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At Total Teherapy, our mission is to support clinics that perform therapy so that they can spend less time worrying about running their businesses, and have more time for working with the kids. Their work is profoundly improving the lives of the 1-2% of American children with autism spectrum disorders and their families, and we believe that they deserve the best software and services to enable them to work at peak performance and efficiency. Our cloud-based and HIPAA compliant software gives them this power by managing all of their scheduling, billing, demographic and clinical data in a secure manner to help them keep organized, stay on top of their revenue cycle, and track the progress of their students. Our products work great on all major devices and browsers so that therapists can always have access to all of their data, and be just as productive at the students’ homes as they are in the clinic.

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Five Weeks in a Balloon by Jules Verne, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . Chapter XLIII here CHAPTER FORTY-THIRD. The Talabas.—The Pursuit.—A Devastated Country.—The Wind begins to fall.—The Victoria sinks.—The last of the Provisions.—The Leaps of the Balloon.—A Defence with Fire-arms.—The Wind freshens.—The Senegal River.—The Cataracts of Gouina.—The Hot Air.—The Passage of the River. “Had we not taken the precaution to lighten the balloon yesterday evening, we should have been lost beyond redemption,” said the doctor, after a long silence. “See what’s gained by doing things at the right time!” replied Joe. “One gets out of scrapes then, and nothing is more natural.” “We are not out of danger yet,” said the doctor. “What do you still apprehend?” queried Kennedy. “The balloon can’t descend without your permission, and even were it to do so—” “Were it to do so, Dick? Look!” They had just passed the borders of the forest, and the three friends could see some thirty mounted men clad in broad pantaloons and the floating bournouses. They were armed, some with lances, and others with long muskets, and they were following, on their quick, fiery little steeds, the direction of the balloon, which was moving at only moderate speed. When they caught sight of the aëronauts, they uttered savage cries, and brandished their weapons. Anger and menace could be read upon their swarthy faces, made more ferocious by thin but bristling beards. Meanwhile they galloped along without difficulty over the low levels and gentle declivities that lead down to the Senegal. “It is, indeed, they!” said the doctor; “the cruel Talabas! the ferocious marabouts of Al-Hadji! I would rather find myself in the middle of the forest encircled by wild beasts than fall into the hands of these banditti.” “They haven’t a very obliging look!” assented Kennedy; “and they are rough, stalwart fellows.” “Happily those brutes can’t fly,” remarked Joe; “and that’s something.” “See,” said Ferguson, “those villages in ruins, those huts burned down—that is their work! Where vast stretches of cultivated land were once seen, they have brought barrenness and devastation.” “At all events, however,” interposed Kennedy, “they can’t overtake us; and, if we succeed in putting the river between us and them, we are safe.” “Perfectly, Dick,” replied Ferguson; “but we must not fall to the ground!” and, as he said this, he glanced at the barometer. “In any case, Joe,” added Kennedy, “it would do us no harm to look to our fire-arms.” “No harm in the world, Mr. Dick! We are lucky that we didn’t scatter them along the road.” “My rifle!” said the sportsman. “I hope that I shall never be separated from it!” And so saying, Kennedy loaded the pet piece with the greatest care, for he had plenty of powder and ball remaining. “At what height are we?” he asked the doctor. “About seven hundred and fifty feet; but we no longer have the power of seeking favorable currents, either going up or coming down. We are at the mercy of the balloon!” “That is vexatious!” rejoined Kennedy. “The wind is poor; but if we had come across a hurricane like some of those we met before, these vile brigands would have been out of sight long ago.” “The rascals follow us at their leisure,” said Joe. “They’re only at a short gallop. Quite a nice little ride!” “If we were within range,” sighed the sportsman, “I should amuse myself with dismounting a few of them.” “Exactly,” said the doctor; “but then they would have you within range also, and our balloon would offer only too plain a target to the bullets from their long guns; and, if they were to make a hole in it, I leave you to judge what our situation would be!” The pursuit of the Talabas continued all morning; and by eleven o’clock the aëronauts had made scarcely fifteen miles to the westward. The doctor was anxiously watching for the least cloud on the horizon. He feared, above all things, a change in the atmosphere. Should he be thrown back toward the Niger, what would become of him? Besides, he remarked that the balloon tended to fall considerably. Since the start, he had already lost more than three hundred feet, and the Senegal must be about a dozen miles distant. At his present rate of speed, he could count upon travelling only three hours longer. At this moment his attention was attracted by fresh cries. The Talabas appeared to be much excited, and were spurring their horses. The doctor consulted his barometer, and at once discovered the cause of these symptoms. “Are we descending?” asked Kennedy. “Yes!” replied the doctor. “The mischief!” thought Joe In the lapse of fifteen minutes the was only one hundred and fifty feet above the ground; but the wind was much stronger than before. Victoria The Talabas checked their horses, and soon a volley of musketry pealed out on the air. “Too far, you fools!” bawled Joe. “I think it would be well to keep those scamps at a distance.” And, as he spoke, he aimed at one of the horsemen who was farthest to the front, and fired. The Talaba fell headlong, and, his companions halting for a moment, the balloon gained upon them. “They are prudent!” said Kennedy. “Because they think that they are certain to take us,” replied the doctor; “and, they will succeed if we descend much farther. We must, absolutely, get higher into the air.” “What can we throw out?” asked Joe. “All that remains of our stock of pemmican; that will be thirty pounds less weight to carry.” “Out it goes, sir!” said Joe, obeying orders. The car, which was now almost touching the ground, rose again, amid the cries of the Talabas; but, half an hour later, the balloon was again falling rapidly, because the gas was escaping through the pores of the covering. Ere long the car was once more grazing the soil, and Al-Hadji’s black riders rushed toward it; but, as frequently happens in like cases, the balloon had scarcely touched the surface ere it rebounded, and only came down again a mile away. “So we shall not escape!” said Kennedy, between his teeth. “Throw out our reserved store of brandy, Joe,” cried the doctor; “our instruments, and every thing that has any weight, even to our last anchor, because go they must!” Joe flung out the barometers and thermometers, but all that amounted to little; and the balloon, which had risen for an instant, fell again toward the ground. The Talabas flew toward it, and at length were not more than two hundred paces away. “Throw out the two fowling-pieces!” shouted Ferguson. “Not without discharging them, at least,” responded the sportsman; and four shots in quick succession struck the thick of the advancing group of horsemen. Four Talabas fell, amid the frantic howls and imprecations of their comrades. The ascended once more, and made some enormous leaps, like a huge gum-elastic ball, bounding and rebounding through the air. A strange sight it was to see these unfortunate men endeavoring to escape by those huge aërial strides, and seeming, like the giant Antaeus, to receive fresh strength every time they touched the earth. But this situation had to terminate. It was now nearly noon; the was getting empty and exhausted, and assuming a more and more elongated form every instant. Its outer covering was becoming flaccid, and floated loosely in the air, and the folds of the silk rustled and grated on each other. Victoria Victoria “Heaven abandons us!” said Kennedy; “we have to fall!” Joe made no answer. He kept looking intently at his master. “No!” said the latter; “we have more than one hundred and fifty pounds yet to throw out.” “What can it be, then?” said Kennedy, thinking that the doctor must be going mad. “The car!” was his reply; “we can cling to the network. There we can hang on in the meshes until we reach the river. Quick! quick!” And these daring men did not hesitate a moment to avail themselves of this last desperate means of escape. They clutched the network, as the doctor directed, and Joe, holding on by one hand, with the other cut the cords that suspended the car; and the latter dropped to the ground just as the balloon was sinking for the last time. “Hurrah! hurrah!” shouted the brave fellow exultingly, as the , once more relieved, shot up again to a height of three hundred feet. Victoria The Talabas spurred their horses, which now came tearing on at a furious gallop; but the balloon, falling in with a much more favorable wind, shot ahead of them, and was rapidly carried toward a hill that stretched across the horizon to the westward. This was a circumstance favorable to the aëronauts, because they could rise over the hill, while Al-Hadji’s horde had to diverge to the northward in order to pass this obstacle. The three friends still clung to the network. They had been able to fasten it under their feet, where it had formed a sort of swinging pocket. Suddenly, after they had crossed the hill, the doctor exclaimed: “The river! the river! the Senegal, my friends!” And about two miles ahead of them, there was indeed the river rolling along its broad mass of water, while the farther bank, which was low and fertile, offered a sure refuge, and a place favorable for a descent. “Another quarter of an hour,” said Ferguson, “and we are saved!” But it was not to happen thus; the empty balloon descended slowly upon a tract almost entirely bare of vegetation. It was made up of long slopes and stony plains, a few bushes and some coarse grass, scorched by the sun. The touched the ground several times, and rose again, but her rebound was diminishing in height and length. At the last one, it caught by the upper part of the network in the lofty branches of a baobab, the only tree that stood there, solitary and alone, in the midst of the waste. Victoria “It’s all over,” said Kennedy. “And at a hundred paces only from the river!” groaned Joe. The three hapless aëronauts descended to the ground, and the doctor drew his companions toward the Senegal. At this point the river sent forth a prolonged roaring; and when Ferguson reached its bank, he recognized the falls of Gouina. But not a boat, not a living creature was to be seen. With a breadth of two thousand feet, the Senegal precipitates itself for a height of one hundred and fifty, with a thundering reverberation. It ran, where they saw it, from east to west, and the line of rocks that barred its course extended from north to south. In the midst of the falls, rocks of strange forms started up like huge ante-diluvian animals, petrified there amid the waters. The impossibility of crossing this gulf was self-evident, and Kennedy could not restrain a gesture of despair. But Dr. Ferguson, with an energetic accent of undaunted daring, exclaimed— “All is not over!” “I knew it,” said Joe, with that confidence in his master which nothing could ever shake. The sight of the dried-up grass had inspired the doctor with a bold idea. It was the last chance of escape. He led his friends quickly back to where they had left the covering of the balloon. “We have at least an hour’s start of those banditti,” said he; “let us lose no time, my friends; gather a quantity of this dried grass; I want a hundred pounds of it, at least.” “For what purpose?” asked Kennedy, surprised. “I have no more gas; well, I’ll cross the river with hot air!” “Ah, doctor,” exclaimed Kennedy, “you are, indeed, a great man!” Joe and Kennedy at once went to work, and soon had an immense pile of dried grass heaped up near the baobab. In the mean time, the doctor had enlarged the orifice of the balloon by cutting it open at the lower end. He then was very careful to expel the last remnant of hydrogen through the valve, after which he heaped up a quantity of grass under the balloon, and set fire to it. It takes but a little while to inflate a balloon with hot air. A head of one hundred and eighty degrees is sufficient to diminish the weight of the air it contains to the extent of one-half, by rarefying it. Thus, the quickly began to assume a more rounded form. There was no lack of grass; the fire was kept in full blast by the doctor’s assiduous efforts, and the balloon grew fuller every instant. Victoria It was then a quarter to four o’clock. At this moment the band of Talabas reappeared about two miles to the northward, and the three friends could hear their cries, and the clatter of their horses galloping at full speed. “In twenty minutes they will be here!” said Kennedy. “More grass! more grass, Joe! In ten minutes we shall have her full of hot air.” “Here it is, doctor!” The was now two-thirds inflated. Victoria “Come, my friends, let us take hold of the network, as we did before.” “All right!” they answered together. In about ten minutes a few jerking motions by the balloon indicated that it was disposed to start again. The Talabas were approaching. They were hardly five hundred paces away. “Hold on fast!” cried Ferguson. “Have no fear, master—have no fear!” And the doctor, with his foot pushed another heap of grass upon the fire. With this the balloon, now completely inflated by the increased temperature, moved away, sweeping the branches of the baobab in her flight. “We’re off!” shouted Joe. A volley of musketry responded to his exclamation. A bullet even ploughed his shoulder; but Kennedy, leaning over, and discharging his rifle with one hand, brought another of the enemy to the ground. Cries of fury exceeding all description hailed the departure of the balloon, which had at once ascended nearly eight hundred feet. A swift current caught and swept it along with the most alarming oscillations, while the intrepid doctor and his friends saw the gulf of the cataracts yawning below them. Ten minutes later, and without having exchanged a word, they descended gradually toward the other bank of the river. There, astonished, speechless, terrified, stood a group of men clad in the French uniform. Judge of their amazement when they saw the balloon rise from the right bank of the river. They had well-nigh taken it for some celestial phenomenon, but their officers, a lieutenant of marines and a naval ensign, having seen mention made of Dr. Ferguson’s daring expedition, in the European papers, quickly explained the real state of the case. The balloon, losing its inflation little by little, settled with the daring travellers still clinging to its network; but it was doubtful whether it would reach the land. At once some of the brave Frenchmen rushed into the water and caught the three aëronauts in their arms just as the fell at the distance of a few fathoms from the left bank of the Senegal. Victoria “Dr. Ferguson!” exclaimed the lieutenant. “The same, sir,” replied the doctor, quietly, “and his two friends.” The Frenchmen escorted our travellers from the river, while the balloon, half-empty, and borne away by a swift current, sped on, to plunge, like a huge bubble, headlong with the waters of the Senegal, into the cataracts of Gouina. “The poor ” was Joe’s farewell remark. Victoria! The doctor could not restrain a tear, and extending his hands his two friends wrung them silently with that deep emotion which requires no spoken words. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jules Verne (2002). Five Weeks in a Balloon. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3526/pg3526-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

The Talabas

Naïveté, hubris, and profound blindness to the lessons of history don’t have a great track record for producing happy outcomes. “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” — Maya Angelou Maybe when we learned that a 19-year old Mark Zuckerberg called 4,000 of his fellow Harvard students , “dumb f$cks”, for trusting him with their personal information, we should have believed him the first time. But those were the halcyon days of 2010, when Facebook was still a private company and many of us who’d first used it when it was open to college kids only were just nearing the ends of our 20s. Back then, some of us on the outside hoped that Facebook would evolve into the Internet’s humanizing, unifying force. We let ourselves believe that if Facebook continued to extend its reach across geographical, national, religious and racial boundaries, maybe it would show us that even though we often disagree about how to get there, all of us want the same things for ourselves and our children: to be safe, to be at peace, to have food and shelter, respect and opportunity and hope. But let’s face some realities: For all of its utopian conceptions of itself, Facebook is a massive, monopolisitic data maw that uses the variable reward mechanisms pioneered by slot machines to feed our brains dopamine while collecting copious amounts of our personal information. With this all-consuming hunger for data on the things that make us tick, Facebook has assembled the biggest, most detailed online identity database and the most powerful media-targeting engine ever known. To any business that has realized that effective content marketing is the single most powerful form of advertising, Facebook’s media targeting capabilites are a boon. As an entrepreneur who understand his target market and knows how produce authentic stories that resonate with it, I know there is simply no better way than Facebook advertising to get my message in front of exactly the right people. But as someone who cares deeply about freedom and human rights and wants them to exist in the future instead of collapsing into some form of AI-powered totalitarianism, my feelings about Facebook are much dimmer. So today, let’s explore one possible logical conclusion of what Facebook has created. In this scenario, Facebook devolves even further from its status as an vanity-powered slot machine that occasionally moonlights in psychological warfare operations into the perfect toolbox for 21st century totalitarianism. Like any projection into the future, this remains speculative fiction…for now. If sensibile, freedom-loving humans get our act together, it can remain that way. The #1 Tool For The 21st Century Totalitarian: Surveillance at Scale Before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the East German communist state, the East German secret police (aka the Stasi) gathered data by hand, relying on stakeouts and a massive network of civilian informants to build detailed files on its targets, whose ranks included pretty much everyone. Under the watchful eyes of the Stasi, whose file cabinets stretched for miles, case agents were responsible for keeping tabs on individuals and groups. Though these agents had large and ever-growing dossiers at their disposal, they were essentially confined to what they could capture on paper and keep in their minds. The 21st century totalitarian has no patience for such an antiquated approach. And why should he? Compared to Internet-scale data collection, the Stasi’s analog methods are slow, inefficient, and prone to lapses in human judgment. No, the 21st century totalitarian demands a more sophisticated way to capture and catalog the activities, psychologies, and political sentiments of the population in real time. Ideally, this would be a place online where people share freely and regularly about themselves. A place just like…Facebook, Instagram, andWhatsApp. Yeah, that’s the ticket. #2: Predictive Behavior Modeling (“Digital Precognition”) To the 21st century totalitarian, ongoing collection of massive amounts of personal data is only part of the equation. Because once you have access to a large, rich and ever-growing online database of human behavior, you need algorithms that can mine its activities and uncover threats to the status quo. Along with potential terrorists, these threats include: Subversives Whistleblowers Radicals If you were a 21st century totalitarian, wouldn’t it be nice if you could build a detailed psychological profile of these types and use your massive identity database and a bit of sophisticated machine learning to detect others in real time? Sure, you’d surface a substantial number of false positives, but it’s nothing some light investigation and/or interrogation from your secret police couldn’t suss out. With such a tool at your disposal, it’d be like having the pre-cogs from Minority Report, but instead of weirdly-psychic humans drugged up and living in a bath, you’d have an All-Seeing Machine. Now, if you’re a grumpy old white, assembling the talent necessary to build such technology would be a challenge. It would be much better if the naive young people from the same company that built your massive surveillance engine were also thoughtful enough to train an AI to mine their users’ posts and flag “troubling psychological tendencies.” You know…something exactly like ? the technology Facebook built into its “suicide warning” bot Yep. #3: Mass Manipulation The 20th century totalitarian relied on absolute control of the flow of information. Writing official textbooks, burning subversive materials, censoring the media, and publishing a non-stop flow of propaganda was simply the way of things. But for the 21st century totalitarian, the fragmentation of TV and the free-form frontiers of the Internet complicates this strategy. Sure, you could just co-opt all the cable news stations, but there are so many other channels! Radio? That’s so 1933. No, while these blunt forms of manipulation may work for Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, they are too obvious to work across an entire nation. Today’s totalitarian demands a more subtle way to influence cultural and political sentiment. He wants the kind of thing you’d have if he got his hands on an algorithmically filtered newsfeed that reached over a billion people. Because see: once you have a way to influence the stories people see every day, you can shape their understanding of reality and their emotional states across geographic, political and economic lines! With such a tool like that, your totalitarian regime would have the edge it needed to pry open the doors of a divided open society and get itself ready for business. Naive Optimism + Hubris + a Profound Lack of Historical Awareness = Facebook, 2016–2018 I don’t know Mark Zuckerberg personally, but I’m willing to believe he imagined that he was setting out to eliminate artificial barriers between people and build a better world. And when I first logged into Facebook in 2004, I thought that’s what it might become too. Even when Facebook made one boneheaded privacy blunder after another, I was willing to chalk it up to youthful mistakes and give the company the benefit of the doubt. But then there was that scandalized us for a couple of weeks back in 2014, when Facebook changed the emotional tone of content showing up in people’s feeds to test the impact it could have on their moods. the mood-influence study The results, not too surprisingly, suggested that Facebook had both the power to manipulate public sentiment and the willingness to run large scale psychological tests without their users’ consent. And when Facebook allowed itself to be weaponized into a global propaganda distribution machine and Zuckerberg reflexively denied his company’s role in the mass-scale psychological warfare operation that played out in 2016? Well, that was the last straw. Or so I thought. Even when I was hopeful about its potential, I’d always vaguely worried that Facebook’s cultural DNA might eventually evolve it into a perfect toolbox for totalitarians. The disclosure of and Facebook’s defensive, ham-fisted response to it just really brings the whole thing home. Cambridge Analytica’s theft of 50 million profiles Because while I am hopeful that the ideals of human freedom and universal human rights will persevere against the paranoia of our modern age, there’s a reasonable case to be made that these ideals could go into hibernation in the relatively near future. Given how easy it is to scare people about the scary-seeming-but-actually-low-risk Ebola, and how quickly our higher-order intelligence shuts off when we are afraid, it is not crazy to think that under the wrong circumstances — like one or two more mass-scale terrorist attacks on major cities — what’s left of the rule of law, free speech, and the US Constitution gives way to something much closer to 1984. If Big Brother were to seize the reins of power, sure, he’d use the cable news the way it’s being used today. But Facebook’s data maw, targeting power and sentiment-manipulation capabilities would be far more insidious. So I’m hitching a ride with the #deletefacebook bandwagon and to delete every one of my historical posts. using this Chrome plugin Care to join me? But here’s one weird fact you’ll never believe: Facebook is not the real problem. In a very real sense, for the scale of the mess we’re all in today. it is is neither accurate nor fair to blame Facebook The explosion of “tribal reality” that washed over America in 2016 showed up loud, bright, and clear in the 2004 Presidential election, when the about 9/11 and the Iraq War. majority of Democrats and Republicans believed two completely different versions of reality Back then, Facebook was barely 9 months old. So while our desire to pin the blame Facebook for dividing Americans into alternative-reality camps is natural and understandable, doing so obscures a much more complicated, painful truth. We need to face the fact that the gasoline of polarization had been gushing onto the floor for years before Facebook scaled to 1.2 billon users and started handing out matches. We may not enjoy admitting it, but the root of the problem is not Facebook. Or Twitter. Or YouTube. The toxic effects they have on our minds, our political culture, and our social norms are merely symptoms of something much more problematic. They are flowers sprouting from the soil of an economic, political, and psychological environment that rewards the people who build the most extractive, monopolistic business models and architect the most addicting products with huge increases in net worth. And yet, even that soil is just a symptom of the much larger, more persistent, and long-lived problem at the root of all of this. The root cause of the majority of our social problems is scarcity…not scarcity of the basic material resources humans need to survive, but scarcity of all the things human beings need to thrive. Rich and poor. White, brown, black, and yellow. Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Confucian, Taoist, Sikh. Gay, straight, and somewhere in between. Liberal and conservative. Libertarian and authoritarian. Scarcity touches everyone. Billions of human beings from every spectrum of identity and every tribe on Earth are starving for love, freedom, dignity, hope, belonging, and self-respect. These are hardly new developments. We can trace most of them back hundreds, thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of years. Given the chaotic global climate our ancestors faced…which seems to have included massive fluctuations of rainfall that could turn a massive lake into a desert in a single generation and a FREAKIN ICE AGE, some of the most painful forms of scarcity trace back to our species’ earliest days on Earth. But something miraculous has happened over the last 20 years, and it’s gone into high gear in the last 10. For the first time in human history, ALL of the philosophical, psychological, and educational frameworks and just about every technology necessary to create and sustain abundant, low-cost access to energy, water, nutritious food, high-quality education, physical and mental health, transportation, and shelter exists at the same time. Right now, in 2018, we already have everything we need to reduce and possibly eliminate nearly all the waste in our systems. And we can do it all in a way that benefits the planet’s environment instead of harming it and possibly destabilizing it. The obstacles to the widespread deployment of these ideas and technologies are misaligned incentives and scale. And thanks to an extraordinary invention by a strange reclusive figure who calls itself Satoshi, humanity may have a path around those obstacles as well No, that invention is not Bitcoin. It is the blockchain, the much more significant technology that makes Bitcoin possible. In a much bigger upcoming guide to the blockchain, we’ll explore these things as well. The first version of this essay appeared on TechCrunch in 2014 . Revised and updated: 3/20/2018).

How Facebook’s Naive Optimism Built A Toolbox for 21st Century Totalitarianism

The Singularity Manifesto — Part I Photo taken in Hong Kong, March 20th 2018. We have reached a tipping point as a civilization. We can choose to free ourselves as a human species or to be enslaved by technology. is a movement by the belief that a technological singularity — the creation of superintelligence — will likely happen in the near future, and that deliberate action ought to be taken to ensure that the Singularity benefits humans. (Source: Wikipedia) Singularitarianism defined The past few weeks I have the impression that the world is inside out. My dreams seem to be more rational than the flow of the current daily life. Singularity is not an event, it has started to emerge as a tidal wave across human consciousness. It creates a strong feeling in response to all the events that are happening now. Humans are about to take one of the most critical decision for the species. Technology should be used to free ourselves from governments not the opposite. The extraordinary events of late have activated millennials to join forces in an effort to reverse the course of history. Early this year youth in Iran rallied against their totalitarian regime, presently students in the US are raising their collective voice to loosen the stranglehold the National Rifle Association has had on US politicians for decades and with a majority of adults in Europe, Israel and the Middle East closing their eyes while innocent civilians get massacred in Syria their children are calling for accountability. We are one human family, sharing one planet, that is on the brink of exceptional transformation. We have reached the tipping point toward singularity. As most governments work on leveraging to effectively enslave, surveil and control their citizens there is a growing oppositional movement to harness and retain this information to create a free, fair, and equitable life for all world citizens. Decentralized tools and have the potential to liberate world citizens from government control, reduce corruption, and make administrative systems and procedures more efficient. Coupled with Artificial Intelligence and robotics, these systems can free humans from performing repetitive and even sophisticated tasks enabling people to use their time for learning more and improving their lives and conditions. This could potentially lead towards the creation of a Universal Basic Income (UBI). technology blockchain The recent Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal exposes the power of accumulating and analyzing massive amounts of personal data; the power to change the course of history. China has put a Social Credit Score (SCS) system into effect for its citizens. Among other restrictions, having a low SCS in China can limit one’s ability to enjoy the basic freedom of travel on planes and trains. This score is based on an algorithm that takes into account such things as the highly immeasurable factor of the sincerity of an apology from one person to another. It isn’t difficult to imagine the consequences if humanity doesn’t take a stand against such totalitarian implementation. People should take ownership of their freedom, for themselves first and for the future generations. Any individual should have the freedom to access information from any place at the earliest age and be able to choose what to read and learn. That’s why internet was built, to enable people to exchange and collaborate. Instead, internet has become a tool for governments to surveil, control and attack each others. I see 20 year old’s betting all they have on crypto-currencies and enthusiastically building decentralized projects. Sure, they do it for speculation but they also do it out of personal conviction. They believe distributed systems and crypto-currencies are the most effective and efficient means to create the liberated and abundant lives they envision for themselves. Decentralized systems and cryptographic technologies remove borders, complex legislations, regulatory burden and provide tools for distributing, and moving wealth, value and assets in an efficient way. They can accelerate the distribution of money at a whole new level. I am curious to watch how this is going to transform the current landscape among the tech giants. It is very tempting for them to sit on the side of governments and take advantage of their dominant position. Europe has a key role to play on limiting how these superpowers can abuse their position. If manages to channel its current actions for protecting users privacy and inspire the new generations, it could become Europe the leader of this new singularitarianism movement. If align with the philosophy of moving toward a more transparent, accountable and equitable future for all follow some of these projects: , , , , , , or , they give HOPE. you @skyblunetwork Orchid Protocol OpenGarden Right Mesh Stellar Blockstack Holochain Design The opinions and views expressed in this article are my own.

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First came brain implants for disabilities, next comes brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) to read & write memories and thoughts: perspective Elon Musk’s announcement that the first human received a this week comes almost three-and-a-half years after he said this technology would one day be able to upload and download memories between humans and machines. Neuralink brain implant On January 19, 2024, Musk announced on X: “The first human received an implant from Neuralink yesterday and is recovering well. Initial results show promising neuron spike detection” https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1752098683024220632?embedable=true Musk also revealed that “ and that it . The first Neuralink product is called ‘Telepathy,'” “Enables control of your phone or computer and through them almost any device, just by thinking “ .” Initial users will be those who have lost the use of their limbs https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1752119586470949056?embedable=true With Neuralink’s Telepathy product, the initial goal is for restoration purposes — specifically to restore movement for those who have lost use of their limbs. But if that’s the initial goal, what will be the secondary goals moving forward, and who will be selected to be the future users? Remember the story of the three little pigs? No, I’m not talking about the children’s fairytale; I’m talking about the time Musk demonstrated Neuralink’s on August 28, 2020. progress update on three pigs During the demonstration, Musk predicted: “ ” In the future, you will be able to save and replay memories “ ” This is obviously sounding increasingly like a Black Mirror episode […] but essentially if you have a whole brain interface, everything that’s encoded in memory, you could upload “ . . “ You could basically store your memories as a backup and restore the memories Then ultimately, you could potentially download them into a new body or into a robot body The future’s gonna be weird https://twitter.com/TimHinchliffe/status/1752379413784564217?embedable=true The implications of uploading and downloading memories into a new human body or machine are profound! Who are you without your memories? What happens if the memories being uploaded aren’t yours, or conversely, what happens if someone gets ahold of your private memories? Could your memories, thoughts, or feelings — be they real or falsely implanted — be used against you? https://twitter.com/TimHinchliffe/status/1616107080259100672?embedable=true How easy would it be to hypnotize and brainwash entire populations if this technology were widely adopted among the general public and used by nefarious public-private actors? In these dystopian scenarios, a person’s thoughts, feelings, and memories could be re-programmed, so that they could no longer harbor dissenting views, let alone remember who they were. In legal systems, false memories could be implanted, or pain could be neurologically inflicted to make a person confess to a crime they didn’t commit. Speaking at the 2016 World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on a panel titled “ ” Duke University professor of law and philosophy Dr. Nita Farahany explained: What If: Your Brain Confesses? “ […] .” If we can get to the point where either you can have an unwilling suspect or an unwilling individual having their brain decoded in some sense, legal systems don’t bake in any presumptions that we can do that, and so there are no legal protections that could be afforded to you So, I think we have to think about whether or not the brain is some special place of privacy. Is there some freedom of thought and not just freedom of speech that we need to be actively protecting Dr. Farahany would later add: “One of the emerging areas that is really interesting among neuroscience is ‘pain detection,’ and once we understand the circuitries that cause pain, I guess the question is, ‘could we then instill pain and use that in any coercive measures within the legal system?’” Dr. Nita Farahany, WEF Annual Meeting, 2016 https://twitter.com/TimHinchliffe/status/1626409977169559552?embedable=true Returning to Davos in 2023, Dr. Farahany said that the ability to decode the brain didn’t even have to require an invasive implant like Neuralink’s, but rather wearables, like “fitbits for your brain.” Speaking at the WEF last year, that with a non-invasive brain-computer interface (BCI): Dr. Farahany announced “We can pick up and decode faces that you’re seeing in your mind — simple shapes, numbers, your PIN number to your bank account” Dr. Nita Farahany, WEF Annual Meeting, 2023 https://twitter.com/TimHinchliffe/status/1616114732536303619?embedable=true If the ability to decode the brain is already as advanced as to be able to decode your bank account PIN with non-invasive tech, can you imagine what a Neuralink Telepathy-like brain implant will be able to decode in the future? These technologies, whether implanted, ingested, or worn, are part of an interconnected ecosystem of sensors and transmitters known as the (IoB). Internet of Bodies “ . Arguably, the most advanced and invasive IoB technology under development is the BCI, which can both read and write to the brain DARPA and commercial technology developers (such as Neuralink and Facebook) are working in this field” RAND Corporation, ‘Technological Approaches to Human Performance Enhancement’, November 2021 Another point on the ethics front of BCIs has to do with human performance enhancement, especially when it comes to military use. A published in November, 2021, shows that the how to fundamentally alter what it means to be human, funding research into creating super humans that are smarter, faster, and stronger through human performance enhancement. RAND Corporation report Pentagon has been investigating According to the report, potential applications for human performance enhancement using AI and BCIs include: Substantially reducing the time required to process data and respond to situations Allowing for human-system teaming (not only through better system design but through implantable brain-computer interfaces) Enabling complex, real-time, hands-free control of devices or robots Here we see the similarities between Neuralink’s Telepathy, which looks to restore limb movement by reading thoughts, and the US Department of Defense, which is looking to control devices or robots with thoughts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7o39CzHgug&embedable=true Concerning the seemingly , the RAND report adds, “ .” telepathic nature of BCIs Humans can be trained to control all sorts of external devices, such as movement of a computer mouse, robotic arms, and drones Speaking about the ethics of BCIs at the 2018 WEF Annual Meeting in Davos on panel called “ ,” National Academy of Medicine president Victor Dzau told the When Humans Become Cyborgs Davos elites that using brain-computer interfaces to augment humans beyond their natural capabilities was . crossing the ethical line “ ,” he said. I think you’re in pretty safe ground when you use these technologies for the purpose of curing disease, treating disease, or at least addressing impairment “ .” I do think you start crossing the line when you think about enhancement and augmentation Elon Musk’s announcement of the first human recipient of a Neuralink implant for restoring limb function is just the beginning of a very slippery slope filled with giant ethical potholes. Whether it comes from Neuralink, DARPA, or some other public or private entity, the ability to transfer memories from human-to-human, from human-to-machine, or from machine-to-human seems to be an inevitable reality in Musk’s transhumanistic eyes. But beyond the restorative, therapeutic, and human performance enhancement capabilities that are the promise of BCIs, there lies a darker side that can be used by corporations and totalitarian governments to manipulate our behaviors and enslave all of humanity. This article was originally published by on Tim Hinchliffe The Sociable.

Elon Musk’s Brain Implant Company Wants To Give Humans Super Powers

ইলন মাস্কের ব্রেন ইমপ্লান্ট কোম্পানি মানুষকে সুপার পাওয়ার দিতে চায়

Elon Musks Gehirnimplantat-Firma will Menschen Superkräfte verleihen

La empresa de implantes cerebrales de Elon Musk quiere dar superpoderes a los humanos

La société d’implants cérébraux d’Elon Musk veut donner des super pouvoirs aux humains

एलन मस्क की ब्रेन इंप्लांट कंपनी इंसानों को सुपर पावर देना चाहती है

イーロン・マスク氏の脳インプラント会社は人間にスーパーパワーを与えたいと考えている

Elon Musk의 뇌 임플란트 회사는 인간에게 초능력을 부여하고 싶어합니다.

A empresa de implantes cerebrais de Elon Musk quer dar superpoderes aos humanos

Компания Илона Маска по имплантации мозга хочет наделить людей сверхспособностями

Elon Musk'un Beyin İmplant Şirketi İnsanlara Süper Güçler Vermek İstiyor

Công ty cấy ghép não của Elon Musk muốn trao cho con người siêu năng lực

埃隆·马斯克的大脑植入公司希望赋予人类超能力

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." This old metaphor, attributed to Bernard of Chartres, can describe the current situation of all inventions. We’re in this technology stage thanks to the advances made by our predecessors, and Obyte (all cryptocurrencies, indeed) is no different. Without computers, the Internet, specialized software, and cryptography, the whole crypto world wouldn’t be here. If we look more closely into the software and cryptography realms, numerous milestones had to be achieved before the appearance of decentralized money. Then, afterward, some others would come to make the Obyte ecosystem possible. The gives them credit at the end, but do you know who they are and what they really did? Let’s check a bit of history and interesting inventions. We’re in debt to experts from all parts of the world and their previous creations. Obyte whitepaper Satoshi Nakamoto Of course, this is the more obvious one. Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency ever, and someone named Satoshi Nakamoto created it. We know little about him, though. He reportedly was born on April 5, 1975, he’s known as a brilliant programmer and a recognized —online activists behind decentralized tools. Beyond this, there are more questions than answers about his persona. Or their personas. We don’t even know if that’s his real name because he (or they?) chose the path of complete privacy. cypherpunk , on the other hand, is the first and most adopted cryptocurrency so far. This piece of software operates on a peer-to-peer (P2P) network, enabling direct transfers without intermediaries —besides the miners. Transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography, and recorded in a public ledger called the blockchain. It’s not fully decentralized and has , but it’s the start of the cryptocurrency world. Bitcoin its own set of issues However, we don’t have miners or “validators”, as we don’t have a “blockchain” but a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) structure. This way, all transactions sent to the DAG are truly censorship-resistant and not dependable on third parties. We took a lot of the Bitcoin original system in Obyte, including the P2P transparent crypto-network and the goal to eliminate middlemen. Sergio Demian Lerner He describes himself this way: “In short, my name is Sergio Demian Lerner. I’m a Cryptofan, Independent Security Researcher, and Bitcoin specialist since 2011.” It could be an understatement, though. Lerner is an Argentinian programmer who has created and participated in a lot of cryptocurrency projects, and more importantly for us, he’s the original designer of DAG-like coins. He even mentions Byteball (now Obyte) in his . personal story He’s helped to fix over 8 vulnerabilities in Bitcoin and has been involved in projects like Copay (now BitPay), Bitshares, Counterparty, Ethereum, and Monero. Interestingly enough, the Obyte wallet UI is based on Copay. Lerner has collaborated in open-source crypto projects for years (and for free), but he’s not exactly a cypherpunk. Among others, he co-founded the blockchain auditing company CoinFabrik in 2014, and the Bitcoin-based sidechain ecosystem Rootstock (now RSK / IOV Labs) in 2015. Additionally, he’s a pioneer of atomic swaps, also mentioned in the Obyte whitepaper. considered As for the DAG, but create the chain themselves**,** with every transaction. We took this idea to create Obyte, and added Order Providers (OPs) as mere waypoints to order transactions, without them being powerful middlemen as miners or centralized companies. Lerner as “a cryptocurrency without blocks,” where every user would be a “miner” —in the sense that they wouldn’t need miners, described it Serguei Popov While Lerner first described DAGs to create cryptocurrencies, he never coded the project himself. However, other developers were interested in the idea and started to propose (and create) new ecosystems around it. Serguei Popov and the IOTA team were likely the first ones back in October 2015. Popov is a Russian-Brazilian mathematician in charge of the conceptual side of the IOTA crypto project. After receiving his Diploma and Ph.D. from the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics of Moscow State University in 1997, he left for Brazil to start an academic career as a professor. interested in cryptocurrencies by 2013, first in Bitcoin and later in the altcoin Nxt. By sharing his own calculations about that network on Bitcointalk, he got to meet the Nxt founder, Sergey Ivancheglo. He became Then, in , Sergey and David Sonstebo invited him to contribute to the theoretical side of IOTA —and that's how the was born, inspired by the previous work by Lerner. Users validate transactions by confirming two previous ones, promoting scalability and feeless microtransactions. However, unlike Obyte, their network is still controlled , and not by the users. late 2015 Tangle whitepaper IOTA is a cryptocurrency designed for the Internet of Things (IoT). It utilizes the Tangle, a DAG network, just like Obyte. by their foundation Tom Holden Some months before the release of Obyte (Byteball, back then), a Bitcointalk member known as Tom Holden proposed another DAG-like system to create an improved cryptocurrency. He named it Transaction Directed Acyclic Graph (TDAG). It utilizes a structured DAG that must form a bounded lattice, ensuring a unique root node and childless node. Each transaction references previous ones, like in every DAG. Besides, it offers incentives such as transaction fees and fee burning. We don’t know who Tom Holden really is, or what he does. However, is connected to the DAG-like ecosystems and probably his early proposal urged us to think about and fix some potential vulnerabilities that this type of system may bring. Tony Chryumov (Tonych), the Obyte founder, participated in that thread and pointed out a potential attack vector where an adversary could construct a shadow DAG, including double-spends, and spend more on fees in the shadow DAG than in the legitimate DAG. The attacker could then publish the shadow DAG, leading users to switch to it as it appears more profitable due to higher fees spent. Obyte solved this issue with the creation of witnesses (Order Providers). Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta They also appear in the Bitcoin whitepaper as the proponents of Linked Timestamping, a cryptographic method that involves associating a timestamp with a piece of data or information, establishing a chronological order of events (or transactions). This process creates a chain or link of timestamps, where each timestamp is linked to the previous one, forming a secure and tamper-evident sequence registered in a difficult-to-alter and widely observed platform, such as a printed newspaper or a public ledger. Both Americans, Haber is a cryptographer and computer scientist, while Stornetta is a physicist —like was. They met while working for the communication company Bellcore (now Iconectiv), and co-authored the paper " ” in 1991. Currently, is an advisor member of the cryptocurrency Kadena and Yugen Partners, a private equity firm for crypto projects. Meanwhile, is a partner and Chief Scientist at the latter one. In other words, they are the creators of the first “blockchain,” so to speak. Tim May How to Time-Stamp a Digital Document Haber Stornetta https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWVoPBkPd6g&embedable=true The order in a DAG is different than in a blockchain, . They serve the same function as the newspaper in our first example: they’re well-known and trusted to post serially, which is equivalent to not publishing two versions of the same issue of the newspaper. Light clients in Obyte rely on witnesses to prove that a transaction exists. By default, light clients select Order Providers as their light client witnesses. but Obyte took the idea of publishing transactions in a widely observed system, such as a newspaper, and created the witnesses Bonus: 1984 Also mentioned in our whitepaper, " " by George Orwell, published in 1949, is a dystopian novel that explores a totalitarian society ruled by an oppressive government led by the Party and its enigmatic leader, Big Brother. Set in an alternative year, 1984, the story follows Winston Smith, a low-ranking member of the Party who becomes disillusioned with the oppressive regime. 1984 The novel delves into themes of censorship, surveillance, and the manipulation of truth, portraying a bleak future where individualism is suppressed, history is rewritten, and the concept of reality is distorted. This is a world where nobody would like to live, and sadly, it’s also not that far from what some modern countries have become, to varying degrees. , , , and of everyone’s money are now realities everywhere. That’s why activists are dedicated to creating freedom tools, and that is (or that should be) the raison d'être of cryptocurrencies. Obyte was created as a freedom tool as well, even more decentralized than its predecessors. We’re working hard to create a free world for everyone, everywhere. Ready to join us? Mass surveillance totalitarian regimes democratic censorship unjustified control like cypherpunks Featured Vector Image by storyset / Freepik

Obyte Precursors: Who Helped to Create Our Decentralized Ecosystem?

Obyte Precursors: কে আমাদের বিকেন্দ্রীভূত ইকোসিস্টেম তৈরি করতে সাহায্য করেছে?

Obyte-Vorläufer: Wer hat zur Schaffung unseres dezentralen Ökosystems beigetragen?

Precursores de Obyte: ¿Quién ayudó a crear nuestro ecosistema descentralizado?

Précurseurs d'Obyte : qui a aidé à créer notre écosystème décentralisé ?

ओबाइट प्रीकर्सर्स: हमारे विकेंद्रीकृत पारिस्थितिकी तंत्र को बनाने में किसने मदद की?

オバイトの先駆者: 私たちの分散型エコシステムの構築に貢献したのは誰ですか?

Obyte Precursors: 누가 우리의 분산형 생태계를 만드는 데 도움을 주었나요?

Precursores Obyte: Quem ajudou a criar nosso ecossistema descentralizado?

Предшественники Obyte: кто помог создать нашу децентрализованную экосистему?

Obyte Öncüleri: Merkezi Olmayan Ekosistemimizin Oluşturulmasına Kim Yardımcı Oldu?

Tiền thân của Obyte: Ai đã giúp tạo ra hệ sinh thái phi tập trung của chúng tôi?

Obyte 前身：谁帮助创建了我们的去中心化生态系统？

The Easy Way to Begin Test-Driven Development

No. Thank you and goodbye. Ok, first off, I apologize for the click-bait style title. Every now and then, when I get an idea for a demo, it doesn't work. But , it doesn't work out in a fun and interesting way, and I figure it's a good idea to share it anyway. (Also, there's always the chance that it didn't work out because I did something wrong!) Today's demo is a perfect example of that, I think. sometimes strong Earlier this year, I built a using Alpine.js and the quite excellent . Yesterday, I was thinking about the game, and I wondered - what would happen if I used generative AI to ask for help when playing it? So, for example, I went to and saw this: Blackjack game Deck of Cards API my game In Google's PaLM Makersuite app, I wrote: I'm playing blackjack and the dealer has a six of diamonds showing. I've got a jack of clubs and a jack of hearts. Should I hit or should I stay? And got this response: You have 20, which is a good hand. The dealer has 16, which is below the average. If you hit, you risk getting a card that will bust you. So it's better to stay and hope that the dealer busts. Which, ok, is pretty obvious. You would never hit with two Jacks. But I loved the descriptive response that reinforces the principles of the game. I thought - what if I added a button to the game that lets you ask GenAI for help? Here's how I did it: The Front End On the front end, I kept the UI changes pretty minimal. I began by adding a simple button: Clicking this needs to do two important things. First, it needs to 'translate' the game state into a prompt; then, it needs to pass this to a service that will handle the call. I created a new function, , that handles it: gen AI askForHelp async askForHelp() {
	this.aiHelp = '<i>Asking our AI friend...</i>';

	// first, "translate" the cards to English
	let q = `I'm playing blackjack and the dealer currently has ${this.pcCards[1].value} of ${this.pcCards[1].suit.toLowerCase()}. I've got a ${this.playerCards[0].value} of ${this.playerCards[0].suit.toLowerCase()} and a ${this.playerCards[1].value} of ${this.playerCards[1].suit.toLowerCase()}. Should I hit or should I stay?`;
	console.log(q);

	let resp = await fetch(`https://eo8dkukowewth66.m.pipedream.net?text=${encodeURIComponent(q)}`);
	let help = await resp.json();

	/*
	note that help has line breaks and stuff in and in theory
	we should map to br or something, but im fine ignoring.
	*/
	this.aiHelp = '';
	alert(help);
}, I store the player and PC cards in two variables that contain an array of cards representing their hands. Each card has a 'value,’ which is either a number or a name, like Jack. Each card also has a suit. In theory, that's probably not critical information, but I figured it couldn't hurt. Here's an example prompt generated by a game: I'm playing blackjack and the dealer currently has 8 of clubs. I've got a 7 of spades and a QUEEN of hearts. Should I hit or should I stay? This is passed off to my backend service (more on that in a second), and the result is then displayed in a JavaScript alert, which is 100% horrible UX, but as this was an experiment, I figured it was good enough. If you're curious, this is what the response was: Stay. You have a total of 17, which is a good hand. The dealer's 8 is not a high card, so you are unlikely to lose if you stay. The Back End For my back end, I whipped up a quick workflow. My workflow consisted of literally just three steps. Pipedream The first is my trigger, an HTTP endpoint. You can see the URL in the front-end code above. The second step is the built-in Google PaLM API action. All I had to do was tell it what to use for a prompt: {{steps.trigger.event.query.text}} My final step simply returned the result: export default defineComponent({
  async run({ steps, $ }) {
    await $.respond({
      status: 200,
      headers: {
        "Content-Type":"application/json"
      },
      body: JSON.stringify(steps.generate_text.$return_value[0].candidates[0].output),
    })
  },
}) Time to Win, right? So... yeah. My first few tests worked great, and then... things went off the rails. Here's an example. The dealer had a seven of hearts. I had a queen of spades and an eight of diamonds. When I asked for help, I got: The dealer's upcard is 7, which is a "hard" 17. That means that the dealer must stand regardless of what you do. You have a "soft" 19, which means that you have an ace that can count as either 1 or 11. You should stay. Ok, sure, I stay, but what in the actual frak? I have 19? The dealer has 17? And it gets better. Once when I had 18 showing, I got the following: should I would recommend hitting. With a total of 18, you are only one point away from 21, which is the winning hand in blackjack. The dealer's seven of hearts gives them a total of 17, which is below the 21 threshold. Therefore, there is a good chance that the dealer will bust if they hit, which would give you the win. However, if you stay, you will not be able to improve your hand and will have to hope that the dealer busts. Hitting on 18. I'm no professional gambler, but I'm pretty sure that's bad advice. This got me thinking about my prompt a bit more. I did some tweaks, like lowercasing the suit, as I was worried it may have confused the AI. I iterated through some options in Makersuite, and consistently, it seemed to struggle with basic math at times. Even when I was explicit: I've got a jack of clubs (worth ten) and an eight of hearts (worth 8). It still thought I had 19. I did have better luck with this: I've got a jack of clubs (worth ten) and an eight of hearts (worth 8). My hand total is 18. And I also tried this: I've got a ace of clubs and an eight of hearts. My hand total is 9 or 19. And that seemed to consistently work correctly. So, with that in mind, I went back to my prompt generation and updated my logic there. Here's the updated version: async askForHelp() {
	this.aiHelp = '<i>Asking our AI friend...</i>';

	let totalOb = this.getCount(this.playerCards);
	let totalStr = 'My hand has a total of ';
	if(totalOb.lowCount === totalOb.highCount) {
		totalStr += totalOb.lowCount;
	} else {
		totalStr += `${totalOb.lowCount} or ${totalOb.highCount}`;
	}
	
	// first, "translate" the cards to English
	let q = `I'm playing blackjack and the dealer currently has ${this.pcCards[1].value} of ${this.pcCards[1].suit.toLowerCase()}. I've got a ${this.playerCards[0].value} of ${this.playerCards[0].suit.toLowerCase()} and a ${this.playerCards[1].value} of ${this.playerCards[1].suit.toLowerCase()}. ${totalStr}. Should I hit or should I stay?`;
	console.log(q);

	let resp = await fetch(`https://eo8dkukowewth66.m.pipedream.net?text=${encodeURIComponent(q)}`);
	let help = await resp.json();
	console.log('RESP', help);
	/*
	note that help has line breaks and stuff in and in theory
	we should map to br or something, but im fine ignoring.
	*/
	this.aiHelp = '';
	alert(help);
}, My Blackjack game has a utility function, , that returns an object containing two values , where Aces are treated as one, and , where one Ace at most is considered eleven. With this, I add to my prompt information about the total. getCount lowCount highCount This help quite a bit, but I still sometimes returned delusional responses. did So... maybe consider it your drunk friend at the gambling table offering advice? I'd love to share this version of the demo publicly, and I can share the code, of course, but I'm disabling the Pipedream workflow so that I don't get charged for it. Feel free to look at the front-end code here: https://codepen.io/cfjedimaster/pen/QWYpQjY/905e31ed6d9e3539c041044b308f5f06?editors=1011 As always, let me know what you think! Also published . here

Can I Build a Generative AI Demo to Help Me Win Big in Vegas?

আমি কি আমাকে ভেগাসে বড় জয় করতে সাহায্য করার জন্য একটি জেনারেটিভ এআই ডেমো তৈরি করতে পারি?

Kann ich eine generative KI-Demo erstellen, die mir hilft, in Vegas groß zu gewinnen?

¿Puedo crear una demostración de IA generativa que me ayude a ganar a lo grande en Las Vegas?

Puis-je créer une démo d’IA générative pour m’aider à gagner gros à Vegas ?

क्या मैं वेगास में बड़ी जीत हासिल करने में मदद के लिए एक जेनरेटिव एआई डेमो बना सकता हूं?

ラスベガスで大勝ちするために生成 AI デモを構築できますか?

라스베가스에서 큰 승리를 거두는 데 도움이 되는 생성적 AI 데모를 구축할 수 있습니까?

Posso criar uma demonstração de IA generativa para me ajudar a ganhar muito em Las Vegas?

Могу ли я создать демо-версию генеративного искусственного интеллекта, которая поможет мне выиграть по-крупному в Вегасе?

Vegas'ta Büyük Kazanmama Yardımcı Olacak Bir Üretken Yapay Zeka Demosu Oluşturabilir miyim?

Tôi có thể xây dựng bản trình diễn AI sáng tạo để giúp tôi thắng lớn ở Vegas không?

我可以构建一个生成式 AI 演示来帮助我在维加斯赢得大奖吗？

Boy, do I have the country to write about this week: Turkmenistan. weirdest Turkmenistan’s former president made a multilingual rap video introducing his country…despite the fact that it’s bizarre AF and the video editor was his horse (probably), it’s a super fun thing to watch 👇 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xZoa5ArhgA&embedable=true 3 Things To Know Before We Get Started The country came into existence in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union, having been a Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic as Part of The Great Socialist Soviet Union (It’s a mouthful) since 1925. This had a new president, Saparmurat Niyazov, come into power. He was a totalitarian and despotic dictator who started a personality cult (more on that later). For simplicity, let’s call him Samurai. When Samurai died from a heart attack in 2006, another ‘President’ Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, became the dictator of Turkmenistan until 2022. Let’s call him Burgundy. Bizarre things Samurai did Ruhnama He decided he had a direct line with God, which manifested in (The Book of The Soul). Think of a watered-down version of Ruhnama Mein Kampf + the Bible. was a mandatory read for school children, students, and those holding state employment. Oh, if you wanted to get a driver’s license, you had to have read it too. Ruhnama There even was a social study field called (creative, I know). Half of the exam questions for the 2006 University Entry revolved around themes set in Rahmana Studies Ruhnama. has been translated into 50 languages, though. Go figure 🤷‍♀️ Samurai said that God told him whoever reads it thrice will go to heaven. I’d say go on Amazon right now! Ruhnama Other crazy things he did Banned the use of lip-syncing at public concerts. Abolished the Turkmen word for bread and replaced it with , his mother’s name. Gurbansoltan Made the second Sunday of August “Melon Day” in honor of melons as he thought they were delicious — finally something I could sign up for. Ordered that all mountains and places in Turkmenistan + months and days of the week be named after Turkmen heroes, poets, and leaders. In 1997, when he tried to quit smoking, he passed a law that banned it in public to eliminate the temptation. Gold teeth were discouraged as he thought everyone was better off chewing on bones to strengthen their teeth and lessen the rate at which they fall out. Banished dogs from the capital, citing unappealing odor. Also forbade citizens to own more than one dog or cat (I’ll bet the guinea pig sales went through the roof). Ordered the closure of all hospitals outside Ashgabat, stating that the sick should go to the capital for treatment. He banned reporting or mentioning contagious diseases such as AIDS or cholera (peekaboo — if we don’t mention it, it means it doesn’t exist — I wish not talking about my student loans would make it disappear). He banned car radios because he considered them to be useless. Oh yeah, he also built a golden statue of himself that was rotating to face the Sun at all times. Bizarre things Burgundy did He was a bit more chill and reversed lots of eccentric laws Samurai brought into existence. He was still an authoritarian dictator, though. Black cars were banned in favor of white because it “brings good luck.” He was obsessed with Akhal-Teke horses. So much so his entire office only had one prominent motif all over the furniture — horses. He’s a former dentist turned rapping president, as we witnessed earlier. He liked a dog breed so much he made a golden statue for it 👇 But he also clearly doesn’t know how to hold a dog. Imagine being a guy who is so bad at holding dogs that Putin has to save it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLLZYFzkqKo&embedable=true Let us not forget the time when he tried to kill the rumours he was dead by driving around a BURNING HOLE IN THE GROUND (everything’s normal, nothing to look at)👇 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYiYi8-wCx0&t=11s&embedable=true More Bizzare Things About Turkmenistan Have you ever wondered why there’s a carpet in their flag? You probably didn’t, but I’ll tell you anyway: because they LOVE carpets. There’s a Ministry of Carpets, a National Carpet Museum, and a public holiday to honour carpets. They even used to have the world’s largest hand-woven carpet record until Iran beat them in 2019. If you want to purchase a carpet, you need a receipt with your age, origin, and date of purchase. This must be certified by the Ministry of Carpets or else the carpet can’t leave the country. I’ll say it one more time: carpet. It’s one of the least visited countries in the World — the top 10 least visited countries in fact. Locals used to have state-subsidized gas, water, petrol, and electricity between 1993 and 2019. Turkmenistan is the only country officially recognized by the United Nations as a neutral nation. Eat that, Switzerland. It has a burning hole that’s been on fire since 1971, dubbed (featured in a fast and furious video by Samurai seen above). Gates of Hell It was a man-made disaster — a Soviet drilling rig accidentally punched into a massive underground natural gas cavern. This caused the ground to collapse and the entire drilling rig to fall in. So they thought: — it did not. Why don’t we set this on fire? Maybe that’ll solve this? Took me 3 hours to research this, but it was worth it 😂 Random fact: when I was very young, there was a trend in Lithuania to have a carpet hanging on the wall (seriously). You’d walk into someone’s living room, and there’d be a proudly displayed carpet hanging on the wall. It looked something like this 👇 To Sum Up I think we all learned today that Turkmenistan is a super bizarre place to be. Although I wrote this piece with a bit of humor, let’s not forget it’s essentially a dictatorship run by eccentric weirdos. They clearly try much harder than North Korea to portray themselves as cool and fun. Turkmenistan is brandable, as they say in the marketing world. Also published . here

Turkmenistan: A Dive into Eccentric Dictators and Their Quirky Rules

Solidity 0.8.19 came up with quite a few changes and upgrades. In this post, I’ll talk about user-defined operators for user-defined value types. (I’ll use UDO and UDVT ). Before learning about UDOs, we need to look into UDVTs. What are User-Defined Value Types UDVTs are gasless abstractions of value types over the pre-defined value types in solidity. This was . In simpler terms, we can call them aliases for other value types. The core reason behind introducing this was to facilitate more strict definitions of variables. introduced in solidity 0.8.8 Quick Example For example, our contract stores two types of addresses, one for buyers and the other for sellers. We already know that under the hood, both of these variables will be of type address; however, what if we want to make them different to avoid any confusion or intermingling of different concepts? What if we want the data types to be more descriptive about the value it’s storing? Before UDVTs were introduced, this goal was attained using structs. Below is an example. The four functions in this code are used to wrap or unwrap the given data type into or from the defined data type. I am sure you have seen this type of usage in some contracts. However, as we know, structs are reference types; they’ll use memory, costing more gas than just using uint. This is where UDVTs are being used. They are simple extracts that don’t cost gas. Now, as far as the syntax is concerned, we can define UDVTs like where is the extracted value type, can also call an alias for which is the underlying type that can be uint, address, etc. Once we declare these value types, we get two attached methods with them, and , can be used to convert an underlying type to the newly created value type, is used for the vice versa. type A is B A B wrap unwrap A.wrap(value) and Let’s see this in the code. This was a demonstration related to the previous code snippet however, you might have realized that we don’t need to define the wrapping/unwrapping functions explicitly because . So, if we talk about the usage of these functions, below is another code snippet. solidity gives wrap/unwrap functions // SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0 
  pragma solidity ^0.8.8;

// Represent an 18 decimal, 256-bit wide fixed point type// using a user-defined value type.type UFixed is uint256;

/// A minimal library to do fixed point operations on UFixed.
uint256 constant multiplier = 10\*\*18;  

/// Adds two UFixed numbers. Reverts on overflow,  
/// relying on checked arithmetic on uint256.  
function add(UFixed a, UFixed b) internal pure returns (UFixed) {  
    return UFixed.wrap(UFixed.unwrap(a) + UFixed.unwrap(b));  
}  

/// Multiplies UFixed and uint256. Reverts on overflow,  
/// relying on checked arithmetic on uint256.  
function mul(UFixed a, uint256 b) internal pure returns (UFixed) {  
    return UFixed.wrap(UFixed.unwrap(a) \* b);  
}  

/// Take the floor of a UFixed number.  
/// @return the largest integer that does not exceed \`a\`.  
function floor(UFixed a) internal pure returns (uint256) {  
    return UFixed.unwrap(a) / multiplier;  
}  

/// Turns a uint256 into a UFixed of the same value.  
/// Reverts if the integer is too large.  
function toUFixed(uint256 a) internal pure returns (UFixed) {  
    return UFixed.wrap(a \* multiplier);  
}  

} We can conclude that UDVTs are not something that affects the logic of the contract but a kind of syntactical sugar that makes our code clearer and readable. math library, for example, which is a library used to tackle the floating number issue in solidity, uses UDVTs to define different types of floating numbers. PRB Now, the problem arises when we try to use arithmetic operations on UDVTs. As you can see in the above example, we have to unwrap the passed variables to use built-in operators. This is where UDOs are introduced. What are User Defined Operators? UDOs are built using the two built-in features of solidity, i.e., built-in operators and . using … for … UDOs are an extended version of . To recall, is used to: using for using for Attaching all Library functions to a data type. using LibrayName for TypeName Attaching library functions to all the data types. using LibrayName for * Attaching specific library functions or free functions to any specific type. using {LibrayName.FunctionName, FreeFunctionName} for TypeName Now, UDO comes into play and defines the fourth type of using for statement. Something like this: using {FunctionName as OperatorSign} for UDVTName global; This syntax facilitates attaching a function as an operator sign, the same as attaching a library function. The difference is we can use an operator sign instead of using the default way of calling the function. This will be clearer by looking at the code example below. There are some rules while using User Defined Operators. They can only be defined as functions(functions defined at the file level). free The free functions should be pure. Can only be defined at global directive, i.e., it can not be inside a contract but at a file level. using for User-defined Operator can only be attached to the UDVTs and not to the underlying default value types. They can only be defined for a particular type, i.e., they won’t work with different UDVTs in the same function. At last, while attaching the operators to any UDVT, only these operator signs can be used: &, |, ^, ~, +, -, *, /, %, ==, !=, <, <=, >, >= . Let’s now look at a code example. // SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
pragma solidity 0.8.19;

//The types are defined at the file level
type Float is uint256;
type unFloat is uint256;

//"using for" statements are written at the global directive
//not inside a contract
using {add as +} for Float global;
using {multiply as *} for Float global;
using {divide as /} for Float global;

//These are pure free functions, which is a requirement
///@notice Each function works with only one type. 
    function add(Float a, Float b) pure returns (Float) {
        return Float.wrap(Float.unwrap(a) + Float.unwrap(b));
    }

    function multiply(Float a, Float b) pure returns (Float) {
        return Float.wrap(Float.unwrap(a) * Float.unwrap(b));

    }

    function divide(Float a, Float b) pure returns (Float) {
        return Float.wrap(Float.unwrap(a) / Float.unwrap(b));

    }

//Using the attached operators inside a contract
contract UDO {
    
    Float cent = Float.wrap(100);
    Float decimal = Float.wrap(1e18);

 //The multiplication and division using operators is only possible
 // because we attached these particular operators' sign to the relevant functions
    function takePercent(Float _amount, Float totalAmount)
        external
        view
        returns (Float)
    {
        return (_amount * cent * decimal)/(totalAmount);

    }
} Attaching any function to any UDVT is independent of binding the same function to it. This means that we can’t call the free function with UDVTs in a similar fashion as a library function like or when we are binding them as an operator, but obviously, we can do so when they are attached as functions. Let’s look at the example below. add(a,b) a.add(b) // SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
pragma solidity 0.8.19;

type Float is uint256;
type unFloat is uint256;

//      binding and attaching
using {multiply as *,multiply} for Float global;
using {divide as /} for Float global;

    function multiply(Float a, Float b) pure returns (Float) {
        return Float.wrap(Float.unwrap(a) * Float.unwrap(b));
    }

    function divide(Float a, Float b) pure returns (Float) {
      return Float.wrap(Float.unwrap(a) / Float.unwrap(b));
    }

contract UDO {
    
    Float cent = Float.wrap(100);
    Float decimal = Float.wrap(1e18)

    function takePercent(Float _amount, Float totalAmount)
        external
        view
        returns (Float)
    {
        // return (_amount * cent * decimal)/(totalAmount);
        return      (_amount.multiply(decimal.multiply(cent))).divide(totalAmount);
       //In this line Multiply will work but divide will throw an error, because 
       // we haven't bound the divide function to Float.    
}
} The signs we used for particular functions are not strictly needed; we could’ve used instead of with the add function, and the would work as the add function. However, that will cause unwanted confusion, so we won’t do that. / + / What are the use cases? As discussed earlier, the UDVTs can be used to prevent any kind of type mistakes and provide a better understanding of the logic. UDOs increase the usability of the same by making it more accessible and familiar. The best usage of these are math libraries, where we can have multiple types of floating numbers and much more. That’s it for this article. Join us with all your solidity questions/confusions . HERE Also published . here

Solidity 0.8.19: Diving Into User-Defined Operators for User-Defined Value Types

123 Stories To Learn About Internet Censorship

Even with the multitude of libraries available today, it can sometimes be challenging to find one that offers the specific functionality needed for a particular task. Instead of spending time searching for the perfect library, I recommend crafting your own implementation; even if it's tailored specifically for one project. Once, I found myself in need of a library that could easily convert data classes into an Excel document for report generation. When I couldn't locate a suitable library, I decided to develop functionality tailored to my specific needs. My ambition was to design a library akin to Jackson, which would use annotations to transform a list of data classes into an Excel document as dictated by the annotations. I want to share the library I created, hoping it may benefit others or inspire them to create their own mapper for their unique tasks. Let's explore how to develop in Java such a data mapper to achieve this: from this: void demoReport() {
    var excelMapper = new ExcelMapperImpl();

    var fileName = "demo-out-" + LocalTime.now() + ".xlsx";
    List<Demo> demos = generateDemos();

    try (Workbook workbook = excelMapper.createWorkbookFromObject(demos);
         var fileOutputStream = new FileOutputStream(fileName)) {
        workbook.write(fileOutputStream);
    }
} Defining Annotations Let's identify the main elements essential for Excel mapping. At its core, we require an Excel column. This foundational component of the report should distinctly showcase the column name and the corresponding value in each row. Moreover, we must incorporate support for formula cells, allowing us to utilize values and present the results dynamically. At the column's end, a concluding formula is essential, whether it represents an average, sum, or any other pertinent metric for the end-user. Beyond mere data cells, we should also integrate features to easily manage cell styling. After identifying the essential elements, the next step is to craft the necessary annotations. The initial annotation will embed metadata about cell styling. This annotation will encompass fundamental attributes along with their default values: @Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
public @interface ColumnExcelStyle {
    ExcelColumnDataFormat cellTypePattern() default ExcelColumnDataFormat.NONE;
    IndexedColors cellColor() default IndexedColors.AUTOMATIC;

    boolean isWrapText() default false;

    boolean isCentreAlignment() default false;

    boolean isFramed() default true;

    ExcelColumnFont fontName() default ExcelColumnFont.DEFAULT;

    short fontSize() default -1;

    boolean isFontBold() default false;

    ExcelColumnCellTextColor fontColor() default ExcelColumnCellTextColor.AUTOMATIC;
} The primary style elements crucial for report creation are conveyed as attributes. Following this, the initiation of an Excel column annotation can be undertaken: @Target({ElementType.FIELD})
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
public @interface ColumnExcel {
    String[] applyNames() default {};

    int position();

    ColumnExcelStyle headerStyle() default @ColumnExcelStyle(
            fontColor = ExcelColumnCellTextColor.BLACK,
            isCentreAlignment = true,
            isFontBold = true,
            fontSize = 14,
            isWrapText = true);

    ColumnExcelStyle cellStyle() default @ColumnExcelStyle;
} This annotation encompasses potential column names (for mapping from Excel) and a mandatory field - ' '. This will determine the column's placement and be instrumental in formula calculations. Additionally, it will detail the style of both the header and the cell. position Excellent. Now, let's formulate an annotation specific to Excel formulas. Anticipating a dynamic formula contingent on the row's position, this annotation will be exclusive to methods: @Target({ElementType.METHOD})
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
public @interface ColumnExcelFormula {
    String name() default "";

    int position();

    ColumnExcelStyle headerStyle() default @ColumnExcelStyle(
            fontColor = ExcelColumnCellTextColor.BLACK,
            isCentreAlignment = true,
            isFontBold = true,
            fontSize = 14,
            isWrapText = true);

    ColumnExcelStyle cellStyle() default @ColumnExcelStyle;
} Lastly, let’s introduce an annotation for the culminating formula, which typically occupies the final row in Excel, summarizing or illustrating the cumulative result for a column. Given that the formula's annotation also mandates its applicability solely to methods: @Target({ElementType.METHOD})
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
public @interface ColumnExcelTotalFormula {
    boolean useValue() default false;

    int position();

    ColumnExcelStyle cellStyle() default @ColumnExcelStyle;
} Building an Excel Reporting Service With Apache POI After the creation of all necessary annotations, crafting a service class becomes the next step. The core library utilized will be , effective for working with .xls and .xlsx files. This class will use annotations’ attributes to generate an Excel report. Apache POI The primary method accepts a list of objects as input and returns a prepared workbook. For added flexibility, an overloaded method will be introduced to enable the specification of both the file name and the sheet name for report generation: <T> Workbook createWorkbookFromObject(List<T> reportObjects) {
    return createWorkbookFromObject(reportObjects, 0, "Report");
}

<T> Workbook createWorkbookFromObject(List<T> reportObjects, 
                                      int startRowNumber, 
                                      String sheetName) {
...
} To extract information about the class using reflection, any element from the array is selected. After accessing the class details, the first row can be established. Utilizing data from the annotation allows for the creation of cells with their respective names. If a name is absent, the class field's name can serve as an alternative: private <T> void createHeaderFromDeclaredExcelColumns(Row row, Class<T> clazz, PropertyDescriptor propertyDescriptor) {
    try {
        Field field = clazz.getDeclaredField(propertyDescriptor.getName());

        ColumnExcel columnExcel = field.getDeclaredAnnotation(ColumnExcel.class);
        if (nonNull(columnExcel)) {
            String headerName = columnExcel.applyNames().length > 0 ? columnExcel.applyNames()[0] : field.getName();
            createHeader(row, columnExcel.position(), headerName, columnExcel.headerStyle());
        }
    } catch (NoSuchFieldException e) {
        log.debug(e.getLocalizedMessage());
    }
} When fashioning the header, remember to assign a style to every cell. Style parameters can be derived from the annotation: @ColumnExcelStyle private void createHeader(Row row, int position, String name, ColumnExcelStyle columnExcelStyle) {
    Cell cell = row.createCell(position);
    cell.setCellValue(name);

    setCellFormatting(cell, columnExcelStyle);
    row.getSheet().autoSizeColumn(cell.getColumnIndex());
} The process then turns to generating rows in the report based on data from the provided array. By iterating over the data, successive rows are formed: for (T report : reportObjects) {
    Row bodyRow = sheet.createRow(proceedRowNumber);
    createCellsFromDeclaredExcelColumns(bodyRow, report);
    proceedRowNumber++;
} Property descriptors are procured to utilize getters instead of granting direct access to fields: private <T> void createCellsFromDeclaredExcelColumns(Row row, T tObject) {
    try {
        PropertyDescriptor[] propertyDescriptors = Introspector.getBeanInfo(tObject.getClass()).getPropertyDescriptors();

        for (var propertyDescriptor : propertyDescriptors) {
            createCellFromDeclaredExcelColumns(row, tObject, propertyDescriptor);
        }
    } catch (IntrospectionException ex) {
        log.debug(ex.getLocalizedMessage());
    }
} With the property descriptor, a cell is formed: private <T> void createCellFromDeclaredExcelColumns(Row row, T tObject, PropertyDescriptor propertyDescriptor) {
    try {
        Field field = tObject.getClass().getDeclaredField(propertyDescriptor.getName());
        Method readMethod = propertyDescriptor.getReadMethod();

        ColumnExcel columnExcel = field.getDeclaredAnnotation(ColumnExcel.class);
        if (nonNull(columnExcel)) {
            Class<?> returnType = readMethod.getReturnType();
            Cell cell = row.createCell(columnExcel.position());

            Object invokeResult = readMethod.invoke(tObject);
            if (nonNull(invokeResult)) {
                defineAndAssignCellValue(returnType, cell, invokeResult, readMethod);
            }
            setCellFormatting(cell, columnExcel.cellStyle());
        }
    } catch (NoSuchFieldException | InvocationTargetException | IllegalAccessException e) {
        log.debug(e.getLocalizedMessage());
    }
} Next, let’s turn our attention to processing the annotations. Crafting formulas proves slightly more complex than simply extracting a value from a field. A method is expected to generate a formula, which is subsequently assigned to the cell. @ColumnExcelFormula The method should consistently return a string and accept the row number as an argument, ensuring accurate data usage from adjacent cells. Thus, it falls on the handler to verify these conditions are met before forming the cell with the specified formula: private <T> void createCellFromDeclaredExcelFormula(Row row, T tObject, Method readMethod) throws IllegalAccessException, InvocationTargetException {
    ColumnExcelFormula columnExcelFormula = readMethod.getDeclaredAnnotation(ColumnExcelFormula.class);
    if (columnExcelFormula != null) {
        Class<?> returnType = readMethod.getReturnType();
        Cell cell = row.createCell(columnExcelFormula.position());

        if (returnType.isAssignableFrom(String.class)) {
            cell.setCellFormula((String) readMethod.invoke(tObject, row.getRowNum()));
        } else {
            log.debug(" Return type for the method: " + readMethod.getName() + " with @ColumnExcelFormula annotation has to be String " +
                    "and now it's: " + returnType.getName() + " method is ignored for the reason");
        }
        setCellFormatting(cell, columnExcelFormula.cellStyle());
    }
} The final step involves creating a row to display the concluding results. Importantly, this row should be generated only once, irrespective of the number of objects relayed to the handler. An annotation in a static method is anticipated for this purpose. This method receives both the number of the initial row and the current row where the cell will be instantiated as arguments. Provision of the initial row's number is vital, enabling the method to devise a formula that leverages the aggregate result for the entire column: private <T> void createTotalFormula(Class<T> tClazz, Row row, int firstRowNum) {
    Method[] methods = tClazz.getDeclaredMethods();
    for (Method method : methods) {
        ColumnExcelTotalFormula columnExcelTotalFormula = method.getAnnotation(ColumnExcelTotalFormula.class);
        if (columnExcelTotalFormula != null
                && method.getReturnType().isAssignableFrom(String.class)
                && method.getParameters().length == 2
                && Modifier.isStatic(method.getModifiers())
                && !Modifier.isPrivate(method.getModifiers())
        ) {
            String cellFormula = (String) method.invoke(tClazz, firstRowNum, row.getRowNum());
            Cell cell = row.createCell(columnExcelTotalFormula.position());
            cell.setCellFormula(cellFormula);

            if (columnExcelTotalFormula.useValue()) {
                cell = applyFormulasValue(cell);
            }
            setCellFormatting(cell, columnExcelTotalFormula.cellStyle());
        }
    }
} Making a Report The main functionality is now in place, and it's time to see it in action. Let's construct a simple report to demonstrate its operation. For this, let’s create a ' ' class and incorporate all the necessary annotations: Sales @Data
@Accessors(chain = true)
public class Sales {

    @ColumnExcel(
            position = 0, applyNames = {"Date"},
            headerStyle = @ColumnExcelStyle(
                              fontColor = WHITE, 
                              cellColor = DARK_BLUE, 
                              isCentreAlignment = true),
            cellStyle = @ColumnExcelStyle(
                            cellColor = GREY_25_PERCENT, 
                            cellTypePattern = DATE))
    private LocalDate date;

    @ColumnExcel(
            position = 1, applyNames = {"Sold"},
            headerStyle = @ColumnExcelStyle(
                            fontColor = WHITE, 
                            cellColor = DARK_BLUE, 
                            isCentreAlignment = true),
            cellStyle = @ColumnExcelStyle(
                          cellColor = GREY_25_PERCENT))
    private Integer sold;

    @ColumnExcel(
            position = 2, 
            applyNames = {"Price Per Unit (USD)"},
            headerStyle = @ColumnExcelStyle(
                            fontColor = WHITE, 
                            cellColor = DARK_BLUE, 
                            isCentreAlignment = true),
            cellStyle = @ColumnExcelStyle(
                          cellColor = GREY_25_PERCENT, 
                          cellTypePattern = USD))
    private Double pricePerUnit;

    @ColumnExcelFormula(
            position = 3, 
            name = "Total Sales (USD)",
            headerStyle = @ColumnExcelStyle(
                             fontColor = WHITE, 
                             cellColor = DARK_BLUE, 
                             isCentreAlignment = true),
            cellStyle = @ColumnExcelStyle(
                            cellColor = GREY_25_PERCENT, 
                            cellTypePattern = USD))
    public String sales(int rowNum) {
        return new CellAddress(rowNum, 1).formatAsString()
                + "*"
                + new CellAddress(rowNum, 2).formatAsString();
    }

    @ColumnExcelTotalFormula(
            position = 0,
            cellStyle = @ColumnExcelStyle(
                           cellColor = LIGHT_BLUE))
    public static String total(int firstRowNum, int lastRowNum) {
        return "CONCATENATE(\"Total\")";
    }

    @ColumnExcelTotalFormula(
            position = 1,
            cellStyle = @ColumnExcelStyle(
                          cellColor = LIGHT_BLUE))
    public static String unitsSold(int firstRowNum, int lastRowNum) {
        return "SUM(" + new CellAddress(firstRowNum, 1).formatAsString() + ":"
                + new CellAddress(lastRowNum - 1, 1).formatAsString() + ")";
    }


    @ColumnExcelTotalFormula(
            position = 3,
            cellStyle = @ColumnExcelStyle(
                          isCentreAlignment = false, 
                          cellColor = LIGHT_BLUE, 
                          cellTypePattern = USD))
    public static String totalSales(int firstRowNum, int lastRowNum) {
        return "SUM(" + new CellAddress(firstRowNum, 3).formatAsString() + ":"
                + new CellAddress(lastRowNum - 1, 3).formatAsString() + ")";
    }
} The class comprises three fields: , , and . Additionally, it has a sales formula and a concluding line with the totals: and . The fields utilize the annotation, denoting the column's position and name. date sold pricePerUnit unitsSold totalSales @ColumnExcel The annotation defines the style for both the header and individual data cells: @ColumnExcelStyle @ColumnExcel(
        position = 0, 
        applyNames = {"Date"},
        headerStyle = @ColumnExcelStyle(
                          fontColor = WHITE, 
                          cellColor = DARK_BLUE, 
                          isCentreAlignment = true),
        cellStyle = @ColumnExcelStyle(
                          cellColor = GREY_25_PERCENT, 
                          cellTypePattern = DATE)
) As previously discussed, when creating a formula, the method must accept a parameter indicating the row number. This requirement is evident in the method's signature: public String sales(int rowNum) {
        return new CellAddress(rowNum, 1).formatAsString()
                + "*"
                + new CellAddress(rowNum, 2).formatAsString();
    } Given the row number and column indices, crafting any specific formula becomes feasible. Within the class, methods intended for the concluding formulas are static and require two parameters: the starting row's number and the ending row's number: public static String unitsSold(int firstRowNum, int lastRowNum) {
        return "SUM(" + 
                new CellAddress(firstRowNum, 1).formatAsString() + 
                ":" + 
                new CellAddress(lastRowNum - 1, 1).formatAsString() + 
                ")";
    } Now, let's launch the method: void salesReport() {
    var excelMapper = new ExcelMapperImpl();

    var fileName = "sales-out-" + LocalTime.now() + ".xlsx";
    List<Sales> sales = List.of(
                new Sales().setDate(LocalDate.of(2023, 1, 1))
                        .setSold(50)
                        .setPricePerUnit(10d),
                new Sales().setDate(LocalDate.of(2023, 1, 2))
                        .setSold(40)
                        .setPricePerUnit(11d),
                new Sales().setDate(LocalDate.of(2023, 1, 3))
                        .setSold(55)
                        .setPricePerUnit(9d);

    try (Workbook workbook = excelMapper.createWorkbookFromObject(sales);
         var fileOutputStream = new FileOutputStream(fileName)) {
        workbook.write(fileOutputStream);
    }
} And examine the generated report: Conclusion Writing a specialized library for a specific task proved to be straightforward. The library crafted meets the requirements and includes the planned functionality. The approach utilizing annotations facilitates quick and convenient customization of cell styles, modification of formulas, and dynamic report creation from varied data sources. Hence, the next time a suitable library is elusive, considering the development of a personalized one might be beneficial. Naturally, presenting every line of code in this article was not feasible; thus, only the primary methods essential to the mapper's operation were highlighted. The complete code is available on my . GitHub page

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