-related news as bait for their phishing campaigns. We have previously that cyber criminals are taking advantage of vaccine developments, resulting in malspam campaigns seen in the wild. reported These emails delivered malicious .EXE files with the name that when clicked on, installs an InfoStealer capable of gathering information, such as login information, usernames and passwords from the user’s computer to enable threat actors to take over accounts. “Download_Covid 19 New approved vaccines.23.07.2020.exe” Another recent email campaign detected by Check Point Research, contained the subject “ ” (in English and Spanish) and a malicious executable file named “ ” which has been detected as . pfizer’s Covid vaccine: 11 things you need to know Covid-19 vaccine brief summary Agent Tesla Agent Tesla is an advanced RAT functioning as a keylogger and information stealer capable of monitoring and collecting a victim’s keyboard input, system clipboard, taking screenshots, and exfiltrating credentials belonging to a variety of software installed on the victim’s machine (including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Outlook email client). We expect that this vaccine-related campaign is the first of many more that will target both organizations and individuals over the coming months, as the race to deliver vaccines globally approaches the final stages. Attacks have been attributed to state-backed hackers as well as criminal groups.  Microsoft in a recent report that it has detected attempts by Russian- and North Korean-backed hackers to steal valuable data from leading pharmaceutical companies and vaccine researchers.  The company said that most of the attacks in recent months were unsuccessful, but provided no information on how many succeeded or how serious those breaches were. Chinese state-backed hackers , the U.S. government said in July while announcing criminal charges. said have also been targeting vaccine-makers Pandemic-related developments will feature in 2021’s cyber threats The Covid-19 pandemic has been a true ‘black swan’ – an ultra-rare yet high impact event that has derailed business as usual. Hackers have also sought to take advantage of the pandemic’s disruption: 58% of security professionals have reported an increase in cyber threats since lockdowns started. In a , we detailed what we expect to see in the cyber landscape over the next 12 months, and Covid-19 related issues were prominent. As Covid-19 will continue to dominate headlines, news of vaccine developments or new national restrictions will continue to be used in , just as they have been through 2020. The pharma companies developing vaccines will also continue to be targeted by from criminals or nation-states looking to exploit the situation. recent report phishing campaigns malicious attacks To protect yourself and your organization against stealthy phishing attacks, here are our tips: Check the full email address on any message you receive and be alert to hyperlinks that may contain misspellings of the actual domain name. Verify you are using a URL from an authentic website: One way to do this is to click on links in emails, and instead click on the link from the Google results page after searching for it. not Beware of lookalike domains: spelling errors in emails or websites, and unfamiliar email senders. Protect mobile and endpoint browsing with advanced cyber security solutions, which prevent browsing to malicious phishing web sites, whether known or unknown Use two-factor authentication to verify any change to account information or wire instructions Never supply login credentials or personal information in response to a text or email. Regularly monitor financial accounts. Keep all software and apps up to date. Always note the language in the email Social engineering techniques are designed to take advantage of human nature. This includes the fact that people are more likely to make mistakes when they are in a hurry and are inclined to follow the orders of people in positions of authority. commonly use these techniques to convince their targets to ignore their potential suspicions about an email and click on a link or open an attachment. : Phishing attacks Data used in this report present data detected by Check Point’s Threat Prevention technologies, stored and analyzed in . ThreatCloud provides real-time threat intelligence derived from hundreds of millions of sensors worldwide, over networks, endpoints and mobiles. The intelligence is enriched with AI-based engines and exclusive research data from the Check Point Research (CPR) – The intelligence & Research Arm of Check Point. ThreatCloud

We Looked Into Darknet's Covid-19 Vaccines Scams 

Many countries are ramping up vaccine supplies, and others are restricting supplies. The has helped bring life back to some level of normality following an uncertain turbulent year. vaccine's effectiveness Some countries, such as , which has helped to vaccinate a vast amount of the population. Other countries such as France have been much slower in the process and are currently in lockdown. UK took steps in acquiring vaccines early (Image Source: ) BBC Currently, there are three vaccines available that have shown to be effective against the virus. The three are the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine, Oxford Astrazeneca vaccine, and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines which are curated in different ways. A big part of returning to normality will require proof of vaccines which will require individuals to carry a . This proposed passport will be proof that the person has received the immunization giving them better immunity towards the virus while protecting others around them. vaccine passport Many anti-vaxxers are against the vaccine and refuse to have them, but in the broader scope of things, once travel bans are lifted along with other restrictions, only those who have vaccine passports will be free. This has birthed a new opportunity for people on the Darknet to capitalize on. Covid-19 vaccines and passports are being , as well as fake negative test papers. Vaccines are free to receive, but a dose of the AstraZeneca and other vaccines range from £300 and above for a single dose. are also being sold for around £100 by anonymous traders. sold on the dark web Fake vaccination certificates Research has suggested that there has been a sharp level of increase in the amount of vaccine-related activities on a dark web that induce adverts throughout the pandemic. There is not much to suggest if the vaccines are real or not yet, as it is too early. companies have tripled the number of adverts to more than 1,200 since January, and the sellers of the vaccines are thought to be from the UK, Spain, US, Germany, Russia, and France. However, Check Point investigators have found the documents being offered by sellers have been forged, which raises significant questions for the vaccines themselves. Cyber-security To help minimize forgery, Check Point urges countries to use and adopt QR codes across all vaccination documents that can be accessed via smart devices. Giving them validity and originality as currently, it is tough to tell the , and it is easy to duplicate. difference between a fake and an authentic document The Damage of Disinformation There is a growing concern regarding the levels of false information vaccines. Some are deliberately spreading malicious vaccine misinformation, which in reality could result in preventable deaths. circulating the Covid-19 (Image Source: ) Statista The fake news is slowly fueling public concerns and the possible side effects of the vaccine available, preventing a vast amount of people from . For this reason, governments worldwide need to think of ways to help regulate this type of speech and content which can be damaging. getting the vaccine There is a significant relationship between public health and social media. As we know, social media platforms are free and accessible, which means information on them is unlikely to be vetted, unlike news and national media sources. Social media can become a breeding ground for fake information, which can be very influential, especially if this who have a big following. information comes from influencers Vaccines are already a dividing subject with a clear split. You are either for or against it. There has been a range of myths that have come to light regarding getting the vaccine, which has scared many off; these include the vaccine can cause autism or infertility. This type of information is not only damaging to public health, but its response can be tiring, having to continually convince everyone the vaccine is safe and effective, eating away a lot of time and money. Vaccines are playing a vital role in helping to overcome the effects of the pandemic. It is essential to gain an understanding of the vaccines and how they work while playing a pivotal role in society to help build a defense against Covid-19 and any other viruses that could be lurking.

Vaccine Passports Sold on The Dark Web

“It’s always Day 1” This oft repetitive humdrum anyone remotely familiar with the world of technology is certainly familiar with, Bezos has to promote customer obsession, resisting proxies, embracing external trends & high-velocity decision making. popularised My plebeian interpretation of this ‘Silicon Valley’ cliché is: The mentality to withstand in a dynamic global business environment & the need to in order to survive. the constant change innovate & reinvent oneself This is a weekly newsletter focussing on the story of building our Future & moving the needle, ever so slightly. “Progress”, Technological Growth & the legendary Startups I will analyze this from the lens of an amateur economist & my experiences working with & building high-growth startups in the SF Bay Area & India. Thanks for your interest & enjoy reading! PS: Would appreciate it if you could subscribe to my Substack if you enjoyed this. John Gast’s magnum opus “American Progress” (1872)* * , the cultural belief that settlers were destined to expand West across America & spread democracy & capitalism, fuelled the drive towards a prosperous future & helped create the quintessential notion of “the American Dream”. Manifest destiny Arguably, Silicon Valley as we know it wouldn’t exist if this belief fell through the cracks. Hello 👋 Welcome to The “Progress” Report. While I write this, we are still in the midst of a global pandemic, COVID-19, which has brought global healthcare infrastructure, economic systems & most importantly humanity to its knees. Meanwhile, innovations like , pioneered by the likes of BioNTech & Moderna actually developed a vaccination to the novel virus in a mere 2 days! Science & Modern medicine FTW ). mRNA (1 While Innovations, come in many forms, they share something deep with evolution, that they are ‘enhanced forms of improbability’. Progress can be defined as, ’. ‘development towards an advanced condition Well, a more pedantic definition is: “ . The study of the causes of civilizational progress: the combination of economic, technological, scientific, and cultural advancements that have transformed human life and raised standards of living over the past couple of centuries Therefore, for a more nuanced perspective on “Progress”, one would have to dive deeper into ; From Industrial Revolution till date Economic Growth ; Right from the Mesopotamians inventing the Wheel to your shiny new Tesla’s FSD (Full self-driving!) mode & everything in between History of Technology & its role in shaping humanity Culture ; ties to ‘identity politics’ & how it shaped the world as we know it today Religion ; the shoulders of giants we are standing on today- Aristotle, Plato & the legendary Greek schools of thought Ancient Knowledge Do we truly understand the following phenomenon? Some of the ‘big picture’ questions I believe many of us are unfamiliar with today What are the conditions under which ? economic growth thrives What led to the & why did major strides in Science & Technology occur primarily in one geographical area? “Age of Enlightenment” How do immigration policies impact innovation? Why is Sweden (Population: 10M, the size of Michigan!) of all places, home to the ? highest Unicorns per capita What is How does the mysterious world of Credit work? Inflation? ? Does increased globalization really result in higher ‘economic growth’ or does it hurt the upward mobility of workers in impoverished countries? How does trade work How have altered the trajectory of humanity? famine, plague & war - Home to a fifth of our population & the cradle of civilisation (Our ancestors Homo Deus can be traced back to Eastern Africa ~70,000 years ago) Africa’s Growth Story How does growth work? Does every type of business need “VC" money? Venture Capital What is “ ?" The ramifications of General Artificial Intelligence & beyond the singularity To quote the eminent astronomer Carl Sagan: You have to know the past to understand the present Over the next couple of editions, we will grapple with some of the above questions & more. Progress Studies Collison & Cowen in conversation with “The Zuck” Pardon my divergence, returning to the central theme of & why this is integral to study & analyze using data-driven methodologies “Progress” & clarion call for initiated my search into this rabbit hole of better quantifying & understanding where technology will direct us in the years to come. In fact, the term “ ” is often credited to them. Patrick Collison Tyler Cowen’s “Science of Progress” in the Atlantic Progress Studies A quick Google search leads one to the , an online program of guided self-study in the history of industrial civilization for high school students which boasts of speaker series held by some eminent technologists, the likes of Collison & Cowen included. “Progress Studies for Aspiring Young Scholars” Therefore, while there is some minor advancement in this field, I am of the opinion that these are ‘bubbles’ within larger technology enthusiast circles & the average Joe has not given this a single thought, let alone gone out of their way to seek this knowledge. This newsletter will help resolve that & better educate its readers on the above. Optimism & Innovation An instance of innovative technology that is extremely divisive & pervasive is Social Media. Social Media use has of Generation Z & things have gotten only worse during the Pandemic. Arguably its merits outweigh these but this is not an argument easily quantifiable. negatively impacted the mental health We know this will impact us in the long run, but alas we are slaves to its divine ability to connect us remotely & build community. This pandemic has only further exacerbated this dependency. In further editions, we will dive into the history of Online Media right from SixDegrees (wondering what that is?) to Snapchat & further analyze its role in developing community & eventually shaping political outcomes (👀 Trump 2016!) involves systematically & continuously taking on risk. The chances of succeeding are ever so small. Positive outcomes attributed to registered upstarts are now slimmer than ~ 2 in 100. Entrepreneurship Our expectations of the future are therefore often unrealistic & ie. we want flying cars & the intergalactic travel This tweet perfectly infers this: Survival without oodles of is slim. Optimism, An ideal stage entrepreneur is practically delusional, thinking of markets that don’t exist, potentially serving customers that may not know they needed a product. Therefore, there exists a dichotomy between being truly original & building on the existing work of other players. Mark Twain’s views on this dichotomy resonate well: “There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas & put them into a mental kaleidoscope. Ergo, you are now privy to this author’s mental kaleidoscope. (Meta much?) Macro Optimistic, micro Pessimistic Ever wondered why some people are very positive given any situation & others go down a dark, pessimistic hole? The illustrious physicist sets up some helpful terminology in his groundbreaking book, “The Beginning of Infinity” (highly recommend grabbing a copy!) David Deutsch Blind optimism: Proceeding as if one knew that bad outcomes will happen; this results in recklessness & overconfidence which can kill a business early. Blind pessimism: Avoiding everything not known to be safe; results in unexplored paths & not fulfilling one’s potential Hence, while blind optimism & blind pessimism might not be the ideal attitude, there is a way out: Be a Macro-optimist & micro-pessimist ie. In the long run stay hopeful & positive while in the short term, believe everything is out to destroy you. Sounds crazy? It works. Optimism = Theory that all evils are caused by insufficient knowledge Therefore, the pursuit of knowledge is how optimists deal with any challenge be it entrepreneurship or on the personal relations front I also believe the intersection of rationality x optimism is the sweet spot thereby a is the ideal. “Rational Optimist” This search for knowledge is found only if it is ‘ & not generic. specific’ to oneself For those unacquainted with Naval Ravikant’s sharp thinking & sheer brilliance, his tweet storm 'How to Get Rich', arguably his magnum opus provides more clarity: Another prominent philosopher, Rick Sanchez (IYKYK), once said, To live is to risk it all; otherwise you’re just an inert chunk of randomly assembled molecules drifting wherever the universe blows you Therefore, as Deutsch defines it is , thereby avoiding evils & failures caused by insufficient understanding of a subject. optimism the pursuit of knowledge As I build something new (stay tuned 😊 ), I grapple with several paradoxes & concur with Karl Popper that & therefore, the quest for knowledge & satiating one’s curiosity reigns supreme. all knowledge is conjectural Isaac Newton’s letter to Robert Hooke (1675) echoes a similar view: If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. Alright, see you next week! Avi If you enjoyed this piece & believe more content along these thematic lines would add value, I’d appreciate it if you subscribe & share this with like-minded friends. PS: Thanks for letting me embarrass myself and for reading this far. If you have any feedback/thoughts/advice on what I should be sending out, let me know! I can be reached on Twitter @avjitsingh22

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