VRTogetheris in the Virtual Reality Industry

VRTogether

vrtogether

Virtual reality (VR) may soon replace pictures as the standard visualization tool for online property listings. How will this technology impact buyers and sellers while reshaping the real estate market? The Emerging Trend of VR Home Tours in Real Estate VR technology enables you to tour every room in a property and speak face-to-face with the rental agent without leaving the comfort of your living room couch. This might be why its global market value in the real estate sector will increase to $2.6 billion in 2025, up from $800 million in 2020. One of the biggest advantages of virtual home tours is accessibility. It doesn’t matter if a property is under construction or occupied by the owners — with VR, you can walk through it anyway. You can even schedule an assisted walkthrough with a rental or listing agent to get insider information on the property, even if you’re both on opposite ends of the country. If you plan on moving into a fixer-upper, you can use VR technology to visualize the property’s potential by overlaying renovations or design changes onto the real-world model. These features make this type of tour one of the most personal and immersive — which is why it’s catching on so quickly. With interest rates rising — the interest rate on 30-year mortgages increased from an average of 3.02% in 2020 to 5.8%-6.1% in 2024 — real estate demand is slowing. This is where VR comes in. It has the unique opportunity to benefit buyers and sellers by making touring more efficient and getting properties off the market faster. The Technical Advancements Making It All Possible While VR technology is fundamental to a virtual home tour, a handful of other innovations make it possible. The first is high-resolution 3D imaging, where a 360-degree camera scans the property. The seller then stitches the images together with specialized software to make a realistic virtual replica for tours. The second innovation making VR home tours possible is the Internet of Things (IoT). Sellers can use interconnected sensors to feed real-time data into the virtual world to make it more dynamic. Alternatively, they can use internet-connected edge devices to reduce the computational and bandwidth-related strain on end users. Advances in controllers and motion sensors have made interactivity possible. Instead of sitting through a prerecorded guided tour, you can move through the property at your own pace. Also, you can trigger animations — like lowering the blinds or opening the cabinets — with a flick of your wrist. Considering consumer applications makeup 53% of the VR market, the number of technological advancements directed toward real estate shouldn’t surprise you. There’s a lot of money in researching and developing software, design, and hosting platforms for these applications. The Implications of VR-Driven Real Estate Showings VR technology makes home tours more accessible, broadening the pool of interested parties. According to experts, they reach more potential buyers than the standard approach. They don’t just attract more people — they’re also more engaging. Usually, you only can see a property’s layout when looking at its listing online. If you’re lucky, you’ll also get many high-quality pictures. However, even those don’t give you a good idea of how it feels to be in the house. VR engages you more because it places you in an immersive, lifelike replica where you have agency and control. While the buyer-side implications of virtual home tours might be more noticeable, the seller-side ones are more impactful. Properties using VR real estate showings have selling prices 7.25% higher than the benchmark. Heightened buyer engagement and broadened accessibility lead to a competitive advantage. The process moves more quickly since virtual tours don’t require in-person assistance or scheduling. Some experts claim properties using VR real estate showings spend 20%-30% fewer days on the market. As a result, agents can take on more listings at once. Potential Challenges Buyers and Sellers Face Using VR Although VR home tours benefit buyers and sellers, they also often come with challenges — with the lack of VR headset accessibility being one of the most significant. While virtual viewings are still possible without one, immersive experiences are only possible with mid- or high-end equipment. Properties in low-income locations are more likely to be impacted by this issue. Another challenge buyers and sellers face is agent accessibility. While virtual home tours don’t need an assistant, many serious buyers want one so they can ask questions. However, the increased attention VR listings get can complicate scheduling. The last potential challenge revolves around the accuracy of virtual property replicas. Even though developing one costs less than $300 on average, some sellers might be unable to afford to redo theirs every time they renovate or change something. As a result, the tour might not resemble its real-life counterpart — making buyers feel misled. The Future Outlook of VR Home Tours in Real Estate Sellers can use VR to track eye movement, location data, and interaction information to see where buyers come from and which properties they’re most interested in. This way, they can optimize their marketing, demand forecasting, pricing, and risk assessment strategies. At the same time, buyers can remotely walk through properties regardless of location and conditions. VR technology’s impact on accessibility and engagement will likely transform what the standard property sale looks like. VR technology has the potential to permanently transform the real estate market, becoming the go-to choice for sellers and prospective buyers. As its popularity increases, it might become standard to include it alongside layout and property pictures and come to be something people expect to see. Virtual reality (VR) may soon replace pictures as the standard visualization tool for online property listings. How will this technology impact buyers and sellers while reshaping the real estate market? The Emerging Trend of VR Home Tours in Real Estate The Emerging Trend of VR Home Tours in Real Estate VR technology enables you to tour every room in a property and speak face-to-face with the rental agent without leaving the comfort of your living room couch. This might be why its global market value in the real estate sector will increase to $2.6 billion in 2025, up from $800 million in 2020. will increase to $2.6 billion will increase to $2.6 billion One of the biggest advantages of virtual home tours is accessibility. It doesn’t matter if a property is under construction or occupied by the owners — with VR, you can walk through it anyway. You can even schedule an assisted walkthrough with a rental or listing agent to get insider information on the property, even if you’re both on opposite ends of the country. If you plan on moving into a fixer-upper, you can use VR technology to visualize the property’s potential by overlaying renovations or design changes onto the real-world model. These features make this type of tour one of the most personal and immersive — which is why it’s catching on so quickly. With interest rates rising — the interest rate on 30-year mortgages increased from an average of 3.02% in 2020 to 5.8%-6.1% in 2024 — real estate demand is slowing. This is where VR comes in. It has the unique opportunity to benefit buyers and sellers by making touring more efficient and getting properties off the market faster. increased from an average of 3.02% increased from an average of 3.02% The Technical Advancements Making It All Possible While VR technology is fundamental to a virtual home tour, a handful of other innovations make it possible. The first is high-resolution 3D imaging, where a 360-degree camera scans the property. The seller then stitches the images together with specialized software to make a realistic virtual replica for tours. The second innovation making VR home tours possible is the Internet of Things (IoT). Sellers can use interconnected sensors to feed real-time data into the virtual world to make it more dynamic. Alternatively, they can use internet-connected edge devices to reduce the computational and bandwidth-related strain on end users. Advances in controllers and motion sensors have made interactivity possible. Instead of sitting through a prerecorded guided tour, you can move through the property at your own pace. Also, you can trigger animations — like lowering the blinds or opening the cabinets — with a flick of your wrist. Considering consumer applications makeup 53% of the VR market , the number of technological advancements directed toward real estate shouldn’t surprise you. There’s a lot of money in researching and developing software, design, and hosting platforms for these applications. makeup 53% of the VR market makeup 53% of the VR market The Implications of VR-Driven Real Estate Showings VR technology makes home tours more accessible, broadening the pool of interested parties. According to experts, they reach more potential buyers than the standard approach. They don’t just attract more people — they’re also more engaging. reach more potential buyers reach more potential buyers Usually, you only can see a property’s layout when looking at its listing online. If you’re lucky, you’ll also get many high-quality pictures. However, even those don’t give you a good idea of how it feels to be in the house. VR engages you more because it places you in an immersive, lifelike replica where you have agency and control. While the buyer-side implications of virtual home tours might be more noticeable, the seller-side ones are more impactful. Properties using VR real estate showings have selling prices 7.25% higher than the benchmark. Heightened buyer engagement and broadened accessibility lead to a competitive advantage. have selling prices 7.25% higher have selling prices 7.25% higher The process moves more quickly since virtual tours don’t require in-person assistance or scheduling. Some experts claim properties using VR real estate showings spend 20%-30% fewer days on the market. As a result, agents can take on more listings at once. spend 20%-30% fewer days spend 20%-30% fewer days Potential Challenges Buyers and Sellers Face Using VR Although VR home tours benefit buyers and sellers, they also often come with challenges — with the lack of VR headset accessibility being one of the most significant. While virtual viewings are still possible without one, immersive experiences are only possible with mid- or high-end equipment. Properties in low-income locations are more likely to be impacted by this issue. Another challenge buyers and sellers face is agent accessibility. While virtual home tours don’t need an assistant, many serious buyers want one so they can ask questions. However, the increased attention VR listings get can complicate scheduling. The last potential challenge revolves around the accuracy of virtual property replicas. Even though developing one costs less than $300 on average, some sellers might be unable to afford to redo theirs every time they renovate or change something. As a result, the tour might not resemble its real-life counterpart — making buyers feel misled. costs less than $300 costs less than $300 The Future Outlook of VR Home Tours in Real Estate Sellers can use VR to track eye movement, location data, and interaction information to see where buyers come from and which properties they’re most interested in. This way, they can optimize their marketing, demand forecasting, pricing, and risk assessment strategies. At the same time, buyers can remotely walk through properties regardless of location and conditions. VR technology’s impact on accessibility and engagement will likely transform what the standard property sale looks like. VR technology has the potential to permanently transform the real estate market, becoming the go-to choice for sellers and prospective buyers. As its popularity increases, it might become standard to include it alongside layout and property pictures and come to be something people expect to see.

VR Home Tours: The Future of Real Estate Showings

Apache Kafka Architecture 101: Internal Components and How They Work Together

**LISBON, Portugal, May 9th, 2024/Chainwire/--**Azuro, the leading liquidity layer for onchain predictions, and Chiliz, the world’s premier sports and entertainment blockchain, are partnering up to accelerate the adoption of onchain sport prediction markets. These efforts will allow millions of fans worldwide to further support and cheer for their favorite teams and athletes through fair and transparent prediction apps. Chiliz Chain is renowned for its blockchain solutions that transform fan engagement in sports through features like fan tokens and interactive engagement platforms. Through its flagship venture Socios.com, the network has expanded significantly to support more than 80 sport-related fan tokens and 2M+ ecosystem users. Team-specific fan tokens for the best football clubs, including FC Barcelona, Inter Milan, Juventus, Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester City, and many more, are all currently supported by Chiliz Chain through Socios. The network leverages a Proof of Staked Authority (PoSA) consensus algorithm which allows smart contract developers, validators, stakers, and other stakeholders to actively interact with the chain. Chiliz Chain is built to power sports and entertainment applications with a focus on brand IP and project use-case integrity. For Chiliz, partnering with Azuro represents a step toward tapping into the rapidly growing onchain prediction markets by the hand of the de facto infrastructure layer for sports prediction applications across EVM chains. Its innovative liquidity pool design, advanced tooling and oracle solutions allow apps to launch without upfront investment or running costs, enabling them to focus entirely on user acquisition, engagement and monetization from minute one. Azuro’s robust platform, currently supports over 25 active applications with transaction volumes surpassing $290 million, offers an ideal environment for Chiliz to expand its offerings in the sports and entertainment sectors. As part of this collaboration, Chiliz will be integrated into the Azuro Protocol, adding to the existing supported chains such as Polygon and Gnosis Chain. This integration will enable Chiliz to expand its reach within sports-focused prediction applications. New and existing builders relying on Azuro infrastructure will be able to connect their apps to the Chiliz Chain and allow their users to place transactions with the blockchain’s native token CHZ. "Integrating with Azuro marks a pivotal move for Chiliz Chain to capitalize on the rapidly expanding onchain prediction market," said Alexandre Dreyfus, CEO of Chiliz and Socios.com. "Leveraging Azuro's advanced infrastructure, we're empowering developers to innovate within the sports and gaming sectors." Rossen, a core contributor at Azuro, stated, “The onchain prediction markets have always been strongly tied to the sports and entertainment sector. Working alongside Chiliz Chain, the leading blockchain in this segment, feels like an obvious step for us. Azuro’s robust infrastructure will help expand Chiliz Chain’s usability within the fast-growing onchain prediction markets.” Looking ahead, Azuro and Chiliz will be soon launching a co-sponsored grants program aimed at incentivizing app developers to build on their combined infrastructure. These initiatives, including bounties for the first apps, are designed to fuel further adoption of onchain prediction markets, and aligned with Azuro’s vision for setting new transparency and fairness standards. About Azuro Azuro is the onchain predictions layer. It consists of modular tooling, oracle and liquidity solutions for EVM chains to host powerful prediction and gaming apps. With its unique infrastructure layer approach Azuro makes on-chain predictions and gaming portable and composable. It allows anyone to engage and monetize users by building apps, integrations, and products quickly, permissionlessly and with zero upfront or running costs. For more information or press inquiries, please contact team@azuro.org Website: https://azuro.org/
Docs: https://gem.azuro.org
Github: https://github.com/Azuro-protocol
Onchain activity: https://dune.com/azuro/stats About Chiliz Chiliz is the home of SportFi, where sports brands meet decentralized opportunities. Its infrastructure is driven by the Chiliz Chain, the first Layer-1 EVM compatible blockchain for sports and entertainment which now has a diverse ecosystem, fuelled by Chiliz native token CHZ. Its primary product on the Chiliz Chain, Socios.com, hosts a global community of over two million users, which makes it the largest non-finance/trading-centric Web3 consumer-facing product globally by user base. It hase partnerships with countless brands, including the giants of world sport such as FC Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester City, Juventus, S.S.C Napoli, Inter Milan, AC Milan, Arsenal, Atlético Madrid, A.S. Roma and major F1 teams. Website: https://www.chiliz.com/ Contact Azuro team team@azuro.org This story was distributed as a release by Chainwire under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program. Learn more about the program here. **LISBON, Portugal, May 9th, 2024/Chainwire/--**Azuro, the leading liquidity layer for onchain predictions, and Chiliz, the world’s premier sports and entertainment blockchain, are partnering up to accelerate the adoption of onchain sport prediction markets. These efforts will allow millions of fans worldwide to further support and cheer for their favorite teams and athletes through fair and transparent prediction apps. Chiliz Chain is renowned for its blockchain solutions that transform fan engagement in sports through features like fan tokens and interactive engagement platforms. Through its flagship venture Socios.com, the network has expanded significantly to support more than 80 sport-related fan tokens and 2M+ ecosystem users. Team-specific fan tokens for the best football clubs, including FC Barcelona, Inter Milan, Juventus, Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester City, and many more, are all currently supported by Chiliz Chain through Socios. The network leverages a Proof of Staked Authority (PoSA) consensus algorithm which allows smart contract developers, validators, stakers, and other stakeholders to actively interact with the chain. Chiliz Chain is built to power sports and entertainment applications with a focus on brand IP and project use-case integrity. For Chiliz, partnering with Azuro represents a step toward tapping into the rapidly growing onchain prediction markets by the hand of the de facto infrastructure layer for sports prediction applications across EVM chains. Its innovative liquidity pool design, advanced tooling and oracle solutions allow apps to launch without upfront investment or running costs, enabling them to focus entirely on user acquisition, engagement and monetization from minute one. Azuro’s robust platform, currently supports over 25 active applications with transaction volumes surpassing $290 million, offers an ideal environment for Chiliz to expand its offerings in the sports and entertainment sectors. As part of this collaboration, Chiliz will be integrated into the Azuro Protocol, adding to the existing supported chains such as Polygon and Gnosis Chain. This integration will enable Chiliz to expand its reach within sports-focused prediction applications. New and existing builders relying on Azuro infrastructure will be able to connect their apps to the Chiliz Chain and allow their users to place transactions with the blockchain’s native token CHZ. "Integrating with Azuro marks a pivotal move for Chiliz Chain to capitalize on the rapidly expanding onchain prediction market," said Alexandre Dreyfus, CEO of Chiliz and Socios.com. "Leveraging Azuro's advanced infrastructure, we're empowering developers to innovate within the sports and gaming sectors." Rossen, a core contributor at Azuro, stated, “The onchain prediction markets have always been strongly tied to the sports and entertainment sector. Working alongside Chiliz Chain, the leading blockchain in this segment, feels like an obvious step for us. Azuro’s robust infrastructure will help expand Chiliz Chain’s usability within the fast-growing onchain prediction markets.” Looking ahead, Azuro and Chiliz will be soon launching a co-sponsored grants program aimed at incentivizing app developers to build on their combined infrastructure. These initiatives, including bounties for the first apps, are designed to fuel further adoption of onchain prediction markets, and aligned with Azuro’s vision for setting new transparency and fairness standards. About Azuro Azuro is the onchain predictions layer. It consists of modular tooling, oracle and liquidity solutions for EVM chains to host powerful prediction and gaming apps. With its unique infrastructure layer approach Azuro makes on-chain predictions and gaming portable and composable. It allows anyone to engage and monetize users by building apps, integrations, and products quickly, permissionlessly and with zero upfront or running costs. For more information or press inquiries, please contact team@azuro.org Website: https://azuro.org/ Docs: https://gem.azuro.org Github: https://github.com/Azuro-protocol Onchain activity: https://dune.com/azuro/stats Website: https://azuro.org/ https://azuro.org/ https://azuro.org/ Docs: https://gem.azuro.org https://gem.azuro.org https://gem.azuro.org Github: https://github.com/Azuro-protocol https://github.com/Azuro-protocol https://github.com/Azuro-protocol Onchain activity: https://dune.com/azuro/stats https://dune.com/azuro/stats https://dune.com/azuro/stats About Chiliz Chiliz is the home of SportFi, where sports brands meet decentralized opportunities. Its infrastructure is driven by the Chiliz Chain, the first Layer-1 EVM compatible blockchain for sports and entertainment which now has a diverse ecosystem, fuelled by Chiliz native token CHZ. Its primary product on the Chiliz Chain, Socios.com, hosts a global community of over two million users, which makes it the largest non-finance/trading-centric Web3 consumer-facing product globally by user base. It hase partnerships with countless brands, including the giants of world sport such as FC Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester City, Juventus, S.S.C Napoli, Inter Milan, AC Milan, Arsenal, Atlético Madrid, A.S. Roma and major F1 teams. Website: https://www.chiliz.com/ Website: https://www.chiliz.com/ https://www.chiliz.com/ https://www.chiliz.com/ Contact Azuro team team@azuro.org This story was distributed as a release by Chainwire under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program. Learn more about the program here. This story was distributed as a release by Chainwire under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program. Learn more about the program here . here here

Azuro And Chiliz Working Together To Boost Adoption Of Onchain Sport Prediction Markets

The Heroku team has long been an advocate of CI/CD. Their platform integrates with many third-party solutions like GitLab CI/CD or GitHub Actions. In a previous article, I demonstrated how you can configure your Heroku app with GitLab CI/CD to automatically deploy your app to production. In a follow-up article, I walked you through a slightly more nuanced setup involving both a staging environment and a production environment. But if you want to go all in on Heroku, you can use a series of solutions called Heroku Flow to configure all your CI/CD without any third parties. Heroku Flow brings together Heroku pipelines, Heroku CI, Heroku review apps, a GitHub integration, and a release phase. In this article, I’ll show you how to set this up for your own projects. Getting Started Before we begin, if you’d like to follow along, you’ll need a Heroku account and a GitHub account. You can create a Heroku account here, and you can create a GitHub account here. The demo app shown in this article is deployed to Heroku, and the code is hosted on GitHub. Running Our App Locally You can run the app locally by forking the repo in GitHub, installing dependencies, and running the start command. In your terminal, do the following after forking the repo: $ cd heroku-flow-demo
$ npm install
$ npm start After starting the app, visit http://localhost:5001/ in your browser, and you’ll see the app running locally: Creating Our Heroku Pipeline Now that we have the app running locally let’s get it deployed to Heroku so that it can be accessed anywhere, not just on your machine. We’ll create a Heroku pipeline that includes a staging app and a production app. To create a new Heroku pipeline, navigate to your Heroku dashboard, click the “New” button in the top-right corner of the screen, and then choose “Create new pipeline” from the menu. In the dialog that appears, give your pipeline a name, choose an owner (yourself), and connect your GitHub repo. If this is your first time connecting your GitHub account to Heroku, a second popup will appear in which you can confirm giving Heroku access to GitHub. After connecting to GitHub, click “Create pipeline” to finish the process. With that, you’ve created a Heroku pipeline. Well done! Creating Our Staging and Production Apps Most engineering organizations use at least two environments: a staging environment and a production environment. The staging environment is where code is deployed for acceptance testing and any additional QA. Code in the staging environment is then promoted to the production environment to be released to actual users. Let’s add a staging app and a production app to our pipeline. Both of these apps will be based on the same GitHub repo. To add a staging app, click the “Add app” button in the “Staging” section. Next, click “Create new app” to open a side panel. In the side panel, give your app a name, choose an owner (yourself), and choose a region (I left mine in the United States). Then click “Create app” to confirm your changes. Congrats, you’ve just created a staging app! Now, let’s do the same thing, but this time for our production app. When you’re done configuring your production app, you should see both apps in your pipeline: Configuring Automatic Deploys We want our app to be deployed to our staging environment any time we commit to our repo’s main branch. To do this, click the dropdown button for the staging app and choose “Configure automatic deploys” from the menu. In the dialog that appears, make sure the main branch is targeted, and check the box to “Wait for CI to pass before deploy.” In our next step, we’ll configure Heroku CI so that we can run tests in a CI pipeline. We don’t want to deploy our app to our staging environment unless CI is passing. Enabling Heroku CI If we’re going to require CI to pass, we better have something configured for CI! Navigate to the “Tests” tab and then click the “Enable Heroku CI” button. Our demo app is built with Node and runs unit tests with Jest. The tests are run through the npm test script. Heroku CI allows you to configure more complicated CI setups using an app.json file, but in our case, because the test setup is fairly basic, Heroku CI can figure out which command to run without any additional configuration on our part. Pretty neat! Enabling Review Apps For the last part of our pipeline setup, let’s enable review apps. Review apps are temporary apps that get deployed for every pull request (PR) created in GitHub. They’re incredibly helpful when you want your code reviewer to review your changes manually. With a review app in place, the reviewer can simply open the review app rather than having to pull down the code onto their machine and run the app locally. To enable review apps, click the “Enable Review Apps” button on the pipeline page. In the dialog that appears, check all three boxes. The first box enables the automatic creation of review apps for each PR.
The second box ensures that CI must pass before the review app can be created.
The third box sets a time limit on how long a stale review app should exist until it is destroyed. Review apps use Heroku resources just like your regular apps, so you don’t want these temporary apps sitting around unused and costing you or your company more money. When you’re done with your configuration, click “Enable Review Apps” to finalize your changes. Seeing It All in Action Alright, you made it! Let’s review what we’ve done so far. We created a Heroku pipeline.
We created a staging app and a production app for that pipeline
We enabled automatic deploys for our staging app
We enabled Heroku CI to run tests for every PR
We enabled Heroku review apps to be created for every PR Now, let’s see it all in action. Create a PR in GitHub with any code change you’d like. I made a very minor UI change, updating the heading text from “Heroku Flow Demo” to “Heroku Flow Rules!” Right after the PR is created, you’ll note that a new “check” gets created in GitHub for the Heroku CI pipeline. You can view the test output back in Heroku on your “Tests” tab: After the CI pipeline passes, you’ll note another piece of info gets appended to your PR in GitHub. The review app gets deployed, and GitHub shows a link to the review app. Click the “View deployment” button, and you’ll see a temporary Heroku app with your code changes in it. You can also find a link to the review app in your Heroku pipeline: Let’s assume that you’ve gotten a code review and that everything looks good. It’s time to merge your PR. After you’ve merged your PR, look back at the Heroku pipeline. You’ll see that the staging app was automatically deployed since new code was committed to the main branch. At this point in the software development lifecycle, there might be some final QA or acceptance testing of the app in the staging environment. Let’s assume that everything still looks good and that you’re ready to release this change to your users. Click the “Promote to production” button on the staging app. This will open a dialog for you to confirm your action. Click “Promote” to confirm your changes. After promoting the code, you’ll see the production app being deployed. And with that, your changes are now in production for all of your users to enjoy. Nice work! Conclusion What a journey we’ve been through! In this short time together, we’ve configured everything we need for an enterprise-ready CI/CD solution. If you’d like to use a different CI/CD tool like GitLab CI/CD, GitHub Actions — or whatever else you may prefer — Heroku supports that as well. But if you don’t want to reach out to a third-party CI/CD provider, you can now do it all within Heroku with Heroku Flow. The Heroku team has long been an advocate of CI/CD. Their platform integrates with many third-party solutions like GitLab CI/CD or GitHub Actions. In a previous article , I demonstrated how you can configure your Heroku app with GitLab CI/CD to automatically deploy your app to production. In a follow-up article , I walked you through a slightly more nuanced setup involving both a staging environment and a production environment. previous article follow-up article But if you want to go all in on Heroku, you can use a series of solutions called Heroku Flow to configure all your CI/CD without any third parties. Heroku Flow brings together Heroku pipelines, Heroku CI, Heroku review apps, a GitHub integration, and a release phase. configure all your CI/CD In this article, I’ll show you how to set this up for your own projects. Getting Started Before we begin, if you’d like to follow along, you’ll need a Heroku account and a GitHub account. You can create a Heroku account here , and you can create a GitHub account here . create a Heroku account here create a GitHub account here The demo app shown in this article is deployed to Heroku, and the code is hosted on GitHub . the code is hosted on GitHub Running Our App Locally You can run the app locally by forking the repo in GitHub, installing dependencies, and running the start command. In your terminal, do the following after forking the repo: $ cd heroku-flow-demo
$ npm install
$ npm start $ cd heroku-flow-demo
$ npm install
$ npm start After starting the app, visit http://localhost:5001/ in your browser, and you’ll see the app running locally: http://localhost:5001/ Creating Our Heroku Pipeline Now that we have the app running locally let’s get it deployed to Heroku so that it can be accessed anywhere, not just on your machine. We’ll create a Heroku pipeline that includes a staging app and a production app. To create a new Heroku pipeline, navigate to your Heroku dashboard, click the “New” button in the top-right corner of the screen, and then choose “Create new pipeline” from the menu. In the dialog that appears, give your pipeline a name, choose an owner (yourself), and connect your GitHub repo. If this is your first time connecting your GitHub account to Heroku, a second popup will appear in which you can confirm giving Heroku access to GitHub. After connecting to GitHub, click “Create pipeline” to finish the process. With that, you’ve created a Heroku pipeline. Well done! Creating Our Staging and Production Apps Most engineering organizations use at least two environments: a staging environment and a production environment. The staging environment is where code is deployed for acceptance testing and any additional QA. Code in the staging environment is then promoted to the production environment to be released to actual users. Let’s add a staging app and a production app to our pipeline. Both of these apps will be based on the same GitHub repo. To add a staging app, click the “Add app” button in the “Staging” section. Next, click “Create new app” to open a side panel. In the side panel, give your app a name, choose an owner (yourself), and choose a region (I left mine in the United States). Then click “Create app” to confirm your changes. Congrats, you’ve just created a staging app! Now, let’s do the same thing, but this time for our production app. When you’re done configuring your production app, you should see both apps in your pipeline: Configuring Automatic Deploys We want our app to be deployed to our staging environment any time we commit to our repo’s main branch. To do this, click the dropdown button for the staging app and choose “Configure automatic deploys” from the menu. main In the dialog that appears, make sure the main branch is targeted, and check the box to “Wait for CI to pass before deploy.” In our next step, we’ll configure Heroku CI so that we can run tests in a CI pipeline. We don’t want to deploy our app to our staging environment unless CI is passing. main Enabling Heroku CI If we’re going to require CI to pass, we better have something configured for CI! Navigate to the “Tests” tab and then click the “Enable Heroku CI” button. Our demo app is built with Node and runs unit tests with Jest. The tests are run through the npm test script. Heroku CI allows you to configure more complicated CI setups using an app.json file, but in our case, because the test setup is fairly basic, Heroku CI can figure out which command to run without any additional configuration on our part. Pretty neat! npm test app.json Enabling Review Apps For the last part of our pipeline setup, let’s enable review apps. Review apps are temporary apps that get deployed for every pull request (PR) created in GitHub. They’re incredibly helpful when you want your code reviewer to review your changes manually. With a review app in place, the reviewer can simply open the review app rather than having to pull down the code onto their machine and run the app locally. To enable review apps, click the “Enable Review Apps” button on the pipeline page. In the dialog that appears, check all three boxes. The first box enables the automatic creation of review apps for each PR. The second box ensures that CI must pass before the review app can be created. The third box sets a time limit on how long a stale review app should exist until it is destroyed. Review apps use Heroku resources just like your regular apps, so you don’t want these temporary apps sitting around unused and costing you or your company more money. The first box enables the automatic creation of review apps for each PR. The second box ensures that CI must pass before the review app can be created. The third box sets a time limit on how long a stale review app should exist until it is destroyed. Review apps use Heroku resources just like your regular apps, so you don’t want these temporary apps sitting around unused and costing you or your company more money. When you’re done with your configuration, click “Enable Review Apps” to finalize your changes. Seeing It All in Action Alright, you made it! Let’s review what we’ve done so far. We created a Heroku pipeline. We created a staging app and a production app for that pipeline We enabled automatic deploys for our staging app We enabled Heroku CI to run tests for every PR We enabled Heroku review apps to be created for every PR We created a Heroku pipeline. We created a staging app and a production app for that pipeline We enabled automatic deploys for our staging app We enabled Heroku CI to run tests for every PR We enabled Heroku review apps to be created for every PR Now, let’s see it all in action. Create a PR in GitHub with any code change you’d like. I made a very minor UI change, updating the heading text from “Heroku Flow Demo” to “Heroku Flow Rules!” Right after the PR is created, you’ll note that a new “check” gets created in GitHub for the Heroku CI pipeline. You can view the test output back in Heroku on your “Tests” tab: After the CI pipeline passes, you’ll note another piece of info gets appended to your PR in GitHub. The review app gets deployed, and GitHub shows a link to the review app. Click the “View deployment” button, and you’ll see a temporary Heroku app with your code changes in it. You can also find a link to the review app in your Heroku pipeline: Let’s assume that you’ve gotten a code review and that everything looks good. It’s time to merge your PR. After you’ve merged your PR, look back at the Heroku pipeline. You’ll see that the staging app was automatically deployed since new code was committed to the main branch. main At this point in the software development lifecycle, there might be some final QA or acceptance testing of the app in the staging environment. Let’s assume that everything still looks good and that you’re ready to release this change to your users. Click the “Promote to production” button on the staging app. This will open a dialog for you to confirm your action. Click “Promote” to confirm your changes. After promoting the code, you’ll see the production app being deployed. And with that, your changes are now in production for all of your users to enjoy. Nice work! Conclusion What a journey we’ve been through! In this short time together, we’ve configured everything we need for an enterprise-ready CI/CD solution. If you’d like to use a different CI/CD tool like GitLab CI/CD, GitHub Actions — or whatever else you may prefer — Heroku supports that as well. But if you don’t want to reach out to a third-party CI/CD provider, you can now do it all within Heroku with Heroku Flow. do it all

How I Got My CI/CD Act together With Heroku Flow

Over the last several months I had the privilege of editing “False Alarm,” Todd Feathers’ nuanced, thought-provoking investigation into Wisconsin’s racially inequitable “dropout algorithm.” The Dropout Early Warning System (DEWS) assesses every incoming high schooler in Wisconsin and issues a numerical score as well as a color-coded label: green for low risk, yellow for moderate risk, or red for high risk of dropping out. Irrespective of race, DEWS is wrong nearly three quarters of the time when it predicts a student won’t graduate on time. But it was also designed to use factors like race, gender, income, and attendance, to cast a wide net—one that is ensnaring Black and Latino kids far more frequently. (You can read more of our takeaways and findings here.) I’ve been mulling over comments from the state’s education spokesperson, Abigail Swetz, who declined to answer detailed questions but emailed us this: “Is DEWS racist? No, the data analysis isn’t racist. It’s math that reflects our systems. The reality is that we live in a white supremacist society, and the education system is systemically racist. That is why the DPI needs tools like DEWS and is why we are committed to educational equity.” Here’s what she said in response to our findings and further questions: “You have a fundamental misunderstanding of how this system works. We stand by our previous response.” She did not explain what that fundamental misunderstanding was. In the week since we published Todd’s investigation, none of the facts of the story have been challenged. It’s difficult for me to square the underlying sentiment suggesting that because our world is racist, even the tools and systems attempting to achieve equity should be excused when they perpetuate that racism instead of correcting it. That leaves us trapped in a loop in which no one is directly accountable for harm. It’s like that meme with all the Spider-Mans pointing at each other. Young people of color featured in this investigation voiced that DEWS was just another way they felt dismissed, disregarded, and judged by the very educators tasked with caring for them and their futures. Kennise Perry, 21, attended Milwaukee Public Schools, which are 49 percent Black, before moving to the suburb of Waukesha, where the schools are only 6 percent Black. Perry told Todd her childhood was difficult, her home life sometimes unstable, and her schools likely considered her a “high risk” student. She summed up her school experience as “traumatic.” Here’s what else she shared: “But I feel that the difference between people who make it and people who don’t are the people you have around you, like I had people who cared about me and gave me a second chance and stuff. [DEWS] listing these kids high risk and their statistics, you’re not even giving them a chance, you’re already labeling them.” Labels stick around. I still remember every elementary school teacher who gave me a “U” for unsatisfactory in the self-control category on progress reports and how disappointed my mother always was. Or my fourth-grade teacher who told me my hair beads were too loud and asked me to get them removed. Or the hate mail Black students received on Valentine’s Day of my first year of high school. In response to racist incidents that they felt the school’s administration wasn’t properly addressing, Mia Townsend and Maurice Newton, the juniors in our lead image, took matters into their own hands and started Cudahy High School’s first Black Student Union. As Todd put it, the BSU students “organically provided the same kind of supportive interventions for each other that the state hoped to achieve through its predictive algorithms.” Newton persuaded Townsend, an honor roll student, to ask to enroll in AP English next year—she was initially planning to avoid these courses. There’s something both beautiful and tragic about kids stitching their own safety net, because they shouldn’t have to. School administrators should be the ones to make sure a student like Townsend believes she’s ready for AP. The community these students are building is a lifeline, but it’s a result of adults not fully considering their students’ experiences or well-being. The racial bias undergirding Townsend and Newton’s reason for founding the BSU, the inequity at the root of DEWS, the trauma Perry experienced throughout her schooling—none of that can or should be dismissed because our world is racist and anti-Black. If anything, it’s why we have to continuously challenge our biases, including the systems—from algorithms to academic settings—that perpetuate them. Sincerely, Ko Bragg Editor The Markup By Ko Bragg Also published here Photo by Andrés Canchón on Unsplash Over the last several months I had the privilege of editing “ False Alarm ,” Todd Feathers’ nuanced, thought-provoking investigation into Wisconsin’s racially inequitable “dropout algorithm.” False Alarm The Dropout Early Warning System (DEWS) assesses every incoming high schooler in Wisconsin and issues a numerical score as well as a color-coded label: green for low risk, yellow for moderate risk, or red for high risk of dropping out. Irrespective of race, DEWS is wrong nearly three quarters of the time when it predicts a student won’t graduate on time. But it was also designed to use factors like race, gender, income, and attendance, to cast a wide net—one that is ensnaring Black and Latino kids far more frequently. (You can read more of our takeaways and findings here. ) designed here. I’ve been mulling over comments from the state’s education spokesperson, Abigail Swetz, who declined to answer detailed questions but emailed us this: “Is DEWS racist? No, the data analysis isn’t racist. It’s math that reflects our systems. The reality is that we live in a white supremacist society, and the education system is systemically racist. That is why the DPI needs tools like DEWS and is why we are committed to educational equity.” Here’s what she said in response to our findings and further questions: “You have a fundamental misunderstanding of how this system works. We stand by our previous response.” She did not explain what that fundamental misunderstanding was. In the week since we published Todd’s investigation, none of the facts of the story have been challenged. It’s difficult for me to square the underlying sentiment suggesting that because our world is racist, even the tools and systems attempting to achieve equity should be excused when they perpetuate that racism instead of correcting it. That leaves us trapped in a loop in which no one is directly accountable for harm. It’s like that meme with all the Spider-Mans pointing at each other. Young people of color featured in this investigation voiced that DEWS was just another way they felt dismissed, disregarded, and judged by the very educators tasked with caring for them and their futures. Kennise Perry, 21, attended Milwaukee Public Schools, which are 49 percent Black, before moving to the suburb of Waukesha, where the schools are only 6 percent Black. Perry told Todd her childhood was difficult, her home life sometimes unstable, and her schools likely considered her a “high risk” student. She summed up her school experience as “traumatic.” Here’s what else she shared: “But I feel that the difference between people who make it and people who don’t are the people you have around you, like I had people who cared about me and gave me a second chance and stuff. [DEWS] listing these kids high risk and their statistics, you’re not even giving them a chance, you’re already labeling them.” Labels stick around. I still remember every elementary school teacher who gave me a “U” for unsatisfactory in the self-control category on progress reports and how disappointed my mother always was. Or my fourth-grade teacher who told me my hair beads were too loud and asked me to get them removed. Or the hate mail Black students received on Valentine’s Day of my first year of high school. hate mail In response to racist incidents that they felt the school’s administration wasn’t properly addressing, Mia Townsend and Maurice Newton, the juniors in our lead image, took matters into their own hands and started Cudahy High School’s first Black Student Union. As Todd put it, the BSU students “organically provided the same kind of supportive interventions for each other that the state hoped to achieve through its predictive algorithms.” Newton persuaded Townsend, an honor roll student, to ask to enroll in AP English next year—she was initially planning to avoid these courses. There’s something both beautiful and tragic about kids stitching their own safety net, because they shouldn’t have to. School administrators should be the ones to make sure a student like Townsend believes she’s ready for AP. The community these students are building is a lifeline, but it’s a result of adults not fully considering their students’ experiences or well-being. The racial bias undergirding Townsend and Newton’s reason for founding the BSU, the inequity at the root of DEWS, the trauma Perry experienced throughout her schooling—none of that can or should be dismissed because our world is racist and anti-Black. If anything, it’s why we have to continuously challenge our biases, including the systems—from algorithms to academic settings—that perpetuate them. Sincerely, Ko Bragg Editor The Markup By Ko Bragg By Ko Bragg Ko Bragg Also published here Also published here here Photo by Andrés Canchón on Unsplash Photo by Andrés Canchón on Unsplash Andrés Canchón Unsplash

How to Stitch Your Own Safety Net: Bonding Together

I'm excited to share with you a few extremely good easy and effective ways to work collectively as a group, even when we're miles apart. Remote pairings are becoming more common in recent times, and it is essential to have the right techniques in location to hold matters easily. So, let’s dive into some easy hints to act as professionals, no matter where we are! Communication Is Key First things first, let's communicate about communication. When we are not inside the same room, it's crucial to stay connected and preserve every other inside the loop. One smooth manner to do that is through the usage of messaging apps like Slack or Microsoft Teams. These tools allow us to share brief messages, files, and even hop on video calls every time we need to talk face-to-face. Another critical element of communication is setting clean expectancies. I find it useful to define our goals and cut-off dates at the start of every week, so anyone knows what they want to accomplish and by when. In this manner, we are able to all work on target and help everyone. Collaborative Tools for the Win Now, let’s talk about equipment. There are a lot of super software programs out there designed especially for remote teams, and they could make a huge difference in how we work together. For instance, challenge control tools like Trello or Asana are top-notch for preserving responsibilities and cut-off dates. We can create boards or lists and assign duties to group members. Another handy tool is Google Drive or Dropbox for sharing and collaborating on files. Instead of emailing files from side to side, we are able to all work on the identical report simultaneously, leaving feedback and guidelines for every different in real-time. It's a sport-changer for remote collaboration! Virtual Team-Building Activities Last but not least, let’s talk about team building. Just due to the fact we are no longer within the same workplace does not suggest we can not have amusing together! There are plenty of virtual group-building sports we can try to enhance our bond as a team. For example, we could schedule ordinary video calls simply to catch up and chat about non-paintings-associated topics. It's a great way to get to understand each other better and build acceptance and camaraderie. We could also attempt gambling online games or quizzes together. There are tons of websites and apps out there that offer multiplayer video games or triviality quizzes that we can play as a crew. It's a fun way to interrupt the ice and foster a sense of teamwork. And consider virtual crew lunches or espresso breaks! We can all hop on a video call and enjoy a meal or a cup of espresso collectively, similar to what we would if we had been within the identical office. It's a simple but powerful manner to stay linked and take a break from work for a bit. In the end, far-off group collaboration does not have to be complex. By prioritizing verbal exchange, using the right gear, and incorporating some fun crew-building sports into our habits, we can pair collectively successfully no matter where we are. So let's put those techniques into action and make far-off pairings feel like a breeze! I'm excited to share with you a few extremely good easy and effective ways to work collectively as a group, even when we're miles apart. Remote pairings are becoming more common in recent times, and it is essential to have the right techniques in location to hold matters easily. So, let’s dive into some easy hints to act as professionals, no matter where we are! Communication Is Key First things first, let's communicate about communication. When we are not inside the same room, it's crucial to stay connected and preserve every other inside the loop. One smooth manner to do that is through the usage of messaging apps like Slack or Microsoft Teams . These tools allow us to share brief messages, files, and even hop on video calls every time we need to talk face-to-face. Slack Microsoft Teams Another critical element of communication is setting clean expectancies. I find it useful to define our goals and cut-off dates at the start of every week, so anyone knows what they want to accomplish and by when. In this manner, we are able to all work on target and help everyone. Collaborative Tools for the Win Now, let’s talk about equipment. There are a lot of super software programs out there designed especially for remote teams , and they could make a huge difference in how we work together. For instance, challenge control tools like Trello or Asana are top-notch for preserving responsibilities and cut-off dates. We can create boards or lists and assign duties to group members. remote teams Trello Asana Another handy tool is Google Drive or Dropbox for sharing and collaborating on files. Instead of emailing files from side to side, we are able to all work on the identical report simultaneously, leaving feedback and guidelines for every different in real-time. It's a sport-changer for remote collaboration! Google Drive Dropbox Virtual Team-Building Activities Last but not least, let’s talk about team building. Just due to the fact we are no longer within the same workplace does not suggest we can not have amusing together! There are plenty of virtual group-building sports we can try to enhance our bond as a team. For example, we could schedule ordinary video calls simply to catch up and chat about non-paintings-associated topics. It's a great way to get to understand each other better and build acceptance and camaraderie. For example, we could schedule ordinary video calls simply to catch up and chat about non-paintings-associated topics. It's a great way to get to understand each other better and build acceptance and camaraderie. We could also attempt gambling online games or quizzes together. There are tons of websites and apps out there that offer multiplayer video games or triviality quizzes that we can play as a crew. It's a fun way to interrupt the ice and foster a sense of teamwork. sense of teamwork. And consider virtual crew lunches or espresso breaks! We can all hop on a video call and enjoy a meal or a cup of espresso collectively, similar to what we would if we had been within the identical office. It's a simple but powerful manner to stay linked and take a break from work for a bit. In the end, far-off group collaboration does not have to be complex. By prioritizing verbal exchange, using the right gear, and incorporating some fun crew-building sports into our habits, we can pair collectively successfully no matter where we are. So let's put those techniques into action and make far-off pairings feel like a breeze!

Working Together From Afar: Easy Strategies for Remote Team Collaboration

Git(ing) It Together! 

My Testing Journey With Jasmine and Mocha: What I've Learned

Virtual Event Connects Participants with Grant Funding Opportunities and Industry Leaders SI3, an organization championing women and non-binary individuals in the Web3 space, has announced its inaugural "Granting Access" event on August 1, 2024. The virtual gathering will connect participants with grant funding opportunities at major blockchain and protocol organizations and features representatives from Gitcoin, LUKSO, ThankArb, Push Protocol, and Unlock Protocol. "Granting Access" is designed to foster financial inclusion and access for underrepresented groups within the Web3 ecosystem. The event will kick off with a keynote presentation by Kara Howard, Co-Creator of SI3 and the Si Her Co-Active, who emphasized the importance of unifying and accelerating the growth of women in Web3. "We are thrilled to host Granting Access, an event that aligns with our mission to drive financial inclusion and access for women and non-binary individuals in the Web3 ecosystem," said Howard. "We hope to foster a more equitable and diverse Web3 landscape by bringing together leaders and grant programs." Panel discussions will feature Elizabeth Cusma (EducationDAO), Mashal Waqar (Octant), and Reena Shtedle (Founding Member, Cosmos Cartel), moderated by Ksenia Stark (Co-Founder, ⅄Oᒋ⅋NOISՈᖵNOϽ and Partner Growth, SI3) delving into strategies for equity and financial inclusion in the space. The sessions will provide attendees with a unique opportunity to engage directly with representatives from leading blockchain and protocol organizations. Participants are set to learn about various grant programs, funding priorities, and application processes, gaining valuable insights into securing financial support for their Web3 projects and initiatives. FIXX: Building a More Inclusive Web3 Future The "Granting Access" event is just one facet of SI3's broader mission to empower women and non-binary individuals in Web3. Their flagship initiative, FIXX (Financial Inclusion XX Chromosome), is a comprehensive program providing education, mentorship, and community-building opportunities. FIXX's upcoming program, starting in September 2024, will feature monthly sessions on personal values, unconscious bias, diversity in marketing, DEI strategies, advocacy, and impact tracking. By equipping participants with the knowledge and skills necessary to thrive in the Web3 landscape, FIXX is helping to build a more inclusive and equitable future for all. A Call to Action SI3's "Granting Access" event and the FIXX initiative represent a significant step forward in fostering diversity and inclusion within the Web3 community. "I'm excited about this event because it’s a chance to push for more recognition of women in web3 and learn from others. I believe that equity and financial inclusion are key to real progress and innovation," Mathilde DV, Grants Program Lead at Gitcoin, said. As the decentralized technology landscape continues to evolve, it is essential to ensure that opportunities are accessible to everyone, regardless of gender or background. After all, DEI isn’t a “nice to have” or a cause driven by ethical and moral issues - diverse, equitable, and inclusive teams contribute to financial success by fostering innovative, engaged, and productive workforces that create products and services that work for and resonate with a broader range of consumers and investors. Despite DEI layoffs at major corporations such as Microsoft, the momentum is building, and the message is clear: a more diverse and equitable Web3 is not just an aspiration but a necessity for the industry's continued success. Interested participants can register for Granting Access via Unlock. Virtual Event Connects Participants with Grant Funding Opportunities and Industry Leaders Virtual Event Connects Participants with Grant Funding Opportunities and Industry Leaders SI3 , an organization championing women and non-binary individuals in the Web3 space, has announced its inaugural "Granting Access" event on August 1, 2024. The virtual gathering will connect participants with grant funding opportunities at major blockchain and protocol organizations and features representatives from Gitcoin , LUKSO , ThankArb , Push Protocol , and Unlock Protocol . SI3 Gitcoin LUKSO ThankArb Push Protocol Unlock Protocol " Granting Access " is designed to foster financial inclusion and access for underrepresented groups within the Web3 ecosystem. The event will kick off with a keynote presentation by Kara Howard, Co-Creator of SI3 and the Si Her Co-Active, who emphasized the importance of unifying and accelerating the growth of women in Web3. Granting Access "We are thrilled to host Granting Access, an event that aligns with our mission to drive financial inclusion and access for women and non-binary individuals in the Web3 ecosystem," said Howard. "We hope to foster a more equitable and diverse Web3 landscape by bringing together leaders and grant programs." Panel discussions will feature Elizabeth Cusma ( EducationDAO ), Mashal Waqar ( Octant ), and Reena Shtedle (Founding Member, Cosmos Cartel ), moderated by Ksenia Stark (Co-Founder, ⅄Oᒋ⅋NOISՈᖵNOϽ and Partner Growth, SI3) delving into strategies for equity and financial inclusion in the space. EducationDAO Octant Cosmos Cartel ⅄Oᒋ⅋NOISՈᖵNOϽ The sessions will provide attendees with a unique opportunity to engage directly with representatives from leading blockchain and protocol organizations. Participants are set to learn about various grant programs , funding priorities, and application processes, gaining valuable insights into securing financial support for their Web3 projects and initiatives. learn about various grant programs FIXX: Building a More Inclusive Web3 Future FIXX: Building a More Inclusive Web3 Future The "Granting Access" event is just one facet of SI3's broader mission to empower women and non-binary individuals in Web3. Their flagship initiative, FIXX (Financial Inclusion XX Chromosome), is a comprehensive program providing education, mentorship, and community-building opportunities. FIXX's upcoming program, starting in September 2024, will feature monthly sessions on personal values, unconscious bias, diversity in marketing, DEI strategies, advocacy, and impact tracking. By equipping participants with the knowledge and skills necessary to thrive in the Web3 landscape, FIXX is helping to build a more inclusive and equitable future for all. A Call to Action A Call to Action SI3's "Granting Access" event and the FIXX initiative represent a significant step forward in fostering diversity and inclusion within the Web3 community. "I'm excited about this event because it’s a chance to push for more recognition of women in web3 and learn from others. I believe that equity and financial inclusion are key to real progress and innovation," Mathilde DV, Grants Program Lead at Gitcoin, said. As the decentralized technology landscape continues to evolve, it is essential to ensure that opportunities are accessible to everyone, regardless of gender or background. After all, DEI isn’t a “nice to have” or a cause driven by ethical and moral issues - diverse, equitable, and inclusive teams contribute to financial success by fostering innovative, engaged, and productive workforces that create products and services that work for and resonate with a broader range of consumers and investors. Despite DEI layoffs at major corporations such as Microsoft , the momentum is building, and the message is clear: a more diverse and equitable Web3 is not just an aspiration but a necessity for the industry's continued success. Interested participants can register for Granting Access via Unlock . DEI layoffs at major corporations such as Microsoft register for Granting Access via Unlock

Empowering Change: SI3's "Granting Access" Event Boosts Diversity in Web3

Holodeck Heroes: Building AI Companions for the Final Frontier

Table of Links Abstract and I. Introduction II. Expectations of Blockchain Accessibility III. Approach I: Maintain a Ledger Locally - Run a Full Node IV. Approach II: Query a Third-Party Ledger-Node-As-A-Service (NAAS) V. Approach III: Light Node - External Query & Local Verification VI. Concluding Remark and References IV. APPROACH II: QUERY A THIRD-PARTY LEDGER - NODE-AS-A-SERVICE (NAAS) If a user cannot afford to run a full node themselves, they must outsource the synchronization of blockchains to some third party. While typical users may be tempted to entrust their crypto coins and assets to an all-in-one cryptocurrency exchange, such as Crypto.com [16] and Binance [6], for exchange of easy accessibility, we consider the approach fundamentally flawed. Because the user has no access to the asset without the consent of the exchange, they cannot claim that they effectively own the asset: the recent collapse of FTX [31] reveals the risk of the exchange being insolvent and the user’s asset being lost. Therefore, if the user wants to keep his private key and still maintain reasonable access to the blockchain, one approach is to purchase a third-party service that answers RPC queries, colloquially known as Node-as-a-service (NAAS) or an RPC node. The clients can interact with the third-party service just as they would with a full node (see Fig. 3). Many active NAAS providers exist in the field, including Alchemy, Ankr, BlockDaemon, etc. Table II provides a list of providers, as advertised by the Ethereum Foundation [25]. While we recognize that different providers offer services with different features and have different pricing plans, which makes an accurate comparison challenging, we pick four uniform measurements to understand the provider: the number of protocols supported, whether there is a free tier, the minimum amount the user needs to pay for a paid tier (per month), and whether or not the provider developed an exclusive API (such as one that handles the NFT) for the service in addition to traditional RPC calls. A. Pros and Cons The main benefit of using a NAAS service is that it is more affordable than running one’s own full node because the service provider can build an infrastructure that handles a high workload efficiently. Many providers also have a free tier that allows a limited number of queries. It is also noteworthy that most providers allow users to access more than one blockchain, which would traditionally require running one full node for each blockchain. Some providers offer exclusive pre-made APIs to handle common use cases, such as NFT. While using such API may reduce the program’s portability, it increases the development efficiency. The drawback of the approach is also significant: the security assumption of the model now depends on the service provider as a trusted party. Consider the case of Bitcoin’s RPC call getbalance. The client has no way to verify the numerical result because RPC is not designed to ensure data integrity: every user is expected to run a node themselves. There is also no privacy guarantee when the service provider is untrusted: the service provider can see all parameters of an RPC call, thus increasing the risk associated, such as frontrunning [17]. Besides, any attack and incident of the service provider can impact users’ access to blockchain information, thus affecting availability. Ankr was hit by a DNS attack in July 2022, which disrupted its users’ access to two blockchains and placed their funds at risk [36]. Similarly, Infura was forced to censor Venezuelan users due to a US sanction in March 2022 [39]. These cases illustrate that a centralized service provider can become a single point of failure, and additional considerations are needed to ensure the accessibility of blockchains. B. Open Questions Node-as-a-service providers form a competitive market: there are 19 providers advertised on the Ethereum Foundation website. However, there is little study on the market: who are the main users? Which service has a better cost-performance ratio for a specific type of user? How profitable can the providers be? An empirical study on this growing market is a challenging topic. The design of the RPC protocol in this scenario can be particularly challenging since the current RPC protocol assumes the complete trust of the server. However, with the recent advancement of verification methods, such as Flyclient [10], a verifiable RPC protocol may be possible from a minimal-sized root of trust, solving the issue of integrity in the face of an untrusted service provider. We also observe that it is standard industry practice to employ several services so that at least one is available at any time. Since many providers exist in the field, a unified structure that features a collaboration between providers may provide an improved availability guarantee and some degree of privacy and anonymity to users. For instance, Lava [13] is an ongoing proposal to design a decentralized RPC network blockchain that allows a group of NAAS providers to join together to provide services to users. The users will be charged in LAVA, a new type of coin specific to the network. Both NAAS providers and blockchain validators will stake LAVA to use the system. Unfortunately, Lava’s whitepaper lacks a formal description of security, instead claiming that slashing the funds from bad actors can stop them from providing compromised information. Authors:
(1) Zhongtang Luo, Purdue University (luo401@purdue.edu);
(2) Rohan Murukutla, Supra (r.murukutla@supraoracles.com);
(3) Aniket Kate, Purdue University / Supra (aniket@purdue.edu). This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED license. Table of Links Abstract and I. Introduction Abstract and I. Introduction II. Expectations of Blockchain Accessibility II. Expectations of Blockchain Accessibility III. Approach I: Maintain a Ledger Locally - Run a Full Node III. Approach I: Maintain a Ledger Locally - Run a Full Node IV. Approach II: Query a Third-Party Ledger-Node-As-A-Service (NAAS) IV. Approach II: Query a Third-Party Ledger-Node-As-A-Service (NAAS) V. Approach III: Light Node - External Query & Local Verification V. Approach III: Light Node - External Query & Local Verification VI. Concluding Remark and References VI. Concluding Remark and References IV. APPROACH II: QUERY A THIRD-PARTY LEDGER - NODE-AS-A-SERVICE (NAAS) If a user cannot afford to run a full node themselves, they must outsource the synchronization of blockchains to some third party. While typical users may be tempted to entrust their crypto coins and assets to an all-in-one cryptocurrency exchange, such as Crypto.com [16] and Binance [6], for exchange of easy accessibility, we consider the approach fundamentally flawed. Because the user has no access to the asset without the consent of the exchange, they cannot claim that they effectively own the asset: the recent collapse of FTX [31] reveals the risk of the exchange being insolvent and the user’s asset being lost. Therefore, if the user wants to keep his private key and still maintain reasonable access to the blockchain, one approach is to purchase a third-party service that answers RPC queries, colloquially known as Node-as-a-service (NAAS) or an RPC node. The clients can interact with the third-party service just as they would with a full node (see Fig. 3). Many active NAAS providers exist in the field, including Alchemy, Ankr, BlockDaemon, etc. Table II provides a list of providers, as advertised by the Ethereum Foundation [25]. While we recognize that different providers offer services with different features and have different pricing plans, which makes an accurate comparison challenging, we pick four uniform measurements to understand the provider: the number of protocols supported, whether there is a free tier, the minimum amount the user needs to pay for a paid tier (per month), and whether or not the provider developed an exclusive API (such as one that handles the NFT) for the service in addition to traditional RPC calls. A. Pros and Cons A. Pros and Cons The main benefit of using a NAAS service is that it is more affordable than running one’s own full node because the service provider can build an infrastructure that handles a high workload efficiently. Many providers also have a free tier that allows a limited number of queries. It is also noteworthy that most providers allow users to access more than one blockchain, which would traditionally require running one full node for each blockchain. Some providers offer exclusive pre-made APIs to handle common use cases, such as NFT. While using such API may reduce the program’s portability, it increases the development efficiency. The drawback of the approach is also significant: the security assumption of the model now depends on the service provider as a trusted party. Consider the case of Bitcoin’s RPC call getbalance. The client has no way to verify the numerical result because RPC is not designed to ensure data integrity: every user is expected to run a node themselves. There is also no privacy guarantee when the service provider is untrusted: the service provider can see all parameters of an RPC call, thus increasing the risk associated, such as frontrunning [17]. Besides, any attack and incident of the service provider can impact users’ access to blockchain information, thus affecting availability. Ankr was hit by a DNS attack in July 2022, which disrupted its users’ access to two blockchains and placed their funds at risk [36]. Similarly, Infura was forced to censor Venezuelan users due to a US sanction in March 2022 [39]. These cases illustrate that a centralized service provider can become a single point of failure, and additional considerations are needed to ensure the accessibility of blockchains. B. Open Questions B. Open Questions Node-as-a-service providers form a competitive market: there are 19 providers advertised on the Ethereum Foundation website. However, there is little study on the market: who are the main users? Which service has a better cost-performance ratio for a specific type of user? How profitable can the providers be? An empirical study on this growing market is a challenging topic. The design of the RPC protocol in this scenario can be particularly challenging since the current RPC protocol assumes the complete trust of the server. However, with the recent advancement of verification methods, such as Flyclient [10], a verifiable RPC protocol may be possible from a minimal-sized root of trust, solving the issue of integrity in the face of an untrusted service provider. We also observe that it is standard industry practice to employ several services so that at least one is available at any time. Since many providers exist in the field, a unified structure that features a collaboration between providers may provide an improved availability guarantee and some degree of privacy and anonymity to users. For instance, Lava [13] is an ongoing proposal to design a decentralized RPC network blockchain that allows a group of NAAS providers to join together to provide services to users. The users will be charged in LAVA, a new type of coin specific to the network. Both NAAS providers and blockchain validators will stake LAVA to use the system. Unfortunately, Lava’s whitepaper lacks a formal description of security, instead claiming that slashing the funds from bad actors can stop them from providing compromised information. Authors: (1) Zhongtang Luo, Purdue University (luo401@purdue.edu); (2) Rohan Murukutla, Supra (r.murukutla@supraoracles.com); (3) Aniket Kate, Purdue University / Supra (aniket@purdue.edu). Authors: Authors: (1) Zhongtang Luo, Purdue University (luo401@purdue.edu); (2) Rohan Murukutla, Supra (r.murukutla@supraoracles.com); (3) Aniket Kate, Purdue University / Supra (aniket@purdue.edu). This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED license. available on arxiv

Navigating the Node-as-a-Service Market: Benefits, Risks, and Open Questions

COPA v. Wright, Court Filing, retrieved on January 29, 2024, is part of HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series. You can jump to any part of this filing here. This part is 39 of 42. 37. The Tulip Trust Deed (Particulars of Claim at [66A] {A/2/10}) ({ID_001186}) / {L8/20/1}) The Fifth Pleaded Example 728. In the Kleiman Litigation, Dr Wright proffered a Deed of Trust document as evidence of the existence of a trust called the Tulip Trust. Dr Wright has claimed that the Tulip Trust held Bitcoin and/or an encrypted file with keys to that Bitcoin. The Deed of Trust document that was adduced by Dr Wright was dated 23 October 2012. (a) COPA’s Reasons for Alleging Forgery 729. The date of 23 October 2012 was false. Computer forensic analysis of this document shows that it was backdated and that it was not created until at least 22 May 2015 (over two years after the death of David Kleiman on 26 April 2013). This document was therefore forged. As to the basis on which the Claimant alleges forgery, the Claimant relies on the above matters and the fact that this Deed of Trust document was found to be backdated in the Order of Justice Reinhart dated 27 August 2019. 730. A copy of this document is at C00000560 {L8/17/1}, which was included in the Extended Disclosure served on 7 March 2023. The Re-Re-Amended Defence was served on 20 April 2023. (b) Dr Wright’s Explanations and COPA’s Rebuttal 731. The document appears as a Deed of Trust between two Seychelles companies, Wright International Investments (“WIIL”) and Tulip Trading Ltd (“TTL”) with a date of 23 October 2012. 732. In Wright11 Appendix C, Dr Wright addressed this 23 October 2012 Deed of Trust document by reference to one particular version of it. There are a number of copies disclosed which are all identical in substance: 732.1. (C00000560) / {L8/17/1} – (includes the Kleiman case reference at the top). 732.2. (ID_001186) / {L8/20/1}; 732.3. (ID_003790) / {L8/28/1}; 732.4. (ID_003982) / {L8/14/1}; and 732.5. (ID_003329) / L15/86/1} – this is the version Dr Wright refers to in Wright11. 733. Mr Madden addresses the identical nature of the above documents in PM48, {H/304/8}. In PM48, Mr Madden notes that the documents analysed indicate that WIIL was purchased as an aged shelf company in 2014, not being active prior to that date: PM48 at [29] {H/304/9}. Mr Madden also notes the effect of similar analysis in respect of other similar documents relating to TTL (PM4 [119-127], {H/29/38}). 734. In his Defence (after various amendments), Dr Wright states that, pursuant to an order of the US Court in the Kleiman proceedings, he disclosed a copy of a Deed of Trust document between two Seychelles companies, WIIL and TTL, with a date of 23 October 2012 (Defence [85A(1)] {A/3/26}. Dr Wright claims that: “The date 23 October 2012 is not a false date as the Deed of Trust was executed on 23 October 2012” (Defence [85A(5)] {A/3/27}. 735. In Wright11, Dr Wright gives the following account. He says that he set up the trust structure with the intention that he did not have any rights to see documents until 2020 (Wright11 Appendix C, [6.6] {CSW/3/14}). Dr Wright says that Dianne Pinder of Lloyds solicitors in Brisbane Australia drafted a deed of trust to replace a former trust structure that had been set up in such a way that he did not have a right to see documents until 2020 (Wright11 Appendix C, [6.6] {CSW/3/14}). Dr Wright says that, as he was not a party to the Tulip Trust Deed, he can only comment on what appears on the face of the documents, and that the version at {ID_003329} is not the trust deed for the Tulip Trust (Wright11 Appendix C, [6.11] {CSW/3/15}). The position stated in Wright11 therefore appears to be that, whilst a trust was settled on 23 October 2012 which was called the Tulip Trust, the disclosed versions set out above do not represent the deed of that trust or record its terms. 736. Dr Wright further states in Wright11 that he thinks that the version at {ID_003329} has been doctored by someone, as some of the parties acting for Savannah Ltd as noted in the document held no authority with the company, which he did not find out until after 2022 (Wright11 Appendix C, [6.12] {CSW/3/15}). 737. In his oral evidence at trial, Dr Wright at first accepted that he had sworn in the Kleiman proceedings that the Tulip Trust Deed put to him in those proceedings (which was the version at {L8/17/1}) was an authentic document {Day4/107:4} to {Day4/109:5}. However, he then went on to say that it does not record the terms of the trust. He said that this particular Tulip Trust Deed is not a real document and that it is not part of the trust. Dr Wright claimed that he told the Judge in Kleiman that it was a real document but that he did not know any different to say otherwise at that time: {Day4/109:2} to {Day4/112:2}. He claimed that he had subsequently spoken to some of the individuals whose signatures appear on this Tulip Trust Deed and they told him that they did not sign it: {Day4/113:6}. 738. Dr Wright claimed that this particular version of the Tulip Trust Deed was formed by someone merging documents together: {Day4/114:5}. Dr Wright said that it was a fake document used by Ira Kleiman, and that there had never been any agreement made between Wright International and Tulip Trading: {Day4/115:10} to {Day4/115/20}. 739. COPA submitted that Dr Wright’s explanation should be rejected for the following reasons: 739.1. On Dr Wright’s own admission, the Tulip Trust Deed is not a genuine document on the basis that (on his account) (i) there never has been any agreement between WIIL and TTL at all; (ii) the signatures are said not to be genuine; and (iii) the terms do not reflect what he understood to be the terms of the Tulip Trust Deed actually executed on 23 October 2012. It is, however, remarkable that he failed to mention this in his Re-Amended Defence. 739.2. There is no evidence of any of other version of the Tulip Trust Deed dated to 23 October 2012 with different terms. Dr Wright has not brought any of those who are said to deny signing this deed to Court as witnesses, nor has he called anyone as a witness to say what the “real” terms of the Tulip Trust are. 739.3. WIIL is purportedly a party to the Tulip Trust Deed, but that company was only first purchased as an off the shelf company by Dr Wright in October 2014. Mr Madden's findings in Appendix PM48 to the effect that alteration of documents supports that proposition {H/304/9} were not challenged in cross-examination. 739.4. Paragraph 3 of this Tulip Trust Deed {L8/17/2} refers to bitcoin having been transferred into TTL on 10 June 2011, although that company likewise was not purchased until October 2014 (as explained in relation to {ID_001421} and {ID_001930} in COPA’s original Forgeries Schedule at {A/2/91} and {A/2/101}. 739.5. There is nothing in the terms of this trust (as recorded in this Deed) to say that trust documents cannot be shown to Dr Wright. He claimed that he did not know the terms of the document, but also that those terms precluded him from talking directly to any of the individuals involved. He then said that he had spoken to them and found out that the signatures on the document were not genuine. Dr Wright's evidence about this document, and the Tulip Trust more generally, has been confused and internally inconsistent. In particular, he has invented the excuse of having been precluded from seeing the document to explain away his having sworn to its authenticity in the Kleiman proceedings and made a sworn declaration based on its terms, but then having denied its authenticity in the Granath proceedings. See generally: {Day3/105:2} to {Day3/119:5}. (c) Conclusions 740. I found Dr Wright’s contorted explanations to be wholly unconvincing and false, including his final excuse that this document was ‘doctored by someone’. 741. There is strong evidence that (and I so find) both Tulip Trading Limited and Wright International Investments Ltd were acquired by Dr Wright in 2014 as aged shelf companies, and that the ‘Tulip Trust’ itself was a fabrication designed to shield Dr Wright’s assets against possible bankruptcy. Dr Wright’s explanations of the terms of the Trust were inconsistent and did not ring true. He has never explained the plain inconsistency between his assertion that the Trust put his assets (including his IP in various documents) beyond reach, yet his continued ability apparently to reference and use all such documents to yield the large number of ‘White Papers’ which are said to have given rise to all the claimed patent filings for nChain. Continue Reading Here. About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings.

This court case retrieved on January 29, 2024, judiciary.uk is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. COPA v. Wright, Court Filing, retrieved on January 29, 2024, is part of HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series. You can jump to any part of this filing here. This part is 39 of 42. COPA v. Wright, Court Filing, retrieved on January 29, 2024, is part of HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series . You can jump to any part of this filing here . This part is 39 of 42. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here here 37. The Tulip Trust Deed (Particulars of Claim at [66A] {A/2/10}) ({ID_001186}) / {L8/20/1}) The Fifth Pleaded Example 728. In the Kleiman Litigation, Dr Wright proffered a Deed of Trust document as evidence of the existence of a trust called the Tulip Trust. Dr Wright has claimed that the Tulip Trust held Bitcoin and/or an encrypted file with keys to that Bitcoin. The Deed of Trust document that was adduced by Dr Wright was dated 23 October 2012. Kleiman (a) COPA’s Reasons for Alleging Forgery (a) COPA’s Reasons for Alleging Forgery 729. The date of 23 October 2012 was false. Computer forensic analysis of this document shows that it was backdated and that it was not created until at least 22 May 2015 (over two years after the death of David Kleiman on 26 April 2013). This document was therefore forged. As to the basis on which the Claimant alleges forgery, the Claimant relies on the above matters and the fact that this Deed of Trust document was found to be backdated in the Order of Justice Reinhart dated 27 August 2019. 730. A copy of this document is at C00000560 {L8/17/1}, which was included in the Extended Disclosure served on 7 March 2023. The Re-Re-Amended Defence was served on 20 April 2023. (b) Dr Wright’s Explanations and COPA’s Rebuttal (b) Dr Wright’s Explanations and COPA’s Rebuttal 731. The document appears as a Deed of Trust between two Seychelles companies, Wright International Investments (“ WIIL ”) and Tulip Trading Ltd (“ TTL ”) with a date of 23 October 2012. WIIL TTL 732. In Wright11 Appendix C, Dr Wright addressed this 23 October 2012 Deed of Trust document by reference to one particular version of it. There are a number of copies disclosed which are all identical in substance: 732.1. (C00000560) / {L8/17/1} – (includes the Kleiman case reference at the top). 732.2. (ID_001186) / {L8/20/1}; 732.3. (ID_003790) / {L8/28/1}; 732.4. (ID_003982) / {L8/14/1}; and 732.5. (ID_003329) / L15/86/1} – this is the version Dr Wright refers to in Wright11. 733. Mr Madden addresses the identical nature of the above documents in PM48, {H/304/8}. In PM48, Mr Madden notes that the documents analysed indicate that WIIL was purchased as an aged shelf company in 2014, not being active prior to that date: PM48 at [29] {H/304/9}. Mr Madden also notes the effect of similar analysis in respect of other similar documents relating to TTL (PM4 [119-127], {H/29/38}). 734. In his Defence (after various amendments), Dr Wright states that, pursuant to an order of the US Court in the Kleiman proceedings, he disclosed a copy of a Deed of Trust document between two Seychelles companies, WIIL and TTL, with a date of 23 October 2012 (Defence [85A(1)] {A/3/26}. Dr Wright claims that: “The date 23 October 2012 is not a false date as the Deed of Trust was executed on 23 October 2012” (Defence [85A(5)] {A/3/27}. “The date 23 October 2012 is not a false date as the Deed of Trust was executed on 23 October 2012” 735. In Wright11, Dr Wright gives the following account. He says that he set up the trust structure with the intention that he did not have any rights to see documents until 2020 (Wright11 Appendix C, [6.6] {CSW/3/14}). Dr Wright says that Dianne Pinder of Lloyds solicitors in Brisbane Australia drafted a deed of trust to replace a former trust structure that had been set up in such a way that he did not have a right to see documents until 2020 (Wright11 Appendix C, [6.6] {CSW/3/14}). Dr Wright says that, as he was not a party to the Tulip Trust Deed, he can only comment on what appears on the face of the documents, and that the version at {ID_003329} is not the trust deed for the Tulip Trust (Wright11 Appendix C, [6.11] {CSW/3/15}). The position stated in Wright11 therefore appears to be that, whilst a trust was settled on 23 October 2012 which was called the Tulip Trust, the disclosed versions set out above do not represent the deed of that trust or record its terms. 736. Dr Wright further states in Wright11 that he thinks that the version at {ID_003329} has been doctored by someone, as some of the parties acting for Savannah Ltd as noted in the document held no authority with the company, which he did not find out until after 2022 (Wright11 Appendix C, [6.12] {CSW/3/15}). 737. In his oral evidence at trial, Dr Wright at first accepted that he had sworn in the Kleiman proceedings that the Tulip Trust Deed put to him in those proceedings (which was the version at {L8/17/1}) was an authentic document {Day4/107:4} to {Day4/109:5}. However, he then went on to say that it does not record the terms of the trust. He said that this particular Tulip Trust Deed is not a real document and that it is not part of the trust. Dr Wright claimed that he told the Judge in Kleiman that it was a real document but that he did not know any different to say otherwise at that time: {Day4/109:2} to {Day4/112:2}. He claimed that he had subsequently spoken to some of the individuals whose signatures appear on this Tulip Trust Deed and they told him that they did not sign it: {Day4/113:6}. 738. Dr Wright claimed that this particular version of the Tulip Trust Deed was formed by someone merging documents together: {Day4/114:5}. Dr Wright said that it was a fake document used by Ira Kleiman, and that there had never been any agreement made between Wright International and Tulip Trading: {Day4/115:10} to {Day4/115/20}. 739. COPA submitted that Dr Wright’s explanation should be rejected for the following reasons: 739.1. On Dr Wright’s own admission, the Tulip Trust Deed is not a genuine document on the basis that (on his account) (i) there never has been any agreement between WIIL and TTL at all; (ii) the signatures are said not to be genuine; and (iii) the terms do not reflect what he understood to be the terms of the Tulip Trust Deed actually executed on 23 October 2012. It is, however, remarkable that he failed to mention this in his Re-Amended Defence. 739.2. There is no evidence of any of other version of the Tulip Trust Deed dated to 23 October 2012 with different terms. Dr Wright has not brought any of those who are said to deny signing this deed to Court as witnesses, nor has he called anyone as a witness to say what the “real” terms of the Tulip Trust are. 739.3. WIIL is purportedly a party to the Tulip Trust Deed, but that company was only first purchased as an off the shelf company by Dr Wright in October 2014. Mr Madden's findings in Appendix PM48 to the effect that alteration of documents supports that proposition {H/304/9} were not challenged in cross-examination. 739.4. Paragraph 3 of this Tulip Trust Deed {L8/17/2} refers to bitcoin having been transferred into TTL on 10 June 2011, although that company likewise was not purchased until October 2014 (as explained in relation to {ID_001421} and {ID_001930} in COPA’s original Forgeries Schedule at {A/2/91} and {A/2/101}. 739.5. There is nothing in the terms of this trust (as recorded in this Deed) to say that trust documents cannot be shown to Dr Wright. He claimed that he did not know the terms of the document, but also that those terms precluded him from talking directly to any of the individuals involved. He then said that he had spoken to them and found out that the signatures on the document were not genuine. Dr Wright's evidence about this document, and the Tulip Trust more generally, has been confused and internally inconsistent. In particular, he has invented the excuse of having been precluded from seeing the document to explain away his having sworn to its authenticity in the Kleiman proceedings and made a sworn declaration based on its terms, but then having denied its authenticity in the Granath proceedings. See generally: {Day3/105:2} to {Day3/119:5}. Kleiman Granath (c) Conclusions (c) Conclusions 740. I found Dr Wright’s contorted explanations to be wholly unconvincing and false, including his final excuse that this document was ‘doctored by someone’. 741. There is strong evidence that (and I so find) both Tulip Trading Limited and Wright International Investments Ltd were acquired by Dr Wright in 2014 as aged shelf companies, and that the ‘Tulip Trust’ itself was a fabrication designed to shield Dr Wright’s assets against possible bankruptcy. Dr Wright’s explanations of the terms of the Trust were inconsistent and did not ring true. He has never explained the plain inconsistency between his assertion that the Trust put his assets (including his IP in various documents) beyond reach, yet his continued ability apparently to reference and use all such documents to yield the large number of ‘White Papers’ which are said to have given rise to all the claimed patent filings for nChain. Continue Reading Here. Continue Reading Here . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case retrieved on January 29, 2024, judiciary.uk is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case retrieved on January 29, 2024, judiciary.uk is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. judiciary.uk judiciary.uk

Forensic Analysis Exposes Flaws in Craig Wright's Tulip Trust Deed

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It is always the same. What is the typical pattern you imagine when someone says they are in an agile transformation? The usual scenario is the following: Depending on the amount of money an organisation has, it hires either one of the Big 3 or a “Boutique Agile” or not-so-popular consultancy company. They come, spend one to three months, and create a 200-page PowerPoint. The document is filled with eye-catching graphics, diagrams, scenarios, and key advantages of new approaches. It may also contain some suggestions on which tools to use, how to configure the first Jira board, which calendar cadence to adapt, and what the difference is between horizontal and vertical backlog slicing. It will most likely also include some sort of SAFe implementation somewhere between those slides—the organisation's senior management doesn’t want to lose control, does it? Then, the consultancy company departs. Project Managers are renamed into Scrum Master/Agile Coach/Product Owner, depending on the assessment of the level of maturity senior leaders decide their organisation have during the workshop on maturity level assessment and, maybe, personal preference of specific individual (even the sentence that describes it doesn’t make sense). Then, teams host Team Charter exercises, create Scrum Kanban Boards, refine two work sprints, and start their work. By this time, everyone is irritated already because: As consultants, during their initial assessment, didn’t have a chance/time/money (or all together) to understand that some teams are not working in the same environment and just can’t use a similar workflow to others;
Some teams have never had exposure to what Agile truly means, although they have been working in “new ways of working” for five years already;
Engineers now spend more time refining work than coding; everyone knows they hate it;
… Familiar, isn’t it? But is it the right approach? Back to school When children are first introduced to geometry in secondary school, it all starts with basics: What is a dot, line, and surface;
Why parallel lines never cross each other;
Why right angle is equal to 90 degrees; With this basic, it is easier to move forward. It's the same thing with Scrum. When you open Scrum Guide, it starts with the theory. It gently explains the idea of empiricism to the reader and introduces three Pillars - transparency, inspection, and adaptation. Whatever comes next - rules, events, artefacts, etc.- are all implementations of the basics and are impossible without following them. Same as geometry, isn’t it? If you open tasks for high-school students, you won’t be able to solve them without the basic knowledge provided to you in 5th grade. Try different Try to focus on these basics. You can’t touch or see them, and they are hard to measure and visualise on the dashboard. However, they are your values that truly uncover the beauty of Scrum and help to uncover “better ways of building software.” How can you promote and follow transparency? How can you ensure that you are actually taking some uncovered facts into account to improve your processes? Do you actually see all the unnecessary waste and explore ways of eliminating it? These questions are the quintessence of the Scrum Guide—“Easy to follow but hard to master.” Focus on understanding what potential you uncover through specific actions. If you know what's behind change/practice, you will find it easier for your team to understand and follow it. You will start supporting every action with the question, “Does it help us deliver better results? Do we support our actions by three fundamental pillars?” To make sure you are not making the same mistakes that many organisations who are stepping into the Agile Transformation territory have encountered before, try reading the Agile Manifesto and Scrum Guide again. While reading, think about how each item is presented in these documents, how they support each other, and how they build a common structure that makes sense. Use your imagination The transformation will only provide value when you think about the fundamental values every time the decision has to be made. If you have made a mistake, one of the key elements may need to be included. It is insanity to expect a different result without changing your actions. You need to change something to try again anyway - so why not try returning to school? Try to understand which exact element is missing. Find it, incorporate it into your process, and you will most likely succeed. Our main goal is to eliminate the habit that has been dominant on the market for the past twenty years—the habit of implementing tools and techniques without considering their value or how exactly they work. I highly recommend looking into Zombie Scrum — it's an amazing read and also the biggest library of problems that your team may encounter if they do not consider the purpose of every single item they implement from the framework. What is your secret to following what matters? Share in the comments. It is always the same. What is the typical pattern you imagine when someone says they are in an agile transformation? The usual scenario is the following: Depending on the amount of money an organisation has, it hires either one of the Big 3 or a “Boutique Agile” or not-so-popular consultancy company. They come, spend one to three months, and create a 200-page PowerPoint. The document is filled with eye-catching graphics, diagrams, scenarios, and key advantages of new approaches. It may also contain some suggestions on which tools to use, how to configure the first Jira board, which calendar cadence to adapt, and what the difference is between horizontal and vertical backlog slicing. It will most likely also include some sort of SAFe implementation somewhere between those slides—the organisation's senior management doesn’t want to lose control, does it? Then, the consultancy company departs. Project Managers are renamed into Scrum Master/Agile Coach/Product Owner, depending on the assessment of the level of maturity senior leaders decide their organisation have during the workshop on maturity level assessment and, maybe, personal preference of specific individual (even the sentence that describes it doesn’t make sense). Then, teams host Team Charter exercises, create Scrum Kanban Boards, refine two work sprints, and start their work. By this time, everyone is irritated already because: As consultants, during their initial assessment, didn’t have a chance/time/money (or all together) to understand that some teams are not working in the same environment and just can’t use a similar workflow to others; Some teams have never had exposure to what Agile truly means, although they have been working in “new ways of working” for five years already; Engineers now spend more time refining work than coding; everyone knows they hate it; … As consultants, during their initial assessment, didn’t have a chance/time/money (or all together) to understand that some teams are not working in the same environment and just can’t use a similar workflow to others; Some teams have never had exposure to what Agile truly means, although they have been working in “new ways of working” for five years already; Engineers now spend more time refining work than coding; everyone knows they hate it; … Familiar, isn’t it? But is it the right approach? Back to school When children are first introduced to geometry in secondary school, it all starts with basics: What is a dot, line, and surface; Why parallel lines never cross each other; Why right angle is equal to 90 degrees; What is a dot, line, and surface; Why parallel lines never cross each other; Why right angle is equal to 90 degrees; With this basic, it is easier to move forward. It's the same thing with Scrum. When you open Scrum Guide, it starts with the theory. It gently explains the idea of empiricism to the reader and introduces three Pillars - transparency, inspection, and adaptation. Whatever comes next - rules, events, artefacts, etc.- are all implementations of the basics and are impossible without following them. Same as geometry, isn’t it? If you open tasks for high-school students, you won’t be able to solve them without the basic knowledge provided to you in 5th grade. Try different Try to focus on these basics. You can’t touch or see them, and they are hard to measure and visualise on the dashboard. However, they are your values that truly uncover the beauty of Scrum and help to uncover “better ways of building software.” How can you promote and follow transparency? How can you ensure that you are actually taking some uncovered facts into account to improve your processes? Do you actually see all the unnecessary waste and explore ways of eliminating it? These questions are the quintessence of the Scrum Guide—“Easy to follow but hard to master.” Focus on understanding what potential you uncover through specific actions. If you know what's behind change/practice, you will find it easier for your team to understand and follow it. You will start supporting every action with the question, “Does it help us deliver better results? Do we support our actions by three fundamental pillars?” To make sure you are not making the same mistakes that many organisations who are stepping into the Agile Transformation territory have encountered before, try reading the Agile Manifesto and Scrum Guide again. While reading, think about how each item is presented in these documents, how they support each other, and how they build a common structure that makes sense. Use your imagination The transformation will only provide value when you think about the fundamental values every time the decision has to be made. If you have made a mistake, one of the key elements may need to be included. It is insanity to expect a different result without changing your actions. You need to change something to try again anyway - so why not try returning to school? Try to understand which exact element is missing. Find it, incorporate it into your process, and you will most likely succeed. Our main goal is to eliminate the habit that has been dominant on the market for the past twenty years—the habit of implementing tools and techniques without considering their value or how exactly they work. I highly recommend looking into Zombie Scrum — it's an amazing read and also the biggest library of problems that your team may encounter if they do not consider the purpose of every single item they implement from the framework. Zombie Scrum What is your secret to following what matters? Share in the comments.

Values First, or How to Start Transformation Correctly

মানগুলি প্রথমে, বা কীভাবে সঠিকভাবে রূপান্তর শুরু করবেন

Werte zuerst oder wie man die Transformation richtig startet

Los valores primero, o cómo iniciar la transformación correctamente

Les valeurs d’abord, ou comment démarrer correctement la transformation

मूल्य पहले, या परिवर्तन को सही ढंग से कैसे शुरू करें

価値観を第一に、あるいは変革を正しく始める方法

가치가 먼저, 또는 변환을 올바르게 시작하는 방법

Valores primeiro ou como iniciar a transformação corretamente

Ценности прежде всего, или Как правильно начать трансформацию

Önce Değerler veya Dönüşüme Doğru Şekilde Nasıl Başlanır?

Giá trị đầu tiên hoặc Cách bắt đầu chuyển đổi chính xác

价值观优先，或者如何正确开始转型

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