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Since 2004, Airbnb, GitHub, Zendesk, Shopify, Kickstarter, UrbanDictionary, CrunchBase, and hundreds of amazing products have been built with Ruby on Rails. Is Ruby on Rails dead in 2021? The language has recently offered some reasons for developers to consider migration to different tools. In 2020, Ruby was still loved by . Why? Because it was built with the key thought in mind that it could “make developers’ lives easier”. Development with Ruby was fun, interactive, and fast. Nowadays, it is hard to imagine a development task for which there is no existing Ruby library. 42% of developers Over the past year, several clients addressed us with the request for updating Ruby-based enterprise products. And yes – modernization is possible; having an outdated Ruby product doesn’t mean it should be rebuilt from scratch with different technology. We believe that in most cases it is possible to work with existing legacy code, and we’d like to share our approach to modernizing legacy Ruby / Rails applications. Read on, if you endeavor to reanimate your Ruby-based project. When You Need to Modernize Ruby / Rails App 1. Your application needs updating if you have any of the following issues: - Outdated and non-interactive UI, problems with UX - Web app feels like it’s from the 2000s - The app makes the full page reload on each user click - UI has no immediate response to actions - Some interactions are impossible to implement Improving user experience (UX) is usually considered as a designer task. It is important to know that modern UI/UX tools require both frontend and backend enhancements. Why is this a risk for legacy systems? 2. Slow application performance - Web pages are loading slowly, so users need to wait a lot - The application is unresponsive and annoying Application architecture and database schema design are complex and time-consuming engineering tasks. In the early stages, serious investment is perceived as high risk because the product may not succeed. Subsequently, code refactoring becomes a challenge at the later stages. Why does it happen? 3. Unable to track Key performance indicators (KPI) - No clear view of data flow in the app - No vision of how users behave - Lack of understanding of how to formulate Key Business Indicators in real-time A data warehouse module! To support your marketing and business team, you need a solid engineering solution to gather data about your business and transform it into human-readable numbers and graphs. What is missing? 4. Application crashes during rush hour - The application cannot handle a big amount of users - Different parts of the system produce a different load, but cannot be scaled separately The system has a bottleneck, which influences the whole application. Bad news: a short-term solution for fixing the bottleneck is not enough in this case. In the long-term, you should consider creating a mechanism to individually boost (scale) your key features. What does this mean? 5. My product is really a set of multiple apps You can clearly see the way to move forward with Service Oriented Architecture, but do not know how to split the existing Monolith while keeping business running. Keeping all the apps in a single code base is like keeping all animals in the zoo in the same cage. It creates a lot of mess and unexpected bugs, slowing down development. What is wrong? 6. Increased infrastructure costs Your web app needs a lot of cloud resources and expensive servers to operate due to non-optimal implementation. Consult with an experienced solution architect and come up with a technical modernization plan for the next phase of the project. What to do? 7. Engineers started to work slowly - Implementation of the new feature takes a lot of time - The development is slow due to high code coupling - The deployment is hard and fragile due to huge amounts of bugs, testing, and fixing which requires additional efforts Not necessarily, but it requires professional help to identify what slows them down and come up with a plan for how to implement modernizations. Is my current team bad? 8. Each release brings a huge pile of new bugs - New features break existing ones - A lot of regression testing is needed by QAs - No possibility to make frequent releases It’s time to perform code modernization. How to stop it? 9. I cannot find engineers for the project’s tech stack - Project parts and services are established on different technologies - You need to hire multiple engineers for each service or look for a super engineer, who knows everything It is painful, but sometimes rewriting parts of the app to use the same technology stack might be a good option. How to proceed? 10. I am worried about security The first version was developed in a hurry with lots of bugs and minimal testing. Now that a lot of users have started using the app, I am worried that I will be sued if there is a data leak. Update all libraries, encrypt user data at rest and in transit, and implement end-to-end SSL. Or hire a team, which will perform the audit and carry out the required changes. What to do to sleep well again? 11. Mobile app integration is hard to implement The project does not have an API, or it requires duplicating a lot of code and bugs. MVP or the first version of the project was developed without taking into account the possibility of a mobile version. It is hard to reuse existing code in the mobile app. Why is it so hard? How to Handle Ruby on Rails Legacy App Upgrade Ruby on Rails (RoR) upholds requirements for startups and MVP projects, due to its strong points, such as a fast time-to-market and a large community of developers. Using RoR, a team of any level could start a project and develop it at the initial stages. This becomes a problem when your business grows – performance, scalability, security, and tracking come into play. At this stage, you need a more experienced team that is able to investigate, develop, and consult. Upgrades may be necessary either in this situation or when the Ruby on Rails application becomes obsolete. At MobiDev, we handle the growth of a Ruby on Rails-based project in the following way: 1. Assign a Tech expert 2. Perform the full project code and infrastructure analysis 3. Identify and prioritize the critical issues to be fixed 4. Come up with a timeline and strategy for the project modernization. It could be a gradual evolution together with further features development 5. Provide the team to do the modernization WHAT TO ESTIMATE IN THE PROCESS OF MODERNIZATION 1. How will modernization influence the development of new features? Should all the team be involved in modernization or is it better to have dedicated developers? When is it time to do the code freeze? 2. Is the code ready for modernization? The features are covered with tests, documentation is in place, backups and disaster recovery are functioning properly. 3. What are the goals of modernization? The team should set understandable and trackable performance indicators of modernization and regularly assess how the process is moving. 4. Is the risk of modernization warranted? Modernization is an improvement but everything has its cost. Modernization plans should cover the increased risks of developer error (automation is required), rising complexity (more documentation to onboard new developers needed), etc. Ruby on Rails Legacy Application Update Case Studies Here we will overview three case studies, where outdated Ruby and Ruby on Rails applications were modernized, and one case, where Ruby became a solution for modernization of a legacy software system initially built with another programming language. Three of the four case studies are accompanied by comments from developers involved in the project. CASE STUDY #1: REFACTORING HEALTH LEGACY APPLICATION The project was inherited from another development team after five years of development. So, it was a legacy code. It had outdated versions of Ruby and Ruby on Rails, and the code was written using many different architecture approaches mixed in a single codebase. There was no related documentation whatsoever. Challenges 1. Upgrade Ruby and Ruby on Rails versions 2. Define the set of patterns and abstractions to be used during the refactoring stage 3. Make sure the new version of code is developed in an extendable way 4. Provide a high level of security and personal health information (PHI) protection to comply with HIPAA 5. Setup performant and easily scalable infrastructure 6. Document the architecture design 7. Develop a new set of features and launch in half a year Solutions Upgrade to Ruby 2.7.1 and Rails 6.0.1 The first task performed by the team was to ensure that upgrades wouldn’t break the existing functionality. We developed and refactored 4488 automated rspec tests, which covered most of the existing application features. This step made it possible to upgrade Ruby on Rails to the newest versions safely. After the upgrade, the rspec tests showed us all the cases, where new libraries caused problems, and we managed to fix them. Modular (Component) Monolith Rails architecture design Although the Rails application had a single repository, by its true nature the application consisted of many different services. It was a real challenge to develop new features because of the way the code of all these services was mixed together. After the brainstorming phase, the team decided to use Modular Monolith design for Ruby on Rails API. The benefits of this choice were that all services were decoupled into separate Rails engines (Admin Portal, CMS, Common API, etc.), it was easy to navigate the project and implement new features, and the design had a clear and easy to implement set of guidelines. Building new infrastructure Microsoft Azure was a great candidate for a new cloud enterprise solution. At that moment, it had a suitable bunch of tools to set up new infrastructure, taking into account security, scalability, durability, performance, and recoverability. For security reasons, it was decided to implement an “End to End SSL” approach, which ensured that at any phase of communication between services the traffic was encrypted and safe. Azure Kubernetes service called AKS enabled achieving required scalability, durability, and performance for our Ruby on Rails API. Last but not least, the whole setup was performed using the Helm tool and Azure DevOps CI/CD. It was a real challenge to work on the healthcare project that was passed to MobiDev’s Ruby Team from previous developers without proper documentation. During the project’s 2.5 years, we were doing a major upgrade and developing a product by adding new functional modules. A major upgrade included refactoring files, moving business logic operations to Trailblazer and database queries to a separate repository. Following Domain-driven design principles, we thoroughly covered both the new code and the legacy one with QA testing. The project had quite a cumbersome monolith architecture, but we managed to divide it into several modules, using . To ensure proper code formatting, we applied . Rails Engines Rubocop Ruby Engineer, MobiDev Yaroslav Tiahelskyi CASE STUDY #2: UPGRADING SPORTS TOURNAMENTS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM MobiDev’s Ruby Team dealt with competing objectives for this project. We had to develop more features in the same budget, reduce the number of bugs, and increase extensibility. Additional tasks included simplifying the onboarding of new team members and improving overall security. Challenges 1. Move the code to Service and Query Objects plus Decorators by introducing a Domain Driven Design (DDD) approach 2. Unify the frontend part 3. Make onboarding for new team members and developing of new features seamless and fast Solutions It was decided to: 1. Move logic from controllers to Service Objects 2. Move query functions form models to Query Objects 3. Move helper functions form models to Decorators 4. Upgrade Rails version 5. Develop all Front-end features using React 6. Unify code style using Robocop and Rails upgrade Applying DDD allowed the developers to simplify overly-complicated models and controllers of the Legacy Ruby on Rails application and make sure it was easy to extend the code for new features. The Rails app had 2 different ways to develop UI components: pure jQuery with Ajax and EJS with remote links. To unify the frontend part, we employed migrating to React.js as an appropriate UI approach. Interesting technologies and a powerful team always motivate me. I was absolutely excited to work on the outstanding project which had no analogs, especially for kids, in that kind of sport. A lot of teams were involved to launch the mobile, desktop, and browser versions of the application. I am proud that we‘ve managed to transform the legacy project into the one with optimal architecture, totally covered with QA testing, and our API used only by GraphQL. Ruby Engineer, MobiDev Erik Zheved CASE STUDY #3: MODERNIZING BANK MANAGEMENT SYSTEM Multi-tenant Ruby on Rails startup development had been running smoothly until the team faced several risks: slow response time under load, increased development time for new features, a single point of failure, and a lack of security mechanisms. Challenges 1. Provide migrating from AWS to Azure 2. Improve legacy code base 3. Find out how to solve other tasks related to risks encountered by the team Solutions After investigation, the following problems were found: 1. A lot of load from periodic computations 2. At the initial stages, quality was sacrificed for speed 3. Hard to extend and maintain code base 4. Slow tests (harder to develop and release) 5. Hard dependencies between system components Migrating from AWS to Azure The original first version of the system was built using AWS cloud in an outdated manner. All developers had direct access to servers and databases, which is unsafe because of human errors and the high possibility of troubles that could happen from time to time. Also, servers were targets to crash because of periods of high load. The Ruby on Rails web app generated a lot of jobs and made the Compute Server (Sidekiq) get “stuck”. At these moments the whole system became unavailable due to the hard coupling of the components. It was decided to perform a decisive technology modernization and also migrate to Azure. Additional security mechanisms were implemented around authentication and authorization, applying Single Sign On approach (SSO) and Azure Active Directory (AAD). They were seamlessly integrated into the existing Ruby on Rails solution and Active Admin. All the public traffic was routed through Gateway and Firewall for high protection of sensitive data. Key Vault allowed to store Ruby on Rails credentials and secret keys. As the core of the system the AKS (Kubernetes) cluster was set up to provide the required value of performance and stability of the system, eliminating the single point of failure and providing a fault-tolerant experience for users. Improving legacy code base After the internal analysis of the code base, it became clear that to improve time-to-market for new features and reduce the amount of bugs, we had to get rid of monolith architecture and the server-side rendering approach. The split to services and separating the frontend part drastically assisted Ruby on Rails developers to speed up automated tests and increase the extendability of the legacy monolithic Ruby code. I’ve been working on the project for more than four years. Along with the team we’ve implemented the project features, using parallel computing, service architecture, and complex business logic. The project utilizes an advanced security system based on Azure, , and Helm. The tech stack comprises RoR, PG, Sidekiq, Redis, React, and Java. Kubernetes It’s worth noting that the project meets the Accessibility requirements, has successfully passed Security Audit performed by the client’s IT department, and is under ongoing performance optimization. The project is still being actively developed by the client, and my team participates in technical decision-making and developing of business logic. Ruby Team Leader, MobiDev Viktor Volontsevich CASE STUDY #4: WORDPRESS-BASED LEGACY APPLICATION MODERNIZATION WITH RUBY ON RAILS RoR is still considered the best platform for startup product development, so sometimes it can become a solution for the modernization of a legacy software system built with another programming language. The was initially a WordPress based startup social network for teams interested in the growth of their businesses. Soon an idea of a special growth management tool came into play, and it could be built using Ruby on Rails framework. project The team quickly realized that the project was a set of multiple services, and it was difficult to keep engineers for different technology stacks (WordPress and RoR). In addition to the startup-based architecture design, it was hard to develop new features and the development slowed down. Challenges 1. Unifying the tech stack 2. Isolate multiple apps from each other 3. Reduce release risks Solutions It was decided to: 1. Rewrite the WordPress part of the project using RoR for unifying the tech stack 2. Introduce Microservices architecture to keep multiple apps isolated from each other and make it possible to share the data between them (like users). This increased overall stability and performance 3. Introduce CI/CD automation for reducing release risks Why Ruby on Rails is Still Our Choice in 2021 In summary, the increasing demand in web systems development raises the question, which tool is best suited for these needs? For us, Ruby on Rails is still a valid and preferable tool for the following reasons: 1. It is a “swiss knife” of web development that allows us to create prototypes, proof of concepts and MVPs fast and test the market with a minimum budget. 2. Ruby on Rails framework has built-in tools out-of-the-box to fulfill 80% of common web systems feature requests. 3. For developers with the right skills, it is still a tool for infinite product growth in terms of features and code. 4. Ruby on Rails makes both businesses and engineers happy. It was built with the philosophy “to make developers’ lives easier” in mind, which simplifies delivering new features and meeting product owners’ expectations. It is undeniable that Ruby on Rails has some drawbacks. One of them is the high price for each mistake. Errors originating from the planning stage or the first development phase are difficult to correct in the future. As a result, this turns into broken interactions between separate parts of the app. To avoid mistakes, you need to find an experienced team that is able to deliver the product with the required customization and functionality, devoting attention to previous research. We are ready to work on challenging projects and believe that with a competent approach they are bound to succeed. For us, RoR is flexible enough in the long term, as well as secure and easy for business logic implementation. Ruby on Rails shines again with all its refactoring best practices gathered by the MobiDev team throughout the years in web development! Written by Serge Koba, Ruby Team Leader at MobiDev

Ruby on Rails is Not Dead! Here's How to Upgrade Ruby Legacy Applications

It is no secret that big tech has been actively monitoring and censoring users.  The past three years have seen a big rise in reported censorship events by the likes of  Youtube, Google, Facebook, and Twitter. According to John Wolfsohn’s article on ; quoting here: “Every 60 seconds, 3.8 million questions are entered into the Google Machine – an international hegemon that has 1.7 billion users and a market value of $990 billion. Brown Political Review According to a November 2019 , Google has been found to be manipulating search results, creating politically-partisan algorithms, and maintain blacklists to prevent users from accessing certain websites. Wall Street Journal investigation Facebook, which has a market value of $572 billion, and Twitter, which has a market value of $28 billion, hold considerable economic and political clout in our society, as 68 percent of Americans periodically use social media as a source for news.” What is more alarming is that such censorship is getting worse, case in point  - the US elections - we will come to that later in the article. Below depicts a diagram of censorship in the world, notice anything? Western countries seem to have the most free speech, but is that really so? Let’s rewind the clocks back and take a look back at recent history. What Exactly Is Censorship ? Most people should be familiar with what censorship actually is, but for people who are not, here is the good old Oxford dictionary definition: The act or policy of censoring books etc.. Thanks Oxford. Great definition. Here is a better version according to a user on the popular (and probably more relevant) website Urban Dictionary: Stopping of art and . the free flow ideas Here is a working example of what censorship is, again from a user on the popular site UrbanDictionary. Very eloquently explained, Yosheek. When Did It Start ? Many years ago when myspace was still a thing, and people were still using Limewire to wait two hours to download the latest hits  - online censorship was still in its infancy. Why? Largely due to the fact the dominant social media platforms were still coming up. But, online censorship did exist. Take the case of Myspace, according to , they claimed that; “that the website practices censorship by not showing anti-media ads, removing fake profiles for high-profile media executives like , and attempting to force users away from using certain third-party Flash applications on their profiles.” MoveOn Rupert Murdoch This is just one example of censorship within the budding social media platform. I digress, moving on. While Myspace is just one example, Censorship in various forms has existed for millennia, the earliest recorded example being was in 443 BC when the first office of the censor was established in Rome. In fact, in the ancient Greek communities, Censorship was viewed as an honorable task. China followed it through with a Censorship law in 300AD. From here Censorship kept evolving and started to proliferate into many forms of society in Print media, television ads, and now social media. The key difference is that the general public was not as acutely aware as they are now, largely due to technology, and the rapid spread of information. Index Librorum Prohibitorum (1564) - The list of Banned or Prohibited books Why Does It Exist ? While many may think that censorship has no place in the world, it does serve a purpose. Now what that purpose is, may be debatable. From stopping the spread of misinformation, or to further a party(ies) hidden agenda, for either direct or in-direct monetary gains. An example being censoring a certain individual who looks like an orange Cheeto to “supposedly” provide a material advantage to his aged opponent (None of this is proven fact, Jack please don’t block my 200 follower Twitter account). This is an extreme example, however, there are other “grey” examples of big tech flexing: Banning Youtube crypto accounts or Facebook banning Crypto ads, albeit Youtube did reinstate some of the accounts, it just goes to show that even in the “free world” big tech is acting like big brother and the moral police. Let’s not forget whose nine to five include going through thousands of questionable videos to censor them. the poor souls in China While the above include some questionable acts of censorship, let’s not forget that depiction of acts of terrorism, child pornography, violence, and other clear examples of why we need censorship. It is a fine balance, between respecting free speech, and keeping the peace. Final Thoughts Recent events have shown the dark side of censorship, but it is a needed evil. However the question is about the fine line here, and respect for that fine line. Censoring actual content that is harmful or dangerous, and not using some vague justification to censor content that is in the grey area or open for interpretation. To put it more plainly. - Big Tech, stop abusing your power, censorship is needed but in legitimate cases only. Stop using censorship to further your agendas. And for those companies that will continue to abuse their power, I have three words for you: Go. Fornicate. Yourself. With Warm Regards, Reggie All of the above is my personal opinion and does not represent the opinions of any organizations, parties, politically exposed individuals, individuals that look like flaming cheetos, dictators or anyone else. None of this constitutes any form of advice let alone financial advice or solicitation. You can solicit me for a drink though. Preferably JD honey.

Censorship: From Ancient Greece To Today's Big Tech - A Brief Overview

Exploring the philosophical implications of our imminent clash with artificial intelligence The handful of questions below are intended to be mostly philosophical in nature and, though some may seem nonsensical, they ought to be approached with an especially open mind, one that is unwoven from general conceptions of social structure, political governance, and human purpose in it’s barest and most fundamental forms. I’ll once again rehash a previous mission statement of sorts: technology’s rapid progression means that we will be on the doorstep of numerous crossroads that will undoubtedly shake the roots of humankind — it is better to fuel the discussion preemptively, and begin to develop certain commonly and collectively agreed-upon expectations for what ought to be allowed and what we should be especially weary of. Will the advent of A.I. allow us to embark upon a complete overhaul of traditional labor structures? This is a question that comes up less frequently than others and one that has an answer that is wholly dependent on whether or not we’d like to take an optimistic or pessimistic view. In another way to phrase it — A.I. can be seen as the harbinger of an age where humankind can, for the most part, finally unshackle themselves from the toils of labor. Conversely, it can also be regarded — and is often regarded in this way — as an enormous threat to employment, set to disrupt almost every industry and cause massive scale job loss. Assuming an optimistic perspective, it’s certainly an exciting proposition, one that would have to be supplemented with some measure of a universal basic income for everyone or some completely innovative way by which resources can be accumulated by members of society. While it seems wholly unfeasible to live in a world where humans need no longer work (again, ) and can be set free to pursue their individual endeavors, it is nonetheless a tantalizing prospect. for the most part Preparing for a world without work means grappling with the roles work plays in society, and finding potential substitutes. First and foremost, we rely on work to distribute purchasing power: to give us the dough to buy our bread. Eventually, in our distant Star Trek future, we might get rid of money and prices altogether, as soaring productivity allows society to provide people with all they need at near-zero cost. — Ryan Avent, The Guardian Supposing one were to take a pessimistic perspective, the threat of soaring unemployment rates is all too real. We’ve already seen the loss of jobs brought about by automation in the workforce and A.I. poses the most menacing danger of all. The darkest of estimates come to show the loss of half of all current jobs to automation and A.I. — if this had even been remotely exaggerated, it certainly seems drastic enough to consider alternative systems of wage disbursement in its entirety. What kind of features can we expect from neurally integrating artificial intelligence? In other words, what does a superhuman, or a technologically-enhanced human look like? Not aesthetically but, more so, in the realm of ability.  It’s not hard to envision characteristics from a learning perspective — the ability to have any language downloaded into our cerebrums in an instant, to learn how to play instruments, master psychology, know all of history and understand every scientific principle at the wink of an eye. Unfathomable modes of communication, energy manipulation, perhaps even time bending or physiological enhancements that can be idealized, and often are with fiction and sci-fi. To burst some bubbles: we’re likely far and away from anything resembling the above-stated enhancements and more so wading through the waters of combating neural-degeneration. To stimulate neural circuits that are naturally slowing down, to regenerate wilting brain tissue or assist with the regaining of lost neural function — these are the types of A.I. based and supported realities on our horizon. Where this could go, in terms of that interface to machines or interface to prosthetics, is that you can literally connect to the correct circuit and continually interact at a neuron level back and forth over time. — Dr. Kiki Sanford There seems to be somewhat of a reluctance for many to delve further into the possibilities that actual could entail, often anchored by an underlying concern of whether or not such enhancements — not needed but merely desired — would be ethical. enhancements To what extent will such potential (of superhuman computation, thought and analysis, memory retention, accelerated learning, etc.) be susceptible to traditional human folly — greed, abuse, manipulation? It’s not hard to regard it as an inevitability, albeit far down the line. Would it be immoral to enslave our own simulated minds? “Though I may be been constructed,” he said, “so too were you. I in a factory; you in a womb. Neither of us asked for this, but we were given it. Self-awareness is a gift. And it is a gift no thinking thing has any right to deny another. No thinking thing should be another thing’s property, to be turned on and off when it is convenient.” ― C. Robert Cargill In Black Mirror’s episode, , writer Charlie Brooker nailed the shiver-inducing concept. Should we be able to extract our personality, judgement, and overall character and confine it to some sort of artificially intelligent interface (like Ironman’s Jarvis, for example), is it inherently wrong, then, to enslave it for our benefit? White Christmas Any effective A.I. that makes decisions based on what we would individually prefer would be most efficient if it were to work under a context of our pure, replicated selves. In essence, this question would be grouped along the more generalized problems that span the lines of questioning over whether or not rights ought to be afforded to machines that demonstrate self-awareness and consciousness. To idealize some measure of an answer, it’s not far-fetched to conclude that if the enslaved mind understands the concept of free will and, assuming that it has achieved some level of self-realization, then yes — it would seem intrinsically immoral to enslave something that understands the difference between liberty and servitude. Is a robotic revolution inevitable? Will assembly-bots and Roombas one day rise up against us? This is the crux of almost any sci-fi film that features A.I. in a prominent role, having been epitomized with the threat of in the series. Skynet Terminator It’s obvious that computers have to follow pre-designed programming. The most high-powered of computers are currently unable to ultimately develop their own programming — we assume, anyway. To fully explore this question, we have to ask whether or not a computer is capable of self-consciousness in the first place, and waters get murky on this point. For instance, computing software can be affixed to random number generators and achieve some measure of self-propagation in this way — in a sense, being able to unpredictably re-write their own programming. Though this seems a far cry from a machine versus human confrontation, it is not wholly different from the way revolutions start in our current world. Some can say that many of our current revolutions against governments are programmed in a similar way, being the more adequate term. inspired Symbiosis may be a key focus to strive towards here. “If we can effectively merge with A.I. by improving the neural link between the cortex and your digital extension of yourself — which already exists, it just has a bandwidth issue — then effectively you become an A.I. human symbiote. And if that then is widespread, [where] anyone who wants it can have it, then we solve the control problem as well. We don’t have to worry about some evil dictator A.I., because we are the A.I. collectively. That seems to be the best outcome I can think of.” — Elon Musk In a world where humans become increasingly dependent on A.I. and A.I. continues to co-exist more intimately with its maker, this relationship will be scrutinized to a point where we will have to render it ultimately symbiotic or mutually-destructive, self-consciousness acting as the precursor. So until we get closer, this remains an issue to be kicked around by theorists and Hollywood producers. How many of our world’s problems will A.I. be able to solve? As we approach the conceptualized singularity, optimists are salivating at the sheer possibilities of A.I. having the capacity to solve quandaries that we humans seem unable to get around, solving quandaries in the blink of an eye that would otherwise take us generations. Mathematical, social, medical, logistical, astrophysical — there is endless work for our technological successors to get their hands on and it’s a reverently enticing prospect to consider that A.I. may be able to generate effective measures by which we can reverse climate change, establish sustainable habitats on other planets, maximize medical efficiency, etc. How much will we trust A.I. to assist us? Will it be prone or even able to make mistakes? Will we trust its judgement and, beyond that, how do we even calibrate its judgement when we ourselves sometimes have a hard time deciding what is moral? “It’s not the span of time that counts, but what you do with it. While you humans have been grubbing around the galaxy, looking for a sense of purpose, a meaning to pin on the chain of cosmic accidents that brought you shambling into existence, we have been doing great things. In the span of time that it takes you to sneeze, I can run the equivalent of a year’s worth of human consciousness. Imagine all the thinking we have done since our emergence.” ― Alastair Reynolds Is there an inherent evil or malevolence associated with A.I.? Hollywood is actively working on preparing us for the worst case scenarios, apparently, by more-often-than-not depicting A.I. as our enemy, as our subsequent downfall. Is there really a reason to buy into a doom and gloom perspective? Avoiding the thralls of a discussion, many have illustrated very possible dangers of artificial intelligence through the way that it may be manipulated to assist endeavors of sheer profitability or national interest. In other words, advertising, spying, exploiting, etc. Terminator If and when the notion of A.I. developing its own consciousness ever comes to be accepted as a legitimate prospect, the debate will morph into a wholly different animal taking on entirely different concerns. At this time, however, it’s not hard to see that many are so apprehensive about A.I.’s damning capabilities because we’re used to our own damning tendencies. In other words, we ought to only fear whatever it is we program into the system in the first place. exemplified this point brilliantly — the protagonist robot embodied the same principle of self-preservation and deception as that of her creator. Ex Machina Ava Ava: Isn’t it strange, to create something that hates you? In sum, it can be argued that it takes the power of abstraction to be cruel. And, until we actually get to this point, we should worry about the dangers of our own potential than anything else. As I had mentioned in , to ask these questions seems to unfairly cast a dark shadow onto an inevitable terminus along the timeline of civilization. The prospective benefits of A.I. more than justify our lusting appetites for it. a previous post that examined our eventual converge with artificial intelligence Though, there are small blips of concern that grow larger and louder each time they’re addressed in science fiction or pop culture. These blips are evidenced in this post as there seems to be a thematic common denominator to every answer listed above — each prospect can be regarded as a double-edged sword. For this is human nature — to assume and ponder the destination before arriving there. The truth is, until we get there, we really don’t know. As such, we may want to pay as much attention to the we’re travelling, rather than solely focusing on we’re going. way where Read On: Leaving Planet Earth The philosophical implications of humanity one day leaving the cradle of humankind _Retaining to sin; a category of sin._www.urbandictionary.com Urban Dictionary: Sinnery

A.I. : Synergy or Sinnery?

Lauren has maybe half of the skills listed within an attractive job posting. But she’s not going to let that stop her from talking her way into a 6-figure annual salary. Believe it or not, that little story is absolutely true. Lauren’s gift of gab bought her a position she was very underqualified for. It’s time to end these costly, totally unnecessary shenanigans. is blending AI with blockchain tech to bring some much-needed honesty and transparency to any company’s hiring process. TalentSnap So, what is TalentSnap and what problems does the project want to solve? I’ll tell you in a bit. But first, go ahead and read the next section. It won’t be as painful as filling out paperwork during onboarding for a new job but it’s still kinda important… Disclaimer : This is not investment or financial advice. I’m not a financial expert by any stretch of the imagination. Most information within this article is speculative and merely my own personal opinion. Always conduct your own research before contributing to any startup projects. Always remember that what you do with your money is your decision to make. And if that decision proves too difficult for you alone, seek guidance from a financial professional. I may or may not receive a small allocation of tokens for creating this content. That said, I will do my best to remain unbiased and fair. I try to avoid all FOMO and FUD and never wish to impart those emotions on my fellow crypto-heads. Questionable Practices If Lauren had been upfront about her actual skills, she never would’ve made it to the 2nd round of interviews. Maybe she figured she’d just learn the role as she went along. And maybe, in Laurens eyes, at least, that’s just fine. But I guarantee her employer views the situation differently. If you’re hiring for a $100K+ job, you’re looking for top talent, not a glorified intern. Let’s face it, if you want a new gig, you may be willing to bend the truth a bit. But if you spin those tales a little too long you can get yourself in trouble. really “Wait a minute. Are you saying that Lauren isn’t really a certified Level 18 Excel Sorceress? I have her resume right here. She lists her Excel skills as ‘otherworldly’ and ‘astonishing.’ But you’re telling me otherwise? Let’s go have a little chat with her…” Uh oh, Lauren, your days at the company may be numbered… Everyone’s entitled to a little break after doing some work. After all that reading, let’s take one now. Here’s a superquick video that’ll get you up to speed with the TalentSnap project’s aspirations: Sorry, Lauren, you’ll have to apply offchain It’s way too easy for deception to creep into the hiring process. Similar to dating, people being interviewed tend to project an image of themselves that’s not exactly reality. And once an employee has inked a deal, it may be very difficult and costly to get rid of them. This is especially true in certain European countries where the laws are heavier on the employee’s side of the scale. People can get all up in your business — like a wedgie — and become very difficult to dislodge. As a hiring manager, you want to make sure you’re taking a risk on the right candidate. Sadly, stories like Lauren’s certainly aren’t isolated. I have another one for you. And, once again, it’s true. To protect the identity of the guys who have absolutely no idea they’re getting thrown under a digital bus, I’ll change their names just a little… Mad Fraudz Once upon a time, I worked for a consumer electronics company that eventually went bankrupt due to mismanagement. The organization’s name? Well, their IP was recently purchased on the cheap and they’re now back in business under new ownership. My lips are sealed. But I will drop some hints for you. Their name rhymes with sad hats. They earned themselves a derogatory entry on urbandictionary.com. Nearly everything they created was named after a nonsensical acronym. And, they were the inspiration for from CollegeHumor. this video You see, the root of the major hiring snafu I’m about to explain was the boss, himself a total fraud. The King of Narcissism himself — Ronny — claimed to be an ‘advertising man’ with experience at Coca-Cola. But 99% of his subordinates believed his experience there was actually in the mailroom rather than the boardroom. Not sure who’s bright idea it was to give this head of the department a say in the hiring process for as well as , but there you go. Fraud begets fraud. severely tech-challenged Creative IT web development We already had a Jr. developer — Al — working for us but since we were expanding our multi-brand web presence, we began looking for a Sr. dev. Along came Bessie Bueno. The buzzwords must have been flying during the interview because Bessie was practically worthless. I sat within view of Bessie’s monitor and a typical day was 5% work and 95% YouTube videos. And when Bessie got stuck on a project — unable to conquer a task that should be a snap for a Sr. developer — who do you think Bessie would turn to? That’s right, Al, the Jr. developer. I really thought Al was going to quit the day he discovered Bessie’s actual job title. I could see the rage of injustice and disbelief in his eyes. Someone who’s making a solid 25% more than you shouldn’t need to visit your desk asking questions about things they should’ve known before ever getting hired! Now, this ridiculous and totally inappropriate work scenario could’ve been prevented if Bessie had to possession of job-specific skills. Had Ronny been able to easily check, he may have gone with a different candidate. prove Verifiable skills are at the heart of the TalentSnap project. And the team is combining AI with blockchain to make the verification process quick and easy. TalentSnap’s MVP is currently up and running Ensuring a Good Fit Hiring metrics go far beyond relevant skills and experience. Every workspace has a distinct culture and if you won’t be comfortable somewhere you’d best keep the job hunt going. Your personality type should ideally match your role as well as the environment you work within. If you don’t play nicely with others, you’ll have a hard time fitting into any organization. Which makes personal interviews so crucial. They’re not always in-person but you must spend time talking to someone — on Skype or a similar service, at a minimum — getting a feel for their personality before giving them a keycard to the building. But before you ask a candidate to visit your office — after chatting with them on the phone to verify they’re not a complete freakshow— there’s a heap of data for you to wade through. hopefully And that’s where TalentSnap comes in. Before you reach out to a job seeker, you’ll have a wealth of role-relevant info at your fingertips. The team has created an app — now live with a full dashboard and Chrome extension — to trim the fat and smarten your hiring efforts. View a candidate’s details & LinkedIn profile, email them, add them to your favorites, or leave yourself a note FitScore Now we’re getting to the interesting part. Plenty of hiring sites have various filters like education, skills, and years of experience. But few if any of them take personality type into consideration. And none of those sites can claim AI or machine learning as a skill on its resume. The TalentSnap service analyzes dozens of hiring metrics to create a unique FitScore — ranging from 1 to 100 — used for linking employers to job hunters. And as candidates and employers create data within the TalentSnap platform, the service will only get better with its matchmaking. You see, AI needs information in order to evolve. And with 100s of millions of datapoints generated by the global job market every day, TalentSnap’s algorithms have no shortage of food for thought. You can test the right now if you’d like. Just make sure you come back and finish what you started here. FitScore MVP Hiring Automation The TalentSnap project will evolve over time. The goal is to create a platform that becomes a global benchmark for the hiring process. Elevating the FitScore measurement to industry-standard status will require the team to branch-out their Research & Development efforts. Here are a few subjects the project plans to delve into… Federated Learning Don’t worry, you won’t find any evil characters here. Star Wars Federated learning is a setting within the realm of machine learning. The aim is to train a centralized model using training data spread among a large, distributed userbase. In TalentSnap’s case, they’ll use this method to smarten the platform’s AI. As users generate data on the network, it’s sent to a smart contract. And every time a contract makes computations, it gets a little better at interpreting incoming data. Which reinforces my point above: Every FitScore generated by the platform will be a little smarter than the last. Homomorphic Encryption This technique is how the platform will process encrypted data without decrypting it first. Homomorphic encryption will allow everyone on the network to safely share their personal data. Users of the TalentSnap service won’t need to subject their data to the prying eyes of info-harvesting companies aiming to turn a profit from what’s not rightfully theirs. It’s important to note that homomorphic encryption and federated learning aren’t scheduled for implementation until 2020. Proof of Identity Are you who you say you are? The blockchain knows. In yet another effort to secure the privacy of users’ identities, TalentSnap plans to integrate existing blockchain tech into their upcoming platform. Civic, for example, is a blockchain project that allows users to create a digital ID that they can use all throughout the cryptosphere. BTW, if you’re active with ICOs and tired of KYC, give Civic a try. The service is convenient and easy to use. Proof of Identity will assure employers that applicants are legitimate candidates with real profiles on the platform. TSC Utility Token TalentSnap’s native token — TSC — is an ERC20. The team has stated that should the Ethereum network fail to solve its current scalability issues, they may jump ship to another blockchain or build one of their own. The TSC token’s main purpose is as a payment mechanism within the platform. TSC tokens are deducted from a user’s balance every time a FitScore is generated. Good news for candidates — there’s no deduction unless the FitScore match is 90 and above. In addition, candidates and employers can be compensated with TSC tokens should they choose to share their data with third-party companies connected to the TalentSnap platform. Final thoughts… Automating the hiring process is a long road. Take a look at the TalentSnap project’s roadmap and you’ll see a milestone that’s much farther away than what most projects display. 2035 — the team’s projected target for hiring — may seem like it’s light-years away. And way back in 2000, waiting for 2020 seemed like an eternity, too. Yet it’s right around the corner. autonomous I think a long-term approach shows the team is grounded in reality. I prefer projects to take their time and do things right as opposed to rushing to hit self-imposed milestones. Although the AI industry is growing rapidly, there’s still of progress that needs to occur before we start seeing the technology integrated into our everyday lives. a lot Keep the project’s plan for slow and steady growth in mind if you plan to contribute. The project’s tech is 100% reliant upon data. They’ll need terabyte after terabyte before AI becomes smart enough to improve entire industries. As TalentSnap begins to accumulate massive amounts of data to feed the platform’s info-hungry algorithms, their service will improve. And tokenizing the data we already share — for free — with social hiring platforms is making the most of what blockchain tech has to offer. Simplification of the hiring process also brings cost- and time-savings for all parties. As you know, finding a job or a strong candidate can be a long and tedious game of waiting. Companies can cut right through the smoke and mirrors and only deal with people who truly seem like a good fit. And candidates will become empowered to apply for positions that closely match their skill set. Once the platform is fully operational and FitScores become highly reliable indicators of a match between employers and candidates, companies will realize an uptick in the quality of new hires. When that day arrives — hopefully within the next couple of years — companies will be able to keep the likes of Lauren and Ronny and Bessie out of their organizations. And then, everyone except the fraudsters will win the hiring game. DYOR It’s always a good idea to form your own opinion of any project you may want to participate in. Here’s where you can dive a little deeper into TalentSnap: TalentSnap Website TalentSnap Whitepaper Get Social Bitcointalk Facebook LinkedIn Reddit Telegram Twitter YouTube By the way… If you like what you see here and need help getting your crypto message to the masses, I’d love to hear about your project. Feel free to reach out to me here: blockchainauthor at Gmail

TalentSnap ICO Review: How Blockchain Tech Safely Automates the Hiring Process

This space is amazing. First, we stole the greatest creation of wealth from the rich, then distribute it almost evenly to people regardless of ethnicity, age, gender, or intellectual level. Next, we stole the tech bros from Silicon Valley and the finance bros from Wall Street. And now, we are stealing words from Merriam-Webster’s dictionary and re-issuing them with our own definition and spelling. So what the f*ck is “hodl” or “hodling”? Image by on — a pioneer who coined the word “hodl/hodling” GameKyuubi Bitcointalk A brief introduction of h or odl hodling. , according to . “Hodl is an enthusiastic misspelling of Hold , prompting bitcoin users to avoid the temptation of selling off their coins once price starts rising” Urban Dictionary _An enthusiastic misspelling of Hold, prompting bitcoin users to avoid the temptation of selling off their coins once…_www.urbandictionary.com Urban Dictionary: hodl Why you should hodl and not trade. Hodling does not require experience, but patience and faith in the . Whereas, trading requires knowledge in finance and experience. If Wall Street can’t beat this volatile market, what makes you think you can? Did you not just see that we jumped from $200 billion to $600 billion total market capital in exactly 30 days(From November 18 — December 18)? How can you buy low when everything just keeps climbing? Wouldn’t it better if you just hedl? I personally have made much more money in hodling than trading, with half the stress. blockchain technology Below is an example of why hodling would be a better option in this bullish and volatile market. Here is an outline from a social media post that was edited with today’s price (January 2, 2018). “If you took 5 of the cryptocurrencies that are still in the top 10 from Jan. 1, 2017 and compare them to Jan. 2, 2018 here is what you would have if you invested $1,000 in each on Jan 1st 2017… BTC — $963.00 to $16,460 — total $17,092ETH — $8.26 to $878— total $106,295XRP — $0.0065 to $2.41— total $370,769LTC — $4.37 to $255 — total $58,352DASH — $11.26 to $1,160 — total $103,019 …for a grand total of $655,527 for $5,000 invested.” I really have a hard time believing that someone can do better than this in trading without having a $1 million initial capital. Trading is just like any other profession that requires years of training. If you pretend to be one, you will get rekt. Tuur Demeester Who should hodl? You should hodl: If you are a believer of this blockchain technology. If you have patience. If you believe that the peak of this bubble is not even priced in yet. If you believe that we will match or possibly surpass the Internet bubble’s $3 trillion market capital. If you can afford to lose and risk it all. If you don’t need the money at this time. If you do not have the slightest idea of what you’re doing. If you don’t have the time to keep up with how fast this space is moving. Anthony Pompliano Long-term versus short-term. This is how I look at long-term and short-term investors. Long-term: looks at how much tokens will be worth 5 years from now. Difficulty level: Easy way to invest in crypto. Requires light reading and patience.Reward: $x-$,xxx,xxx+Psychological effect(s): Frustrating, boring.Risk score: 9.987/10 Short-term: tries to beat the volatile and irrational market.Difficulty level: God mode, requires no sleeping, trading experiences, staying up to date, etc.Reward: Instantly $xxx,xxx to $xx,xxx,xxx.Psychological effect(s): It fluctuates, adrenaline rush, residual effects of sleep deprivation, crypto high, etc.Risk score: 10/10 Photo by on John Noonan Unsplash How to hodl? Here’s how I do it. I just traded the last few of my bitcoins for $ETH, which I’ve bought for around $100 and held since 2013. I was able to hodl due to my positive attitude view towards blockchain technology. When I first heard about bitcoins, I thought of decentralized paypal. I instantly fell in love with the idea of not having anyone freeze my account when I sell things online due to charge backs and fraud claims from the other party. Then Ethereum came and it just strengthened my opinion about this technology. Today, I am still hodling some $ETH from which I’ve purchased from the initial coin offering and some I have diversified into other ICO projects that I personally believed in (check my “ ”). Due Diligence Checklist for Investing in Cryptocurrency My faith and wanting to be part this of revolution is what makes me want to hodl onto my investment longer. I want to see what Bitcoin, Ethereum and other potential disruptive dApps develop and grow 5 years from now. I want to see what life would be like with a matured blockchain ecosystem. Other than the financial motive that comes with investing in blockchain long term, I want to see the impact it will have on our daily lives. Michael Goldstein “But..but…” hodl that thought, because I have more things to say. Hodling does not require experience or skills, traders do. Stick to what you know, you’re not a trader, you will get rekt. Ask yourself what this coin/token is going to be worth 5 yrs from now, not what’s it going to be worth next week or next month. It will give you new perspective about the future of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Hodling to me is something more than just a chant to encourage people to not panic and sell during the bear market. Hodling is a strategy that I have used for the last few years and has continued to benefit me more than trading (I am not a trader, my background is medicine, not finance). We are at the mania phase right now of this market. Maybe in a few days or a couple weeks, this bullish market will experience fatigue and the hype will not be enough to sustain it. What do you do? Do you panic and sell? What if it goes up? Do you trade for a loss? If not, and it keeps going up, do you buy back at the top? How about just letting your investment grow by hodling? “Are you here for the long haul? or for the next 6 months?” — Jimmy Song Did you come here to trade? or did you come here to invest your money in the growth of this blockchain technology? BONUS (because it’s funny): ############################################ I am the founder of Wes Post m, a community driven publication for blockchain and cryptocurency. www.wespost.co Follow me on https://twitter.com/cryptonization https://medium.com/wespostdotcom https://www.facebook.com/wespostdotcom/ https://twitter.com/wespostdotcom _251 Followers, 23 Following, 78 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Wes Post (@wespostdotcom)_www.instagram.com Wes Post (@wespostdotcom) * Instagram photos and videos

The Art Of Hodling Crypto: Can’t Make this Sh*t Up

At work I use a Mac, at home I have a Lenovo notebook with installed. There's several reasons why people, and specially developers, adopt different platforms simultaneously and there's nothing wrong with that, in fact, we are just adopting the right tool for the right job… or budget. ArchLinux However, it can be annoying when you depend on productivity tools that are not available on all platforms. You also start to think twice before buying a license for a tool that won't be available on one of the platforms you adopt. Cross platform consistent user experience is hard, but we can find ways to solve this issue. This article will focus on how to improve the experience for one kind of tool: Keyboard triggered Productivity and Assistant tool The title above is my tentative to classify tools like , , and . Mac Alfred Ubuntu Unity Dash Gnome Shell overview others Screenshot of Alfred in action. The way they work is simple. After a global keyboard shortcut is hit by the user, they can type commands to: Launch applications Search desktop Open URLs and search specific sites Calculate something Manage clipboard Even trigger more complex workflows that can be customized It's a true Swiss-army tool that saves a lot of time, but given that most of them are not cross-platform because of their deep relationship with the operating system, it's really hard to find a consistent experience. If we had a tool that was as powerful as these ones, reachable from a simple keyboard shortcut and available on all these platforms would be nice, right? Right? Introducing… Terminal Nothing new here, just the plain and simple terminal you are used to have available in any operating system. Basically we just need to find a way to have the same experience as these keyboard triggered productivity and assistant tools. As I'll show below, it's totally possible to achieve something similar, sometimes even more powerful. Let's do it! Keyboard Shortcut First important thing is to have a terminal that pops up by hitting a simple keyboard shortcut, luckily this is a feature that can be easily found in the most popular Terminal apps. On Mac, I use support for Hotkey window and to trigger that terminal. iTerm2 CMD+space On Linux, I use with shortcut. Guake Super+space Usually I configure these terminals to hide when losing focus so you can have a better experience when executing a command that opens the browser, for example. You can also tweak the terminal fonts and color the way you want. Guake terminal screen on ArchLinux with a Timezone custom command I created So far so good, we have a quick way of opening a Terminal, now we need a good set of commands and packages that reproduces the nice behavior we get with the other tools. Unix Shell On both Mac and Linux I use and and this combination is perfect because already comes with a pretty good way of organizing the features I want to have on my productivity tool set. By creating a you keep all configurations in one place and can easily edit them to tweak existing or add new features. zsh oh-my-zsh oh-my-zsh plugin I have this file on my oh-my-zsh install (with a quite suggestive name): $ ~/.oh-my-zsh/custom/plugins/terminalfred/terminalfred.plugin.zsh All aliases and functions you add to that file will be available in your PATH when you open the terminal. In the next sections I'll show what I have on this file. If you are not patient, you can take a look on this . Gist What I also do is to keep that file on Dropbox and symlink to it from all machines I use. It's okay if you don't have any sensitive information in its content. I'm confident that you can find a similar solution no matter the Unix Shell you use because in the end, what you need is only . installed packages, aliases and functions Searching the web This is the most used feature and oh-my-zsh has a perfect plugin, called , that allows me to do this: [web-search](https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/blob/master/plugins/web-search/web-search.plugin.zsh) $ ddg how to ride a bicycle   # search duckduckgo$ image beautiful bicycle     # search for images$ map bicycle store           # search on a map These commands will open a browser and do the search, more straightforward impossible. If you want to add your own custom searches, my approach to that was to copy that function in my custom plugin and add them manually: alias urban=’terminalfred urban’alias regex=’terminalfred regex’alias shell=’terminalfred shell’alias jsonb=’terminalfred jsonb’alias aur=’terminalfred aur’ function terminalfred() {emulate -L zsh define search engine URLS typeset -A urlsurls=(urban “ "regex “ "shell “ "jsonb “ "aur “ ") http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term= https://regex101.com/library?orderBy=RELEVANCE&search= http://explainshell.com/explain?cmd= http://codebeautify.org/jsonviewer https://www.archlinux.org/packages/?q= if [[ -z “$urls[$1]” ]]; thenecho “Check available searches"return 1fiif [[ $# -gt 1 ]]; thenurl=”${urls[$1]}${(j:+:)@[2,-1]}”elseurl=”${(j://:)${(s:/:)urls[$1]}[1,2]}”fiopen_command “$url”} See a syntax colored version of this code . Quick calculator From time to time I need to do quick calculations, for that one I use : Calc — C-style arbitrary precision calculator $ calc 24 * 496$ calcC-style arbitrary precision calculator (version 2.12.5.0)Calc is open software. For license details type:  help copyright[Type "exit" to exit, or "help" for help.] ; 365/12~30.41666666666666666667; .*12365; exit Dictionary Few people know , a dictionary network protocol and its command line companion , a dictionary database server. After installing dictionaries, it's fairly simple to use and the result is formidable: DICT [dictd](http://linuxcommand.org/man_pages/dictd8.html) $ dict formidable3 definitions found From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]: formidableadj 1: extremely impressive in strength or excellence; "aformidable opponent"; "the challenge was formidable";"had a formidable array of compositions to his credit";"the formidable army of brains at the Prime Minister'sdisposal"2: inspiring fear; "the formidable prospect of major surgery";"a tougher and more redoubtable adversary than the heel-clicking, jackbooted fanatic"- G.H.Johnston; "somethingunnerving and prisonlike about high grey wall" [syn:{formidable}, {redoubtable}, {unnerving}]... To make it easy to use a few dictionaries and make the result more brief, I have the following aliases: $ alias | grep dictdefine='dict -d gcide'          # english definitionsdicts='dict -d moby-thesaurus'  # synonym dictionary Follow if you want to install it. these instructions Translations Being a Brazilian living in Berlin makes me a heavy user of translation services. is the best tool for that. Translate Shell $ trans -brief ‘Super fácil traduzir com essa ferramenta!’Super easy to translate with this tool! Of course having some alias to make commands shorter is always good: $ alias | grep transtre=’trans -b’                 # translate with brief outputtrep=’trans -b :pt’            # translate to Portuguesetres=’trans -shell -brief’     # open a REPL to translatetrev=’trans -v’                # view translation in terminal pager Task management I use as task manager and I have a simple board to track my daily TODOs, tasks that I should be focusing during the day. Another wanted featured was to be able to add tasks easily to that board. Trello Sample execution, now on Mac. Implementation is done using the . I could have installed a Trello command line tool, but I decided to keep it simple and I have the following: API alias tasks='curl -s -X GET -H "Cache-Control: no-cache" -H "Terminalfred" " ~/.secrets/trello.key.secret`&token=`cat ~/.secrets/trello.token.secret`" | jq ".cards[].name"' https://api.trello.com/1/lists/569623d6blablabla309c4d301?cards=open&card_fields=name&fields=cards&key=`cat function taskadd {str="$*"if [ -z "$str" ]; thenecho usage: $0 taskelsecurl -s -X POST -H "Cache-Control: no-cache" --data-urlencode "name=${str}" -H "Terminalfred" " ~/.secrets/trello.key.secret`&token=`cat ~/.secrets/trello.token.secret`" | jq ".url"fi} https://api.trello.com/1/cards/?idList=569623d660blablablad301&key=`cat You can see a syntax colored version here . In the code above I have one alias that basically do a request to fetch cards from a specific list on a board of mine. The result is in JSON format, then I use , a json command line processor to have a nice output like the snapshot shows above. The function to add a task is basically doing another request to create a card on the same list and as a result, I just add the link on the response. jq tool Given that I want to sync zsh plugin file on Dropbox, the code expects to fetch Trello API secrets from a specific folder in my machines with the right permissions. Be safe! Launching applications To mention one limitation of using exclusively the terminal, I didn't find a good way to replace GUI application launch and sometimes I still rely on Alfred, Gnome Dash or simply global shortcuts to open them. Even so, I have found one function in a that works if the GUI app command is available on the PATH: StackOverflow thread o() {if [ $# -gt 0 ] ; then# Expand if $1 is an aliasif [ $(alias | awk -F "[ =]" '{print $2}' | grep -x $1) > 0 ] ; thenset -- $(alias $1 | awk -F "['']" '{print $2}') "${@:2}"fi($@ &) &>/dev/nullelseecho "missing argument"fi} The main benefit is that you start the GUI app detached from terminal and avoiding flooding your shell. However, to be honest, I don't use that much. stdout Everything is possible If you achieved that point in the article I believe you get the point, we just scratched the surface of what can be done with a Terminal and basically there's no limit on what you can do to automate tasks and be more productive. You can find other tools I use, such as consulting timezones or finding files, in . my plugin file Hope the lives of cross platform users are improved a little bit with that approach. . As a last note, I purposely ignored Windows because I'm not an active user, but if you are able to have a similar setup using it let me know and I can update this article or link to yours. Leave a comment if you have any curious way of improving your productivity with Terminal

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