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Murphy USA Inc. engages in the marketing of retail motor fuel products and convenience merchandise. The company operates retail stores under the Murphy USA and Murphy Express brand names. As of December 31, 2019, it operated 1,489 gasoline stores, including 1,161 Murphy USA and 328 Murphy Express stores principally in the Southeast, Southwest, and Midwest United States. The company was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in El Dorado, Arkansas.

Murphy USA

murphyusa

Blue Trust Inc. grew its stake in shares of Murphy USA Inc. (NYSE:MUSA – Free Report) by 7.3% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 499 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock after ...

Blue Trust Inc. Buys 34 Shares of Murphy USA Inc. (NYSE:MUSA) - Defense World

Murphy USA Inc. (NYSE:MUSA – Get Free Report) has earned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the five analysts that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat reports. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has issued a hold rating and three have given ...

Murphy USA Inc. (NYSE:MUSA) Receives Consensus Rating of “Hold” from Analysts - Defense World

In this article, we’ll explore how to use Polly in and how it can help handle faults and retries with ease. Polly, a popular NuGet package, provides a powerful set of tools and patterns that can greatly simplify fault handling and retry mechanisms in our code. C# By leveraging Polly in our code, we can handle various types of faults, such as network errors or database connection failures. We can then to ensure that our application doesn’t blow up when one of these inevitably has an issue (Remember: Murphy’s Law). Polly offers a flexible and configurable way of dealing with these scenarios, whether we need to handle transient faults or simply retry a failed operation. implement intelligent retry strategies I’ll show you 3 interesting code examples that showcase different use cases of Polly in C# — so let’s get right to it! 1 – Handling Faults with Polly in C# It’s important to handle faults effectively when building robust and reliable applications. Fault handling refers to handling errors, exceptions, and failures that can occur during the execution of a program — and we’re going to use Polly in C# to help us out here. To demonstrate how Polly can handle a connectivity issue, let’s consider a scenario where our application needs to make a network request to an external API. We want to ensure that the request is retried automatically in case of any connection-related faults, such as temporary network outages or intermittent failures. Let’s see how to use Polly in C# to handle a connectivity issue in a network request: using Polly;
using Polly.Retry;

var handler = new NetworkRequestHandler();
var response = await handler.MakeNetworkRequestAsync("https://www.devleader.ca/sitemap.xml");
Console.WriteLine($"Response status code: {response.StatusCode}");

public class NetworkRequestHandler
{
    private readonly HttpClient _httpClient;
    private readonly AsyncRetryPolicy<HttpResponseMessage> _retryPolicy;

    public NetworkRequestHandler()
    {
        _httpClient = new HttpClient();

        // Define a retry policy: retry on HttpRequestException, 3 retries with exponential backoff
        _retryPolicy = Policy
            .HandleResult<HttpResponseMessage>(r => !r.IsSuccessStatusCode)
            .Or<HttpRequestException>()
            .WaitAndRetryAsync(3, retryAttempt =>
                TimeSpan.FromSeconds(Math.Pow(2, retryAttempt)),
                onRetry: (outcome, timespan, retryAttempt, context) =>
                {
                    Console.WriteLine($"Request failed with {outcome.Exception?.Message}. Waiting {timespan} before next retry. Retry attempt {retryAttempt}.");
                });
    }

    public async Task<HttpResponseMessage> MakeNetworkRequestAsync(string requestUri)
    {
        return await _retryPolicy.ExecuteAsync(async () =>
        {
            Console.WriteLine($"Making request to {requestUri}");
            var response = await _httpClient.GetAsync(requestUri);
            if (!response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
            {
                Console.WriteLine($"Request failed with status code: {response.StatusCode}");
                throw new HttpRequestException($"Request to {requestUri} failed with status code {response.StatusCode}");
            }
            return response;
        });
    }
} In the code example above, we define a class that encapsulates the logic for making a network request using the class from the .NET framework. We initialize a from Polly with a fault condition of type . This means that the policy will be triggered whenever an is thrown. NetworkRequestHandler HttpClient AsyncRetryPolicy HttpRequestException HttpRequestException The method is used to specify the number of retry attempts and the time delay between each retry. In this example, we retry the request 3 times, with exponentially increasing delays using the formula . WaitAndRetry TimeSpan.FromSeconds(Math.Pow(2, retryAttempt)) In the method, we use the Polly policy to execute the network request by calling the method on the policy. If a occurs during the execution, Polly will automatically retry the request according to the defined policy. MakeNetworkRequest Execute HttpRequestException 2 – Retry Mechanisms with Polly in C# In software engineering, it is common to encounter scenarios where a particular operation may fail temporarily due to network issues, resource limitations, or other transient faults. In such cases, retry mechanisms are implemented to automatically retry the failed operation for a certain number of times until it succeeds or reaches a maximum retry count. This helps improve the reliability and robustness of the software application. Simplifying Retry Mechanisms with Polly in C#: When it comes to implementing retry mechanisms in C#, the NuGet package Polly comes to the rescue. Polly is a powerful library that provides an easy and elegant way to handle faults and retries in your code. It simplifies the process of implementing retries by encapsulating the complex retry logic into a set of reusable policies. Using Polly to Automatically Retry a Failing Database Operation: Let’s consider a scenario where we need to perform a database operation, such as inserting a record into a table, but there might be temporary connectivity issues or resource constraints that could cause the operation to fail. With Polly, we can easily handle such failures by applying a retry policy. First, we need to install the Polly NuGet package by adding the following line to the dependencies section of our project file (keeping in mind that the version you want to grab is likely newer!): <ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="Polly" Version="8.3.0" />
</ItemGroup> Once the package is installed, we can begin using Polly to implement the retry mechanism. Here’s an example code snippet that demonstrates how to use Polly to automatically retry a failing database operation: using Polly;

using System.Data.SqlClient;

async Task<bool> InsertRecordAsync(
    Record record,
    CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
    int maxRetryCount = 3;
    var connectionString = "// TODO: configure this elsewhere...";

    var retryPolicy = Policy
        .Handle<SqlException>() // Specify the type of exception to handle
        .WaitAndRetryAsync(maxRetryCount, retryAttempt =>
            TimeSpan.FromSeconds(Math.Pow(2, retryAttempt))); // Exponential backoff strategy

    return await retryPolicy.ExecuteAsync(async ct =>
    {
        using var connection = new SqlConnection(connectionString);
        await connection.OpenAsync();

        using var command = connection.CreateCommand();
        command.CommandText = "INSERT INTO Records (Id, Name) VALUES (@Id, @Name)";
        command.Parameters.AddWithValue("@Id", record.Id);
        command.Parameters.AddWithValue("@Name", record.Name);

        try
        {
            // Perform the database operation            
            var result = await command.ExecuteNonQueryAsync(ct);
            return result == 1;
        }
        catch (SqlException)
        {
            // Rethrow the exception to let Polly handle the retry logic
            throw;
        }
    }, cancellationToken);
}

public sealed record Record(
    int Id,
    string Name); In the above example, we define a retry policy using the method to specify the type of exception we want to handle, in this case, SQL exceptions. We then use the method to configure the policy to retry the operation up to times with an exponential backoff strategy, where each retry attempt waits for an increasing amount of time. Policy.Handle<SqlException>() WaitAndRetryAsync maxRetryCount Inside the method, we wrap the database operation in a try-catch block. If the operation fails due to a SQL exception, we throw the exception to let Polly handle the retry logic. Polly will automatically retry the operation according to the defined policy, providing a seamless experience for handling temporary faults. ExecuteAsync 3 – Advanced Retries and Circuit Breaker Patterns with Polly in C# Sometimes we need more advanced retry mechanisms and circuit breaker patterns to get us to those next levels of resilience in our applications. Fortunately, the Polly library in C# has us covered for these as well! When working with external services or resources, it’s common to encounter transient faults such as network issues or service unavailability. Polly allows us to define custom retry policies that dictate how many times to retry and with what delay between retries. This ensures that our application can gracefully handle temporary failures and improve the overall reliability of the system. Customizing Retry Policies with Polly Polly provides flexible options to customize retry policies based on specific requirements. We can define the number of retries, the backoff strategy to determine the delay between retries, and even define a predicate to selectively retry only on certain exceptions. By tailoring these policies, we can handle different scenarios effectively. Here’s an example that shows how to use Polly for implementing a retry policy with an exponential backoff strategy: var retryPolicy = Policy
    .Handle<HttpRequestException>()
    .OrResult<HttpResponseMessage>(response => response.StatusCode == HttpStatusCode.InternalServerError)
    .WaitAndRetryAsync(3, retryAttempt => TimeSpan.FromSeconds(Math.Pow(2, retryAttempt))); In this example, we define a retry policy that will retry the operation up to 3 times if an or if the has a status code of . The backoff strategy is exponential, with the delay between retries increasing exponentially based on the retry attempt number. HttpRequestException HttpResponseMessage InternalServerError Implementing Circuit Breaker Patterns with Polly in C# Circuit breaker patterns play an important role in preventing cascading failures and protecting systems from a flurry of repeated requests to a failing service. Polly provides built-in support for implementing circuit breaker patterns, which help in automatically managing the state of the circuit breaker and controlling the flow of requests. To implement a circuit breaker pattern with Polly, we need to define the threshold values for failures and successes, along with the time window in which to monitor these metrics. Once the circuit breaker trips, further requests are short-circuited, preventing unnecessary calls to the failing service. Here’s an example of how to use Polly for implementing a circuit breaker pattern: var circuitBreakerPolicy = Policy
    .Handle<HttpRequestException>()
    .OrResult<HttpResponseMessage>(response => response.StatusCode == HttpStatusCode.InternalServerError)
    .CircuitBreakerAsync(3, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(30)); In this example, the circuit breaker policy is configured to trip open if there are 3 consecutive failures within a 30-second window. Once the circuit breaker is open, subsequent requests will be automatically rejected, preventing further calls until a specified recovery period has passed. Now You Know How to Use Polly in C#! You’ve done it! You have 3 working code examples to help you understand how to use Polly in C#. By Polly, you can handle faults and retries with ease, improving the reliability and resilience of your applications. In this article, we explored three different use cases of Polly, covering fault handling, basic retries, and advanced retry patterns like circuit breakers. By incorporating Polly into your projects, you can enhance the stability and responsiveness of your software. By using policies to specify retry counts, durations, and other configurable parameters, you can control the behavior and tolerance of your application in the face of failures. If you found this useful and you’re looking for more learning opportunities, consider and check out my ! subscribing to my free weekly software engineering newsletter free videos on YouTube Also published . here

Easily Handle Faults And Retries With Polly In C#

Project estimation is a critical aspect of successful project management. Accurate estimation ensures that projects are completed on time, within budget, and with the desired quality. However, project estimation can be a complex and challenging process, often leading to deviations from the initial estimates that entail budget creep. In this comprehensive guide, I'll explore effective strategies for mastering project estimation. We'll delve into why projects frequently take longer than estimated and how to address this issue for both project teams and business owners. A staggering 91.5% of projects go over budget, over schedule, or both Project overruns are a common phenomenon across various industries. Let's explore some illuminating examples of how large-scale projects went off the tracks: The book titled "How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything In Between" by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner highlights a common trend in project management. It emphasizes that the majority of projects tend to deviate from their original plans. In particular, nuclear power construction and IT projects are notorious for their propensity to encounter disastrous and highly expensive setbacks. These examples represent just a few instances within the broader category of megaprojects, which the authors, Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner, define as projects with costs exceeding US$1 billion. Megaprojects, regardless of their nature, often experience significant budget overruns and delays, making them a cause for concern for business leaders, politicians, and organizations. Bent Flyvbjerg has compiled an extensive database on this topic, encompassing more than 16,000 projects spanning over 20 fields across 136 countries, with records dating back to 1910. These projects range from Olympic games to nuclear power plants, including complex endeavors like NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, which exceeded its budget by 450%. Shockingly, the research reveals that a staggering 91.5% of projects face either budget overruns, delays, or both. Moreover, less than 1% of projects manage to adhere to their original timelines and budgets while delivering the promised benefits. On average, projects experience a cost overrun of 62%. The distribution of these megaproject overruns exhibits a heavy tail, signifying the presence of catastrophic risks. To illustrate further, the authors point out that 18% of IT projects encounter cost overruns exceeding 50% in real terms, with an average overrun of 447%. These examples underscore the complexity of project estimation and the frequent occurrence of projects exceeding their initial estimates. However, it's crucial to understand that accurate estimation is attainable with the right approach, and by accurate, I mean an estimate with minimum possible deviation. The Two Sides of Project Estimation Project estimation is a delicate balancing act, requiring collaboration and understanding between the development team and the client or business owner. While the previous sections discussed the challenges faced by development teams and strategies for accurate estimation, it's equally crucial to consider the client's perspective. From the client/business owner's point of view, there are compelling reasons to add a buffer to the project estimate. Let's explore why this is essential and highlight scenarios where the initial project scope can be exceeded. The Client's Dilemma: Why Buffer Matters Clients and business owners have their own set of concerns when it comes to project estimation. They seek to achieve their objectives within a specified budget and timeframe, but they also understand that changes and uncertainties are inherent in any project. Here's why adding a buffer to the project estimate is vital from the client's viewpoint: 1. Evolving Design Requirements: Studies in project management have shown that design iterations are a common occurrence in project development. A client may have a vision for the project, but it often takes several iterations before the design aligns perfectly with their expectations. These design changes, while necessary for a successful project, can impact the project's timeline and budget. 2. Comprehensive Product Testing: Thorough testing is a fundamental part of project development to ensure the final product meets quality standards. However, extensive testing can reveal issues that were not initially anticipated. Addressing these issues may require additional time and resources, potentially extending the project's duration. 3. User Testing and Feedback: Incorporating real user feedback is essential for creating a user-friendly and effective product. Pilot groups and user testing often reveal usability challenges, logic gaps, or areas for improvement that were not evident during the initial planning stages. Adjustments based on user feedback can result in scope changes and project extensions. 4. Regulatory Compliance: For projects in regulated industries such as healthcare or finance, adhering to compliance standards is non-negotiable. Navigating regulatory requirements can introduce complexities and additional tasks that were not initially factored into the project plan. Strategies for Effective Project Estimation In this section, we delve into strategies for effective project estimation. We won't be covering the well-known practices that I am sure are already applied in your approach, such as proper preparation before committing to a project, working in areas of expertise or acquiring that expertise, breaking down work into smaller chunks (the Lego principle), using sprint methodologies and etc... Instead, I'll provide you with insights that go beyond the surface, offering practical approaches drawn from real-life experiences to help you tackle project estimation from a more detailed and low-level perspective, ultimately securing better results. At , we employ a dual-point estimation approach for our estimations. This practice is founded on two key pillars: optimistic and realistic estimates. These serve as powerful tools for effectively navigating the uncertainties and risks inherent in the estimation process. Uinno Below are detailed descriptions and examples of how we interpret and apply both optimistic and realistic scenarios: Optimistic Estimate (O) This is the "sunshine and rainbows" scenario. It's when all the stars align, the coffee tastes just right, and the Individual Contributor (IC) — that's you — is bouncing off the walls with an energy that puts the Energizer Bunny to shame. Here's a real-life scenario. You're tasked with implementing authentication functionality with the Awesome Auth Provider, and you've never worked with it before. Under our rosy optimistic scenario, the Awesome Auth Provider's manual looks like it's been crafted by angels — updated, user-friendly, and reads like your favorite novel. You might even get an easy-peasy development playground and a bunch of examples to play with. On this day, the birds are singing, you're fresh from a restful sleep, and you're so upbeat you feel like you can finish it without breaking a sweat. So you estimate this task to be finished within a single business day (8 hours). Realistic Estimate (R) This is the “Murphy’s Law” scenario where everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. Coffee's bitter, traffic's a nightmare, and you feel like you’ve been run over by a bus. Take the same task — implementing authentication functionality with the Awesome Auth Provider. In our not-so-sunny Realistic scenario, the Awesome Auth Provider's manual looks like it was written by a toddler — confusing, outdated, and features a dreaded XML API that could make grown developers weep. You've had a mere four hours of sleep, and there's a strong suspicion you're coming down with something. The thought of coding for more than two hours feels like a Herculean task, and you need a 15-20-minute siesta after each session. Well, life’s not all sunshine and unicorns, right? In this case, you feel like two business days of work (16 hours) is probably a better and more realistic guess. Balancing out the estimate. What it takes to deliver work really A common pitfall in estimations is the tendency to consider only the pure development time, without taking into account that additional factors will inevitably influence the actual feature delivery timeframe. In essence, to generate a more accurate and realistic estimation, it's necessary to expand the initial timeline to accommodate for these influencing variables. The act of coding is merely one piece of a larger puzzle that needs to be addressed when formulating an estimation. Let's see what are the other important parts you need to consider: Communication (С) Communication forms an integral part of every project, whether it be with the Project Manager, teammates, or other stakeholders. The number of individuals involved in the project or feature development typically correlates with the amount of communication required. It's a complex task to accurately anticipate the time required for communication, as it can vary considerably based on factors such as the project's pace, the meeting schedule, and the overall complexity of the project. Thus, it's crucial to take this into account when formulating an estimation. But as a starting point, keep in mind that at least an hour of your day is spent on some sort of daily meeting, retro or communication with your teammates. Testing (T) Regardless of its apparent simplicity, each piece of work needs to be rigorously tested before it's deployed in either a production or development environment. Even in the absence of a dedicated Quality Assurance Engineer, Individual Contributors are still required to ensure compliance with the acceptance criteria. This additional process significantly contributes to the overall estimation. It's essential to remember this critical step while formulating time estimations, as it ultimately guarantees the delivery of a high-quality, functional product. Deployment (D) A task isn't considered successfully completed in isolation, nor is it merely a piece of code on a local machine or git repository. Just as a well-crafted piece of machinery is of little use if left unassembled, so too does a task reach its full potential only when it's been deployed to the appropriate environment or at the very least, integrated with the main body of the application code. Remember, in the world of software development, a task should be considered done only when it becomes a functioning part of the greater system. Amendments (A) It's important to remember that the phases of testing and deployment can often be akin to opening Pandora's box of bugs. Therefore, the time allocation for bug fixing is an essential factor that should be incorporated into the general estimation. Environment (E) Despite our best efforts, none of us are machines capable of working an uninterrupted eight-hour shift without catering to life's necessities. Be it a much-needed coffee break, a trip to the restroom, or a quick chat with a colleague, these moments are a reality of the workday. Especially when a task is projected to take around eight hours or more, these "real-life" interruptions need to be factored into the overall estimation. Key Takeaways for Mastering Project Estimation Project estimation is a multifaceted endeavor that plays a pivotal role in the success of any project. Given that a staggering 91.5% of projects go over budget or schedule, mastering this skill is non-negotiable. Here's a concise step-by-step guide to enhance your project estimation skills: 1. Acknowledge the Complexity Understand that project estimation is not just about development time. It involves various other factors like design iterations, testing, user feedback, and regulatory compliance. 2. Employ Dual-Point Estimation Use both optimistic (O) and realistic (R) scenarios to navigate uncertainties. The optimistic estimate is your best-case scenario, while the realistic one prepares you for potential setbacks. 3. Factor in Additional Variables Don't just consider pure development time. Account for: [CADDET] Communication ( C) Amendments (ex Fixes) (A) Deployment (D) Development (D) Environment (ex Life) (E) Testing (T) 4. Add a Buffer Especially from the client's perspective, adding a buffer is crucial to accommodate evolving design requirements, comprehensive product testing, user feedback, and regulatory compliance. 5. Continual Learning and Adaptation Use past projects as a learning experience to refine future estimates. Keep track of where your estimates were accurate and where they fell short to continually improve your estimation skills. By incorporating these steps into your project estimation process, you'll be better equipped to deliver projects on time and within budget, thereby increasing your success rate significantly. Conclusion Project overruns are a reality, but they are not insurmountable. Accurate project estimation is attainable by adopting a comprehensive approach that considers both optimistic and realistic scenarios and accounts for influencing factors. Understanding the challenges of project estimation and learning from past experiences can lead to improved project planning and efficiency. It is also a collaborative approach. A collaborative approach is essential to address these challenges and maintain a positive working relationship between the development team and the client/business owner. Clients should be encouraged to include a reasonable buffer in their project budget and timeline to accommodate potential scope changes and unforeseen challenges. At the same time, development teams must strive for accurate estimation and transparent communication to minimize surprises.

A Comprehensive Guide to Effective Project Estimation

THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ

In this blog post, we will be covering how you can combine and leverage the open-source streaming solution, , with , to improve the quality of your streaming flows. Buckle up! bytewax ydata-profiling Stream processing enables real-time analysis of data in-flight and before storage and can be or . stateful stateless is used for recommendations, pattern detection, or complex event processing, where the history of what has happened is required for the processing (windows, joining by a key, etc.). Stateful stream processing real-time is used for transformation that doesn’t require knowledge of other data points in the stream like masking an email or converting a type. Stateless stream processing inline Overall, data streams are widely used in the industry and can be found applied to use cases such as , , or . fraud detection patient monitoring event predictive maintenance One Crucial Aspect That All Data Streams Must Consider Is the Quality of the Data Unlike traditional models where data quality is usually assessed during the creation of the data warehouse or dashboard solution, . streaming data requires continuous monitoring It is essential to maintain data quality throughout the entire process, from collection to feeding downstream applications. After all, the cost of bad data quality can be high for organizations: “The cost of bad data is an astonishing 15% to 25% of revenue for most companies. (…) Two-thirds of these costs can be eliminated by getting in front on data quality.” — Thomas C. Redman, author of “Getting in Front on Data Quality” Throughout this article, we will show you how you can combine with to profile and improve the quality of your streaming flows! bytewa ydata-profiling Stream Processing for Data Professionals With Bytewax is an OSS stream processing framework designed specifically for Python developers. Bytewax It allows users to with capabilities similar to Flink, Spark, and Kafka Streams while providing a friendly and familiar interface and build streaming data pipelines and real-time applications 100% compatibility with the Python ecosystem. Using built-in or existing Python libraries, (Kafka, RedPanda, WebSocket, etc.) and out to various downstream systems (Kafka, parquet files, data lakes, etc.). connectors you can connect to real-time and streaming data sources write transformed data For the transformations, Bytewax with , , and methods and comes with familiar features such as recovery and scalability. facilitates stateful and stateless transformations map windowing aggregation Bytewax and is p . facilitates a Python-first and data-centric experience to data streams urposely built for data engineers and data scientists It allows users to and create customizations necessary to meet their needs without having to learn and maintain JVM-based streaming platforms like Spark or Flink. build streaming data pipelines and real-time applications Bytewax is well suited for many use cases, namely, , , , and more. Embedding Pipelines For Generative AI Handling Missing Values in Data Streams Using Language Models in a Streaming Context to Understand Financial Markets For use case inspiration and more information like documentation, tutorials, and guides, feel free to check . the bytewax website Why Data Profiling for Data Streams? and refers to the step of : its structure, behavior, and quality. Data Profiling is key to a successful start of any machine learning task thoroughly understanding our data In a nutshell, involves analyzing aspects related to the data’s format and basic descriptors (e.g., number of samples, number/types of features, duplicate values), its (such as the presence of missing data or imbalanced features), and other complicating factors that may arise during data collection or processing (e.g., erroneous values or inconsistent features). data profiling intrinsic characteristics , where circumstances might change fast and may require immediate action (e.g., healthcare monitoring, stock values, air quality policies). Ensuring high data quality standards is crucial for all domains and organizations, but is especially relevant for domains operating with domains outputting continuous data For many domains, data profiling is used from an exploratory data analysis lens, considering historical data stored in databases. On the contrary, for data streams, , where data needs to be checked at different time frames or stages of the process. data profiling becomes essential for validation and quality control continuously along the stream By embedding an , we can on the current state of our data and be alerted for any potentially critical issues — whether they are related to (e.g., corrupted values or changing formats), or to (e.g., data drifts, deviation from business rules and outcomes). automated profiling into our data flows immediately get feedback data consistency and integrity events happening in short periods of time In real-world domains — — automated profiling might save us from multiple brain puzzles and systems needing to be taken out of production! where you just know Murphy’s law is bound to strike and “everything can definitely go wrong” In what concerns data profiling, has consistently been a , either for or data. And no wonder why — ydata-profiling crowd favorite tabular time-series it’s one line of code for an extensive set of analysis and insights. Complex and time-draining operations are done under the hood: ydata-profiling and depending on the feature types (either numeric or categorical), it that are shown in the profiling report. automatically detects the feature types comprised in the data, adjusts the summary statistics and visualizations Fostering a , the package also , focusing on their pairwise and , and provides a thorough , from or values to and features. data-centric analysis highlights the existing relationships between features interactions correlations evaluation of data quality alerts duplicate constant skewed imbalanced It’s really a — with minimal effort. 360º view of the quality of our data Putting It All Together: bytewax and ydata-profiling Before starting the project, we need to first set our Python dependencies and configure our data source. First, let’s install the and packages ( bytewax ydata-profiling You might want to use a virtual environment for this — if you need some extra guidance!) check these instructions pip install bytewax==0.16.2 ydata-profiling==4.3.1 Then, we’ll upload the (License — CC0: Public Domain), which contains several measurements of from different IoT devices: Environmental Sensor Telemetry Dataset temperature, humidity, carbon monoxide liquid petroleum gas, smoke, light, and motion wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bytewax/air-quality-sensor/main/data/iot_telemetry_data_1000 , and the input would look like what we expect in a streaming platform . In this article, and create a dataflow using bytewax. In a production environment, these measurements would be continuously generated by each device such as Kafka to simulate the context we would find with streaming data, we will read the data from the CSV file one line at a time (As a quick side note, a dataflow is essentially a data pipeline that can be described as a directed acyclic graph — DAG) First, let’s make some : necessary imports from datetime import datetime, timedelta, timezone

from bytewax.dataflow import Dataflow
from bytewax.connectors.stdio import StdOutput
from bytewax.connectors.files import CSVInput
from bytewax.testing import run_main Then, we define our dataflow object. Afterward, we will use a stateless map method where we pass in a function to convert the string to a DateTime object and restructure the data to the format (device_id, data). The map method will make the change to each data point in a stateless way. The reason we have modified the shape of our data is so that we can easily group the data in the next steps to profile data for each device separately rather than for all of the devices simultaneously. flow = Dataflow()
flow.input("simulated_stream", CSVInput("/content/iot_telemetry_data_1000"))

# parse timestamp
def parse_time(reading_data):
    reading_data["ts"] = datetime.fromtimestamp(float(reading_data["ts"]), timezone.utc)
    return reading_data

flow.map(parse_time)


# remap format to tuple (device_id, reading_data)
flow.map(lambda reading_data: (reading_data['device'], reading_data)) Now, we will take advantage of the stateful capabilities of to gather data for each device over the duration of time that we have defined. expects a snapshot of the data over time, which makes the window operator the perfect method to use to do this. bytewax ydata-profiling In , we are able to produce summarizing statistics for a dataframe that is specified for a particular context. For instance, in our example, we can produce snapshots of data referring to each IoT device or to particular time frames: ydata-profiling from bytewax.window import EventClockConfig, TumblingWindow

# This is the accumulator function, and outputs a list of readings
def acc_values(acc, reading):
    acc.append(reading)
    return acc


# This function instructs the event clock on how to retrieve the
# event's datetime from the input.
def get_time(reading):
    return reading["ts"]

  
# Configure the `fold_window` operator to use the event time.
cc = EventClockConfig(get_time, wait_for_system_duration=timedelta(seconds=30))

# And a tumbling window
align_to = datetime(2020, 1, 1, tzinfo=timezone.utc)
wc = TumblingWindow(align_to=align_to, length=timedelta(hours=1))

flow.fold_window("running_average", cc, wc, list, acc_values)

flow.inspect(print) After the snapshots are defined, leveraging is as simple as calling the for each of the dataframes we would like to analyze: ydata-profiling ProfileReport import pandas as pd
from ydata_profiling import ProfileReport

def profile(device_id__readings):
    print(device_id__readings)
    device_id, readings = device_id__readings
    start_time = readings[0]['ts'].replace(minute=0, second=0, microsecond=0).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
    df = pd.DataFrame(readings)
    profile = ProfileReport(
        df,
        tsmode=True,
        sortby="ts",
        title=f"Sensor Readings - device: {device_id}"
    )

    profile.to_file(f"Ts_Profile_{device_id}-{start_time}.html")
    return f"device {device_id} profiled at hour {start_time}"


flow.map(profile) In this example, we are writing the images out to local files as part of a function in a map method. These could be reported out via a messaging tool or we could save them to some remote storage in the future. Once the profile is complete, the dataflow expects some output so we can use the built-in to print the device that was profiled and the time it was profiled at that was passed out of the profile function in the map step: StdOutput flow.output("out", StdOutput()) There are multiple ways to execute Bytewax dataflows. In this example, we use the same local machine, but Bytewax can also run on multiple Python processes, across multiple hosts, in a , using a , and . Docker container Kubernetes cluster more In this article, we’ll continue with a local setup, but we encourage you to check our helper tool which manages Kubernetes dataflow deployments once your pipeline is ready to transition to production. waxctl Assuming we are in the same directory as the file with the dataflow definition, we can run it using: python -m bytewax.run ydata-profiling-streaming:flow We can then use the profiling reports to validate the data quality, check for changes in schemas or data formats, and . compare the data characteristics between different devices or time windows In fact, we can leverage the that highlights the differences between two data profiles in a straightforward manner, making it easier for us to detect important patterns that need to be investigated or issues that have to be addressed: comparison report functionality snapshot_a_report = ProfileReport(df_a, title="Snapshot A")
snapshot_b_report = ProfileReport(df_b, title="Snapshot B")

comparison_report =snapshot_a_report(snapshot_b_report)
comparison_report.to_file("comparison_report.html") Ready to Explore Your Own Data Streams? Validating data streams is crucial to identify issues in data quality in a continuous manner and compare the state of data across distinct periods of time. For organizations in , , , and — all working with continuous streams of data — a , from quality assessment to data privacy. healthcare energy manufacturing entertainment utomated profiling is key to establishing data governance best practices This requires the analysis of snapshots of data which, as showcased in this article, can be achieved in a seamless way by combining and . bytewax ydata-profiling takes care of all the processes necessary to handle and structure data streams into snapshots, which can then be summarized and compared with through a comprehensive report of data characteristics. Bytewax ydata-profiling Being able to appropriately process and profile incoming data opens up a plethora of use cases across different domains, from the to the highlighting and mitigation of additional issues that derive from real-world activities, such as (e.g., fraud or intrusion/threats detection), , and other events that deviate from the expectations (e.g., data drifts or misalignment with business rules). correction of errors in data schemas and formats anomaly detection equipment malfunction Now, you’re all set to start exploring your data streams! Let us know what other use cases you find, and as always, feel free to drop us a line in the comments, or find us at the for further questions and suggestions! Data-Centric AI Community See you there! Acknowledgments ) and Oli Makhasoeva (Developer Relations @ ) -- developing . This article was written by Fabiana Clemente (Co-founder & CDO @ ) and Miriam Santos (Developer Relations @ ) -- developing -- and Zander Matheson (CEO & Founder @ YData YData ydata-profiling Bytewax Byetwax bytewax You may find additional information about the OSS packages in the respective documentations: & . ydata-profiling docs bytewax docs Also published here

How to Understand Your Data in Real-Time Using bytewax and ydata-profiling

Cómo entender sus datos en tiempo real usando bytewax y ydata-profiling

Comment comprendre vos données en temps réel en utilisant bytewax et ydata-profiling

बाइटवैक्स और वाईडेटा-प्रोफाइलिंग का उपयोग करके वास्तविक समय में अपने डेटा को कैसे समझें

bytewax と ydata-profiling を使用してデータをリアルタイムで理解する方法

Como entender seus dados em tempo real usando bytewax e ydata-profiling

Cách hiểu dữ liệu của bạn trong thời gian thực bằng cách sử dụng bytewax và ydata-profile

如何使用 bytewax 和 ydata-profiling 实时了解您的数据

According to the , inflation in the 12 months up to April 2023 was 4.9%. This is a slight decrease on the 2022 annual inflation rate of 6.6%. US Inflation Calculator The impact of is clear to see for shoppers who are adapting purchasing behavior to limit financial challenges. For many, it seems the effects of inflation on consumers are intensifying. inflation The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the Consumer Price Index for April 2023 rose after a 0.1% increase in March. This data shows shoppers have less to spend on essential items due to the impact of inflation and . 0.4% shrinkflation The shock of shrinkflation However, it’s not just rising prices and inflation that are creating stressful shopping conditions for Americans. Reduced product sizes (shrinkflation) are also affecting consumer shopping habits, with shoppers buying items at their normal price but ending up with a smaller product. In fact, the recent inflation and shrinkflation survey found that respondents said shrinkflation is affecting their wallets. 83% of Shoppers are buying what they need but it isn’t going as far as it used to. Survey respondents stated that they are selecting cheaper, larger items to get by. How is inflation affecting consumer choices? In March 2023, PissedConsumer.com surveyed 400 U.S. consumers of different ages, genders, and backgrounds to find out how inflation is influencing their consumer preferences: 94.5% found inflation impacts their shopping habits. 76.5% noticed price gouging on groceries. 94.3% saw an increase in egg prices. 33.6% said Walmart is the cheapest store, 46.3% thought Whole Foods was the most expensive. Consumers notice price increases Shoppers are running into price rises everywhere they look, so it’s a real challenge to maintain standards and buy essential items. Some consumers are leaving online reviews about significant price hikes, such as this Papa Murphys’ shopper: “Today I bought a pizza I've been paying $14 for at $19. This is a $5 or 35% increase in price. I think they are simply trying to take advantage and blame inflation.” Maximizing the power of the reviews website, Walmart shoppers are also leaving about price rises to their favorite products over a short time period: comments “WALMART has increased its prices dramatically on food items. For example, their GREAT VALUE 16 oz. peanuts went from $1.98 to $2.28, now they are $2.44-up over 42%!” Shrinkflation concerns shoppers More and more consumers are recognizing the tell-tale signs of shrinkflation affecting the size and nature of their products. Store shoppers are leaving online reviews to talk about this issue, including this Nabisco customer: “Today I purchased a family sized package of lemon Oreos. When I got home there were noticeable gaps in each of the trays … large enough for 10 cookies!” Another consumer review reports that bottles they bought in The Epoxy Resin Store had been reduced in volume: “There is probably 20 ounces missing in each bottle.” How are consumers coping? Consumers are cutting back on those splash-out items, eating out less, and considering fewer trips. But they are saving for that feel-good splurge to keep them feeling great to maintain their lifestyle as much as possible. Shoppers need to keep their loved ones healthy with groceries and small extras to help in challenging times. Many consumers are trading down, buying bargain brands, and purchasing less to keep their finances in check. One way consumers can stay ahead of the curve is to check online review websites to ensure they can pick up any coupons, money off items and discover stores that are keeping prices in check.

When Prices Rise and Products Shrink: How Inflation Alters Consumer Preferences

The Kidnapped Prime Minister

It’s time for the next generation of Scrum: no Sprints needed. If you’re a small cross-functional team aiming to quickly deliver working value to your customer, pick the number one business and user need and build it. Get feedback, adjust, and release. Then pick the next one. Just deliver. Don’t throw in whatever a [time box] can fit. It’s not a container – it’s the lowest risk period of time teams try to manage. If you think the more tasks you throw in, the higher the chance to release – you won’t deliver anything. Waterfall One can only understand Sprint Planning and time-boxed Sprints if one has worked in a pure waterfall project that lasted, let’s say, a year and a half before anything was released. What is released at the end of such a cycle is basically a new product, almost completely incompatible with the previous version. The release notes are five pages long (that no one reads), and it takes another year to get existing customers accustomed to new versions. Most customers are unlikely to upgrade because the minor inconveniences a new release fixes isn’t worth the investment. I remember one of the most impressive presentations about Agile Transformations. Large enterprise virtualization company. They used to release a new version once every two years. But the average time a customer used to get a new version with a change request of theirs in it was … wait for it .. four years. Because, just like enterprise vendors, enterprise customers are not agile. It was impressive because they managed – the vendor – to transform and went all Scrum after months of training and experimentation. At the time of the presentation, they had teams that had started releasing directly to their customers every two weeks. Good Sprint Four years versus two weeks – that’s the power of Scrum when done with the right intentions and the right way. What is the right way? Decide and commit on all levels. The risk mitigation superpowers of the time-boxed Sprints are based on simple mathematics and faith in destiny. You need to be a little superstitious to make it work. Remember – if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. Murphy’s law Now, don’t get me wrong (unintended) – this is not about fear. This is about being reasonable. Information technologies are the fastest industry today. It’s one of the most complex ecosystems. There are tons of dependencies agile teams navigate through every day, most of them unplanned. You need while dealing with the inevitable daily surprises. practices to help you be productive There’s another famous law – a deficiency in any one of a number of factors dooms an endeavour to failure. Consequently, a successful endeavour (subject to this principle) is one for which every possible deficiency has been avoided. And here’s the question – to make sure your endeavour is going to be successful? for how long can you avoid every possible deficiency Can you make sure that all internal and external dependencies to your product and team – people, tools, resources, world economy —  will remain stable and in a condition favouring your goals for six months, one year, two years? No, you can’t. That’s why here comes Scrum with its safety net of time-boxed Sprints. One to three weeks sounds foreseeable, feasible, and low risk. We might try to get all conditions in place to deliver high-value and high-quality to our customers within two weeks or less. Sounds achievable, right? We have the time to consider the risks and continuously get feedback on customers’ top needs. The developers confirm they understand those top priorities and have everything they need to implement and deliver as expected. The expectation is to work and to receive it sooner than four years. Release early and release often. Once you master this, remove the Sprints and release earlier and more often – several times a day, for example. Sprints enable to happen at all. continuous delivery Scrum and Sprint Planning are a good step toward limiting and avoiding the risks of delays, not delivering at all, rework and waste and throwing months of work in the bin because no customer will get it. What’s sadder – no customer might need it anymore at the time we release it already if there were no Sprints. Bad Sprint The problems with Sprints begin when we start mixing Time and Space. And instead of perceiving “time-boxed” as a limit for time, we interpret it as a container for tasks and start throwing as many tasks in the “box” as it can fit and some more on top in case we finish some earlier. As if it has ever happened. And this is when our Scrum fails. Еngineers are not superstitious. They are opportunistic. They believe nothing can ever go wrong, and their plans are foolproof. They don’t believe in risk. That’s what lets them drive world innovation and technology but this approach has some downsides. The worst thing we can do in Sprint Planning is to initiate it with the question, “How many tasks can we fit in this Sprint?” This is the root cause of all evil we’re witnessing in Product and Engineering management nowadays. It doesn’t matter how many tasks your team they can do in one Sprint. What matters is which task they can get done that your customer can begin using at the end of the sprint. thinks If you don’t have a strong Product Goal turned into Useful, Meaningful, Feasible, Releasable that your team can commit to delivering with , and if you don’t have a clear vision and mechanisms how to handle the that will inevitably occur during the Sprint, your Sprint Planning is useless and a waste of time. descriptions of users’ needs first high quality unplanned deficiencies Throwing tens of items in that box doesn’t increase the chance to . at least release something On the contrary, it’s a sure way to failure and team demoralisation. There are two scenarios for bad Sprints. The one above is the most common occurrence – trying to add as many work items in the Sprint as the suggests. Have you noticed how we never plan as many stories as is the average velocity despite the Velocity charts? We always add more. velocity I cannot count how many times I’ve heard: “Oh, we have for some more story points. Which tasks should we add?” a capacity “Let’s leave some for bug-fixing.” capacity “Nah, let’s Sprint, and we can always the ones at the bottom if we see we can’t complete them at the meeting.” plan the whole remove grooming Guess how the Sprint ends. We manage to get a couple of tasks done, 18 stories are to the next Sprint, and 6 are moved back to the backlog. almost moved That’s why it’s called a backlog – it’s the log of everything we moved back. The other scenario of Sprint Planning failure is when the . This is actually the best thing if it’s on purpose, but when it is because the product manager does everything except figuring out what the most important features, fixes, and improvements are, which we should do first in order to meet customer expectations, grow our business and advance with our technology, this is a symptom of a burned-out product manager, wasted team effort and motivation, and irritated stakeholders. This is when the product manager gets fired. product backlog is almost empty The Next Generation Scrum We need new Scrum terminology for the 2025 edition to get people to get it. Let’s try to reimagine the next generation of Scrum: Timebox becomes . Low-Risk High-Efficiency – Streamlined E.g., The daily meetings are streamlined. The Sprint becomes good old because, with Sprints, we forget to build and get feedback and then build and get feedback again until the user is happy and we’ve reached our goals. Iteration iterate – E.g., What customer value are we going to deliver this iteration? Rather than sprinting (literally being in a rush because it’s a huge story) and coding for five Sprints and eventually caring to get feedback. That’s not agile. The Product Backlog should be straightened to because apparently, repeating a thousand times that the Product Backlog should be ordered by priorities is not enough. That’s why we should start talking only about Product (Business, Customer) Priorities. It implies thinking about what’s most essential and game-changing for the business compared to a To-Do list with random notes. Priorities E.g., Which are our top priorities as a company? No Sprints. Just deliver. Now, we clarified that all that matters is the company’s strategic goals, the business development plans, the customer needs, the technology evolution, and the product vision – we have to just start working on them. the Priorities – Which one to choose? Which one is the top priority? I like the idea of the one that will make the most significant difference – in quality and quantity. The one that will enable the . The one that will open the largest market expansion. The one that will bring more customers. In terms of quality, it’s called (appropriateness, completeness, correctness). highest growth Functional Suitability The one that will and increase your product (maturity, availability, fault tolerance, recoverability) and Performance Efficiency. If your system had a significant downtime last month, then you need to invest in your infrastructure – also Reliability. retain all customers Reliability The one that will offload customer success teams so they can really focus on success . instead of support. The quality characteristic to make this happen is (learnability, operability, user error protection) Usability The one that will make the product (modularity, reusability, analysability, modifiability, testability) more efficient. That’s the one that will of bug-fixing, lower the regression risk, and by enabling continuous delivery. Maintainability reduce the cost speed up the releases It might be that the last big feature was heavily delayed because of unforeseen regression issues. Then the one you should probably prioritise is cleaning tech debt and heavy refactoring. It will again increase your maintainability. There will be a few items in that priority list that are equally important. The prioritisation strategies differ depending on your business context at the moment. It might be that a big fish customer is knocking on your door. Then you’d go with the new big feature they are waiting for. This is the of your product. And the entire Team should start working on it together. Functional Appropriateness Whatever your current product situation is, account for it and always lean on the one that increases the quality of your product and service. It’s always the right choice. Once you decide what your goals are, it gets easy. . Let them think and ideate, let them draw and scratch, let them get loud, let them play, let them build features they are proud of, you are proud of, and your customers are recommending. Let them deliver your five-stars product to your thousands of happy customers. Gather the entire team together and let them create You don’t need Sprints to do that. You need a clear vision and Priorities. Decide. Commit. Succeed. Also published . here

The Next Generation of Scrum: No Sprints Needed. Just Deliver

Technology appears to be developing more quickly every day. With innumerable movies, TV shows, and songs being streamed practically every second, streaming has become one of the most widely used digital entertainment technologies in the UK and worldwide. Because of technological improvements, our viewing and entertainment consumption habits have changed, and streaming sites have undoubtedly transformed as well. Owing to high demand for streaming in the UK market, various streaming alternatives are presently available for subscription. So, what kinds of technological advances make streaming worthwhile? Let’s find out about the most important changes in technology for streaming videos. Video Streaming Industry and Technology 1- High-Resolution Artificial intelligence, which is currently changing numerous industries, has significantly impacted video streaming. AI models could learn how to convert low-resolution photographs into high-resolution images by studying several images. A high-resolution image can be created from a low-resolution one using the "Super-Resolution" technique. Super-Resolution is a type of generative algorithm, which is an approach to creating useful learning.  The network can use a low-resolution visual, and the data can be extrapolated to produce a high-quality visual. AI models that are fully trained on a large amount of visual data make it much easier to scale up images whenever a new image is given. The same concept may be extended to videos with a few minor adjustments. Although the new higher frame in movies is created by combining the old low-resolution frame with the old high-resolution frame in films, the basic idea is the same. With the help of such a development, videos can be accessed in various resolutions, including 1080p on the user's device, while streaming at 480p. Recent improvements in detail learning and the ability to add more and more powerful computing resources to consumer devices have made this kind of technology possible. TecoGAN generated high-resolution outputs in a study that produced results that remarkably matched the graphics that could be seen in reality. This strategy improves the user experience by reducing bandwidth demand by about 30%. 2- Peer to Peer Streaming The client-server model is used to stream video. The data is sent out through websites on the edge that are marked as CDN and cache the server's content. All of these CDNs are used to get the media, which is then streamed to client devices like laptops, TVs, and tablet computers. But, as you can see below, CDN-based streaming video does have some limits. 1) There is a lot of lag when the number of viewers goes up. 2) CDN coverage isn't good enough for streaming media to faraway places. The problems mentioned above make it challenging for a streaming video service to properly scale its offering and maintain a positive user experience. Each of these problems might be solved by combining a P2P network with a CDN streaming technology known as a hybrid CDN. Installing a peer-to-peer barrier on top of a traditional CDN makes the primary CDN less busy by sending files from the peers around it that already work as CDNs and by moving the perimeter much closer to the user. The customer experience is better because the video is pulled from a nearby peer instead of a faraway CDN. Also, because there is less traffic on CDNs, costs have gone down by 40%. 3- Multi CDN As you can see, the content is sent to users' devices through CDNs, which temporarily store the content from the server. To distribute material, a CDN requires data centres spread across numerous regions. In this, we talk about the "Points of Presence" (POP). The best thing is to have as many POPs as you can. But not every CDN has the same reach around the world. For example, some of the most popular CDNs don't have a POP in China. Most of the time, the effectiveness of each CDN is random and changes over time. Murphy's law says that anything can go wrong with a CDN at any time. Maybe the best way to deal with each of these risks is to use more than one CDN at the same time. You could do this by making separate deals with each CDN, or you could hire a Multi-CDN vendor who might take care of everything for you. Hosting your streaming video platform on a Multi-CDN will provide benefits that improve your overall user experience. 1) You might avoid unplanned service interruptions by switching to a trustworthy CDN. 2) Using " " (RUM) parameters to improve "Quality of Service" while getting content from the best CDN available. Real User Monitoring 3) Using mid-stream swapping can cut CDN costs by a lot. 4- Per Title Encoding It is a method of efficient encoding that changes the bitrate pyramid of each video based on how hard it is to understand. The main goal is to choose a bitrate that gives the codec just enough space to hold the data needed for a perfect viewing experience, but not more. Another way to look at it is to assume that the streamlined, responsive package only has content that users will find useful. The "best" bitrate for each type of content is different. Most of the time, a higher bitrate is needed to hold the information in a sport or fight scene because there is more action and less repetition, making each scene more complicated. It also gives you fewer options for compression techniques, which keeps the quality of the information from looking worse. On the other hand, documentaries tend to have a lot less movement in each scene. This means that a codec might be able to deliver more information in less time without sacrificing accuracy. By taking these things into account and changing the encoding profile accordingly, you can lower the bitrate while keeping the relative value of your content at a very high level. To choose the best option for each different piece of content, you need a good way to compare bitrates. Getting this data usually takes a lot of encodings with different bitrate ratios. Each encoding should use a different content type. You can set up a specific bitrate cascade for each content file and use it to encode it. This method is effective, will improve the user experience, and will almost always lead to less bandwidth being used. Companies that sell digital content, especially those that offer VoD and OTT platforms, naturally focus on this. In 2015, Netflix was able to improve Per-Title Encoding while cutting costs related to the extra analysis phase. As a result, they improved the user experience and cut bandwidth use considerably. Conclusion In the end, we've seen a lot of different . With the arrival of 5G and esports' growth, the use of video bandwidth will go through the roof.  It is important to use the latest innovations to keep up with this growth and keep it going. technological improvements in video streaming

How Technology Shapes the Future of the UK Video Streaming Industry 

New IT projects are born daily, but not all of them hit the spot. Almost startups fail because they don’t find a target market. In turn, of big projects (>$15 million) face cost overruns due to shifting project requirements and unrealistic schedules. 9 of 10 45% Surely, your plans do not include missed deadlines, a bloated budget, or, worse, the failure of a project after launch. How can this be avoided? The answer is: do the project discovery phase. It is one of the essential elements of effective project management and is critical to delivering quality products and services. It will allow you to ensure that the new product meets the market’s needs and your business strategy. Since you can’t afford to neglect this crucial project stage, read more about the discovery phase, its benefits, and critical steps. What Is The Discovery Phase of a Project? The design discovery phase is the foundation for a data-driven approach to planning and executing software development. Typically, project management is carried out in 5 stages, which include: Stage 1: Initiation Stage 2: Planning Stage 3: Execution Stage 4: Monitoring and control Stage 5: Closing None of these stages can be skipped, as each performs unique functions and provides critical information for further product development. When a project goes through the steps in order, the chances of success increase dramatically. Underestimating the value of the early stages before the actual story can lead to budget overruns, project scope creeps, and missed deadlines. But why also add a discovery stage, you ask? It’s simple — in the discovery phase, you work closely with clients to gather information on their business, goals, obstacles, resources, and current situation. Data-gathering can mean going through company archives, combing through documentation and groundwork, or interviewing related personnel. This process usually involves industry, user, and competitor research, a thorough assessment of appropriate business processes, and prior works by the organization. During the discovery analysis, you also agree on the project’s requirements — what your project needs to accomplish. Although discovery phase tasks may vary from project to project, they include the following “golden-standard” efforts: what is the project’s result supposed to do for the business? Business Requirements: what functions should the outcome of the undertaking perform? Functional Requirements: what level of performance is required for the result of the project? Non-functional Requirements: The knowledge gained from this research allows participants to create a customized action plan to deliver the most outstanding value to the business and achieve the project’s primary goals. This comprehensive analysis is a skilled navigator for your product development process. Why is the Discovery Phase Important? The research phase is vital for business owners who want to complete their projects on time and within the budget. The discovery stage of a project is necessary for several reasons: It helps to make decisions based on helpful information and data rather than blindly following assumptions. It allows project managers to involve specialists from an early stage to help find a viable solution to the problem. You discover the best technology and business solutions. It helps design the best user experience, increasing your ROI. It permits you to align business goals and strategies with the technology stack and solutions. You reduce the likelihood of making costly changes as the development process progresses. The Project Discovery Phase – Why is it Often Neglected? There are many reasons companies and startups skip the project’s discovery phase. Sometimes it’s a matter of tight deadlines, sometimes a modest budget, and some even consider that the project discovery is an additional service that does not have to be provided in each project. Occasionally, companies are sure that they know enough and that this is only wasting resources. But if you jump the project discovery phase altogether, you may have to deal with the following challenges: Deadlines were missed because specific milestones were not set, or there was no discussion of results. The project quality is compromised and does not meet the expectations of both the client and the contractor. There is a sharp increase in costs because of poor budgeting (or lack thereof). Scope creep occurs, or clients ask for extensions or additional work. For example, Peeple, an application supposed to rate people and leave reviews, was closed because of a lack of market interest. Washboard failed to test user pain points and create a product that users would love. Big brands like Google have also lost money by neglecting the discovery phase; remember the case of Google Glasses. It would not have occurred if they had researched their idea and the market. When is it necessary for the discovery phase of the product? We list the main points when the discovery process is not only desirable but is of paramount importance: You may know what you want to achieve, but your idea is vague and elusive, and you do not know how to turn it into life. In such a situation, the best way is to perform the discovery phase at the beginning of the project. There is no complete picture of the final product. Of course, achieving the goal is always important, but sometimes too much is at stake, and the slightest mistake can lead to bankruptcy. Success is vital to the existence of a company. . If interested parties are engaged in a project, their requirements may conflict. It is normal and solved by engaging analysts. They will help you understand what is needed for the successful implementation of the project. Stakeholders can’t find common ground A new product, many competitors, or an exhaustive list of requirements for the final product means that the discovery phase in software development is mandatory. Projects that are too complex or innovative. If your budget is limited and you can’t go over it, the discovery analysis will help you avoid overallocation. The development budget is tight. Project Discovery Core Steps It’s much easier to convince stakeholders of the need for a discovery phase when they know what steps it consists of. Although there is no universal template for the project research phase, the following scenario is typical for the software development sector. Creating a project discovery team The discovery team should include a variety of roles with different specialties and areas of interest. – explain the project’s goals, vision, and requirements. Product Owner and Stakeholders – prepares needs, studies project goals and explores the project potential from the market perspective. Business Analyst – prepare a prototype and wireframes and analyze the user journey to design a user experience that meets the user’s needs. Leading designer and UX expert – select the most viable technical solutions to meet your product’s business needs and prepares technical requirements. Developer/Technical Expert – connects all the roles and ensures that clients and vendors are on the same page. Project Manager What should a discovery phase include? Although the duration of the Discovery phase varies with the complexity of the project, its basic building blocks always remain the same: Stakeholder identification. As a rule, it includes the product owner, investors, developers, and other participants. Communication between stakeholders. It involves contact between stakeholders until all parties agree upon the vision. Review of internal documents and existing research includes viewing and analysis of relevant materials to evaluate the existing solutions and approaches. It may also include additional research or interviews. User avatars and user journeys. At this stage, a set of functions is created to help develop a technical solution. It also includes conducting user interviews to understand and solve user problems. Competitive analysis. This stage determines the market niche of the solution being developed. The market analysis allows you to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the product, as well as external opportunities and threats. Specification of requirements for data analysis and systems. This step converts the dataset into a list of technical and business requirements and benchmarks. Deadlines and budget estimates include an estimate of the costs required to complete the project. At this stage, specific deadlines are set for each task with adjustments and revisions. Discovery Phase Checklist Like the discovery phase’s core steps, the requirements discovery checklist permits tracking the control points necessary for the quality project execution. The components of this list are as follows: The category covers the project’s main objectives, research and marketing materials, and any changes/adjustments rationale. Client/Company. A comprehensive study of internal and external aspects using various resources. Submissions may also include industry publications and white papers. Market. It involves evaluating competitive offers and their sources, classifying competitors and primary and secondary groups. The latter allows you to prioritize risks and quickly respond to eliminate them. Competitive analysis. They include other offers on the market, namely products or services. Purchase patterns, interaction patterns, customer experience, and other factors are also researched and considered. Current alternatives. This element includes user stories, demographics, and customer avatars. The target audience. It includes short-term and long-term goals, branding, and specific approaches needed to promote. Marketing strategy. They include specifications, solutions, and an updated technology package. Technical requirements. This element allows you to complete the missing parts. It is critical to ensure that all stakeholders are involved in this process to ensure that the checklist is complete. Other data and information. Discovery Phase Deliverables The deliverables to be presented to the client during the discovery phase are based solely on the tasks underlying this project stage. If the primary goal of the discovery is planning the development workflow, deliverables will respectively consist of various aspects of the process. But if you initiate the discovery phase for the software project, you receive the following pinpoints (depending on the needs of the project at a particular point in time): The document fully describes the project, including recommended features, technical stack, architecture structure, appropriate third-party solutions, security tips, etc. Software Requirements Specification. We are talking about the technical design concept of a website or mobile service. Such a concept ideally comprises two parts: Complex UI/UX concept. A rough sketch preliminarily shows ​​​​the future UI/UX infrastructure. This will help you understand which screens you need to include in your interactive prototype. Wireframes. It may not look exactly like the final product – website or mobile app, but it is detailed and realistic enough to showcase all the interactions. The prototype helps you test the actual user experience before you start development. Interactive prototype. You will receive the estimated composition of the team and an accurate estimate of the development timeline and budget. Numbers based on the discovery phase, prototype, and SRS are unlikely to change in the process and not interfere with your business goals. A plan and estimate for the development of MVP. You will receive the recommended team composition, development budget estimates, and deadlines. The final numbers calculated during the customer discovery phase are unlikely to change (unless the project scope varies during development). Roadmap for Development and Evaluation. A development process proposal based on Discovery’s findings will help ensure that the project team creates a product that meets all the client’s requirements and needs. Discovery phase proposal. What is the discovery phase of an agile project? The discovery phase in a modern Agile management structure is usually placed in the first sprint. That helps determine how well the development team and the client understand each other from the beginning. The discovery phase depends on the project’s complexity and the amount of work. The average times are: – 1-3 days. For a small project – 1-3 weeks. For an average project – at least 4-5 weeks or more. For a large project How much will the product discovery phase cost? The project opening stage costs vary from company to company, but on average, it is 10% of the development budget. After the initial idea discussion, the developers already have a rough idea of ​​​​what needs to be created and how it should work. Therefore, the discovery stage price can tell you in advance about the cost of the final product – MVP or large-scale application. Project Discovery Phase is a Huge Benefit As outlined in the previous sections, we strongly suggest you do a discovery step. So, let’s look at the main benefits you can get without skipping. Creating a market-driven product Doing the research phase of a design allows you to test your design idea with users rather than relying on assumptions. It puts you on the right track by defining your target audience and modeling your vision and business goals. For example, let’s take the confrontation between Facebook and MySpace – identical social networks in concept and critical functions. However, Facebook overtook MySpace because of the perfect match of the market, target audience, and launch timeline. In other words, the Facebook team catches an early trend and offers a market-driven product without creating disruptive innovations. The discovery phase may allow you to do the same. Delivering a great user experience A discovery phase is also great for identifying the problems you will solve with the application. By communicating with users, you will learn their pain points and turn them into additional features of the application. Ignoring the user is dangerous. It’s easy to create functionality or content that no one cares about, which is a tremendous waste of money. Conversely, by listening to your users’ opinions, you can create a product focusing on user experience. Building the foundation for prototyping Creating a prototype is the best way to test an idea with user research. Think of a product prototype as a simplified version of the final product. It aims to test the product’s usability, design, and functionality. This “something” is the information collected at the project opening stage. However, the prototype is still far from a final product to build upon. So without Discovery, it would not be easy to make a great prototype and test the idea. Ensuring clear product direction In product development, there is such a thing as a software requirements specification. In simple words, this is the plan for the entire development process and the structure of the team involved in the project. It is the roadmap for your future web or mobile application. The SRS helps keep the development process consistent and the project team members aware of their work. The research phase of the project sheds light on the complexity and functionality of the project. It defines the required effort during the design, development, testing, and project management phases. To create it, you need a discovery phase in project management. With a clear direction for the application, the story can start with clear milestones and possibly less cost. Risks control There are always risks when doing something new. So many things can go wrong; according to Murphy’s law, they will if they can. But with a flexible discovery stage, you can save a lot of money, visualize your target clearly, and prevent missed deadlines. Project risks will be more regulated, too, helping everyone feel more at ease as things progress. Price drop A significant benefit you will get during a software project’s research phase is the overall cost reduction. Proper documentation and a well-coordinated team will help reduce the cost of your application development process. Hence, it will make your product competitive in the market. Conclusion Both the company professionals and the client benefit from the discovery phase of digital service because precise requirements are set, features are discussed, the budget is known, and the timeframe is decided. Completion of the discovery phase of the project provides an opportunity to make an informed decision to prioritize or reject development. It offers the chance to identify the income from an investment before the development, not after it. Also published . here

Why Your Project Should Start With The Discovery Phase

A Day In The Life of an Obsessive Note Taker

Un día en la vida de un tomador de notas obsesivo

Une journée dans la vie d'un preneur de notes obsessionnel

एक जुनूनी नोट लेने वाले के जीवन में एक दिन

執拗なメモを取る人の一日

Um dia na vida de um anotador obsessivo

Một ngày trong cuộc đời của một người ghi chú ám ảnh

痴迷记笔记者的一天

It can be from a show or a movie, but there's always that one character that can make you laugh, no matter the situation, and that's a universal truth. This character gives us the break we need from the more serious events and allows us to enjoy them on another level. In this thread, the community in our pop culture channel discussed the best comic relief character out there. slogging This Slogging thread by Sara Pinto, Mónica Freitas, Jack Boreham, Abeer, Zaeem Shoaib, Linh Smooke and Limarc Ambalina occurred in slogging's official #pop-culture channel, and has been edited for readability. Sara Pinto Jan 5, 2022, 1:47 PM What's the best comic relief character you've seen? Mónica Freitas Jan 5, 2022, 2:33 PM The first one that comes to mind is Sokka in Avatar ahaha 💚 2 Mónica Freitas Jan 5, 2022, 2:34 PM Sara Pinto Jan 7, 2022, 11:39 AM Mónica Freitas Say no more, if this was a contest, you had won already 😂 I completely agree! Sokka was the whole package, had a good story and he was HILARIOUS. Avatar was good, but he made it better with his jokes 😂 1 Sara Pinto Jan 7, 2022, 11:40 AM Jack Boreham Abeer Limarc Ambalina Linh Smooke  What's your opinion on this? Mónica Freitas Jan 7, 2022, 12:16 PM Sara PintoHe's a himbo without being a himbo...I can't quite explain ahaha. Now, I'm tempted to rewatch this... 😂 1 Jack Boreham Jan 7, 2022, 1:58 PM Meowth from the Pokemon series, or baby yoda 😂 Abeer Jan 7, 2022, 7:51 PM Luis from the Ant-Man movies is hands down the best storyteller 😆 Zaeem Shoaib Jan 7, 2022, 10:06 PM Oh, my fondest memory of a comic relief character is Mushu from the original and yes, Mulan. Eddie Murphy's voice for the character was an excellent choice. Which also brings me to, of course, Donkey!! from Shrek! still better, Zaeem Shoaib Jan 7, 2022, 10:07 PM Honorable mention goes to the late great Robbin Williams as the Genie in Aladdin 💚 1 Sara Pinto Jan 10, 2022, 4:05 PM Mónica Freitas You should! I wish I saw it growing up, the whole cartoon is amazing Sara Pinto Jan 10, 2022, 4:07 PM Jack Boreham Ah yes, the gem of Team Rocket! I loved when he made fun of Jessie and James, so funny! I haven't seen The Mandalorian yet, but that message made me want to watch it just to see it haha Sara Pinto Jan 10, 2022, 4:10 PM Abeer The best part is that Scott Lang by himself is already funny, so they made such a hilarious duo haha 💚 1 Sara Pinto Jan 10, 2022, 4:12 PM I haven't seen the new Mulan yet, but I believe you. No one can beat Eddie Murphy giving voice to characters. My brother and I still repeat, to this day, some of the iconic lines he delivered 😂 Mónica Freitas Jan 10, 2022, 5:58 PM Sara Pinto Oh, I know. My favorite character is Appa ahahah I also really liked The Legend of Kora. Sara Pinto Jan 11, 2022, 10:12 AM Mónica Freitas I totally agree! I wish I had an Appa of my own haha Sara Pinto Jan 11, 2022, 10:14 AM Jack Boreham Do you recomend The Mandalorian? Mónica Freitas Jan 11, 2022, 10:44 AM Sara Pinto you can always get a dog and cosplay it as Appa 😂 😂 1 Linh Smooke Jan 11, 2022, 7:32 PM are we talking about Appa in Kim’s convenience??? he’s such a great character Mónica Freitas Jan 12, 2022, 10:45 AM Linh Smooke ahaha no. We're talking about this little fur ball: 💚 1 Limarc Ambalina Jan 17, 2022, 9:46 AM oohhhhhh I'd have to go with....Marcus in Superstore https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vTviOtHCKg 🔥 1 Limarc Ambalina Jan 17, 2022, 9:47 AM And also Marshall in How I Met Your mother: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ientDwn8I84 🔥 3 Sara Pinto Jan 17, 2022, 11:21 AM Limarc Ambalina I was never much of a HIMYM girl, but I always liked Marshall. Plus, he had a great story! Linh Smooke Jan 17, 2022, 8:49 PM Marshall is such a great character ❤ I was a HIMYM girl right up until the finale which got me swearin’ in my sleep !!!!:face_with_symbols_on_mouth::face_with_symbols_on_mouth::face_with_symbols_on_mouth: 🔥 2 Mónica Freitas Jan 18, 2022, 11:25 AM Linh Smooke I think we can all agree that the end was pointless 😂 ☝ 1 Sara Pinto Jan 18, 2022, 4:07 PM Mónica Freitas Linh Smooke Whenever I saw it, it was definitely because of him and Lily. They were pretty good! Even though I was not a fan, I completely understand the frustration haha 💚 1

Who is the Best Comic Relief Character in the World of Sitcoms?

I know that we all know the answer to this question, but there's a damn good reason to ask it - again. Why is the whole world working from home, first and foremost? Safety comes first, period. Case closed. Your home is your castle, so all you have to do is hustle. We can all also agree that working from home is mostly enjoyable. There are some downsides. But let's be honest about it. When you compare them with the well-known advantages, it's no wonder so many people don't want to get back to the office. WHF Strong - What Could Possibly Go Wrong? when something bad and painful happened. "The man was working from home and on his way to his desk one floor below his bedroom" "While walking on the spiral staircase connecting the rooms, the unnamed man slipped and broke his back." Accidents do happen. Everyone's home included. But, here's the thing. Technically speaking, this remote worker got injured on his way to work. One or a thousand steps, does it really matter? At home, or on the way to the office, does it really matter? Well, according to the insurance companies, it does. This incident took place in Germany. Now, imagine this injured man's surprise and frustration when "his employer's insurance refused to cover the claim." To add insult to injury (figuratively, literally, and most importantly - legally), "two lower courts disagreed over whether it qualified as a commute." The federal social court in Kassel, Germany, had to step in and flex its legal muscle so that justice could be served. The Murphy's Law vs. The Labor Law The court ruled that the injured remote work was officially commuting and that this was a workplace accident, also officially. I'm not a lawyer, and I don't know what's the situation with the EU laws and precedents. One thing I'm sure about, though, is that work from home has become a universal thing or phenomenon or call it what you like. That's why Uncle Sam's legal logic sounds fair and justifiable for any remote workers who may find themselves in a similar solution while working from home: Each judge, when deciding a matter before him or her, selects the prior cases on which to rely; no external authority designates precedents. The hero of this story didn't break his nail while typing on his laptop. We're talking about a serious injury that's going to prevent him from working from home or office, for that matter. That's why his legal "victory" was so important to all remote workers around the globe. I have to add that this was rather a bittersweet victory. The court noted that the employee usually started working in his home office “immediately without having breakfast beforehand”, but did not explain why that was relevant to the case. However, later it said that statutory accident insurance was only afforded to the “first” journey to work, suggesting that a trip on the way to get breakfast after already being in the home office could be rejected. A breakfast made all the difference in this unique case. A worker who goes to work straight from his bed (literally) without even having breakfast first, should be the remote worker of the decade. Instead, he had to fight his insurance company all the way to the federal court. I hope this is the first and the last time quote marks were used for work injuries in the same sentence with work from home. In the meantime, watch your step, and make sure you don't skip breakfast on your way to cast your vote for my Noonies2021 nomination for the Contributor of the Year in Remote-Teams category.

Workplace Injuries in the WFH Era: A Tale from Germany

Urizen shows his book of laws. Image Credit, William Blake Archive The Science of How Things Backfire When human endeavors so often go wrong we blame people for making bad decisions, whether from a moral, or political, or scientific point of view. This only raises our emotional temperature without fixing problems or heading off future catastrophes. However, there are recent theories that explain that many failures stem from general dynamical patterns. Let’s look at two of these patterns. They might someday be part of a science of how to get things done, a kind of moral philosophy of the practical. How the Deck Is Stacked First, let’s consider what we’re up against. As in, what are the background conditions for any human project, the constraints that we simply have to accommodate? given The first is commonly called Murphy’s Law: what can go wrong will go wrong. This is really the second law of thermodynamics. It says there are many ways for disorder to increase and very few for it to decrease. We ourselves are temporary thrusts against the gradient of disorder. Things we do to provide ourselves a safe environment are therefore also temporary. Murphy. This can happen at a low level of abstraction, as when things that we make wear themselves out, when our food rots, our bodies degrade, or when weather tears up our habitations. But it also applies at a higher level of abstraction. Case in point being software. It is hard-to-impossible to make a useful program that does not have ways to fail. Likewise, our social and cultural arrangements are subject to decay. Economists speak about a “law” of unintended consequences. We do something to solve a problem, but as a result, some other problem arises, something that we could not or did not predict. Examples are innumerable, but for now, remember that every drug has unwanted (so-called) “side” effects. The underlying core principle of unintended consequences is the familiar chaos theory, the butterfly wing effect. Unintention. The third thing we are stuck with is human nature, a conglomeration that includes some real downers. We have sociopaths. We have tribalism. Selfishness and free-riders cause problems directly and indirectly by causing trust issues. We find it hard to agree on basic facts because we are ruled by unconscious cognitive biases. Human Nature. One bias (that I have covered ) happens when we try to understand others’ motivations, a process called Theory of Mind. We over-generalize this, thus attributing agency to parts of nature that don’t have it. We then manufacture belief in supernatural forces whose whims we need to appease. The resulting behavior may be benign (nature worship), or harmless (folk tales), or horribly wrong (crusades, crucifixions, cleansings). elsewhere Another major “human nature” issue is in the scope of how many other people that a person cares about. This sets up conflicts between those who versus those who also care about larger groups or even humanity as a whole. care only about family or tribe So, we exist in a background of threats from: entropy, inability to foresee the consequences of our actions, and everyone’s often unconscious cognitive biases. There are also higher principles involved, dynamics that lead good intentions astray. Moloch, AKA the Multipolar Trap Moloch: by John Singer Sargent @ Boston Public Library An anonymous blogger, pseudonym-ed Scott Alexander, gave us a catchy name for the most destructive dynamic in the world. Moloch was an ancient Carthaginian god of human sacrifice. In Allen Ginsburg’s famous poem, , Moloch was identified with all the myriad horrors and miseries of civilization. Alexander, impressed by the analogy, used Moloch as the nickname for what he s. Howl termed multipolar trap These are situations that can arise whenever multiple parties are pursuing some valuable goal, . Nearly always the end in itself or some resource leading to it will be in short supply, and thus competition will arise. The bad dynamic occurs when someone decides to sacrifice some other value, , in order to get ahead. Any other parties will be out-competed unless they also sacrifice . Soon everyone who survives the competition will find themselves without and possibly have less of the original goal . G V V V G There can instead emerge a monopoly or oligopoly when one player or a few players sacrifice enough ’s to get all the . V G The Two-Income Multipolar Trap The more interesting cases are those where there are many players. Consider the story documented in Elizabeth Warren’s 2004 book, . Suppose the Goal is to live in a safe neighborhood with good schools. The game players are families raising children. To buy a home in an expensive school district, both parents have to work. The Values sacrificed include time with children, cultural opportunity, and diversity, as well as the money that is used for child care, higher taxes (because of higher joint income), mortgage increases, a second car, convenience foods, and tranquilizers. The Two-Income Trap Also sacrificed are the aspirations of people who can’t get good enough jobs to compete. These folks are not even in the original game; they are collateral damage. Meanwhile, the price of desirable houses goes up and up, taking the Goal out of reach for many. Without anyone making a decision to do so, other values are sacrificed as household stress, debt, divorce, and bankruptcy increase. Of course, as we know, it went further than that. Even back then Warren mentioned subprime mortgages as a dangerous development. Libertarian, greed-is-good schemes are Moloch’s favorite food. Now, in the continuing aftermath of the last crash, it’s Jurassic Park for the middle class, bunkers for the rich, and fascism for the rest. Moloch, indeed. So the first Failure (note capital F) dynamic is Moloch of the Multipolar Traps. ‘Multipolar’ because it is a competition of multiple parties. ‘Traps’ because once you are in the downward spiral, you are stuck until something gives, some limit is reached. In our two-income example, perhaps the limit is a pandemic with widespread unemployment, or… pick your own favorite show-stopper. Surrogation Traps The story above, of course, has a lot more going on than a multipolar trap. It has the basic background conditions mentioned earlier, and several doses of our second major type of Failure dynamic. That dynamic has several technical names from game theory, economics and even from artificial intelligence theory. But the name I like is a new-ish one, . It simply means the substitution of a surrogate goal for an actual goal. It sounds innocent enough. However, there are plenty of times when we get together and agree on totally admirable goals, and it still ends in tears. Surrogation Take a moment and remember the Phrygian king King Midas. Dionysus offered Midas anything he wanted as payment for a favor. What he wanted was riches, but his surrogate for that (“let everything that I touch turn to gold”), awarded literally by Dionysus, was a curse. Surrogation is the basis of legal systems. A prescriptive law is said to have a (its goal) which is to encourage some better state of affairs or to eliminate some problem. On the other hand, the of the law (its surrogate) specifies rules for bringing the spirit to fruition. Rules for shaping human behavior are often tricky, and so laws are imperfect. William Blake’s mythical being, Urizen (”your reason”), tried to constrain the universe by creating laws but made chaos and misery instead. spirit , letter We engage in projects whose ideal outcome might be easily stated and agreed upon, but whose execution has to be guided by a substitute. The surrogate is that which can be measured, or tracked, or is simply feasible for the situation. Effort can only be applied to the surrogate, not to the actual goal. Wise observers tell us that an enterprise based on surrogation very often misses its mark. The ill effect of surrogation is so reliable that there’s a version known as Goodhart’s Law. Economist Charles Goodhart said: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. So we can design a project (private or public, it doesn’t matter), and say (oh, so smugly) that we’ll know we’re getting there because we will measure X, Y, and Z. The measures are chosen because they make sense, they logically connect somehow with our project’s true goal. Often they are measures of the direct effects of particular policies that we think will help lead us towards our real goal. Perhaps in the past, they even occurred at times when we seemed closer to achieving the goal. So, we’re set, all happy because we have a good goal and good measures to lead us to it. We change our policies to set the project in motion and sit back to watch our success. In what way could anything go wrong? Let us count the ways, as Scott Garrabrant, one of those people who tries to imagine how we might get super AIs to behave admirably. explained by (1) People who have incentives to do things that change the Surrogate measures start to think of the Surogate as an end in itself. The Surrogate mentally becomes the new Goal. But optimizing for the Surrogate does not optimize for the Goal. Goal Drift. (2) The Surrogate and the Goal have been correlated in the past because they both are affected by other causes. But changing the Surrogate has no causal effect on the Goal at all. Or maybe you failed to realize that the Goal actually causes changes in the Surrogate, but not vice versa. You can’t make yourself taller by practicing basketball skills. Causal Disconnect. Sometimes the project itself changes the causal effect. We decide to place a wind farm in an area where there is a lot of wind. We calculate how many windmills to use and what our power output (the Goal) should be. But the presence of many windmills in an area actually the Surrogate measure, wind speed. decreases (3) The correlation of the Surrogate with the Goal is causal, but imperfect, because random other unknown causes are involved. When your actions increase the Surrogate measure, there might be no corresponding effect on the Goal. Statistical Regression. Sometimes you look at multiple Surrogate measures and pick the one that correlates best with the Goal. But (says basic statistical theory) that correlation, because it is high, is most likely to be high due partly to random factors. So when you start to use the Surrogate, its actual correlation with the Goal becomes less, i.e., it “regresses towards the mean”. Height is correlated with basketball ability, but unless you are the coach in a tiny town, you don’t just pick players based on height. (4) Perhaps the most powerful way that Surrogates fail to lead to Goals is also the one that is easiest to understand. People are getting rewarded for changing the value of the Surrogate. So, they find the easiest way to do that, which might have no effect on the Goal, or may even work against it. Gaming. Here are some classic real examples of surrogate gaming. Many more can be found in attempts to regulate the financial industry. The Cobra Effect. Offer a bounty in India for dead cobras, and people start raising cobras to turn in for the bounty. When the government wises up, the unused cobras get released, increasing the population that everyone wanted to decrease. Central Planning Confounded. Soviet factories that are rewarded for the Surrogate, number of nails, produce a lot of tiny useless nails. Moloch Eats College Loans I was tempted to write the TL;DR about college loans, which involves interlocking hierarchies of surrogation and the two levels of multipolar traps. Instead, readers can try to puzzle that out for themselves. The top-level goals are American national competitiveness in a knowledge economy, and rewarding careers for individuals. The surrogate policy was to have government guarantees of student loans, making them easy to obtain. The unintended results were rampant college cost inflation, the rise of fraudulent educational enterprises (even a disreputable real estate developer could start one), staggering student debt, adjunct professors living out of their cars, and higher unemployment for graduates. There’s probably also a multipolar/surrogate story for the U.S.’s absurdly expensive healthcare, or for any combination of <unfavorable adjective> &<tragic societal circumstance>. Can We Do Better Than Muddling Through? We need people to understand that there are dynamics, even nuances, to how things go wrong.  Most people prefer simple slogans to complicated (’blah blah, blah blah blah’) explanations. ...?  Maybe better education would help. Another barrier is the pervasive, eternal multipolar surrogate trap of power politics, which also is subject to the corrosive influence of sociopaths and narcissists. In fact, power politics might be a selective pressure for the elevation of bad characters. and What we need from political and business leadership is not competitive gamesmanship. They should help develop and then make use of a science of the possible; to use factual evidence, obtained by transparent processes; to acknowledge traps and weigh trade-offs, crafting better incentives, and making clear priorities. We also need to realize that we are chewing up planetary resources that took enormous, deep time to create. Thus, we are stuck in the biggest multipolar trap of them all: our own tar pit of hubris, myopia, and fear. And half the United States’ electorate still denies all of this. Also published behind a paywall.

Why Would Anything Ever Go Right?

In this AMA, Sirisilp from Perception talks about , desktop AR, and holographic NFTs. Holo-SDK This AMA thread by Anthony Watson, Daria Kulish, Amy Tom, David Smooke, Linh Smooke, Mcsee, Katarina, Arthur Tkachenko, and Sirisilp occurred in slogging's official #amas channel, and has been edited for readability. Slogging Hey everyone! My name is Sirislip (aka Rabbit). I created an SDK for Desktop AR tech called Holo-SDK. I have been working on Desktop AR for more than 10 years (throughout my master and PhD studies). I am very honoured for being here :) So I prepare a detailed introduction about what we do for you guys! Desktop AR is a technique that enables laptop and desktop computers to produce AR effect without needing a phone or a headset. It creates the illusion of 3D objects floating in front of a screen by rendering red-blue 3D images according to a user's viewing position. User can download the play Desktop AR apps by using their computer, webcam, and anaglyph glasses. More about Desktop AR here ( ) -You get the holographic experience and seeing things floating in front of the screen. Here is a YouTube demo of what it felt like when playing a Desktop AR ( ). Yes, the colour will be a bit purple-ish because of the red-blue glasses. If that is what bothers you, you can also use an active/passive 3D display to overcome this issue. -Users do not need to have AR glasses or a headset, which tends to be pricy. Desktop AR utilizes hardware that everyone already has and red-blue glasses that are available online for a low price. This also means that more potential users for your Desktop AR applications. -More immersive than mobile AR. Mobile AR's experience is limited by small display size and lack of stereoscopic. Unlike Desktop AR and AR glasses, Mobile AR enhances the realism of a video that a user sees on a device, rather than enhancing the viewing experience of the user directly. You can make Desktop AR apps by using Holo-SDK. Holo-SDK is a unity plugin. You can download and start developing going to ( ). We do have a free developer license there, so you can play with the tech without cost. We also have documents ( ), so that you can use the SDK easier. We have been using it to improve the learning experience for students. The students were very engaged, and we had a lot of fun. Moreover, we are working with world-class museums on a holographic exhibition project. So that everyone can have a museum experience at home! Check out an article about our educational workshop on the UK government website here: You may think - great another person jumping onto the NFT bandwagon And you are right! But please let me elaborate because I really see an opportunity for improving the arts, culture, education and software sectors here :) Let's start by looking at normal NFT. Most of them are pictures and intangible. For example, NFT of a Perseverance Mars rover is just picture of the rover. Even though the image is officially minted and sold by NASA, you can google it and find it. Why pay so much money for it? Now consider an alternative use case, instead of a picture, NASA mints a holographic figurine using Desktop AR tech. You can experience the rover as if it is floating in front of your screen. You can control who access your Holo-NFT. You can lend it Desktop AR apps and receive dividend from your NFT. Your Holo-NFT is one of the kind asset and not available on the net. Users, Holo-NFT collectors and Desktop AR developers will be tapping into holographic contents and support content creators like museums and 3D artist. So that they can digitize more historical artefacts or create awesome 3D arts. Looking forward to getting to know everyone here and your question! Sorry for a long post. Here is a potato :potato: Sirisilp Kongsilp Apr 7, 2021, 5:25 AM What is Desktop AR? https://www.holo-sdk.com/how-desktopar-works What's cool about it? https://youtu.be/cuvJxsB285k How to make your own Desktop AR app? https://www.holo-sdk.com/get-started https://docs.holo-sdk.com/docs/holo-sdk-manual/overview/ What can Holo-SDK be used for? https://www.gov.uk/government/news/thai-uk-augmented-reality-company-perception-codes-brings-students-on-immersive-journey-to-mars Holo-NFT??? ( https://www.morpheus.art/ ) How is your description of NFT any different from existing DRM? anthony watson Apr 7, 2021, 11:59 AM anthony watson Yes, you are right! It is a form of Digital Right Management. In a way, we are integrating into NFT. We can do so because the holographic representation is not a common file format that anyone can access publicly on the internet. Sirisilp Kongsilp Apr 7, 2021, 6:07 PM I had the pleasure of testing some of the Holo-SDK apps your team created. Great work on those! When I found the right angle and adjusted the settings the experience was quite good. It's amazing that this technology is possible without a special computer or hardware. However, in my opinion there is room for error in the current model (IPD settings, position of the red-blue glasses, how far the person is sitting from the screen, etc.) Are you working on V2 improvements that can cut down some of this room for error? Limarc Ambalina Apr 7, 2021, 2:29 PM Does the quality of your computer display and the quality of your camera affect the desktop AR experience at all? Limarc Ambalina Apr 7, 2021, 2:34 PM Limarc Ambalina Yes, we are working on the V2 to improve the accuracy and performance. This version of Holo-SDK is a form of MVP. We are testing it with the early adopters/developers to see that there is a market for it, and to see which feature should we implement or improve. Now that we have a majors project coming up with the museums, we will be releasing an improved version soon. Regarding the quality, one of the most common issues is ghosting (seeing double image). It caused by a picture of one eye leak to another. The level of ghosting can change depending on the type of the display and type of the anaglyph glasses. For example, we find that paper anaglyph glasses produce a much better experience than more expensive plastic glasses. As for the head tracking, it depends more on the lighting environment. Using it with a light on will give much better tracking than using Holo-SDK in a dark room because the software is tracking the user from RGB images. Sirisilp Kongsilp Apr 7, 2021, 6:14 PM Amazing project! Can you share more about Holo-SDK collaboration with museums? Daria Kulish Apr 7, 2021, 4:33 PM Daria Kulish We are finalizing the details of the project with the museums. Tentatively, we will use museums' 3D model, label text and information to create Desktop AR apps. Then we will be distributing 20,000 glasses to schools in the UK and Thailand. So that students can learn about historical artefacts as if they are floating in front of the screen. We have created multiple workshops with schools, the kids love it :) Sirisilp Kongsilp Apr 7, 2021, 6:18 PM Thanks for doing an AMA! Do you see a use case for this in a sales/marketing capacity? Amy Tom Apr 7, 2021, 6:02 PM Amy Tom Regarding sales and marketing, yes I do see many use case for it. In a way, the purpose of the Holo-Exhibition project with museums is to demonstrate how Holo-SDK can be used for PR and marketing. I see a similar trend with mobile-based AR in the past, where IKEA apps and Pokemon go. Those apps show the public and other brands how mobile-AR can create a new experience for the customers. Sirisilp Kongsilp Apr 7, 2021, 6:27 PM Woah AR NFTS!?! The energy cost to mint an NFT for an image are still through the roof imho. AR files and functions are much bigger. How big do you think the energy cost barrier is to minting NFTs for augmented reality? David Smooke Apr 7, 2021, 6:20 PM David Smooke Yes, the energy required and carbon footprint that NFT created is a huge concern. The energy requires to mint Holo-NFT is about the same as traditional NFT because it is just about creating a unique reference id to a file on IPFS. This does not mean energy consumption is not our concern. There will be two chains that 3D artist would be able to mint. The first one is on Ethereum. I do not have much control over that but I really looking forward to Ethereum 2 will improve the situation. The second chain is our semi-decentralized chain. Only certain organizations such as art gallery and museums will have a node on our chain, which reduce energy consumption drastically. Sirisilp Kongsilp Apr 7, 2021, 6:34 PM hey Sirisilp Kongsilp (i think it’s so cool that your name starts with Siri haha) - What are the most important use cases for Holo-SDK that you already implemented and what are some of the ones you look forward to do but not yet able to, and why? Linh Smooke Apr 7, 2021, 6:21 PM Linh Dao Smooke, Thanks 🙂 The most important one is education. From what I have seen, students really enjoy learning with it. I am looking forward to bring this AR/MR experience to less fortunate kids who do not have an access to VR/AR headsets in a rural area. What I want to see are games. My team are software engineers and researchers. We do not have that artistic quality to make beautiful games. ^^ Sirisilp Kongsilp Apr 7, 2021, 6:39 PM David Smooke Yes, the energy required and carbon footprint that NFT created is a huge concern. The energy requires to mint Holo-NFT is about the same as traditional NFT because it is just about creating a unique reference id to a file on IPFS. This does not mean energy consumption is not our concern. There will be two chains that 3D artist would be able to mint. The first one is on Ethereum. I do not have much control over that but I really looking forward to Ethereum 2 will improve the situation. The second chain is our semi-decentralized chain. Only certain organizations such as art gallery and museums will have a node on our chain, which reduce energy consumption drastically. Sirisilp Kongsilp Apr 7, 2021, 6:34 PM Does Hollographic includes movies and sounds or just pictures? mcsee Apr 7, 2021, 6:30 PM mcsee Not just pictures. It includes interactive 3D content, sounds, movie and pictures (as sprite). You can arrange those media anywhere in the 3D space. Sirisilp Kongsilp Apr 7, 2021, 6:43 PM Hello Sirisilp Kongsilp 👋 For artists interested in submitting to the Morpheus project: Do you have any advice they should keep in mind before submitting, considering there's a review process? Katarina Apr 7, 2021, 6:43 PM Katarina For artists that join the project, we recommend testing the art using Holo-NFT viewer before submitting. Moreover, after joining, we are reaching out to the artist one by one. So that we can facilitate them in any way that we can. As well as getting feedback on what are the important features that we need to implement next. Are you an artist? :) Sirisilp Kongsilp Apr 7, 2021, 6:47 PM Please forgive me for my bad English. It is not my native language and it is almost 2 am in morning here 🙂 My head is a bit slow but I am honored to be here and sharing Holo-SDK with everyone. Sirisilp Kongsilp Apr 7, 2021, 6:49 PM Nice. Do you just work on AR o also VR ? mcsee Apr 7, 2021, 6:54 PM Sirisilp Kongsilp Not an artist myself, though I find the concept amazing. It's good to know early adopters get direct support through the process. Thanks for the answer 🙂 Katarina Apr 7, 2021, 6:56 PM mcsee I have also worked with VR int he past. Mainly looking into how VR headset can help special students learn to perform daily life better. Here is a short paper I published about it. ( ) Sirisilp Kongsilp Apr 7, 2021, 6:57 PM https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3359996.3364721?casa_token=Dyho9zSIfGMAAAAA:s9n3nnCKi1L3WDctWA5SoqI7tBbciQHsxS-qNePdMKgEQGSj0Vy6WCsRriogYpgdywwDR9prf7mOJg I hope I'm not late to join this party. How much time do you think will has gone by, before each of us will have a VR set at home and we'll start to work "at virtual companies, workspaces". like we doing it right now, but with much more comfort? Arthur Tkachenko Apr 7, 2021, 7:44 PM Arthur Tkachenko Honestly, I don't really see a future where people put on a headset and meet/mingle in a virtual building. Unless VR tech becomes so real like in the ready player one movie. I agree with you that what we are doing right now is much more comfortable and practical. Gamify education makes sense to me but gamify works do not. My personal opinion is that in the future, we come home, sitting in front of a computer and everything comes out of it holographically. This can be done using Desktop AR with a glasses-free 3D panel (autostereoscopic display). We can shop, play, communicate or work in this holographic environment. If you like to jump into a virtual environment, then you put on the headset. That is my personal take on the future :) Thank you for asking. Sirisilp Kongsilp Apr 8, 2021, 4:19 AM Thank you for having me everyone! Sirisilp Kongsilp Apr 7, 2021, 6:59 PM Thanks for joining us for this quick AMA Sirisilp! And thanks for doing it late night your time. Limarc Ambalina Apr 7, 2021, 7:00 PM thank you. very exciting ! mcsee Apr 7, 2021, 7:00 PM If you have any further questions, please feel free to ask away. If you like, we can also connect on LinkedIn. Here is my profile: Sirisilp Kongsilp Apr 7, 2021, 6:53 PM https://www.linkedin.com/in/rabbit/

The Future of Desktop AR and Holographic NFTs

Greetings and happy Thursday from your buddy Shane at Shells.com!  For those that missed my first installment of Ethical Hacking 101 -- start and then come on back here for part 2! there Now that you’ve got your White Hat on and have an understanding of the tools necessary for your role -- let’s dig deeper into other aspects of Ethical Hacking and Penetration Testing.  In this installment -- we’ll go through the mindset you’ll need to have to be an Ethical Hacker, entry points to your systems that bad guys target, and preventative measures you can take to avoid disaster. Ethical Hacking and Penetration Testings: The cooler name for the effort associated with both of those terms is “The Red Team.” From Wikipedia: A red team is a group that plays the role of an enemy or competitor, and provides security feedback from that perspective. Red teams are used in many fields, especially in cybersecurity, airport security, the military, and intelligence agencies. The rule of the internet and its wildness is: there are no rules.  Nothing contained in your website code is off-limits.  People will find every bug in your system and have at it -- cracking your user databases and finding exploits in your payment systems are a few of the many targets that will be attacked. The villains of the internet are the epitome of Murphy’s Law. “If you make it, they will destroy it” -- Hmm, I guess now this is Shane’s Law, because I’ve made things and those internet ninjas came to destroy it. With this in mind, it’s always good to build your products and systems and thoroughly test them. Think how a ‘Hacker’ would and try to exploit your own setups, or learn from other exploits on the internet and patch your system on the fly. While you’re building it, you should be thinking, “how can I destroy this?”, so that you can prevent any future problems with your product. It’s a full-time practice, which extends to a lot of positions For most, having the time requirements to be a full-time security consultant for your own firm is taxing, exhausting, and sometimes soul-sucking. Have you ever battled a thirteen-year-old with a vendetta, 30,000 hacked computers at his disposal, AND he’s probably smarter than your IT team? If you ever run into him, make sure you win.  Fight the good fight on the internet with us as an Ethical Hacker.  Patch the exploits and loopholes hackers use to destroy our networks and products. Those 13-year-old script kiddies are resilient. I know, I use to be one. But back then it was different, we would take over chatrooms by using social manipulation tactics and scripts to flood people offline. Sometimes, my group of childhood hacker friends would hold websites hostage; and for nothing at all. Just sport. Ethical Hacking/Penetration Testing and its Benefits It should be known to you now that testing how far you can get into/mess with/break a system is ideal. We should be doing this for all of our networks, servers, products, or have somebody on the team to do so for us. Why? Because if we don’t, they will.  And THEY may not be Ethical, or THEY may be a robot designed to auto-infiltrate your systems. Finding any holes in your security and patching them (especially for newer products) is essential and usually pushed onto the Quality Assurance team and DevOps engineers to find. While there is no one solution or one way to go about testing and securing your setups, there are common ones that can be accessed through poorly written code on websites. Entry points can come from: Database (SQL) - Some software has bugs in it, or are just poorly written. Your database is your gold. See this xkcd. WordPress - If configured incorrectly, users can brute force your website.com/wplogin page. It’s usually wise to change your default login page to something like back-office, this can be done by installing a WordPress module. It’s also good practice to keep your WordPress up to date, using as little modules as you can. If one module gets hacked, your whole site does. WebServers (apache, nginx, nodejs ws, python ws) - Three words: Run. Trusted. Code. PHP Code - PHP is the most popular web development code. Remember, obscurity is not real security, so if you have spaghetti code, really consider re-writing it. Attackers may find something within your system that causes a certain reaction, which can lead them on to other vulnerabilities and nuisances. Be Ahead of the Curve Subscribing to useful security update websites based on the software you run is a good choice. With things such as WordPress having add-ons that can be hacked, it’s best to keep things to a minimum.  Just browsing Hacker News, or a popular one: Daniel’s Blog I for one get most of my security updates live on Internet Relay Chat (irc.shells.net #nerds) where the hacker scene is still booming. Being on the lookout for tactics used in the field. The weakest point of any system will always be “ .” Be strict and confidential. The Human Hackers are always finding new ways and tactics to get into systems. If you’ve done your job securing your system, your job isn’t done yet, as they’ll move on to social engineering. This is prevalent in many fields such as CryptoCurrency exchanges.  Hackers attempt to manipulate employees by pretending to be other employees to gain access to any of the systems, and from there plot new attacks. Simply spoofing a phone number and adding it to a group chat is a tactic one could use to gain access. For example, you’re now added to a group chat on your phone, you see a text coming in from your CEO and a few other members are there. Since the hacker can’t read text messages sent to that number, they have another copy of themselves in the group chat to be able to read replies and send new texts as the spoofed number. A simple “Hey, I’m out of town can you give X Access to Y?” and it goes from there. Maybe the e-mail address looks just like your boss’ email address? and at a glance it looks legit, but looking harder you realize it’s and you just submitted your quarterly reports to it. name@Microsoft.com name@Micvosoft.com Damn. That would suck, and it happens all the time. Closing part 2 of Ethical Hacking 101:  It’s simply the Good vs the Bad.  The only way to win is to be pre-emptive. By Shane Britt, Shells.com

Ethical Hacking 101: Part 2

About Internet protocols using OSI model From its inception in 1992 until today, the Internet has come a long way. It is a path from a network of several thousand sites built on simple HTML to a global system that has become an integral part of society. In the seven-layer OSI (The Open Systems Interconnection model) network representation model - physical layer and data link layer protocols with the development of technologies, communications and equipment, has undergone incredible metamorphoses: from the simplest network equipment and modems for 300 baud, to an input optical cable of any capacity for apartments, and in the near future even to quantum repeaters! At the same time, the logical structure of the entire global network - network layer protocols - is a legacy of the 20th century. In addition to the fact that the entire array of possible IPv4 addresses is no longer enough, the protocols themselves were developed for ideal conditions, and therefore proved to be defenseless against various network attacks. The lack of encryption at the basic level provokes attacks such as MITM, ARP poisoning, DDOS, etc., which appeared after the standardization of protocols. The security “crutches” that appeared in response to the threats did not solve the problem - the IP protocol and the entire IP routing system were outdated. Figure 1: OSI model Omitting the consideration of the transport layer and moving on to the protocols of the session, presentation and especially the application layer, it should be noted that they are excessive and overcomplicated, since they are partly aimed at solving the problems of lower-layer protocols. Such tasks as traffic encryption and reliable addressing, which must be solved by the protocols of the network and transport layers, are left to the mercy of the upper-layer protocols, which, instead of their main tasks, additionally try to fix architectural vulnerabilities. This seriously affects the overall security, which in fact has become a hostage to the quality of the developed network interaction of specific programs. About services and applications of the Internet What is the Internet for the user? Services and Applications! A small number of services (storage and transmission of data, communication, media and games, financial and information) corresponds to a huge number of applications for their implementation. In fact, these are applications for the sake of applications. At the same time, the successful Chinese WeChat system successfully demonstrated how you can do without this diversity. A huge number of applications creates a corresponding number of problems resulting from the quality of application development. The scourge of quality is the “release race”. This problem was partially solved by the global corporate distribution centers for applications “Google play”, “App Store” and others, which took responsibility for the quality of programs. But this did not solve the problem globally. Paraphrasing Murphy's law, we can say: if errors in software development are fundamentally possible, they will definitely be there. About the advantages and disadvantages of centralized management History shows that the concentration of power in one hand allows solving tactical tasks in a short time. But in the long run, this form of power tends to be abused and starts to hinder progress. The situation is similar with the Internet. Large corporations, which control the threads of the global network, are primarily concerned with their own well-being. Occasionally, the interests of companies may coincide with the interests of most Internet users, but not always. In addition to such hackneyed topics as the use of personal and financial user data by corporations at their discretion, they are also able to influence every Internet user, manipulating information and determining social development. In addition to the hackneyed topics of how corporations use people's personal and financial data, they can also influence every Internet user by manipulating information and shaping social development. Think about it, with such a system, the future is not in our hands, but in the hands of a “board of directors” pursuing its own goals. About Web 3.0 as a Utopia In 2007, Jason Calacanis posted a vision for the Internet on his blog. Calacanis noted that on the modern Internet, due to the huge number of monotonous resources, many of them have depreciated. He suggested that a new, not so much technological, as a socio-cultural platform should emerge, allowing professionals to create interesting, useful and high-quality content. Web 3.0 was presented as a continuation of the Web 2.0 concept. As a solution, he suggested introducing a metalanguage describing the content of sites in order to organize automatic exchange between servers. However, no implementation happened. The reason is not so much the cost of creating a semantic version of sites, but rather a human factor: the lack of a guarantee of an adequate description by publishers of their own resources, a wide field for manipulating descriptive mechanisms and the impossibility of adopting a unified description format in a competitive environment due to corporate advertising policy. About technological solutions and Free TON From the above, we can conclude that the implementation of the concept of Web 3.0 requires a new technology platform that would remove personal and corporate interests from software development, network management and decision-making. The main properties of such a platform should be: distribution, basic security of network interaction, the ability to implement Internet services. The best candidates for such platforms are solutions based on the blockchain concept. Yes, we can criticize the implementation of the blockchain in Bitcoin that appeared in 2009 (for example, the formation of blocks by the method of Proof-of-work from the point of view of the ecology of the planet), nevertheless, it became the starting point for the development of the whole families of more technologically advanced solutions. Today, one of the most conceptually advanced solutions has become the TON (Telegram Open Network) P2P network, developed by the Durov brothers for the subsequent transfer of the Telegram messenger to it. Despite the fact that as a result of the injunction the platform was deprived of the opportunity to join the 400 million messenger community, nevertheless, in May 2020, thanks to the efforts of the enthusiastic communities and TON developers - TON Labs, the platform was launched under the name Free TON with the native Crystal token. What is Free TON and why is it perfect for the technological platform of the Internet of the future? While Bitcoin is only a payment system, Free TON is a full-fledged scalable P2P overlay network built on the advanced blockchain architecture 2.0. The Free TON blockchain architecture consists of a masterchain and up to 2^32 workchains, each of them with its own parameters and token. Workchain number 0 operate a token named Crystal. Workchains can be divided into shardchains, up to 2^64 in total. Each shardchain independently processes transactions, parallelizing calculations and providing millions of transactions per second. Shardchains are split or merged, maintaining the desired speed. For the formation of blocks, the mechanism Proof-of-stake (PoS) is used. Forking off the blockchain is not possible. In addition, a decentralized data storage service called TON Storage is provided within the blockchain. The mechanism of smart-contracts has been fully implemented, brought to its logical conclusion in Free TON - in fact, everything in the system, including user accounts, is smart-contracts. Smart-contracts are executed in a virtual machine - TON VM, which is part of the system. At the same time, depending on the spent computing resources (gas), the cost of executing a smart contract in Crystal also grows. Free TON provides a complete TCP/IP protocol-free mechanism for interacting with basic encryption both inside its own nodes and outside gateways, protected from malicious influences. Within the network, there is a platform for launching applications, as well as a semblance of a domain name system. In fact, Free TON is a distributed operating system. Figure: 2 Comparison of network infrastructures using the OSI model With several alternative technology solutions as competitors, such as Solana (high-speed blockchain platform), Polkadot (a platform that provides a communication mechanism between other blockchain platforms), IPFS (distributed file system), Free TON includes the functions of each of them. Free TON mechanisms simplify the implementation of all the necessary Internet services (means of communication, encryption, financial resources, file storage, video and audio services, user authentication) and ensure their communication with the services of the “current” Internet. At the same time, at the basic level, Free TON implements a distributed control system based on user consensus and devoid of the problems inherent in the modern Internet described above. Globally, Free TON is a one of most suited to the role of the technological foundation of Web 3.0. As a result, the development prospects of Free TON depend on the creation of its infrastructure and final tools - smart contracts, decentralized bots, client applications with high user abilities.

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