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False Ceiling Color Combinations That Transform Your Living Room

When we think of living room makeovers, most of us jump straight to furniture and wall paint. But here’s the game-changer most people overlook: the false ceiling. It’s like the fifth wall—the unsung canvas overhead that can make your living room feel cozier, taller, brighter, or simply more you.
With the perfect color combination, your false ceiling doesn’t just finish the look—it defines it. So grab a cup of chai, and let’s explore how to give your ceiling a major personality upgrade!
🎨 1. White & Warm Wood: Cozy Meets Contemporary
The white and warm wood combo is like your favorite sweater—comfortable, timeless, and always in style. While white keeps things clean and airy, wooden accents add that organic texture that instantly makes your space feel inviting.
Ideal for: Scandinavian, Japandi, or modern minimalist homes
Styling tip: Add layered lighting—recessed LED strips + a chandelier—for maximum drama
🌌 2. Navy Blue & Cream: Bold Yet Balanced
Navy blue is the definition of dramatic elegance. Pair it with creamy white trims, and suddenly you have a ceiling that draws the eyes up while balancing dark sophistication with softness.
Perfect for: Luxe-modern or transitional interiors
Bonus tip: Use velvet or leather upholstery in complementary tones to create harmony
🍂 3. Beige & Burnt Orange: Earthy Elegance
Beige brings in neutral calm, while burnt orange injects vibrant energy. Together, they create a beautifully balanced look that feels rooted and energized. It’s warm without being loud.
Best for: Indian traditional or boho-chic spaces
Design bonus: Incorporate terracotta pots, jute rugs, and vintage prints for cohesion
☁️ 4. Light Grey & Matte White: Sophisticated Simplicity
Sleek and serene, this pairing is a favorite in urban apartments and minimalist interiors. Light grey adds dimension without taking attention away from the rest of the room, while matte white softens the contrast.
Use this in: Compact or low-ceiling spaces to avoid visual clutter
Pro move: Add linear pendant lights or track lighting for an edgy finish
💫 5. Mint Green & Off-White: Breezy & Bright
Mint green isn’t just for candy or ice cream. When paired with an off-white ceiling design, it breathes freshness into your living room. Think spa-vibes but in a social space.
Great for: Smaller rooms or homes with lots of sunlight
Decor pairing: Soft cotton fabrics, indoor plants, and rattan furniture
🔥 6. Charcoal Grey & Rose Gold: Industrial Chic
For those who like it edgy but stylish, charcoal grey with rose gold accents is where metal meets mood. The grey is grounding while rose gold adds that perfect pop of glam.
Designed for: Loft-style apartments or creative studio homes
Decor idea: Edison bulbs, metal-framed furniture, and abstract art complete the look
🌿 7. Olive Green & Cream: Nature’s Luxe Palette
Olive green offers calm and depth, while cream brightens things up without being stark. This combo whispers elegance and hugs the room with a sense of warmth.
Perfect for: Nature-inspired or earthy-toned interiors
Pro tip: Use natural textures like cane, stone, and live plants to complement the theme
🦋 8. Sky Blue & Cloud White: Open, Airy & Serene
Want your living room to feel sky-high and open? This pair mimics daylight and invites a peaceful mood. It's especially effective in homes where you want to blur the boundary between indoor and outdoor.
Best suited to: Coastal homes or rooms with large windows
Decorator’s dream: Add sheer drapes and ocean-toned accents for a beachy feel
💎 9. Mocha Brown & Champagne Gold: Understated Luxury
Here’s a combination that’s all about refined richness. The deepness of mocha is perfectly offset by the subtle shimmer of champagne gold detailing.
Stunning for: Formal living rooms or statement spaces
Top tip: Add layered textures in silk, suede, or velvet for full effect
💡 Final Thoughts
False ceiling colors are more than just design choices—they're storytelling tools. They can make a space feel taller, warmer, brighter, or more relaxed, all depending on how you mix and match.
By choosing the right combination, you're not just decorating a ceiling—you’re curating a vibe. So whether you go serene with sky blues or daring with charcoal greys, your ceiling can be the crowning glory of your living room’s personality.
And if you're ready to bring these ideas to life, you can also check false ceiling contractors in Hyderabad who can help turn your vision into a beautifully lit reality. Because yes—ceilings deserve attention too!
Author: Sarath
#false ceiling#false ceiling contractors in hyderabad#false ceiling work in hyderabad#false ceiling services in hyderabad#vdf flooring#vdf engineers
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Enhance Your Space with VDF and Tremix Flooring in Hyderabad
In the bustling city of Hyderabad, where innovation meets tradition, the need for durable and visually appealing flooring solutions is ever-present. Whether for residential, commercial, or industrial spaces, VDF Flooring in Hyderabad offers reliable options to elevate your environment. Let's delve into what makes these flooring choices stand out and why they are gaining popularity in Hyderabad.
Understanding VDF Flooring
VDF Flooring, also known as Vacuum Dewatered Flooring, is a high-quality concrete flooring solution widely used in commercial and industrial settings. This method involves laying concrete mix on the surface, which is then compacted and dewatered using vacuum pumps. The result is a dense, smooth, and durable floor that offers excellent strength and abrasion resistance.
Benefits of VDF Flooring
• Strength and Durability: VDF Flooring is known for its exceptional strength, making it suitable for heavy traffic areas such as warehouses, factories, and parking lots.
• Smooth Finish: The dewatering process ensures a smooth and level surface, enhancing the aesthetics of the space while facilitating easy maintenance.
• Quick Installation: Compared to traditional flooring methods, VDF Flooring can be installed quickly and efficiently, minimizing downtime and disruptions.
• Longevity: With proper maintenance, VDF Flooring can last for decades, offering a cost-effective flooring solution in the long run.
Exploring Tremix Flooring
Tremix Flooring is another popular choice for high-traffic areas, Tremix Flooring in Hyderabad offering durability, strength, and versatility. This method involves laying concrete mix on the surface and then vibrating it using a specialized machine to achieve compaction and uniformity. The surface is then finished with a smooth or textured topping as per the client's requirements.
Advantages of Tremix Flooring
• Uniform Thickness: Tremix Flooring ensures uniform thickness across the entire surface, eliminating unevenness and enhancing the structural integrity of the floor.
• Crack Resistance: The vibratory compaction process reduces the likelihood of cracks and shrinkage, resulting in a seamless and long-lasting floor.
• Customization Options: Tremix Flooring allows for customization in terms of surface finish, texture, and color, enabling clients to achieve their desired aesthetic goals.
• Low Maintenance: With its durable and resilient nature, Tremix Flooring requires minimal maintenance, making it an ideal choice for busy commercial and industrial environments.
Choosing the Right Flooring Solution
Both VDF and Tremix Flooring offer unique advantages, and the choice between them depends on various factors such as the intended use, budget, and aesthetic preferences. When selecting the right flooring solution for your project in Hyderabad, consider the following:
1. Usage and Traffic: Assess the level of foot or vehicle traffic the floor will endure to determine the appropriate strength and durability required.
2. Budget Constraints: Evaluate your budget and weigh the cost-effectiveness of each flooring option, taking into account long-term maintenance and durability.
3. Aesthetic Preferences: Consider the desired look and feel of the space, including color, texture, and finish options available with each flooring method.
4. Consultation with Experts: Seek advice from experienced flooring engineers or contractors who can assess your needs and recommend the most suitable solution.
Conclusion
Investing in quality flooring is essential for creating safe, functional, and visually appealing spaces in Hyderabad. Whether you opt for VDF Flooring or Tremix Flooring, you can rest assured that you're choosing durable, reliable, and cost-effective solutions that meet the demands of modern living and working environments. So, elevate your space with confidence, knowing that you've chosen the best flooring option for your needs.
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A membrane made from threads of a polymer commonly used in vascular sutures can be loaded with therapeutic drugs and implanted in the body, where mechanical forces activate the polymer's electric potential and slowly release the drugs.
The novel system, developed by a group led by bioengineers at UC Riverside and published in ACS Applied Bio Materials, overcomes the biggest limitations of conventional drug administration and some controlled release methods, and could improve treatment of cancer and other chronic diseases.
The drawbacks of conventional drug administration include repeated administration, nonspecific biodistribution in the body's systems, the long-term unsustainability of drug molecules, and high cytotoxicity, posing a challenge for the efficient treatment of chronic diseases that require varying drug dosages over time for optimal therapeutic efficacy. Most controlled release methods encapsulate drug particles in biodegradable, bubble-like containers that dissolve over time to release the drug, making it difficult to deliver drugs on a schedule. Others involve a battery-powered device that is not biocompatible.
Jin Nam, an associate professor of bioengineering in UC Riverside's Marlan and Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering, runs a lab that works with biocompatible polymers to build frameworks known as scaffolds that help stem cells repair tissues and organs. One of these polymers, poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluro-ethylene), or P(VDF-TrFE), can produce an electrical charge under mechanical stress. Nam realized this property, known as piezoelectricity, made the polymer a potentially viable candidate for a drug release system.
Read more.
#Materials Science#Science#Medical technology#Polymers#Piezoelectricity#Electrospinning#Membranes#UC Riverside
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New Post has been published on https://coinprojects.net/what-is-solana-and-how-does-it-work/
What is Solana, and how does it work?

What is Solana?
Solana is a highly functional open source project that implements a new, permissionless and high-speed layer-1 blockchain.
Created in 2017 by Anatoly Yakovenko, a former executive at Qualcomm, Solana aims to scale throughput beyond what is typically achieved by popular blockchains while keeping costs low. Solana implements an innovative hybrid consensus model that combines a unique proof-of-history (PoH) algorithm with the lightning-fast synchronization engine, which is a version of proof-of-stake (PoS). Because of this, the Solana network can theoretically process over 710,000 transactions per second (TPS) without any scaling solutions needed.
Solana’s third-generation blockchain architecture is designed to facilitate smart contracts and decentralized application (DApp) creation. The project supports an array of decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms as well as nonfungible token (NFT) marketplaces.
Solana blockchain was rolled out during the 2017 initial coin offering (ICO) boom. The project’s internal testnet was released in 2018, followed by multiple testnet phases leading to the eventual official launch of the main network in 2020.
What makes Solana unique?
Solana’s ambitious design aims to solve the blockchain trilemma, a concept proposed by Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin, in its unique way. This trilemma describes a set of three major challenges that developers face when building blockchains: decentralization, security and scalability.
It is widely believed that blockchains are built in such a way that forces developers to sacrifice one of the aspects in favor of the other two, as they can only provide two of the three benefits at any given time.
The Solana blockchain platform has proposed a hybrid consensus mechanism that compromises on decentralization to maximize speed. The innovative combination of PoS and PoH makes Solana a unique project in the blockchain industry.
Generally, blockchains have greater scalability, depending on the number of transactions per second they can support, the more and better they scale. In decentralized blockchains, however, time discrepancies and higher throughput slow them down, meaning that more nodes verifying transactions and timestamps take more time.
In a nutshell, Solana’s design solves this problem by having one leader node chosen based on the PoS mechanism that sequences messages between nodes. Thus, the Solana network benefits, reducing workload that results in increased throughput even without a centralized and exact time source.
Also, Solana creates a chain of transactions by hashing the output of one transaction and using it as the input of the next transaction. This history of transactions gives a name to Solana’s main consensus mechanism: PoH, a concept that allows for greater scalability of the protocol which, in turn, boosts usability.
How does Solana work?
The core component of the Solana protocol is proof-of-history, a sequence of computations that provides a digital record that confirms that an event has occurred on the network at any point in time. It can be presented as a cryptographic clock that gives a timestamp to every transaction on the network, along with a data structure that can be a simple addition of it.
PoH relies on PoS using the Tower Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT) algorithm, an optimized version of the practical Byzantine fault tolerance (pBFT) protocol. Solana uses it to reach a consensus. The Tower BFT keeps the network secure and running and acts as an additional tool to validate transactions.
Moreover, PoH can be considered as a high-frequency Verifiable Delay Function (VDF), a triple function (setup, evaluation, verification) to produce unique and reliable output. VDF maintains order in the network by proving that block producers have waited enough time for the network to move forward.
Solana uses a 256-bit secure hash algorithm (SHA-256), a set of proprietary cryptographic functions that output a 256-bit value. The network periodically samples the number and SHA-256 hashes, providing real-time data according to the set of hashes included on central processing units.
Solana validators can use this sequence of hashes to record a specific piece of data that was created prior to the generation of a specific hash index. The timestamp for transactions is created after this particular piece of data is inserted. To achieve claimed huge numbers of TPS and block creation time, all nodes on the network must have cryptographic clocks to keep track of events rather than waiting for other validators to verify transactions.
The Solana (SOL) token
Solana’s cryptocurrency is SOL. It is Solana’s native and utility token that provides a means of transferring value as well as blockchain security through staking. SOL was launched in March 2020 and has strived to become one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies entering the space by means of total market capitalization.
SOL token operation scheme is similar to that used in the Ethereum blockchain. Even though they function similarly, Solana token holders stake the token in order to validate transactions through the PoS consensus mechanism. Furthermore, the Solana token is used to receive rewards and pay transaction fees while also SOL enabling users to participate in governance.
Related: Proof-of-stake vs. proof-of-work: Differences explained
Answering the question of how many Solana coins are there, there will be more than 500 million tokens released in circulation with the current total supply of Solana exceeding 511 million tokens — Solana’s circulating supply is just over half that. Around 60% of SOL tokens are controlled by Solana’s founders and the Solana Foundation, with only 38% reserved for the community.
If you would like to know where to buy Solana, SOL tokens can be purchased on most exchanges. The top cryptocurrency exchanges for trading in Solana are Binance, Coinbase, KuCoin, Huobi, FTX and others.
Solana vs. Ethereum
Solana has received a lot of accolades for its speed and performance and has even been cited as a legitimate competitor of crypto industry leaders such as Ethereum.
So, how is Solana different from Ethereum and can it be considered as a potential Ethereum killer?
In terms of processing speed, Solana is able to challenge the dominant smart contract platform, as it is supposedly capable of reaching a speed of over 50,000 TPS. Solana uses different consensus algorithms to avoid slow transaction confirmation. This feature makes Solana one of the fastest blockchains in the industry to compete with other industries outside of the crypto space.
Compared to this enormous number, the current low scalable Ethereum proof-of-work model can only handle 15 TPS. Thus, Solana is thousands of times faster than Ethereum. Another Solana advantage is the network’s extreme cost-effectiveness, as the project implements new tokenomics for lower fees.
Related: What is Web 3.0: A beginner’s guide to the decentralized internet of the future
Also, it is worth noting that Solana’s blockchain, while implementing one of the variations of PoS, is more eco-friendly and sustainable. This is in contrast with Ethereum, whose current PoW model requires the use of tremendous computational power.
However, everyone in the crypto community is looking forward to the Ethereum upgrade to PoS. A new kind of Ethereum, which is being diligently developed, will consist of an execution layer (previously known as Ethereum 1.0) and a consensus layer (previously Ethereum 2.0). It could greatly increase throughput, improve scalability, lower transaction fees and stop unsustainable power consumption.
The downsides of Solana
If you’re still wondering if Solana is a good investment and whether you should buy it, the answer is still up to you. Despite the visible advantages, Solana has its demerits like any existing crypto project.
First and foremost, although the Solana blockchain can compete with high-end blockchain projects, it is still vulnerable to centralization, as there are not many blockchain validators. Anyone on the network can become a Solana validator but doing so is still difficult because it requires a lot of computing resources.
Along with this, the protocol still labels itself as a beta version of the mainnet, which does not negate the possible presence of bugs and errors.
Despite these issues, Solana is still one of the biggest ecosystems in the crypto industry and seems to be on the right growth path.
Source link By Cointelegraph By Sasha Shilina
#Altcoin #Binance #Bitcoin #BlockChain #BlockchainNews #BNB #Crypto #CryptoExchange #Huobi #Kucoin
#Altcoin#Binance#Bitcoin#BlockChain#BlockchainNews#BNB#crypto#CryptoExchange#huobi#Kucoin#Blockchain#CryptoPress
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Milling machines are the tools used by companies to produce high quality products in less time
These machines are available in two forms: horizontal and vertical. Turret machines are suitable for those who need small sized machines, as it can be difficult to operate the large sized units. Check out the complexity and amount of the work, your budget and number of axis variants needed and choose the right machine. One of the examples of vertical mill is turret milling machine. Bed mill is the right type of vertical milling machine if you need large sized machine. Some other factors you need to take into consideration while buying a machine are power, speed and the accessories offered with these.
Do you find it difficult to work due to a lot of noise made in cutting, threading and heavy roughing?Get chatter-free cutting with superior vibration absorption by opting for a top quality vertical turning lathe.Based on the required depth of cutting, you can raise or lower down the quill it has. Large pottery companies also use turning lathe, as it can easily create an object with symmetry about an axis of rotation.
Milling machines are the tools used by companies to produce high quality products in less time. You can use this machine for various purposes like metal working, wood tuning and glass working. This machine is a perfect choice for those needed to create wide array of shapes. This machine is available in various models including VDL 500 to VDL 800, VDL 1000 to VDL 4000A and VDF series. There are various types of milling machines used by engineers to give metal a desired shape with complete accuracy. Whether you buy Vertical Turning Lathe or Vertical Machining Center, just make sure you buy it from Injection Mold a reliable company like Macht Exim. Position of spindle or cutting unit defines the form of the machine.
There are various factors you need to keep in mind while buying a milling machine for you. By choosing a right model you can get increased output in better quality and that too at reduced cost. In this machine the spindle is positioned vertically.
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UNStudio to revamp conference centre for Brainport technology region
Dutch architecture office UNStudio is renovating and expanding the Elysion Congress Centre in Eindhoven by adding a cantilevered auditorium and vertical gardens.
Along with expanding the original floorplan, the practice will add a wood-and-steel auditorium with a capacity of 1,500 as well as a foyer and catering spaces to the congress centre in Eindhoven's technology region, Brainport.
The auditorium will cantilever over the existing buildings, so the original hotel and conference facilities can remain in operation.
UNStudio will add a cantilevering auditorium
UNStudio said the foyer would feature a wooden staircase and "vertical green gardens". The practice plans to integrate technological innovations into the project to improve the centre's sustainability.
"The facade of the congress centre is principally made from wood and glass," explained UNStudio.
"The ambition is to couple this with nitrogen-dioxide absorbing surfaces – an innovative new nano-technology that can capture pollutants from its surroundings."
The studio is working on a research project into applying nanotechnologies to construction materials such as concrete and paint.
Nitrogen dioxide is released by cars and the burning of fossil fuels, and can be harmful to human health.
In addition, UNStudio will look at greener transport options as part of the Elysion Congress Centre expansion, adding more electric car charging ports along with bicycle parking space.
The new auditorium will be made from wood and steel
UNStudio will also build a tower with hotel and leisure facilities to host international guests.
The practice won a competition to redesign the conference centre as part of a project to increase the Brainport region's international appeal.
"Brainport Eindhoven is currently one of the leading innovative technology regions in Europe," said UNStudio.
"To enhance its international positioning as an inspiring region of technology, design and knowledge, the Dutch city of Eindhoven has the ambition to realise a clearly identifiable, new, state of the art congress and conference centre."
The project, which is expected to complete in 2025, is part of a €7 million programme to invest in Brainport.
Dutch multinational company Philips was founded in Eindhoven, and the city's Brainport region attracts technology companies and startups such as Lightyear, which makes road-legal solar-powered cars, and chip developers EFFECT Photonics.
UNStudio is already involved in developing the Brainport Smart District in Helmond, a city in the same region that is 10 minutes from Eindhoven by train.
In a lecture screened exclusively for Dezeen's VDF x reSITE collaboration, UNStudio associate director Marianthi Tatari said the development would "become the smartest neighbourhood in the world".
Visualisations are by Flying Architecture.
Project credits:
Operator: Van der Valk: operator Architect: UNStudio, Quant architecture UNStudio design team: Ben van Berkel, Gerard Loozekoot with Erwin Horstmanshof, Pietro Scarpa and Rebekah Tien, Yangkenan Li Theatre technology and acoustics: PBTA Structural engineer: Adviesbureau Tielemans MEP and BREEAM: DVP Smart Concepts: Cost consultancy: ISIS Bouwadvies D&B contractor and BREEAM: Huybregts Relou Project management and tender management: DVP
The post UNStudio to revamp conference centre for Brainport technology region appeared first on Dezeen.
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Best False Ceiling Materials for Hot Climates in South India

Let’s be honest—South India is stunning, but it does get hot. Between the blazing summers, humidity, and those long sunny afternoons, keeping indoor spaces cool becomes an art form. And while ceiling fans and air conditioners do their job, there’s an unsung hero that can make a big difference—the false ceiling.
But not just any false ceiling! When choosing materials for hot climates, it’s all about insulation, heat resistance, and keeping things cool (literally and style-wise). So let’s dive into the best false ceiling materials for homes in South India that know how to beat the heat—with a little flair, of course!
🌿 1. Gypsum Board: The Cool Classic
Gypsum is like that one reliable friend who never lets you down. It’s lightweight, budget-friendly, and—most importantly—excellent for thermal insulation.
Why it works well in hot climates:
Gypsum is naturally heat-resistant
It maintains room temperature by reducing direct heat transfer
It also absorbs excess moisture, which is a bonus during humid days
Extra perk: It’s super easy to cut and mold into stylish shapes, so you don’t have to sacrifice aesthetics for function.
🍃 2. POP (Plaster of Paris): The Sculptor’s Favorite
Plaster of Paris is perfect if you’re looking to add curves, layers, or dramatic lighting effects to your ceiling without making the room feel stuffy.
Why it suits South Indian homes:
POP is non-combustible and holds up well in heat
It allows for intricate designs without adding weight
When combined with LED lighting, it adds glow without extra heat
Pro tip: Use white or pastel shades for the POP finish to enhance light reflection and reduce heat absorption.
🌬️ 3. PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride): The Moisture Boss
PVC is the MVP in coastal or humid regions like Kerala or coastal Tamil Nadu. It doesn’t warp, crack, or absorb moisture—plus, it has excellent insulation properties.
Hot climate benefits:
Doesn’t retain heat like metal or wood
Reflects light, keeping the room brighter and cooler
Resistant to mold and mildew (very useful when humidity strikes)
Style alert: PVC panels now come in wood-look and marble-look finishes—chic without the sweat!
🪵 4. Thermocol (Expanded Polystyrene): Feather-Light & Functional
Yes, it sounds old school, but modern Thermocol boards have come a long way. They’re lightweight, easy to install, and surprisingly great at insulation.
Heat-busting highlights:
Acts as an excellent thermal insulator
Keeps room temperature down by reducing direct exposure
Budget-friendly and quick to install
Heads-up: It’s not the most durable material in the long term, but works wonderfully as a secondary ceiling layer for insulation.
🌾 5. Wood Wool Panels: Eco-Friendly and Effective
Wood wool panels are made by combining wood fibers with cement. These are breathable, absorb heat gradually, and help regulate indoor temperature.
Why they’re summer saviors:
Naturally absorb and dissipate heat slowly
Provide good acoustic insulation too (great for noisy neighborhoods)
Sustainable and stylish—what’s not to love?
Design bonus: Pair them with cane furniture or exposed brick for an earthy, rustic vibe.
💡 Choosing the Right Finish: Matte Over Gloss
Now here’s a lesser-known tip—finishes matter. Glossy surfaces tend to reflect light and heat, which sounds good but can actually bounce heat around the room. Instead, opt for matte finishes—they absorb less glare and help your living space feel more relaxed and grounded.
🧊 Insulation Hacks for Added Comfort
If you really want to go the extra mile, consider adding a layer of insulation above your false ceiling. Materials like mineral wool or glass wool are lightweight and boost your false ceiling’s ability to keep temperatures cool during those blazing afternoons.
Pair this with energy-efficient LED lighting and you’ve got a living room that stays stylish and chill all summer long.
🌟 Final Thoughts
In a region where the mercury loves climbing, your false ceiling can do more than just look pretty—it can be your secret to a cooler, comfier, and more energy-efficient home. Whether you go with budget-savvy Thermocol, classic gypsum, or moisture-proof PVC, the key is picking a material that suits your environment and lifestyle.
And if all this sounds exciting but a bit overwhelming, you can also check false ceiling contractors in Hyderabad to get expert help on choosing the right material, design, and finish for your home.
Stay cool—literally and decoratively! 😎
Author: Sarath
#false ceiling#false ceiling contractors in hyderabad#false ceiling work in hyderabad#false ceiling services in hyderabad#vdf flooring#vdf engineers
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Another day, another mainnet launch. Or at least, that’s sometimes how it can feel in the blockchain space, as every project seems to be scrambling to be the latest and greatest in balancing the trade-offs between speed, scalability and security. Unfortunately, many of them end up languishing with little development activity and precious few users.
Therefore, when a new project comes along that appears to be stirring up genuine excitement among established players and investors in the space, it’s worth taking a second look. Despite being new on the scene and still in the process of developing its testnet, Solana is one such project.
It’s currently associated with names such as Bison Trails and Chainlink, having previously garnered $20 million in investment from high-profile funds such as 500 Startups and Multichain Capital. It also recently sold out of all its tokens in a Dutch auction, even despite the mid-March market carnage. So, what’s going on with Solana to generate such significant interest from the industry?
The background
Back in 2017, CEO Anatoly Yakovenko founded Solana with the ambitious goal of creating a blockchain platform that could scale for global adoption. Yakovenko had previously led the team developing operating systems at telecommunications manufacturer Qualcomm, where as he told Cointelegraph: “I was always a performance geek. I spent 12 years at Qualcomm trying to squeeze out every last bit of performance from hardware.” He also engineered a distributed operating system at Mesosphere and worked on compression at Dropbox.
Upon founding Solana, he onboarded a team of similarly experienced professionals. The company’s chief technology officer and principal architect, Greg Fitzgerald, had also previously worked at Qualcomm across the full spectrum of embedded systems. Its chief operating officer, Raj Gokal, brought experience in product management and finance from his time as a venture investor at General Catalyst and from managing products at his own startup, Sano, and at Omada Health. The chief scientist, Eric Williams, is a particle physicist who studied at Berkeley and gained his Ph.D. while at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, commonly referred to as CERN, hunting for the Higgs boson particle.
The Solana team has been able to attract some impressive investors and partners on its road to mainnet launch. Multichain Capital led a $20 million funding round that concluded in July 2019. More recently, the company ran a Dutch auction through Coinlist for the sale of 8 million Sol tokens, raising a further $1.76 million from 91 companies. In total, Solana has sold 186 million tokens and raised $25.6 million from token sales.
Solana has also attracted several companies to participate in Tour de Sol, its incentivized testnet. The most high-profile of these is Bison Trails, which is also part of the Libra Association. Bison Trails serves as a validator node on the Solana testnet but has also integrated support for Solana to its infrastructure-as-a-service offering.
The issues at hand
Like many other blockchain projects, the Solana team has the scalability challenge in mind while developing the platform. However, Solana aims to achieve scalability without compromising on security or decentralization. Both have been an issue with other blockchains, particularly those using delegated proof-of-stake, which has proven itself prone to manipulation.
Solana also aims to solve another problem inherent in blockchain consensus: agreement on time. In any ledger, the time that the entry is made is critical, as it forms the backbone of the ledger’s chronology. If a ledger is held on a centralized server, the system clock simply timestamps entries as they’re recorded. However, in a decentralized system, all nodes are working to their own clocks. Therefore, time is something that the network nodes must agree on as much as the nature of the transaction itself.
Furthermore, in Bitcoin and other proof-of-work blockchains, the amount of time a miner takes to solve a cryptographic nonce is what governs the difficulty level. So, in the context of a blockchain, recording the passage of time is key. Different blockchains solve this challenge in different ways. However, achieving agreement on time ends up consuming a heavy load in messaging between network nodes.
For example, Hedera Hashgraph, a platform with similar goals to Solana, takes a timestamp from a supermajority of nodes on the network and calculates the median. This has allowed the Hashgraph network to quickly overtake Ethereum in transaction numbers. Christian Hasker, the chief marketing officer of Hedera Hashgraph, told Cointelegraph:
“Since open access of our platform in September 2019 (roughly 6 months), Hedera has seen over 80 million transactions conducted on our network. In comparison, it took Ethereum a little over two and a half years to hit that same milestone.”
Proof-of-history
To overcome the challenge of recording time, Solana uses a unique protocol called proof-of-history, otherwise known as PoH, that encodes the passage of time into the blockchain data itself without requiring specific inputs or messaging between network nodes. It uses a feature called a verifiable delay function, or VDF, which takes a known amount of time to compute and is limited to operating on a single central processing unit core, meaning processing can’t be expedited by using multiple processors.
The Solana protocol encodes the results of each VDF into the block of its successor. In doing so, it provides an immutable log of the passage of time before consensus even takes place. By removing the load of time-based messaging, Solana claims to achieve transaction speeds of nearly 50,000 per second.
Yakovenko concisely explained the importance of reaching consensus regarding time within a blockchain environment, telling Cointelegraph: “Because we had PoH, we were able to make strong assumptions about time and reduce a lot of the complexity in the implementation.” Regarding the role of VDFs in future blockchain implementations, Yakovenko elaborated on the complexity of implementing them:
“VDFs are still fairly new, and their proposed implementations require a lot of verification hardware like ours, or new ASICS. […] Since our scaling approach depends on modern systems, our VDF works exceptionally well for our network. With our current infrastructure, we’ve been able to leapfrog the current state of the art and deliver throughput of 50,000 transactions per second with 400ms block times on the mainnet today.”
Tower Byzantine fault tolerance and proof-of-stake
Solana uses a variation on the practical Byzantine fault tolerance model used by Hyperledger Fabric and others called tower Byzantine fault tolerance. This consensus model is designed to incentivize network participants to act in the interests of the network at all times. Nodes stake their tokens on the validity of the most recent proof-of-history hash in a similar way to how they’d stake tokens on block validity in other blockchains.
Similar to pBFT, the more hashes that are confirmed after any given vote, the longer it will take to roll back that vote. Validators cannot vote for a fork once they’ve voted on a particular hash without being penalized. Solana also uses proof-of-stake to determine who participates in the network as a validator. Token holders who don’t have the hardware to join as a validator can delegate a validator to participate in block production.
To summarize, proof-of-history acts as a clock for the network, whereas tBFT incentivizes and penalizes validators to act in the network’s interests. PoS enables token holders to act as delegators, deciding who serves as a validator.
Taking on scalability
The Solana team didn’t stop at inventing an entirely new consensus method to overcome the scalability challenge, and as Yakovenko told Cointelegraph, proof-of-history, tBFT and PoS are just for consensus. He added: “We had to innovate 8 more times to continue unblocking other scaling problems ranging from parallel transaction processing to real-time block streaming across the globe.”
Eight other innovations supposedly all play a role in speeding up processing time or generally making Solana run more efficiently. For example, Sealevel is a feature that enables the processing of multiple smart contracts in parallel. Turbine works in a way that’s comparable to BitTorrent, breaking data up into smaller packets to enable scalability between nodes, allowing Solana to support thousands of nodes running concurrently.
Developers needed
Recently, Solana teamed up with oracle provider Chainlink to build a superfast oracle that updates every 400 milliseconds. Yakovenko told Cointelegraph that the move was in response to recent market failures due to network congestion. He expanded on the company’s plans to involve more developers and partners over time, telling Cointelegraph:
“We have a great accelerator program that has over 450 applicants already, so developers are going out of their way to find us. They want to build consumer-grade apps but that simply isn’t possible with the infrastructure at their disposal today. Given the pent up demand to build, we’re hopeful that developers will come to check out Solana and that a sizable percentage of those that do will migrate their dapps.”
Hasker said that Hedera Hashgraph similarly sees that there’s an unmet demand from developers, stating:
“In addition to addressing the scalability and security required for applications, dApp developers prize ease-of-use and cost as major drivers of adoption. In addition, dApps want to know that the platform is stable and that it won’t fork so they don’t have to maintain multiple code bases. Finally, they want reassurance that the platform will be around for the long term, and that it’s governed by a trusted council that understands how business runs, and what businesses need.”
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An (extensive) summary of the first phase of the beacon chain rollout.
Recently, I read yet another conflicting report about the proof-of-stake (PoS) mechanism to be adopted in Ethereum 2.0, and I about lost my mind. I thought I understood what was coming, but with every new Medium post, tweet, and news article I read my certainty diminishes. I figure, if I spend roughly 50 hours a week reading and writing about Ethereum and I don't know, odds are that a lot of you don't either.
I've heard that Eth2.0 will bring "pure proof of stake." I've read that Casper FFG is the PoS mechanism to be implemented in Serenity but that Vlad Zamfir's Casper CBC is the real pure proof of stake. I've read that Casper FFG is only a finality gadget to be used every 50 blocks, or every 100 blocks, over a PoW system for block finality.
So what's actually going on?
There are existing, accurate articles, but amid the confusion, correctness seems to need signal boosting. (If you're looking for a solid software engineer-centered analysis focusing more heavily on the rollout process, I'd check out James Prestwich's article on Hacker Noon.) This article is focused on disambiguating between what has been considered for Ethereum 2.0, what is currently planned, and the relationship between Casper CBC, Casper FFG, the fork-choice rule, proof of stake, the beacon chain, and Ethereum 2.0.
A Refresher Course: Terms You Need to Know to Understand This Article
Ethereum 2.0: The future, scalable version of the network (aka ETH2.0 aka Serenity aka Shasper aka Ethereum with sharding and Casper).
Beacon chain: Ethereum is moving from proof of work to proof of stake. This has always been in the stars, but the logistics and roadmap have evolved over time. Once upon a time, it was imagined that proof of stake would be rolled out on the existing chain. Since June 2018, though, the plan has been to roll out proof of stake on a "beacon chain" to allow easier integration of PoS and sharding research and rollout. The beacon chain will be a proof-of-stake chain, eventually with sharding, that is rooted to the existing proof-of-work chain.
Casper: Ethereum's version of proof of stake, which addresses the "nothing at stake" problem (the basics of proof of stake and Casper research are beyond the scope of this article, but an easy explainer is available here).
Casper CBC and Casper FFG: Two competing areas of Casper research.
Finality: Finality is an extra layer of security against Sybil attacks. Once blocks are finalized, they cannot be reverted, even in the case of a 51 percent attack against the network.
Fork-choice rule: The mechanism by which miners (PoW)/validators (PoS) decide which chain is the canonical chain.
First, Let's Disambiguate the Caspers
Notes on Casper CBC
CBC stands for "correct-by-construction" and is not unique to Casper, Ethereum, or blockchain technology. Rather, CBC is an approach to software, hardware, and firmware engineering.
Casper CBC, an area of research pioneered by Vlad Zamfir, is often described as the competing finality gadget, or PoS system, to FFG (see below). Strictly speaking, Casper CBC is neither of those things. Casper CBC is a family of consensus protocols and a technique for creating them.
Some version of Casper CBC is, at some point, expected to replace the proof-of-stake system slated for the initial ETH2.0 implementation, but CBC research remains more abstract and idealistic than practical.
Buterin has suggested that some aspects of Casper CBC research could be implemented in the beacon chain, but for now, CBC is absent from the beacon chain spec.
What Is the Actual Deal with Casper FFG?
Casper FFG is in fact slated for Eth2.0.
In an August tweet storm, Buterin stated that FFG is a finality overlay that could be used over a proof-of-work or proof-of stake-protocol (though I wouldn't blame you if that clarification got lost among the 74 other tweets and the five-or-so months since he posted it). Casper FFG periodically selects the canonical chain, and "finalizes" the blocks in it, such that they become impossible to revert.
The Casper FFG white paper describes Casper as a proof-of-stake finality system that overlays an existing block-proposing mechanism.
The white paper states that FFG is a "partial consensus mechanism combining proof of stake algorithm research and Byzantine fault tolerant consensus theory," but it is just that: a part of a bigger PoS mechanism. Casper FFG does not specify how blocks are proposed or by whom, how validators choose which competing chain to build on, how blocks are validated, or who validates them. All of those specifications are also required for building network consensus to decide upon a canonical chain.
Casper FFG is a consensus mechanism in that it is the means by which the network comes to consensus about which blocks are to be finalized, now and forever. In that sense, Casper FFG is the consensus mechanism. However, in the current Ethereum 1.0 chain, as core developer Danny Ryan stated on the Lighthouse Gitter channel, "there is no concept of finality." He elaborated:
"At each subsequent block mined, we have a stronger probabilistic guarantee that the previous blocks will remain in the canonical chain. That is why exchanges and other users rely on "confirmations" of pow chains to a certain block depth, we all just assume the blocks won't revert at some point and that we can essentially count it as finalized. As seen with 51% attacks, this type of probabilistic finality breaks down when you have a >50% (by hash power) coordinated attack. The cool thing in a pos chain with finality is that the coordinate attack cannot revert past the last finalized block. Also, in certain types of attacks, we can hold people accountable for their bad deeds and slash them [edited for grammatical consistency; emphasis my own]."
Proof of Stake in Ethereum 2.0 – and the Rest of the Consensus Mechanism
The beacon chain will be a brand new, "pure" proof-of-stake chain, right from the start (though sharding will come later). It is not a proof of work/proof of stake hybrid as is sometimes claimed, though it would be understandable to think this, as the white paper states that the first FFG implementation will be for PoW block finality. However, the only thing proof of work about the beacon chain is that it is rooted to the existing Ethereum 1.0 chain. This is evidenced in the beacon chain spec.
The caveat to the beacon chain's PoS purity is that the beacon chain will be developed in phases, and while it will always be proof-of-stake, during the first two phases, data transfers will not be possible. There will be no virtual machine yet, and no EDCCs (aka smart contracts). Until eWasm is introduced in Phase 2 (starts at Phase 0), the PoW chain will still be necessary to process data transactions. In other words, the first phases of the beacon chain will only serve to establish the system and will be essentially useless as far as end users go. It will still be 100 percent proof of stake, though.
A Short Beacon Chain Proof-of-Stake Rundown
The details of how proof of stake is to work on the beacon chain are complicated and layered, but I'll explain in the most basic terms possible. As I stated above, there must be (and are) mechanisms for determining how blocks are proposed, who proposes them, who validates the proposer's claim, how those validators are chosen, and how proposers know which blocks to build upon.
Block Proposers
Proof of stake, as I will assume you know, uses validators to create blocks, rather than miners. To become a validator, a person or entity deposits 32 Ether into a Casper EDCC (or smart contract). Once this is done, that person gets registered as a validator on the beacon chain and begins accumulating interest as a reward for participation. If that validator then breaks certain rules (called slashing conditions), a portion of their deposit is slashed. If a validator's deposit drops to 16 Ether, they are ejected from the system.
In the beacon chain's specification, there are two classes of validators (though all validators act as both): proposers (those who propose blocks) and attesters (those who vote on block validity).
Validators are selected pseudo-randomly every six seconds using a mechanism called RANDAO+VDF to serve as block proposers. The six-second periods between proposer selections are called slots. During each slot, there is a proposer who proposes a block containing some information about the current and previous block, as well as a signature proving their RANDAO+VDF-defined authority to propose said block.
Block Validity Attesters
Under Ethereum 2.0's proof-of-stake system, attesters (those who vote on block validity) are formed into committees of between 111 to 128 individual attesters. This way, not every attester needs to validate every block, allowing for efficiency and scalability. As part of a committee, the Github specification for phase 0 of the beacon chain specifies that attesters "sign off on a beacon chain block while simultaneously creating a link (crosslink) to a recent shard block on a particular shard chain."
Attesters can continue to vote on blocks (one vote per validator) until a pre-designated number of slots has passed; this pre-defined set of slots is called an epoch, and is currently defined as 6.4 minutes (or 64 slots). At the end of every epoch, validators are shuffled to create new committees.
Fork-Choice Rule
I said before that validators need to have a way to know which blocks to build on. It may happen that there are two chains sprouting from a single block, so there needs to be a mechanism by which the canonical chain is determined. The existing PoW chain has a fork-choice rule (longest chain wins), and the beacon chain (and its shard chains) will have a new one.
The fork-choice rule for the beacon chain is called Latest Message Driven (LMD) Greediest Heaviest Observed SubTree (GHOST), or, thankfully, LMD GHOST for short. In combination with Casper FFG, LMD GHOST both dictates which block head to build on and achieves finality for some previous block. (In the current specification, finality is achieved for the block two epochs prior.)
Through LMD GHOST, the canonical chain is determined by considering the most recent validator-signed block created on a given chain and comparing it against the most recent validator-signed block on a competing chain. Committee attestations give weight to a given block and that block's descendants.
Source
With LMD GHOST, the chain with the heaviest most recent validator-approved block wins. Usually this is also the longest chain, but not necessarily; if two blocks are created that both stem from the same parent block, then the attestations for both blocks give weight to their parent block, ultimately making it possible that a block at a lower slot height has more votes backing it than a block of a higher slot height without many uncles. As Vitalik Buterin pointed out in a December blog post, "The longest chain rule fails to capture this nuance."
Looking Forward
This article provides an overview of much of what is planned for the Ethereum beacon chain, with almost no attention paid to the logistics of sharding or cross-shard communication. This is in large part due to the incomplete state of specifications for the beacon chain rollout beyond phase 0, which does not yet enable sharding. But there's plenty of time to worry about that later – maybe after ConstantiNOPEle has become CANT.STOP.inople.
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Escapist restaurant interiors could be "lasting design legacy of the pandemic" says Roar trends report
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Coronavirus will lead to a rise in escapist restaurant interiors, while physical menus, cash payments and buffets will largely be abandoned, according to a trends report by Dubai-based studio Roar.
Roar, which is led by Pallavi Dean, worked with 170 industry professionals, as well as a focus group of nine experts, to predict ways that the Covid-19 pandemic will change the design of restaurants.
The report aimed to distinguish the short-term impacts from the long-term trends that will be seen in future dining experiences.
Restaurateurs “know there will be fewer people dining out”
Using original and escapist design to create “slightly surreal” and special experiences in restaurants could be “the lasting design legacy of the pandemic,” said one panelist.
“Restaurateurs are not really asking for new spacing – but they are pushing for more originality,” read the report.
“They know there will be fewer people dining out, so they are asking us to challenge the briefs they have given us, and asking for more originality.”
Decadent and escapist interiors like The Ivy Asia in London could become the biggest post-Covid trend
Another panellist predicted that a new form of architectural modernism would arise. The mid-century design style is interpreted by some historians as a response to early 20th century health crises like cholera, typhoid and flu.
It included “the embrace of simple lines, strict geometries and modern materials, and the rejection of ornamentation such as intricately carved wooden furniture that collected dangerous microbes.”
It is possible that the current pandemic could give birth to a similar transformation in building design, predicts the report.
More open kitchens predicted post pandemic
The forecast suggests that we will see more open kitchens after the pandemic, as they promote “transparency”. Surfaces built or clad in anti-microbial materials will also “be a given”.
Open kitchens like the one featured in London’s Silo restaurant by studio Nina+Co are also forecast to become more popular
“Anti-microbial surfaces are not new to the foodservice industry – but some designers observed that they are sometimes value-engineered out of the final build specification for restaurants,” read the report.
“Panelists broadly agreed that this will no longer be the case.”
The three trends that Roar headlined as the most significant in the future of dining were layout and spacing, contactless dining and food concepts.
Restaurant spacing restrictions will be “severe but short-lived”
Pre-Covid it was recommended that restaurants give each seated dinner of 1.4 square metres of space. Amid the pandemic however, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has recommended this be increased to 2.5 square metres per diner for any outlets that remain open.
Roar founder Dean, who is a judge at this year’s Dezeen Awards, thinks layout and spacing restrictions will be “severe but short-lived”.
According to the report, more than a quarter think spacing in restaurants will return to normal later this year, however most predict that social distancing measures won’t be left behind until early 2021.
Physical menus and cash payments to become rare
While many might think the second forecast of contactless dining is “a given”, in reality it is more nuanced, argues the report, as nearly half of survey respondents voted that it is “a passing fad”.
Instead of contactless, Roar uses the term “contact-light”, which would see physical menus and cash payments become rare “if not extinct”, alongside communal condiments like salt and pepper.
Restrooms is where the most change will be seen. Referred to as “a vital battleground in the war against infection”, the report imagines that most bathroom doors will be removed except from private cubicles, and those that remain will be open and closed by foot or via wireless sensors.
“Customers will rarely, if ever, touch a tap”
“Japanese-style robot WCs (replacing a new piece of paper over the seat after each visit) will go from novelties to must-have, although in the interim a packet of Dettol wipes may have to suffice,” reads the report.
“Customers will rarely, if ever, touch a tap, soap dispenser or hand dryer again. All this technology already exists, it’s simply a case of using it.”
In terms of food concepts, the report predicts that buffet and sharing-style forms of eating “cannot survive in their present form.”
Many of these trends, from increased automation and the death of buffets to an increasing demand for escapism concepts, had already begun pre-pandemic, argues the report.
The pandemic will simply accelerate these design trends that were already in play.
Roar’s report was created with the help of nine industry professionals, including founder of Gates Hospitality, Naim Maadad, partner at Flip International, Jamal Wick, founder of The Free Spirit Project, Briar Jacques and founder of Bishop Design, Paul Bishop.
Roar founder Dean – who featured in Dezeen’s VDF launch movie – created the report with the help of eight other industry professionals, including founder of Gates Hospitality, Naim Maadad, partner at Flip International, Jamal Wick and founder of The Free Spirit Project, Briar Jacques.
Other participants include Paul Bishop from Bishop Design, Isabel Pintado from Wilson Associates, Georgy John from Gastronomica, David McAdam from the Middle East Council of Shopping Centers and Samantha Wood from FooDiva.
London studio Bompas & Parr also predicted a series of design and lifestyle trends that will emerge both during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, from virtual spas to an increase in DIY creativity at home.
Once the main impact of the virus is over, the studio predicts a rise in haptic museums, to get people used to touch again, and a continued obsession with hygiene and hand-washing.
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Blockchain’s Need for Speed Brings New Tools to the Crypto Industry
Blockchain’s Need for Speed Brings New Tools to the Crypto Industry:

Another day, another mainnet launch. Or at least, that’s sometimes how it can feel in the blockchain space, as every project seems to be scrambling to be the latest and greatest in balancing the trade-offs between speed, scalability and security. Unfortunately, many of them end up languishing with little development activity and precious few users.
Therefore, when a new project comes along that appears to be stirring up genuine excitement among established players and investors in the space, it’s worth taking a second look. Despite being new on the scene and still in the process of developing its testnet, Solana is one such project.
It’s currently associated with names such as Bison Trails and Chainlink, having previously garnered $20 million in investment from high-profile funds such as 500 Startups and Multichain Capital. It also recently sold out of all its tokens in a Dutch auction, even despite the mid-March market carnage. So, what’s going on with Solana to generate such significant interest from the industry?
The background
Back in 2017, CEO Anatoly Yakovenko founded Solana with the ambitious goal of creating a blockchain platform that could scale for global adoption. Yakovenko had previously led the team developing operating systems at telecommunications manufacturer Qualcomm, where as he told Cointelegraph: “I was always a performance geek. I spent 12 years at Qualcomm trying to squeeze out every last bit of performance from hardware.” He also engineered a distributed operating system at Mesosphere and worked on compression at Dropbox.
Upon founding Solana, he onboarded a team of similarly experienced professionals. The company’s chief technology officer and principal architect, Greg Fitzgerald, had also previously worked at Qualcomm across the full spectrum of embedded systems. Its chief operating officer, Raj Gokal, brought experience in product management and finance from his time as a venture investor at General Catalyst and from managing products at his own startup, Sano, and at Omada Health. The chief scientist, Eric Williams, is a particle physicist who studied at Berkeley and gained his Ph.D. while at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, commonly referred to as CERN, hunting for the Higgs boson particle.
The Solana team has been able to attract some impressive investors and partners on its road to mainnet launch. Multichain Capital led a $20 million funding round that concluded in July 2019. More recently, the company ran a Dutch auction through Coinlist for the sale of 8 million Sol tokens, raising a further $1.76 million from 91 companies. In total, Solana has sold 186 million tokens and raised $25.6 million from token sales.
Solana has also attracted several companies to participate in Tour de Sol, its incentivized testnet. The most high-profile of these is Bison Trails, which is also part of the Libra Association. Bison Trails serves as a validator node on the Solana testnet but has also integrated support for Solana to its infrastructure-as-a-service offering.
The issues at hand
Like many other blockchain projects, the Solana team has the scalability challenge in mind while developing the platform. However, Solana aims to achieve scalability without compromising on security or decentralization. Both have been an issue with other blockchains, particularly those using delegated proof-of-stake, which has proven itself prone to manipulation.
Solana also aims to solve another problem inherent in blockchain consensus: agreement on time. In any ledger, the time that the entry is made is critical, as it forms the backbone of the ledger’s chronology. If a ledger is held on a centralized server, the system clock simply timestamps entries as they’re recorded. However, in a decentralized system, all nodes are working to their own clocks. Therefore, time is something that the network nodes must agree on as much as the nature of the transaction itself.
Furthermore, in Bitcoin and other proof-of-work blockchains, the amount of time a miner takes to solve a cryptographic nonce is what governs the difficulty level. So, in the context of a blockchain, recording the passage of time is key. Different blockchains solve this challenge in different ways. However, achieving agreement on time ends up consuming a heavy load in messaging between network nodes.
For example, Hedera Hashgraph, a platform with similar goals to Solana, takes a timestamp from a supermajority of nodes on the network and calculates the median. This has allowed the Hashgraph network to quickly overtake Ethereum in transaction numbers. Christian Hasker, the chief marketing officer of Hedera Hashgraph, told Cointelegraph:
“Since open access of our platform in September 2019 (roughly 6 months), Hedera has seen over 80 million transactions conducted on our network. In comparison, it took Ethereum a little over two and a half years to hit that same milestone.”
Proof-of-history
To overcome the challenge of recording time, Solana uses a unique protocol called proof-of-history, otherwise known as PoH, that encodes the passage of time into the blockchain data itself without requiring specific inputs or messaging between network nodes. It uses a feature called a verifiable delay function, or VDF, which takes a known amount of time to compute and is limited to operating on a single central processing unit core, meaning processing can’t be expedited by using multiple processors.
The Solana protocol encodes the results of each VDF into the block of its successor. In doing so, it provides an immutable log of the passage of time before consensus even takes place. By removing the load of time-based messaging, Solana claims to achieve transaction speeds of nearly 50,000 per second.
Yakovenko concisely explained the importance of reaching consensus regarding time within a blockchain environment, telling Cointelegraph: “Because we had PoH, we were able to make strong assumptions about time and reduce a lot of the complexity in the implementation.” Regarding the role of VDFs in future blockchain implementations, Yakovenko elaborated on the complexity of implementing them:
“VDFs are still fairly new, and their proposed implementations require a lot of verification hardware like ours, or new ASICS. […] Since our scaling approach depends on modern systems, our VDF works exceptionally well for our network. With our current infrastructure, we’ve been able to leapfrog the current state of the art and deliver throughput of 50,000 transactions per second with 400ms block times on the mainnet today.”
Tower Byzantine fault tolerance and proof-of-stake
Solana uses a variation on the practical Byzantine fault tolerance model used by Hyperledger Fabric and others called tower Byzantine fault tolerance. This consensus model is designed to incentivize network participants to act in the interests of the network at all times. Nodes stake their tokens on the validity of the most recent proof-of-history hash in a similar way to how they’d stake tokens on block validity in other blockchains.
Similar to pBFT, the more hashes that are confirmed after any given vote, the longer it will take to roll back that vote. Validators cannot vote for a fork once they’ve voted on a particular hash without being penalized. Solana also uses proof-of-stake to determine who participates in the network as a validator. Token holders who don’t have the hardware to join as a validator can delegate a validator to participate in block production.
To summarize, proof-of-history acts as a clock for the network, whereas tBFT incentivizes and penalizes validators to act in the network’s interests. PoS enables token holders to act as delegators, deciding who serves as a validator.
Taking on scalability
The Solana team didn’t stop at inventing an entirely new consensus method to overcome the scalability challenge, and as Yakovenko told Cointelegraph, proof-of-history, tBFT and PoS are just for consensus. He added: “We had to innovate 8 more times to continue unblocking other scaling problems ranging from parallel transaction processing to real-time block streaming across the globe.”
Eight other innovations supposedly all play a role in speeding up processing time or generally making Solana run more efficiently. For example, Sealevel is a feature that enables the processing of multiple smart contracts in parallel. Turbine works in a way that’s comparable to BitTorrent, breaking data up into smaller packets to enable scalability between nodes, allowing Solana to support thousands of nodes running concurrently.
Developers needed
Recently, Solana teamed up with oracle provider Chainlink to build a superfast oracle that updates every 400 milliseconds. Yakovenko told Cointelegraph that the move was in response to recent market failures due to network congestion. He expanded on the company’s plans to involve more developers and partners over time, telling Cointelegraph:
“We have a great accelerator program that has over 450 applicants already, so developers are going out of their way to find us. They want to build consumer-grade apps but that simply isn’t possible with the infrastructure at their disposal today. Given the pent up demand to build, we’re hopeful that developers will come to check out Solana and that a sizable percentage of those that do will migrate their dapps.”
Hasker said that Hedera Hashgraph similarly sees that there’s an unmet demand from developers, stating:
“In addition to addressing the scalability and security required for applications, dApp developers prize ease-of-use and cost as major drivers of adoption. In addition, dApps want to know that the platform is stable and that it won’t fork so they don’t have to maintain multiple code bases. Finally, they want reassurance that the platform will be around for the long term, and that it’s governed by a trusted council that understands how business runs, and what businesses need.”
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UNStudio to revamp conference centre for Brainport technology region
Dutch architecture office UNStudio is renovating and expanding the Elysion Congress Centre in Eindhoven by adding a cantilevered auditorium and vertical gardens.
Along with expanding the original floorplan, the practice will add a wood-and-steel auditorium with a capacity of 1,500 as well as a foyer and catering spaces to the congress centre in Eindhoven's technology region, Brainport.
The auditorium will cantilever over the existing buildings, so the original hotel and conference facilities can remain in operation.
UNStudio will add a cantilevering auditorium
UNStudio said the foyer would feature a wooden staircase and "vertical green gardens". The practice plans to integrate technological innovations into the project to improve the centre's sustainability.
"The facade of the congress centre is principally made from wood and glass," explained UNStudio.
"The ambition is to couple this with nitrogen-dioxide absorbing surfaces – an innovative new nano-technology that can capture pollutants from its surroundings."
The studio is working on a research project into applying nanotechnologies to construction materials such as concrete and paint.
Nitrogen dioxide is released by cars and the burning of fossil fuels, and can be harmful to human health.
In addition, UNStudio will look at greener transport options as part of the Elysion Congress Centre expansion, adding more electric car charging ports along with bicycle parking space.
The new auditorium will be made from wood and steel
UNStudio will also build a tower with hotel and leisure facilities to host international guests.
The practice won a competition to redesign the conference centre as part of a project to increase the Brainport region's international appeal.
"Brainport Eindhoven is currently one of the leading innovative technology regions in Europe," said UNStudio.
"To enhance its international positioning as an inspiring region of technology, design and knowledge, the Dutch city of Eindhoven has the ambition to realise a clearly identifiable, new, state of the art congress and conference centre."
The project, which is expected to complete in 2025, is part of a €7 million programme to invest in Brainport.
Dutch multinational company Philips was founded in Eindhoven, and the city's Brainport region attracts technology companies and startups such as Lightyear, which makes road-legal solar-powered cars, and chip developers EFFECT Photonics.
UNStudio is already involved in developing the Brainport Smart District in Helmond, a city in the same region that is 10 minutes from Eindhoven by train.
In a lecture screened exclusively for Dezeen's VDF x reSITE collaboration, UNStudio associate director Marianthi Tatari said the development would "become the smartest neighbourhood in the world".
Visualisations are by Flying Architecture.
Project credits:
Operator: Van der Valk: operator Architect: UNStudio, Quant architecture UNStudio design team: Ben van Berkel, Gerard Loozekoot with Erwin Horstmanshof, Pietro Scarpa and Rebekah Tien, Yangkenan Li Theatre technology and acoustics: PBTA Structural engineer: Adviesbureau Tielemans MEP and BREEAM: DVP Smart Concepts: Cost consultancy: ISIS Bouwadvies D&B contractor and BREEAM: Huybregts Relou Project management and tender management: DVP
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Unsurprisingly, contextual references in relation to the notion of sex as power are rife. Areas I want to explore include the topic of bestiality and zoophiles and what pushes humans to feel the need to switch species to gain sexual fulfilment. Such references include a VICE documentary on the normalisation of donkey sex in Colombian communities to Queen of Russia Catherine the Great who slept with horses via complex rope systems and reportedly died by being squashed by one – a metaphor for being punished by having too much desire perhaps. I will be exploring literary works from the likes of Anais Nin, Georges Bataille, Susan Sontag, Audre Lorde, Simone de Beauvoir, Henry Milller, Emer O’Toole, Michel Foucault and Sylvia Plath I who all address sex and sexuality through different lenses from uncensored fetishism to the eyes of a voyeur and the pulsating desire and indeed rather sexist concept of the nymphomaniac (as it appears in fact a sex-addicted man is simply a man). I also want to explore the power structures within the sex industry itself through predominantly documentaries exploring everything from mega brothels to elite sex parties, dogging to strippers, dominatrixes to super babies to porn stars to sex doll engineers to monster fetishists to a £15,000 gold dildo. One such series is VICE’s Slutever conceptualised and ran by the iconic sex blogger-turned-presenter-turned-author Karley Sciortino. Films such as The Dreamers which almost dares to touch notions of incest and polyamory are also highly supplementary. The notion of female objectification will undoubtedly be prevalent linking to the music-hall scene in Paris and a hopefully satirical book I found in a charity shop titled ‘How to be a Footballer’s Wife’. I also want to explore the use of dress to attract certain types of sexual partner and the use of tattooing as a branded signalling to like-minded prospective mates. The animal kingdom and its intrinsic parallels with our base sexuality will also be a pillar of my research, such as David Attenborough’s behaviour analysis on birds of paradise where females rather ironically choose mates based on the condition and colour of the males' plumage. I also want to use first hand experiences from my friends with their relationships and views on sex and also dive into our first-hand research in countless London ‘safe sex’ queer clubs which champion pushing the boundaries of sexuality and gender – from VDF to Inferno to Dalston Superstore to Metropolis to Slimelight to Nicemover. I also want to explore sex in relation to politics in the most direct aspects – such as the use of honey trapping in the Stasi, using a beautiful women to sleep with a rival governmental official and use pictures taken of the encounter to blackmail him into becoming an informer; a classic example of using a women as a piece of meat for the ‘greater god’, a sacrificial and disposable member of society. I also want to tackle head-on my own issues with sexuality and emotional intimacy and how I don’t want to give someone else that physical or emotional power over me and thus have a multitude and appealingly unfilterable walls, meaning I often push people away and keep them at a distant in order to maintain control and constancy. Modern TV shows are also a really interesting stimulus as they act as a vehicle to change stigmas around aspects of sex and promote much-needed conversation in the youth especially, such as Sex Education and Grown-ish. The eroticism of vampires and the notion of erogenous zones is also something I want to explore further, as tackled in the film ‘The Interview with the Vampire’; the obsession with the female neck, love bites, devouring flesh and the common trope in gothic literature of the passive female victim evidenced in Anne Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho and Dracula among many is a trope challenged in Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber where the female heroine’s mother ultimately kills her sadist husband who curates his wives dead bodies is obsessed with aspect of ‘perfect’ femininity, such as virginity and naivety.
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Sustainable False Ceiling Solutions: Eco-Friendly Materials and Practices

When it comes to designing a home or workspace that’s both stylish and sustainable, the ceiling is often the last place people think to look. But here’s the truth: false ceilings can be a game-changer—not just for aesthetics, but for the planet too. With the right materials and practices, you can create a space that’s cooler, quieter, and kinder to the environment.
Let’s raise the roof (pun intended) on sustainable false ceiling solutions!
Why Go Green with Your Ceiling?
Sustainability isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a lifestyle. Choosing eco-friendly false ceiling options helps reduce your carbon footprint, improves indoor air quality, and supports a healthier planet. Plus, many green materials are naturally beautiful, durable, and surprisingly affordable.
So, what makes a false ceiling “sustainable”? It’s all about the materials used, how they’re sourced, and how they perform over time. Let’s dive into the top eco-friendly picks.
1. Bamboo: The Fast-Growing Favorite
Bamboo is basically the superhero of sustainable building materials. It grows like lightning (some species grow up to 3 feet a day!), requires minimal water, and doesn’t need pesticides. Bamboo ceiling panels are lightweight, strong, and bring a warm, natural vibe to any room.
Bonus: bamboo is naturally resistant to moisture and pests, making it a smart choice for kitchens and bathrooms.
2. Recycled Metal Panels
If you’re into sleek, modern interiors, recycled metal ceiling panels might be your jam. These panels are often made from reclaimed aluminum or steel, which means less mining and less waste. They’re also super durable and reflect light beautifully—hello, energy savings!
And don’t worry, they’re not all cold and industrial. With the right finish, metal ceilings can look downright luxurious.
3. Natural Fiber Tiles
Think jute, hemp, or recycled cotton. These natural fiber tiles are not only biodegradable but also excellent at absorbing sound. That means a quieter, cozier space—perfect for bedrooms, offices, or meditation corners.
They’re also free from harmful chemicals and low in VOCs (volatile organic compounds), which is a fancy way of saying they won’t mess with your indoor air quality.
4. Recycled Plastic Tiles
Plastic waste is a global problem, but recycled plastic ceiling tiles are turning trash into treasure. Made from post-consumer plastics like PET bottles, these tiles are lightweight, moisture-resistant, and surprisingly stylish.
They’re especially great for high-humidity areas or places where durability is key—like basements or utility rooms.
5. FSC-Certified Wood Panels
Wood will always be a classic, but not all wood is created equal. Look for ceiling panels certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). This ensures the wood comes from responsibly managed forests that prioritize biodiversity and local communities.
FSC-certified wood brings warmth and elegance to a space, and when paired with LED lighting, it creates a cozy, energy-efficient atmosphere.
Sustainable Practices to Keep in Mind
Choosing the right materials is just the beginning. Here are a few eco-conscious practices to make your false ceiling project even greener:
Opt for local materials to reduce transportation emissions.
Use low-VOC adhesives and paints to keep indoor air fresh.
Install energy-efficient lighting like LEDs to cut down on electricity use.
Design for longevity—choose styles and materials that won’t go out of fashion in a year.
Final Thoughts
Sustainable false ceiling solutions are more than just a trend—they’re a smart, stylish, and responsible way to build. Whether you’re renovating your home or designing a new space from scratch, going green overhead can make a big difference underfoot (and everywhere in between).
And if you’re ready to bring your eco-friendly ceiling dreams to life, you can also check false ceiling contractors in Hyderabad who specialize in sustainable materials and practices. They’ll help you create a space that’s as kind to the Earth as it is beautiful to look at.
Author: Sarath
#false ceiling#false ceiling contractors in hyderabad#false ceiling work in hyderabad#false ceiling services in hyderabad#vdf flooring#vdf engineers
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#Visual #DataFlex #Product #Review #(VDF) #friday #art #girlmakeup #hiphophead #model #shopping #song #suicidegirl #vegas #wedding
Visual DataFlex is a informationbase RAD (Speedy Software Expansion) visible studio in which home windows and internet databases interface packages can be developed.
~The very best retained magic formula in database growth~ This report is intended for seeing by mid-measurement and minor firms looking a cut cost or much more fast selection to Microsoft systems this kind of as and VB.
=== Listed here’s the Index For This Post: =========
* The place did Visual DataFlex Originate?
* What positive aspects does it have over and VB?
* Why must I attempt Visual DataFlex (down load eval)?
* Who tends to make Visual DataFlex?
* What help would I receive in opposition to Refreshingsgroups Or Assistance Categorys?
* What is the foreseeable future of Visual DataFlex?
* Where did Visual DataFlex Originate?
==================================
In one particular981, along with DBASEtwo, FOXPRO, and so on. DATAFLEX (the dos edition) launched it is 2.a few version for DOS, CPM, and UNIX.Since it was the greatest worth database motor and development platform, and it’s requirements outweighed the pageant numerous men and women who had been not techniquemers acquired DATAFLEX and with it’s english like syntax grew to become loyal supporters and many success tales were launched. If you were an accountant, income supervisor, or stock analyst, DATAFLEX was excellent because it was a 4GL product and taken care of the interface with the database integrated in the bundle routinely for you, and a successful blend of function abilities and straightforward database development blended to make v2.3 a extremely effective endeavor. The packages created in this era were from professionals in the subject and even though many unorthodox methodology was employed, it labored! Regrettably, like many other (now) Legacy Techniques written for DOS became progressively difficult to deploy and preserve since Home windows was released. There are many DOS DATAFLEX applications even now fueling businesses throughout the globe now and most are considering: port to Visual DataFlex, or port to the Net? The main concern of many companies is that distinctive and revealed code which operates like lightning would be compromised by eithe of individuals options, and is frequently a real concern: but of significantly much less relevance than the users understand.
* What advantages does it have over and VB? Picture you are a designer of software program, and a solution from Microsoft is accessible. Initial, you begin with the user interface, and the way gear to produce an interface in windows/web are highly engaging. Then, you’ve got the activity of producing an interface to the data which is a enormous carrying out and demands countless numbers of lines of code to produce a sdesk application that follows the specs of database table business principles, connections among database tables (dependencies, etc).
Now, Imagine you are a Visual DataFlex designer. First, you start by subclassing the controls provided by Data Accessibility International (correct windows controls) and depart these subgroups (based mostly on your business name for case in point) totally by yourself and unchanged…. but for future use. Then, you open up the database builder which produces datadictionaries for each and every database table in your undertaking, relate the database rules to each other (auto-created) and estimate how each column of each table will appear, which validation will practice to it, and set your business rules right in the CLASS for the table.
Check out how the two approaches are completely the contrary?
Visual DataFlex centralizes on data validation, uncovering, distincting, deleting, and preserving, and then you use the Visual Studio to create the visual part of the program which is developed on a TREE of relevant data dictionary products (instantiated business rule levels based on the classes) which can introduce business rule exceptions and augmentation.
The advantages appear immediately:
1, Data Integrity and business rule layers intertwine and you MUST verify the data (automatically generated validation based on your rules) and synchronize jointly in purchase to preserve a listing or information.
2. The visual designer has the very same classes for the most part as and VB but they’re tied into database definitions and accept on immediately a save/clear/delete/validate/find operation that isn’t going to require programming. The combination of these two advantages indicates that your data integrity is larger, your data functions are more eloquent, and also the interface (while not fairly as stunning as ) is visually desirable. The design and deploy time from start to end is less than by a believed forty% ensuing in lower cost to your consumer and more winning bids for you.
* Why should I try Visual DataFlex (download eval) ?
First, from the over, you can see how a database orientated approach is significantly less difficult than other choices. Never download VDF to program a recreation! It is built for business applications as a specialty, so if which is what you are programming I mean you give it a try. 2nd, the VDF neighborhood is virtually knit and we submit cost-free code and contribute-ons, response concerns immediately and with wonderful skill on the newsgroups, and you are going to belong to an elite associateship where close associations with other builders is quite attractive.
Visual DataFlex is a clear entrance end for basically about any database back again end you care to use which includes MS-SQL, IBM DB2, etc.
If you are scared of becoming sacked for making use of a non-Microsoft product, remember to ignore this article totally!
* Who makes Visual DataFlex? The answer is shocking. Of training course, Data Access Worldwide of Miami FL USA makes the product, but it is crafted largely via ideas of individual developers who receive particular very own comments from manufacturer associates on our newsgroup discussion board, and feedback at conventions individually. Imagine that you too can form the course that the product flows and your exact bug studies are included with the fixes in the up coming release! Credit history where credit score because of.Data Access also has throughout the world sellers and is a global product utilized in many nations.
*What support would I receive from Newsgroups Or Support Teams? Case in point: If you are from New England, USA, you can join the NEDC Person Group which welarrives developers and has normal assemblys in person to market camaraderie and show tech displays on existing assignments by the members.Additionally, there’s a Visual DataFlex newsgroup which is monitored by Data Access Tech Support to some stage, but the feedback comes largely from globally based Visual DataFlex developers and I personally suggest this newsgroup due to the high high quality support acquired (and given) over the many years.
*What is the future of Visual DataFlex? Data Access Corp has community companions over many areas that introduce the newest functions available such as activeX, Web Providers, etc. and is about to launch version twelve.1 which will appear very acquainted to developers. In addition, the ~FREE Personalized Model~ which consists of the entire studio and all connectivity kits with a five user prohibit was unveiled at the very last global meeting named “Synergy” in Miami Seashore FL in 2007. The marketing of this product will be largely phrase of mouth and this retains the custom and nickname of the product as ~The best kept secret in database programming~ alive!
I invite you to pop open a search engine and search for Visual DataFlex to see what all of the (not(fuss)) is about!
Peter has been increasing custom database applications since 1982 and has migrated his development ways through DOS/Windows/Web and oops programming specialization through centralized coding in possibly Window/Web and Crystal Reporting. An allowed VDF technological support middle trainer for 10 years, Peter has travelled extinsively over 3 continents training and codeveloping with IT staffs.
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source http://topbeautifulwomen.com/visual-dataflex-product-review-vdf/
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