#without this software I would probably implode

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life rn

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Matrix Partners, long an investor in software infrastructure, has some questions about web3

New Post has been published on https://medianwire.com/matrix-partners-long-an-investor-in-software-infrastructure-has-some-questions-about-web3/

Matrix Partners, long an investor in software infrastructure, has some questions about web3

Antonio Rodriguez, who joined Matrix in 2005 after a company he’d founded — that Matrix backed — was sold to Hewlett-Packard, talked with us last week about Matrix’s biggest fund in roughly 20 years, an $800 million vehicle that the firm closed in June and is announcing for the first time now.

It’s a lot of capital for the firm, which, like Benchmark, has been consistent over the years about maintaining comparatively smaller funds, even while many other venture firms have doubled, tripled — even quintupled — their assets under management. (Like Benchmark, Matrix raised a $1 billion fund once during the dot-com era; it wound up returning half of it to its investors when the market imploded.)

We talked with Rodriguez about the new fund. We also talked with him about how Matrix works with Matrix Partners China and Matrix Partners India, founded in 2008 and 2006, respectively. (They mostly operate independently.) Given that software infrastructure is a major focus area for the firm — it was an early investor in Hubspot, Zendesk and Canva, for example — we also asked Rodriguez about web3, or the promise of a decentralized internet. As it turns out, Matrix doesn’t put much stock in it, not yet anyway. Excerpts from our chat follow, edited for length.

TC: You recently closed a fund that’s almost twice as big as your last three funds, which were each $450 million. You were really disciplined about size, then changed your minds. Why?

With our current fund that we just finished investing, every single deal we did was either at concept or seed or pre-seed or post-seed or Series A, so for us, it really wasn’t about stage drift. Due to new entrants and due to existing players moving backward into the A, [in recent years] you went from having to write a $10 million check to, in some cases, $15 million or $20 million, and we wanted to make sure we could keep doing those entry checks if the market had grown. That’s still very much [the case], especially for our categories.

So you’re really not seeing these Series A stage deals getting any smaller.

Not yet. For the best entrepreneurs, a Series A round size can still be $20 million plus. We also tend to like more technical projects, whether that’s software or hardware, or ideally, [a company at the] intersection of both, and those companies just need more money.

Some of these later-stage outfits appear to be shrinking. Is it easier now to maintain your pro rata without throwing elbows?

It is easier, and it will continue to get slightly easier. But also, if you look at our best exits across the last three funds, you’ll find that in these B and the C rounds, they don’t lend themselves well to what I would call the spreadsheet jockeys. [For these companies], you really need more conviction, and in a lot of cases, that meant you had to step up, as opposed to expecting that a Tiger or Coatue would come in and, in 72 hours, fund that company. That’s part of why maintaining our pro rata in this new environment may be easier, but it will be equally necessary.

You target, what 20% to 25% ownership?

That’s about right. Historically, it’s been anywhere between 20% and 25%. Over the last year, I’d say we were kind of tilted to 18% to 21% [when we would] enter “beyond concept.” But definitely 20% to 25% is the long-term structural target for us when we enter anywhere between concept and Series A.

When you say concept, are you talking about incubating companies?

Yes, a number of our companies  — including my company — have started at one of our offices with an investor and an entrepreneur working at a whiteboard on an idea. We probably [dedicate] 5% to 10% of any given fund [to this].

Matrix is an investor in Canva, the graphic design business valued at $26 billion. Do you have a double-digit stake in that company?

Canva is a little bit different because it was out of market when we did it. We are top three on that cap table. So we invested the largest check, I believe, in the seed round and we own in the single digits. There was an investor who was in the pre-seed round, and then a large multistage investor has accumulated a position across many rounds.

Why didn’t it go public while the market was still wide open? It was founded in 2012, right?

Canva is a terrific business and will be a great IPO when it comes, in good times or bad times. Typically, companies go out because of something that will strategically help the business. Sometimes it’s as tactical as the company is growing very quickly but consuming a lot of cash and having access to the public market lets you [access cash faster]. And when you can combine that with an open window, it’s a win-win for everyone.

What about the benefit of greater public awareness once a company goes public? 

It will come. There are millions and millions of paying users on the platform. Think is a company that has done the virality thing just right. It’s viral like a consumer company, but effective in making money like a B2B SaaS company.

In your words, Matrix’s big theme this year has been applied AI as it affects everything from SaaS applications to software infrastructure to networking to what happens in the data center. I haven’t heard you mention crypto or web3.

I have to tell you — and I think that the advantage of having nine partners is that people can keep me honest here — but my own personal view is that it’s a bit of a mirage. My own personal view is that a trusted distributed database is pretty interesting for a number of applications on both the B2B side and the consumer space, but most of the stuff out there — I dare say most of the stuff that’s made a lot of people a lot of money over this two-year speculator boom that seems to have come to an end — just feels like it’s wishful thinking at its best.

So you’re not hearing me mentioning it because we’re not, like, doubling and tripling down. We didn’t raise $800 million dollars to put a half of it into web3 applications. We have a couple of investments, but it’s because we’ve followed founders from payments into web3, or from proptech into web3, and less because we’re excited about the prospect of starting a web3 practice here until we see utility come to the applications.

Above: Matrix Partners’s team, members of which are based in both San Francisco and Boston. Rodriguez is at center.

Read full article here

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over like a lot of I know more performance focused bikes are great like this yellow strain on your ear rests the you don’t really have a strain arrested it upright enough was a problem on the neonatal when protection I you really forward into the wind just a little bitand so that does mean that you don’t feel like you’re currently holding onto the bars of 70 or 80 miles an hour to stay onand that was there are various windshields available for the bikes so you a lot highway writing speed there’s a way to set upand I personally thought this might be one of the first things I would do is probably exhausted intake I think that’s a very common thing for people to say that on this bike I think that the character the engine in stock form is a little too sedate for the capabilities of the chassis when he met is that I think this chassis would really benefit from a ladder more rambunctious more rent happy motorand there’s many ways to do that with a sportster Odyssey I easily like the college had almost built so that the SR 1200 had in this chassis that motor be a really good fit personality wise for the chassis is not everything else is an upgraded performance lies like the suspensionand the brakes I think that the bike could really use a little bit extra grunt from the from the motor little more sound obviously but also just a little more of a rent happy nature so I just think bike feel that more lightly on the exhaustand intake in a team goes a long way towards axis AI upgrade by a distaste to it some star focus cans so all in all I deathly recommend this for anybody looking for from the performance focused on I classic style bike I it’s is a really good option for that market I knew only hesitation I would have been recommending is if you do a lot of highly writing it does only have 5 feet is not to bug out on the highway provided you stand below 80 miles an hour your final bassinet regularly get about the sap sustained speedand then I say it does have a great healthy 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news this yearand sure mostly heard by now Davidson completely revamped the soft tail chassis despite the sample is built on a brand new chassis I have a video that have a that really outlines exactly what was done these new platforms so I’ll put a link to a video in in a car at the end here so infallibly fashion you got these aluminum disk mag wheels here that’s our kind iconic traits about the sap boyand you got an LED day maker headlamp in this all the new Sawtelle said LED really bright headlampsand a sample assassin you’ve got this freight trains down the cell houses this LED light God’s the Harley Davidson fat boy insignia on the side of take care the software is a military tribute bike this because she has a know the star the wings in the USA down there Savoie comes its name comes from a combination toand bombs are dropped in World War II sap manand little boyand accommodationist to give you fat boy this bike you can be even purchase it in a 107 or 114 configuration this is the new Milwaukee eight engine this is the first in Milwaukee has been offered on a bike other than the touring bikes you have an external preload adjustment knob on this bike this is one of the few bikes the small unit comes with this theater to being the breakoutsand that Bob is your oiland the oil is no longer in the pan underneath the sea anymore it’s underneath the transmissions with the oil sump is you have a two piece seat on the spike is one of the cool things are related did this year with this new Sawtelle platform is all there seats are two piece seats so if you want a more comfortable passenger seat instead of having to buy a brand new seating is by the passenger portionand slap it on their new connection that seatsand so both the writerand the pastor can kinda get what they want one of the big things they did this year is a put a huge 240 mm rear tire on the back of this bike can of Walmart to make a lens to the name of the fat boy from you on this thing is the day is from will whit why is it ever put on a motorcycle as well hundred 60 mm front tire to state really is that so use a lot of what they call the satin chrome finishes on the spike on the primary casing there this is a new floorboard design the floorboards are higher social meaning will have to increase on this new software platform is not a shot of the military tribute insignia that has always down the fat boy family first came out in 1990and has pretty much been a staple Harleyand I have ever since then here is your four piston caliper for piston break CalPERSand that the single the single rotor single side single disc brake I should say the fuel tank is a 5 gallon fuel tank one of the things of the fat boys always been a distinguishing trait about the sample he had bullet holes in the the disk mag wheels for those boreholes with their cost now this is a USB port all of the softgels guys have a USB port on the left hand side of bike so you can charge your your phone or whatever electronic device you might have off of that USB ports not just you need to just the fat boy that all the soft tells how that so here’s a close to the display here so you guys sure you’re a speedo in analogand then you have a digital VIP passes switch here is your digital readout of your today it should be of your feel their digitally remaining miles if we run out of fuel you clock in there as welland the nest displays your RPMand the gear urine as well throw down or their cell in analog on your speedometerand then everything else is all digital is far as your your fuel your Ranger clock you tripand should beand anything with the 114 set is comes at ABS this is a decorative cath you guys this is spins offand you can put different decorative caps on the tank used to be the fuel gaugeand impasse mauled the snow I feel gauge all the gas goes in the right hand side here dimension of the 5 gallon fuel tank the Santos coming to sizes either 5 gallon or threeand half gallons of this does have the bigger the twoand there’s your bullet holes there in the center of the tank on the center console so they remove the boreholes from the disk wheelsand put in the center console there immersing the lens to the military tribute at this despite his homage to so all these new Sawtelle’s guys all security to all keyless this key here all it does is lock the forksand aluminum keys now need to mention the key limits is really cookieand the actuation in the 4 o’clock is a lot cleaner a lot smoother now that used to be in years past they used one of the things they do the Santos chassis you guys as they reduce the weights here between 30 to 35 pounds I need to these Sawtelle models they do that by really analyzing every party put on hisand tried to cut away wherever they could use a little number they could set a steel to reduce the weightand that you can doesn’t tell that the weight reduction is there so really sat wheels on the same this bike almost reminds you the bikes it is making Tron is really fat lookand style by through aggressive means styling your combined with that headlamp this is a really cool aggressive meaty muscle type of the styling summit go aheadand fire sing of CSand his sanity engineand can see what it looks like visually as it’s runningand everything so things of notes this know what dates they puts a dual counterbalance are in their the original arcade I was offered a touring bike he is single counterbalance in front of the engine download the oil cooler is no voltage regulator so there’s another flywheel in this version of the Milwaukee that specifically designed for the softgelsand that is between via the crank in the transmission cell gave that you counterbalance is on the spikeand so it’s the primary shaking forces are 100 reduced on this there’s very little vibration in Sawtelle fashionand that day was allotted to also really increase the rigidity of this whole bike from top to bottom the frameand the way the engine is mounted to the frameand all that so this bike is a lot stiffer 90 stiffer than the Diane chassis was in the figure thought is a 65 stiffer than previous model softgelsand it’s definitely noticeable guysand everything from rider input into handlebars to that the way that it’s liensand Excelerator to turn everything is just quickerand the reaction time is a lot better society is not it’s fun to go through this cachet as some of the highlights the suspension on these Sawtelle friends to I should I should add is far superior to the old Sawtelle frames it’s it was kind of the weird thing even call them soft tell anymore my frame because it’s it’s really nothing like the old Sawtelle that all funding Sawtelle about analogy still had hidden suspensions suspensions up underneath the seat his available colors guys the first was bike this is 10 black tempest by campus like a bluish blackish really deep like Pearl Flake color this is called industrial gray is a really cool this car lot in the next here is called Bonneville salt Pearl M Callan either started her day sickle colorand this economy is in the video this is the only could readand twisted Sherry to town here’s an anniversary this is legend blueand visit black the fat boy is the only model to come into different or both of the year anniversary colors to this is the non denim finishand this is the denim finish the call legend blue denimand it’s got a tattoo style graphics on its present we got one of these we sold pretty quickly out of the cool color is a musician stats on this thing here so the 107Q begins bike starts at 18 999 that’s for black wine goes up at 400 from their fear from card into it to town ABS is standard on the spike as well as the security system security system standard on all the soft tells this bike has a course in the walkie eight engine walkie eight gets its name from the four valves per cylinder with a total of eight valves has single camand I spent a lot of time on stats here got to what they call the most machined lake stir wheels to Brandon Willis share of a futuristic type of allele like the that I guess said before the solid disk wheel that they use for me years that they have have a futuristic twist on it unless really goodand after the 114 is 20 209 box so looking at about 1300 charge if you want the 114 which in my opinion it’s pretty well worth it so nobody likes to see the horsepowerand torque figures so let me show you what Harley Davidson publishes in their screaming Eagle section of the catalog here so this is for the 114 to begin stop soft tell by Fisher US stock is there for black dot in line down there soand this is at the rear wheel this is not the crank where everybody next to you write about their power to buy another car the crank that it’s about 85 hp at 4500 RPM on these dikesand this is with the 114and then your torque is about 109 foot pounds of torque at the rear wheeland that’s peeks at 3000 RPM so if you live in the websites I believe they claim hundredand 19 foot pounds of torqueand that’s can be measured at the crankand is number 14and on the 107 version they claim hundredand 9 foot pounds of torque at the crank so they go’s office invasive overall general information on this new Sawtelle frame Iand extremely impressed for you my videos ride probably five or six of the softgels of this pointand this never been able to ride a Harley Davidson harderand more aggressively than the softgels the sauces really are the performance frame in the Harley Davidson world which is kind of funny because before this software frame was probably the worst performing form frame councils from the worst to the best overnight there were frame being on staff really worry about because this new Sawtelle to see how performs no frame hands down are frame the question was is busy ethics are frame yes disliked dominates the ethics are freeand close know that the right is our right SARS for a time the FSR was some guides you to meet people live in the blessingand a curse as he was love their motorcycles for a long time Hill in nature God is the most collectible lifestyle is so many things are ingrained in people with you so that you have romanticized on the way things used to be held at the blessingand curse performanceand handling his overall he is power away everything about these new Sawtelle’s sis is better than the old real soft tell chassis that you kneeled to talk to you about family specifically the way I would best describe as a boy is is a muscle cruiser what I mean is this thing looks great very simplistic linesand futuristic flare headlamp in the wheels was still the classic lines in the rear swing armand everythingand the really set is onand everything this thing is not the best handling Sawtelle there’s other hands also like a low rider warrior Bob are you listening from the wheels in the scene because of an one can notice on this bike is as I was entering turns slowly if you’re on the break all turn this one is for this is like to lean overand take her to a slow way down your turn despite the good switch type of roads in the slow say what is really funny despite Dell is latest day start off dead stop’s role in on his like you get this trash in the rear the huge back thereand all I obey is on sky this thing is really fine stop stop by my is for sure it’s youand the suspension the monitor shock rear suspension training this year will turn right there is a perfect example of this need not be the likely the bike down shape the bikeand return to effect the better way why the shot the monitor shock on this bikeand there’s two rulings on the soft tell chassis is 3 inch travel in this rear shot all the mice had a shot with the exception of the Heritageand Bob for travel guides the suspension of this bike is just far superior to the old softgels in the message describe it as you have more than plan for dealing with the wheelsand tires stay in contact asphalt going over little Thompson was in the road like thatand that’s achieved by is the smallest designand also the seal cartridge design in the front for us since the show will the valve system in the front which was developed in a fight through my 27 three model year so he saw me feeling part beneficial theme of this 8 form being put in these the softgels uses is the cooling system is efficient to display the Oakland system that’s treated toilet on the heads really reduces the heat on these engines significantly seeking a lot less of that heat radiating up on youand is embedded in the different engine components of this bike is really apparent to me that he is reduced significantly on his run at a cooler temperature is based you have the cable auditory mice is the walkie engineand then have hydraulic clutch down south bank of the spikes the deal is okay you want so well here shifted the problem so good Smith still that the distinct feeling shifting here would expect from claimsand the sound to it in place a heavy piece of machinery that also really good analyzer nice is a quarter bar all internally wired really clean bar design nine can save on despite the ways everything is real simplistic styling is from Harley Davidsonand Alex forget the size these these sufferings are pretty small guys cells there is no more room on these were on the old Sawtelle’s immediate classroom 6’6 talland so despite was deathly a Francine position for me I know is probably seen despite Dell which back to 3 inches Jason try that out for me if I wasn’t as tall as I am holy the softgels might purchase big fan that because I do a lot of freeway writing tall like fairy radios in the communication of his remains family go through the small year that’s this boy this is this is for the guy that was down the weekends doing patriot Russell in the the more comfortable see if there be back there for more than 20 minutes or so there are two different sizes on this bike I will say you’re were limited on this bike also putting the breakdown of this bike bolted 240 mm rear tire sale of them were limited on your options for the sissy bar you have the more the below profile that you cannot play toward the back of this bike is a new cooldown came out from the softgels as they made it easier for you toward these bikes however this bikeand the breakoutsand the fact Bob will not accept toward cell this Like into the category of some muscle he a cruiser bike real clean lines you have on this by guys real simplistic risers on this life so you years are somewhat down despite the severe grade bike shoes so really good Blake blank canvas to customize this bike so I can say Wayneand his life for his life for someone that wants a bike to really freak on Felix’s work despite really toward the really fun by roleand also the senior pants customize for you like it wrote the classic lines simplistic engineering styling save things to customize it is the Sawtelle frame chassis of view customization options for seating position Chris floorboards lovers so if you’re guided down the freeway you a lot of long distance to arrive probably not the best bike for you persona really likes to call razor sharp handling not to Best Buy for a slowdowns initiated turn on this they really wide sweeping turns real applicable handling on this thing so looking for a roomand Jane Carver Best Buy I was the breaking on his on the softgels even noticing this break the breaking is really good guy support this helper Stasi price really really well so breaking is great on these things us with the way as well he shows to find people that you know life to this break the low rider anymore I really miss on this bikeand all weather race but the break just fine that way is really cool iconic model that leaves only improved on his lot faster the 114 even when I said sure THE SAME PLANT ONE FOR THE LAWN OR DOES THE FREEWAY I WOULD WANT TO SEEM LIKE ACROSS COUNTRIES LIKE THE WINDOWS DEALING YOU CAN GET A WINDSHIELD DESPITE REGULAR FREEWAY HAS THE RIGHT WINDSHIELD THAT HE WAS GUYS THAT 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Task 4 - Final Piece

For this task 4, after having a complete plan of what I wanted to do, which was one of the ideas from my pitch. It is now time to start sketching ideas for the types of characters I will be using for the set stickers. However, I’d need to keep in mind that the character needs to be cute and friendly.

I begin the project by sketching ideas of what my characters would look like in different expressions and which I liked the best. I kind of like the idea of keeping my character simple with flat colours, which is something that would stand out in the LINE application.

After sketching out different characters in different expressions and emotions, I have decided to go with the character that has a head that looked like a box. The reason why I chose this character was because it looked simple, silly, and the type of character that I would personally like to use in daily communication. The next step is to sketch all 24 expressions and emotions digitally, and the reason why I am sketching it digitally as opposed to traditionally was that I could save the time of having to scan everything in the sketchbook into the computer. Another important reason was I wanted to have clean lines to show for my presentation on Behance instead of having a scanned in drawings which sometimes could look inconsistent with the lines.

The was the hardest part of the project - coming up with different expressions and emotions. I used the survey which I asked my family as a reference point which I could look back to as to what expressions I’d need to create. There are probably about more than 15 emotions in total, which my family have come up with, and I’d need to try to fill in the remaining amount of stickers. 

For certain expressions that I have difficulties with, I’d do research into the existing stickers on the market and what type of expressions are there and how I could incorporate that into my own character. However, it was mostly expressions and emotions that I would really like to see and use in the set stickers. Designing the remaining set of stickers was really difficult as I was running out of expressions ideas; however, I try to think of something that I would like to use in daily communication without the need to type anything which is: cooking, eating, exercising, love, etc. 

Once all 24 sketches are completed, it is now time for me to move on to the designing part of the character. However, before I begin, I just wanted to explain why there are only one character and the colour concept behind this character. I have researched and looked into existing stickers set available on the market, and most of them have one thing in common - which is there are at least two characters in them. This makes it convenient for the creator to create more emotions and be more expressive with them, and it is also to target both genders effectively. The reason why I chose to only create one character for this project was that my target audience is mainly male gender, and another reason was that I wanted to keep the sticker set consistent. 

I feel that having two characters could ruin the flow and consistency of the sticker set, and another thing which I’d need to consider was my colour concept. I didn’t want to implode my character design to have lots of different colours as this could distract the audience. What I wanted was to have the character in the same consistent colours to still keep the flow of the stickers.

Adobe Photoshop certainly has options which I would really like to use such as creating a sketchy feel to the character to get that authentic drawing feel to it and adding gradients to character design to make it pop. However, the reason why I chose to use Adobe Illustrator as opposed to Photoshop was that the size of the stickers is going to be at 240 x 240 in pixels. These are extremely small, and I’d also add at least 10 pixels margins for each individual stickers so the actual stickers size would be 230 x 230 pixels. 

The reason is pretty apparent as Adobe Photoshop is a pixel-based software whereas Adobe Illustrator is vector based. In Photoshop, the smaller the size of the document is, the more you can see the pixels in character, and let’s be honest - it doesn’t look right. Which was the reason why I chose Illustrator as no matter how small the document is, there will be no pixels in character and will always have that smooth consistency line.

After deciding which software I am going to be using for this project, I then start drawing the character in Adobe Illustrator. I used the pencil tool and changing the setting to ‘smooth’ to get the smooth lines that I was after. I then started drawing using this option, and whenever the lines are a bit off, instead of redrawing it again, I’d use the ‘direct selection tool’ to edit and change the points to save time.

Once the lines are completed, I duplicated it and set it aside from the artboard to use later. I change the drawing lines on the artboard to fill colour and change the colours according to how I wanted it to be.

Next, I add the shadow by using the pen tool to draw the shadow and change to appropriate colours for the shadow. I then used the ‘shape builder tool’ to erase the excess areas of the shadow.

Once completed, I used the drawing lines that I left it aside from the artboard and try to align it to the character with the colours fill to create this cartoon look to the character which is what I was looking for. I then repeat the process for all 24 individual stickers.

I then add some text to certain stickers as some do need a text in there to express certain emotions, such as hello or thanks. However, most of them will have no words or text as this is going to be on the market in all regions which is why it is important that the stickers will be able to portray certain emotions or expressions without the need of any words behind them.

After having every sticker in its own individual artboards, I now make a decision as to which stickers I wanted to animate and give emotions to. I create a green square as a marker to know which stickers I need to animate, and I ended up choosing 9 stickers to animate in total.

The method which I am going to animate is using Adobe After Effect and a little bit of Adobe Animate. My main focus for the animation is to keep everything simple with a maximum time of 4 seconds for the animation. After Effect is used for the movements of the character and Adobe Animate will be used to animate the moving of the mouth which I will import it as .SWF file later to After Effect for the final edit. The animation will be looped and saved as a GIF file so that it can be played on Behance.

However, before I begin animating the stickers in After Effect, I’d need to make sure that the stickers I wanted to animate are in separate layers. To avoid confusions, I have decided to create 9 new document files for each individual 9 stickers that are going to be animated. 

Animation

Once everything is sorted, I then start to animate 9 stickers in After Effect. The file document I created is 400 x 400 pixels as I wanted to leave some spaces for the stickers, and at 29.9 frames per seconds.

The movements of the stickers are relatively simple as mostly it was just animating the position, opacity, and rotation keyframes to create simple actions. The mouth animation was also simple to create as I animated it in Adobe Animate and export the file as .SWF to After Effect.

As soon as the stickers are completed, I then try to submit a sticker form on LINE Creator Studio and try to get these 24 set stickers approved as quickly as possible so that it will be available when the deadline comes. However, one thing which I made a mistake was I thought that it was possible to have a mixture of static stickers and animated stickers all in one set, but after I reached the submission page, I realised that I could choose one option or another which is either static or animated.

This changes my goal entirely as I now can’t submit animated stickers on there with a mixture of static stickers. Therefore, I decided to just submit all the static stickers on there anyway as I’d really need to get it sent off as soon as possible. However, I will still be keeping my animated stickers around as I’d need to present them on Behance for the final presentation anyway. 

To submit the stickers, there would need to be a total of 26 PNG images altogether, and each individual PNG need to be less than 1 MB. LINE requires the creator to have one main image and one tab image. The main image is the image which will show the character in the market page as its main image, and this is the first image which the consumers will see, so it is essential that the main image reflects how your characters would look in the stickers set. A tab image is used as an icon which will be displayed on the screen to show that particular sticker set. 

Main image:

Tab image:

Next step is to tag every 24 individual stickers to its appropriate tags. This is used when the users type in that specific tags, it would automatically tag that sticker.

The date which I submitted my stickers for approval was on 15/05/2019, a week before the deadline, and I am hoping that it gets reviewed within one week for it to be available before the deadline, but it really does depends. However, to make sure that I still have something to present, I’d create a mock-up to show my stickers being used in the application, and there is also a LINE simulator which you can test your stickers in the application which is just handy. However, since the deadline has been extended for this project by three more weeks, I received the approved signal and published my stickers on the LINE store.

The response I got from the stickers are well received and it seems to be used by some people. Here is a chart which displayed numbers of users who sent and received my stickers:

What inspired you?

I have always wanted to create a set of stickers and publish it on the market for people to download, and what better ways to make the stickers as my last project for College. Moreover, I thought it would be pretty good to have my family members using my set stickers on LINE application as they are frequent users of LINE and uses stickers quite often. This inspired me to create a set of stickers that my family and I would personally use, and some expressions which we thought are necessarily needed in the pack. 

What was your final idea?

My final idea for this project is creating LINE set stickers, and it can either be 8, 16, 24, 32 or 40 stickers in total. I chose to go with 24 stickers because I think it is reasonable going with that amount given the amount of time that we have for this project. What I didn’t realise initially is that I thought LINE would let you add static stickers and animated stickers in the same set similar to how iMessage is. However, I was wrong, and it’s either static stickers or animated, one or the other.

What went well?

What went really well for this project is that I managed to create set sticker pack that I would personally use, and I also successful in being organised and staying true to my schedule as I was able to send the stickers early and get it approved by LINE for it to be on the market just before the deadline.

What didn’t go so well?

What I dislike and the things that didn’t go well for this project is the overall look of the stickers. I wish I could re-design the whole thing entirely and resubmit the stickers; however, it isn’t possible this late into the project unless and I start over again from scratch which I don’t have time for that. Moreover, I didn’t correctly check LINE stickers guidelines for creators as I initially thought that I could submit static and animated stickers all in the same pack, which I was wrong. Had I checked it beforehand, I could have planned out everything better than this.

What have you learnt during this project?

Creating stickers and submitting them is in itself learning, but the things which I learned the most during this project is drawing the character digitally. I initially wanted to do all of the drawings of the stickers in Adobe Photoshop. However, it isn’t possible once I thought about it as creating stickers as small as 240 x 240 pixels would create pixelated stickers in Photoshop. This forces me into coming up with a solution and creating it in Illustrator just make much more sense than it would in Photoshop. 

Furthermore, I had never tried to draw in Illustrator before as I thought it was weird, but after searching for tutorials and choosing the right settings and tools, I was able to draw really smooth lines in illustrator which is precisely what I was after.

What would you do differently next time?

The things that I would do differently next time is to give myself time to think and do more research. I definitely didn’t give myself much time for the research as I planned my schedule to research and write up the Tumblr blogs all in one week, where I would design the stickers for the remaining three weeks. However, that definitely backfire on me as I am now stuck with set stickers that I totally not satisfied with. It is a lovely sticker set that has all the expressions that I expected in the set; however, the character is a little bit inconsistent and looks weird in general. I would definitely redesign the character entirely and coming up with at least two characters: boy and girl to target a wider audience. I would also design the characters to be more cute, friendly and engaging.

Another thing which I would do differently next time is publishing my set stickers on a different application. The reason why I said that is because even though I wanted my stickers to be free, LINE forces you to put a price on the stickers. The free stickers on the market are usually the official released from LINE themselves. While this may look like it is a good thing for creators, it is actually a disadvantage. The reason being is because they take 50% of your profit from your sticker, and it is their way of making money off from creators. 

Overall did you do a good job? Did you manage your time effectively?

I believe I did reasonably well getting all of the work completed and have the stickers on the market on time before the deadline, even if the deadline has been put off for another three weeks, regardless of that, I’d have completed it in one month anyway. Moreover, I was also successful at managing my time really well. Before I begin the project, I created a work schedule in which I would follow to get my work completed efficiently. For the first week, I would dedicate myself into researching everything in regards to creating stickers and writing everything up on Tumblr. This way, I would be able to spend the rest of the time creating all of the stickers and get it sent off for approval so that the stickers will be available on the market before the deadline.

Link to the sticker in the store:

https://store.line.me/stickershop/product/7732307

Final work on Behance:

https://www.behance.net/gallery/81273713/Line-Box-Head-Stickers-Set

[ronnykblair]

“Bad Blood” Book Review: Fooling Most of the People for a Long, Long Time

While I read Bad Blood, John Carreyrou’s detailed account of the rise and fall of Theranos, two thoughts immediately came to mind.

First, if North Korea ever launched a startup, Theranos would be it.

The company operated the same way Kim Jong Un does: non-functional products, “launches” that backfire, massive fraud, dead employees, and a creepy old guy who monitored employee email and Internet usage.

Second, this story is amazing. They need to make it into a movie.

Then I realized that they are making it into a movie starring Jennifer Lawrence, with Adam McKay from The Big Short set to direct.

After extensive research, I’ve determined that North Korea did not officially back the company, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the Kim family invested via Rupert Murdoch or Betsy DeVos.

Bad Blood is my favorite non-fiction book of the past decade.

It’s so good that it almost seems like fiction – a John Grisham thriller, maybe.

It takes the best parts of history’s most famous downfall stories and injects even more intrigue by adding the one element those stories lacked: human life.

This book isn’t directly related to recruiting or working in the finance industry.

But there are so many valuable takeaways that are indirectly related that I decided to write this review anyway:

What is This Book About, and Why Should You Care?

In case you’ve been living in a cave in Antarctica for the past ~3 years, Theranos was a massively hyped “unicorn” healthcare startup that aimed to perform hundreds of blood tests from a single drop of blood pricked from your finger.

No more needles! No more vials of blood!

Just one small problem: it is impossible to do this.

Blood from your finger is different from the blood in your veins because it is partially oxygenated, it’s contaminated by interstitial fluid, and the volume is very low.

In plain English, there’s not enough data, so you can’t solve the problem with a medical device.

You can do a few simple tests, such as the one for glucose levels, with finger-pricked blood, but not the hundreds of complex tests out there.

Despite that, Theranos still managed to raise $900 million over the years at a peak valuation of $9 billion.

But after more than a decade of lying to investors, threatening employees, and using non-functional devices to diagnose patients, Theranos finally began to implode in 2015.

That’s when WSJ investigative reporter John Carreyrou received a tip about the company, began his deep dive into it, and finally published the article that sparked a firestorm.

After that, the company’s trajectory resembled that of a spaceship being sucked into a black hole.

Regulatory agencies banned Theranos from running a lab, Walgreens ended its partnership, the COO was forced out, investors and partners started suing the company, and the SEC charged the CEO and COO (Elizabeth Holmes and Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani) with massive fraud.

A criminal investigation is underway, and indictments are likely. Most likely, Theranos will soon be liquidated, and both the top executives will be in jail.

This story is a textbook example of how to do everything wrong at a startup.

And it’s a cautionary tale of what to avoid and how to detect deception if you’re an investor.

So… How Did a North Korean Startup Survive for Over a Decade?

Even if you’ve followed all the WSJ’s reporting on Theranos, you probably have one big question: How could such a fraudulent company last for so long?

Didn’t anyone notice that the Empress had no clothes before a reporter came along?

Bad Blood makes it clear that plenty of people were skeptical from the start.

The company never published peer-reviewed literature, its Board of Directors consisted of fossilized former diplomats who knew nothing about medicine, and it never attracted serious life science VC investors.

The original Ph.D. student who founded the company with Elizabeth Holmes thought her first idea was “science fiction,” and dozens of disgruntled employees quit along the way, convinced that the entire operation was a Potemkin village.

I can’t explain the company’s survival in one sentence, but here’s my summary:

Business Partners: Walgreens was paranoid that CVS would get the technology first, so they entered the partnership without proper due diligence. One skeptical consultant kept warning them, but he was silenced. This one goes in the FOMO (“fear of missing out”) bucket.

Investors: The company raised money mostly from family offices and VCs with no healthcare experience. And they pointed to early investors, such as Tim Draper and Larry Ellison, as evidence that “the smart money” was on board.

VCs with a track record in life sciences, such as Google Ventures and MedVenture Associates, passed when they realized the company couldn’t answer basic technical questions.

Employees: Pretty much all the employees figured out that the company was a fraud, which is why turnover was extremely high.

However, Theranos was super-secretive and used expensive lawyers and private investigators to threaten ex-employees who could have become whistleblowers.

Regulators: Theranos operated in “regulatory no man’s land” by labeling its diagnostics “lab-developed tests,” which are not regulated by the FDA.

Eventually, the regulators caught up to them and started conducting surprise lab inspections because of tips from anonymous ex-employees.

Patients: The company used its broken device(s) to test patients in Arizona and California, which later resulted in ~1 million voided tests.

Amazingly, they threatened doctors and patients who left bad Yelp reviews, but nothing could hide fraud on this scale.

These live deployments finally pushed it over the edge and alerted the broader population to the scam.

What I Loved

I’ve followed the Theranos story closely, but Bad Blood was great because it put together all the pieces in a logical order and gave them more emotional resonance.

The book conveys superbly the human tragedy, ranging from patients who received the wrong diagnoses to employee Ian Gibbons, the chief scientist who “committed suicide” under suspicious circumstances.

But what I loved most were the vividly drawn characters.

In particular, “Sunny” Balwani, the #2 at Theranos, seems like an amalgamation of every single horrible VP in investment banking.

Not only did he micromanage employees while knowing nothing about the product, but he also had the social skills of an autistic monkey.

When an employee quit and refused to sign a confidentiality agreement, Sunny sent a security guard after him, called the police, and then told the police the employee stole property.

When they asked what property was stolen, Sunny replied that the employee “stole property in his mind.”

Oh, and the whole time Sunny was at the company, he was also in a romantic relationship with CEO Elizabeth Holmes, who was ~20 years younger.

Award-winning corporate governance!

Areas for Improvement

That said, the book isn’t perfect.

There are a lot of characters to remember, and sometimes I lost track of who was doing what at which time.

The book moves in rough chronological order, but chapters tend to be thematic or character-based rather than time-based.

So, similar to TV shows like Westworld, the exact timeline can be a bit confusing (though the lack of robots makes it far less convoluted than Westworld).

Finally, the transition where John Carreyrou enters the story toward the end is a bit jarring, since the preceding chapters are written in the third person from the perspective of others.

Takeaways for the Finance Industry

Here’s what you can learn from this story even if you have no interest in startups, venture capital, or medical devices:

1) Story, Story, Story

Your story is everything. That’s why we focus on it heavily in the Interview Guide and the articles on this site.

A great story can sell anything, whether it’s a product or yourself in a job interview.

Elizabeth Holmes was a great storyteller who idolized Steve Jobs, and like Jobs, she could also sell anything.

But if the claims in your story can be disproven easily, your story will fall apart.

It’s not unusual for an early-stage biotech startup to make aggressive claims about its future products.

But what was unusual – and fraudulent – was to claim that the product was ready for real-life usage, when it clearly was not, and then to use it on patients.

This is why it’s a terrible idea to lie or even “spin” facts that can be easily disproven in interviews, such as your abilities in other languages, graduation dates, grades, employment dates, and job titles.

So many readers have gone too far with spinning that I’m going to rewrite the article on the topic later this year.

2) Healthcare != Technology

Many technology companies that launch apps, software, and even hardware adopt a “fake it ‘til you make it” attitude.

That’s fine for technology because no one dies if a smartphone app crashes.

And many students have famously dropped out of university and then started world-class technology companies… because you don’t need that much experience to get started.

Healthcare, though, is a different ball game.

Your product can’t “kind of work” unless you want to kill people.

And it’s almost impossible for 19-year-old university dropouts with no medical experience to start important healthcare companies.

If you’re trying to move into finance, you can use these industry differences to your advantage.

For example, if you have significant medical/biotech experience, you’re much stronger as a career changer candidate if you target healthcare groups at banks and VC firms.

They want people like you because no university graduate could understand those sectors as well as a Ph.D. or industry executive.

But if you want to get into the industry at the last minute, or you don’t have real work experience, it’s better to target sectors such as technology or consumer/retail where you can get up to speed quickly.

3) The Fallacy of Expertise Transferability

Many students at top universities believe that since they got into a top school, they are experts at everything – or at least, they could quickly become experts at anything.

The Board members and early investors of Theranos embraced similar logic:

“I’m the former Secretary of State/Defense or the founder of a multi-billion-dollar tech company. Therefore, I can also be a successful healthcare investor!”

Except… they’re completely different fields.

Facing down the Soviets in the Cold War is impressive, but it doesn’t make a 90-something former diplomat qualified to judge the merits of medical devices.

I outlined in a previous article how you can outwit and out-hustle Ivy League students to win job offers, and this point goes along with the advice there.

Yes, other candidates might have better credentials or higher GPAs…

…but will they take the time to learn the in’s and out’s of stock pitches, find contact information for hundreds of industry professionals, and then contact them in a socially calibrated way?

I’m not sure, but most “experts” would say it’s beneath them.

4) Focus on the Right Things for Your Development Stage – Not the Trappings of Power

As Theranos raised $900 million, Elizabeth Holmes spent much of the money on lawyers, new offices, a contingent of bodyguards, and yes, even bulletproof glass for her office (!).

She also put a ton of time and effort into distribution partnerships and sales.

For an early-stage technology company, it’s not necessarily wrong to focus on sales before your product is fully functional.

But for an early-stage healthcare company, nothing matters except for developing a working solution, passing clinical trials, and winning approval from regulators.

If your new device or vaccination or surgical method doesn’t work, partnerships won’t save you.

Consistently, companies focus on the wrong things and ignore the stage they’re at.

I even did the same thing back when I made the mistake of creating a $5,000 product for a $500 market.

In a way, I made the opposite mistake of Theranos: I had products that worked, and I wanted to make them even better to the point where no one noticed or cared.

But it was motivated by the same mistake: not understanding the stage I was at.

5) If “The End Goal” is Your Focus, Rethink Your Life!

When Holmes was young, a family member asked what she wanted to be when she grew up.

“A billionaire!” she replied.

That answer demonstrates why the fraud reached this level before collapsing: rather than trying different skills, becoming good at one, and then pursuing it, Holmes started with the end goal in mind.

And she stopped at nothing to pursue it, even if it meant lying to investors, threatening employees, and putting patients’ lives at risk.

Most entrepreneurs start working in a specific industry, get to know people, learn the key problems, and then launch new products/services.

Otherwise, it’s impossible to know what people will pay for and which solutions are feasible vs. science fiction.

Idolizing Steve Jobs and aiming to become a billionaire aren’t real goals; they’re aspirations of teenagers who do not yet know themselves.

As far as applicability to the finance industry, well, take a look at the comments thread on this article about finance as a long-term career.

Final Thoughts and Reality Distortion Fields

Both Steve Jobs and Elizabeth Holmes possessed “reality distortion fields” that let them recruit subordinates and convince investors, Board members, and the public of almost anything.

But Jobs also had a firm grasp on his own reality, and despite some exaggerations and problems, delivered products that worked.

By contrast, Holmes forgot to apply self-shielding, which let her reality distortion field twist her own perception of reality.

Aside from the upcoming indictment and trial, I don’t think we’ll be hearing much from her.

But if you want to find out more, the rumor is that she might head to North Korea.

Apparently, she’s an excellent fit.

The post “Bad Blood” Book Review: Fooling Most of the People for a Long, Long Time appeared first on Mergers & Inquisitions.

from ronnykblair digest https://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/bad-blood-book-review/

[mechagalaxy]

“Will the owner of the nuclear weapon, please contact reception?”

 There are things I love about Faction War, and things that I dread.  What I love about Faction War is the chance to bring 1600 hard core and only partially wrapped mercenary mecha jocks together to shake the pillars of heaven, kick ass, and run up a bar tab exceeding the GDP of some core world systems. There are things I hate as well.  Among 1600 hard core killing machines, lurk the most dangerous forces known to mankind, because the Forerunners lacked this gene, and went extinct, probably to avoid being here when the universe thought it was a good time to experiment.  I speak of course of the tinkerers.  The kind of people who look at an undead cyborg that literally tore a hole in reality and attempted to wipe out all life and thought…..you know those spiky things looked kind of cool, I bet if I coupled it to a niode matrix and linked it my engine amplifiers, there is a good chance it would make a really wicked damage stacking laser…..or generate a black hole and suck something like sixty cubic kilometers of battlefield, atmosphere, and city before the generator blew. What the hell, lets try it!

 I was at a meeting with our leadership team talking about specialist options, trying to match our abilities with the maximum tactical flexibility so whatever terrain we found ourselves fighting over we could cheat like a mother fether when I heard the page over the PA.

 “Will the owner of the nuclear weapon, please contact reception?”

 At first many of the clan leaders laughed, but Paul Knight, Sten Hugo Hiller and I reacted with the well drilled panic that comes from supporting Bunnylabs and Star League R&D (Radiation and Danger).  We got to reception to find The Armourer (weapon master of Myth and Legends) oohing and ahhing as only a true weapon geek can with Knockers McGuinty (chief technician, Spirit of Bunny).

“Check the serial numbers, the typo? That is an exact replica, I did a paper on the Tsar back in Collegia Tactica”  The Amourer was extruding mechandrites from his artificial arm to probe the casing of the odd weapon as the more limber Bunny was crawling beneath it with her own probes. “Don’t you love the pitting effect?  It is like the effect of time has been simulated, as if it was the real Tsar Bomb from pre-gate earth, the Cold War.  The materials though, you have to admire the artistry, I mean it looks visually like a common, every day fifty megaton hydrogen bomb, but the technology here is way wickeder.  Looks like a geometric yield increase, but honestly a lot of it is just show.  If I were building it, I could have ramped the output a lot higher, maybe done something really sexy with it”  Knockers was projecting a side by side holograph of what she actually saw, and a proposal for how she would have upgraded it, the armourer was making approving noises and adding highlights and suggestions to the image. The clan leaders looked on in interest as Paul Knight finally broke down and asked the question with the calm that only a large scaled dragon can possess leaning casually on what looked like an exact replica of the largest Hydrogen bomb produced on old earth during the cold war. “Is this bomb real, is it, oh what is the word…..live?”

 Cheesy grins and thumbs up provided the answer everyone was afraid of, yes.  There was a “a lot more than fifty megaton” nuclear weapon in the lobby, beside the receptionist.  On the Tsarbomb was a hand printed note, “Would the owner of the nuclear weapon please see reception to have it delivered to their own bay, storage of weapons of mass destruction in the lobby is punishable by loss of wet bar privileges”

 Holy Damn walked up and looked at the weapon, and muttered to himself in one of the dozens of voices that came from the constantly shifting vocoder that replaced his long missing throat. “That looks like the one from the Death Collectors Art of Death exhibit, but when I tried to compare by calling up the visual records, now it claims the weapon was never part of the Art of Death collection. Someone is altering data…..very bad…..very bad to alter data.  I had offline copy of the Art of Death catalog, and now it doesn’t match.  Am I right, are they right?  Is my data corrupted?  Must go check my software, my programs……..” Muttering to himself he wandered off.

 Life went on as the Berserkers prepared for war, and activity always seemed to be buzzing around the big weapon, but no one claimed it. Six days later, Holy Damn burst into the briefing room screaming in binary code, bursts so dense the unaugmented could actually hear it, but so fast that only those who were seriously augmented with cerebral processors could follow it.  Unfortunately, this command briefing was post training battle, and post-post battle party, so everyone was seriously hung over.  Everyone winced, most groaned, and two drew weapons to point at Holy, trying to decide if they were louder than he was before they pulled the trigger.

 Mark Spiznet waved with his coffee and translated “Holy says the bomb’s a trap, its on a timer, and going to go off in about three and a half minutes from………….mark”

 He grinned and answered the shocked looks “I took binary in college as a minor, there was a hot chick from the Forge World who had the most amazing implants….”

 The assembled leaders rushed to the reception room, ordering evacuations that could not possibly be in time, but guaranteed that at least the last seconds of everyone’s existence would constitute a good readiness drill.

 Several things happened at once.

 The crystal shields dropped across the hallways, leaving only visual sensors to observe what happened next.

Initiating charge triggered, two nuclear masses merged and went critical. Initial EMP took out active sensors beyond the visual range.

 Myth and Legends Armourer additional amplifiers boosted the yield by a factor of two hundred…………Spirit of Bunny chief technicians Gravity field generators channeled the energy of the blast into an infinite compression, generating a micro black hole………Slaughter House Five’s Weapon Master niode matrix  attempted to beam the released energy as a single beam theoretically powerful to blot the largest starship from the sky, but the amplification and compression into a black hole turned the gate into a single instant of a cosmic string of infinite length.

 Somewhere in deep space, a fleet of unimaginable power lay at rest in an uncharted binary system. Ten thousand ships, each filled with legion after legion of tireless, relentless, merciless inhuman troops rested at anchor, awaiting the signal that the human foe had concentrated its forces for them to descend and slaughter. For a femtosecond, a time literally so small it was almost impossible to calculate, a cosmic string connected both elements of the binary star system together with the masses of two other suns also caught upon the string, and the combined masses generated a supernova.

The blast burned thousands of ships, each as large as a small moon, out of existence.  The great armada was shattered, over half its strength wiped out in an instant.  The enemy had a new weapon, they could no longer wait.  The invasion was on, now. Ponderous ships began to move at last towards the War World where the assembled Factions of Mecha Galaxy would go to war. The shock of so many shattered suns and the storms of gravity that twisted the currents of the immaterium through which hyperspace ships navigated meant the trip that should have taken hours would take days.  The blow that was supposed to strike as the human Factions were at each others throats might now fall when they had just finished their war. The numbers that were once guaranteed to bury the humans under a mass of attackers they could not hope to face were now reduced to a shadow of themselves.  What was once going to be nothing more than an execution, was threatening to turn into an actual war. Curse the humans and their superweapon! Curse the fate that allowed them to pierce the supposedly perfect cloak that hid the fleet.  What genius was it that guided them, what cunning allowed them to break the jaws of a trap before it even began to close on them?

 Berserker HQ: Accident investigation “So, the AFF did kind of try to assassinate us all.  That is point one.  Point two is that it seems every single contributing clan screwed the nuclear weapon in the lobby.  Myth and legends amped its power, Bunnies turned it into a gravity imploder, Slaughterhouse turned it into some sort of gate weapon, the only reason we aren’t all dead is that the Star League was using some chroniode crap to make it actually destroy things before it touched them, which turns out to save us because it destroyed itself here before most of the effects happened, only lasting for a fraction of a second as you get really far away.”

 The table quietly erupted into embarrassed giggling as the reality that the world almost ended failed to hide the fact each of the groups contributed a portion of the crazy until the critical mass of suicidal impulses actually kept them alive by accident.

 John shared a quick look with the rest of the leadership and announced his decision. “Right, two things, send a fruit basket to the AFF, sign it from all of us, and just say “Thinking of you”.  I figure they will do the hard work of reading into that enough to get paranoid without us bothering.  Second, new rule, NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN THE LOBBY.” It said a lot we need a rule like that. Faction War.  What can you do?

 John T Mainer 28840

[enetarch-entrepreneurship]

Primary Business Activities - 4 of 4

I don’t post often, so if you have questions, contact me and ask.

There are 4 primary business activities that every entrepreneur must focus on in order to succeed. Only 4.  While there are over 60 departments in every business, they only lead to busy work. Instead, focus on the business problem your client’s are trying solve. They, like you, feel their time is valuable, and thus want to make sure it’s producing a revenue stream.

Here we go.

Research and Development

If you’re not improving your product and protecting it, soon, you won’t have a product, or at least a relevant one.

Isn’t this Product Management?

This is not Product Management.  Product Management is solely concerned with the current product, it’s manufacturing, and maintenance, and it’s retirement.  Research and Development is in building a whole new infrastructure to support the new product, development, manufacturing, customer support, and so on.  What does it take to roll out version 2 of a product built using a whole new language, manufacturing facility, or AI solution.

Remember that life cycle I described in part 3, that life cycle applies to everything about your business. Software, Hardware, Services, and so on all become obsolete within life cycles.  Microsoft publishes a new operating system, languages, database server, web server and so forth on a yearly basis.  Other companies follow suit to take advantage of the enhancements that are made.

The same is true in the medical field, manufacturing - now that 3D printers are here, communications, air traffic controls, farming, automobiles ... You name the field, and then looking over the past 20 years how research has changed it. Enhanced it. Made it more productive with less effort.

But I thought ...

You may think that finance should be #4, but you’d be very wrong, and you’re company would implode well before you succeeded at securing the financing needed to keep the company afloat. Along with being very frustrated when you learn that most financiers refuse to finance salaries. Instead, they finance marketing efforts, which in turn are supposed to fuel your sales efforts, which pay your salaries.  Oh, and did I mention that Financier’s also request that your existing salaries be frozen during the time of their funding?  Whoops, that 0$ a year salary you started with ... ya, you’re stuck with it for the next 2 years.  So, enough about financing, I’ll save this for another blog.

Corporate Counter Intelligence

How do you know when other companies are stealing your ideas?  You monitor them.  That’s right, companies police each other, and file lawsuits called copy right infringements or patent right infringements.  It’s your work, protect it.  

Coca Cola’s formula is so protected, that it’s not even patented.  That’s right, if you figure out how to make Coca Cola and attempt to patent it, they will buy you out.  Get your spectrometer out and figure out what it’s make of, cause there’s 100′s of Thousands of dollars waiting for you.  (Speaking of Financing with almost no strings.)  “ But! Why don’t they patent it?”  It’s because, once the formula is known, then every mom and pop shop can produce a 1 off of Coke.

Have you ever heard your favorite song, story, movie, or book remixed?  Probably, that’s because that’s allowed under copy right law. People are allowed to take other’s works, re-work them, tweak them, and publish them as an original work.  Trust me, it pisses a lot of people off, but that’s how our system works. And, it’s a necessary and an important part of innovation.  Without this right to rework something, anyone who improved upon the electric light bulb would have to pay Edison for the right to produce their light bulb.

Speaking of Edison’s light bulb and innovation - he started out by testing 100′s of different metals until he stumbled across carbon filaments, in a vacuum. Think about how this invention would later affect vacuum tubes, computers, electronics, and today's OLED monitors .. which by the way using Zinc Oxide as a light emitting source, with almost no heat dissipation.

So, protect your inventions zealously. Unless you’re going to use open source, then make sure that the GPL license you use, insures that corporations can test, but not use in production the products they are producing with your products.  Every instance of your product should be paid for either in totality or via subscription.

New Features and Enhancements

As mentioned, the environment and playing field change almost daily.  What ever you are using to product your product or service will change in a year.  One day you’re traveling to client’s to maintain their computers, the next you’re doing it all remotely. One day you’re listening to CD’s, the next day MP3, and the next a new format that provides better compression and higher fidelity.  We’ve gone from Cathode Ray Tubes monitors to OLED monitors, and tomorrow, it may be holograms in glass.

Why do they write new books about the same topic?  It’s not to write about the topic all over again. It’s to describe how the topic has been affected by the advances of technology. NASA is developing WARP drive. How will space travel affect everything and everyone? What new social norms, political norms, and historical aspects will be documented that affect how your product was reshaped and molded during that time.

Is there a university working on something that may affect your product? 

Production Changes

There’s your product, and then there’s how you produce your product.  

So you’re product is handmade woven thread, in the way back machine. Then the loom is upgraded and automated with cogs, gears and a little electricity. Now the work of 20 people is reduced to 1.  Plus, instead of producing 100 yards of material a week, you can generate 100 yards of material in an hour.

I could have talked about current technology, but what’s the difference between a loom being automated vs automating how programs are written by AI? It’s not that the automation has taken place, it’s how the automation is changing the landscape, the business environment, political environment, and social environment.

Tesla is changing the way cars are made. Pretty soon, we will see the automation of car product look like that seen in Minority Report.  A website will be used to allow customers to choose the accessories they want / need, then have it built as easily as ordering a pizza. 

My suggestion is to dream about how the future can evolve, and plan your product's evolution around it.

[esosoyyosinmiedoasentir]

Love in the Time of Cryptography.

How security software and encryption created an old-fashioned romance. 

I’ll tell you this much about him: He has soft eyes and a wonderful smile. He’s taller than me. He’s very good with computers. His accent in English is terrible. He likes his privacy.

In 2016, after several years of a simple and warm love affair, we hit a snag. We had decided to live together, and that I would emigrate to Europe. But to do this, we had to prove our relationship to the government. The instructions on how to do this skewed toward the modern forms of relationships: social media connections; emails; chats; pictures of the happy couple. He read through this, and showed it to me. We both laughed. Our relationship had left few traces in the digital world. We had none of these things.

We met a few years before at a drinks night for a hacker collective. A mutual friend introduced me by name, and him by handle. I liked him instantly. We chatted for a few moments, but I had to run. I set up a time to meet up with him later that weekend, and then missed it after falling ill.

“Oh well,” I thought, “so much for that.”

We bumped into each other a few weeks later on a public IRC channel, and I recognized his handle. IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a massive chat system, like a command-line version of Slack. In fact, Slack is a fancy interface for IRC with added features, but no added privacy. An IRC server knows everything you say on it, just as the Slack servers do. I told him that I’d still love to chat, but he warned me that he didn’t come to IRC much. I gave him my Jabber address, and suggested that we continue our conversation privately. This time, we managed to chat.

Jabber is different from most chat protocols in that it’s decentralized. There’s no Jabber-the-company with only Jabber servers, like there is in the cases of Google or WhatsApp. This meant we could use servers run by whomever, in whichever country we liked. My only contact for this mysterious man (whom I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about) was this Jabber address, which he had configured to refuse any unencrypted messages. Jabber itself doesn’t encrypt messages, but another protocol called OTR (Off-The-Record) creates a layer of encryption inside other communication systems. It would be as if I called you, but the conversation were in a secret language only we knew. Someone could tap the line and listen, but they wouldn’t understand us. OTR has another property, called Perfect Forward Secrecy. With Perfect Forward Secrecy, new encryption keys are created for every session, so that even if one is broken, it’s only broken that one time. It doesn’t give an interloper any more access to messages in the future, or past. It would be as if when I called you, we invented a new language to communicate every time we spoke—a new language we both understood instantly, every time.

We started a conversation this way—intimate, private—in our textual world for two; it’s a conversation that is still going. Most Jabber clients are smart enough to realize that if you’re encrypted, you don’t want to log conversations, and that was our case as well. Those chats in the early days are gone. Some live in my memory, some in his, but most are as lost and fragmented as conversations in the rain.

I do remember I complained to him a lot—about journalism, sources, stories, writing; about trying to do something important. He always seemed to listen and care, in the strange body language that lives in chat pauses. He was sensible, positive, and encouraging. I remember that I told him I was frustrated with being a woman trying to write longform subjective journalism, and that I felt there was so much I wasn’t socially allowed to do. He asked me about it more, and I listed out all the ways I felt my gender was limiting my writing. He was quiet for a moment, and then reposted my list to me in our chat — but as a to-do list. I looked at my computer and took a deep breath. I wanted to cry, but I also felt like it was time. I took that to-do list, and turned it into my final, longest, and best piece of journalism forWired. But he doesn’t remember this, and has to trust me that it happened. In an age in which every relationship is automatically documented, this one has remained ephemeral, contained in the shifting sands of our human memory—the way all relationships used to be.

“I feel like what we keep in our minds is more important,” he wrote to me over WhatsApp recently. “The accuracy of it is…mah.” This is his disdain for this digital accuracy, and it captures something. There’s an obvious, almost legalistic veracity of moment-to-moment logging, but that loses a truth that the impressionism of memory catches better. I didn’t fall in love with him word by word or sentence by sentence. I fell in love with him slowly and steadily through time, in the spaces between the words, held up by the words. Losing the words sometimes feels frustrating, but that forgetting also removes the scaffolding from a finished past—a past that was never really containable in a logfile.

As those first weeks stretched into months, he became my imaginary friend, the person who no one else knew was there. We spoke every day, usually on OTR, always encrypted. When we passed files using unencrypted file sharing programs and websites, we’d first encrypt them with command line tools and share decryption passwords in our OTR chats.

These were not easy to use, and required long and esoteric commands, such as:

This meant that though our communications were on the open internet, they were just meaningless blobs of text without the password we’d shared over chat. I read him poems into a microphone and sent them to him. I sent him pictures. I don’t remember many specifics, and I can’t look them up now, but I remember I loved it.

I wanted a way to communicate on the phone. We used TextSecure and RedPhone (which later became Signal). We sent pictures to each other— usually me to him, and usually pictures of funny things I’d seen in my day. I found myself in London, and jokingly (not at all jokingly) tried to get him to come visit me. He demurred, but countered that I could come visit him a bit later in Luxembourg. A few weeks later I was in Paris’ Gare de l’Est, cash-bought ticket in hand, boarding an express train to the main station in Luxembourg City.

I still didn’t know this man’s legal name. I didn’t even realize that Luxembourg was a different country. We had a lovely weekend. I told him, “I want to show you a movie to help you understand my culture and my people,” and I showed him a John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China. We sat, side by side on a couch with a laptop balanced across our thighs, and watched it. He told me at the end that he liked it very much. We walked around the city in the daytime, sitting in parks and eating takeout food together. We talked about the internet, activism, journalism, and computers. By the end of the weekend I knew his name, but I still called him by his handle — I was used to it.

Everything was still platonic, but I knew I didn’t want it to be.

Several months later, we went together to Berlin. Standing on a friend’s balcony in the middle of the night, I asked if I could kiss him, and he said yes.

Not long after, I came to the attention of a media storm after being struck by a tragedy. My life imploded, and between grieving and dealing with media controversy, my days became a sickening tragicomedy I couldn’t turn off. He became my refuge; his apartment became the only place I felt safe. He looked after me, made sure I was eating, held me, walked with me, and let me cry on him. At the moment when we might have become more public as a couple, he didn’t want any part of my media ordeal. “If a reporter calls me, I will be very mean with them,” he told me. I laughed and agreed. I didn’t want any part of it either. But when I was away, he was still with me, checking in over the encrypted links we’d built. I don’t remember much of that terrible time, but I remember the sense that he was there, quietly present, from thousands of miles away.

There are few pictures of us together. Very few were taken by us; neither of us are much for selfies. Those that do exist, we ask our friends to keep offline.

We know that the vague and soft anonymity of our relationship probably won’t last forever. And I doubt there will ever be a surfeit of digital connections between us. Our phones trace the paths we walk together, existing in telecom databases (and more recently, in WhatsApp’s logfiles) long after we’ve moved on. Their cell tower and GPS logs are like a pair of maze paths with no walls, lines coming together and parting, and coming together again. But what we said on those walks is lost, even to us. Only the feelings, memories, and paths remain.

Those paths have traced across three continents now, traveling together, often visiting friends. We are not at all a secret couple. Our friends and communities know us as a couple — with something of an information security bent. Introducing him to my friends and family (first by handle, then later by name) has been one of my great joys. I’m intensely proud of him, and still a bit giddy that I get to spend time with him.

My love affair has taught me that the age of data makes time solid in a way that it didn’t used to be. I have a calendar and email archive that nails down the when/where/who of everything I’ve done. I know when my kid was here; the last time I saw a friend in New York; exactly what my last email exchange with my mother was. Not so with my lover. Time is a softer thing for us. Sometimes it seems like he’s always been there, sometimes it seems like we’re a brand new thing. Every other relationship in my life is more nailed down than this one.

“Every time I look at an old mail, I feel weird, like I prefer the memory I have of a thing than the accurate recording,” he told me.

He doesn’t mean an email from me. We have never exchanged email.

I’ll tell you a little more about him: He tolerates no nonsense. He expects clear and timely communication and honesty. He rarely sees the point of being subtle, especially on important matters. We make things plain to each other. Over the years, inside our little tunnels of encryption, we told our stories, explained ourselves to each other. We became quiet voices in each other’s minds. In the absence of a perfect record, we settled for trust.

So it was, in 2016, we had to document our relationship to the satisfaction of the modern nation-state. At the bottom of the government instructions for how we could do this, there was one old-fashioned option left to us — letters from friends and family attesting to our love. So that’s what we gathered.

One friend wrote in his letter:

“…We shared frites, too many coffees, and many laughs before we parted ways. Seeing them here these days made me fully realize how incredibly happy they are together and how glad I am that they are a couple.”

Another wrote:

“I remember meeting Mr. ******* for the first time in September 2013, when they visited and stayed with me...They struck me as two lovebirds, and I can’t recall seeing her happier.”

I don’t know if anyone in the government actually read the letters — governments these days have a flawed love for metadata over actual information — but we did. Having your friends and community testifying to your love beats all the selfies in the world.

Either way, I received my Carte de Séjour, the government’s permission to live with my lover in Europe, and I moved to be with him.

In May of last year we went back to Berlin. I took him, naturally, to the Stasi museum. When we got to the director’s old office, I took a deep breath and proposed to him. Instead of a ring, I gave him a USB key. (Bought with cash, and I’m not telling you what was on it.)

He said yes.

Then he looked at me quizzically, and asked, “Is this why you’ve been so nervous this week?”

“Yes! It’s incredibly nerve-wracking!” I said, and we went for coffee. So that’s how it all happened.

But you’ll have to take my word for it.

By  Quinn Norton a journalist of Hacker.

[thecloudlight-blog]

New Post has been published on Cloudlight

New Post has been published on https://cloudlight.biz/soon-you-will-be-able-to-try-out-a-health-insurance/

Soon, you will be able to try out a health insurance

This supposed that if an insurer plans a product that might, for instance, offer dynamic pricing based totally on how lovely a person is, they might release it for some months and test it with a few customers. If the response is effective

Your coverage organization may quickly offer a product on trial to peer if it works inside the marketplace. With the insurance regulator allowing general insurers and health insurers to convey out pilot products, agencies are readying products for a soft launch.

In July 2016, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDA) notified a hard and fast of revised health insurance policies. This added an exchange to numerous of the prevailing guidelines around medical health insurance sales, pricing, and product shape, which includes the sale of products.

In the coverage journal added out by means of IRDA on medical health insurance,

Chairman TS Vijayan said that general insurers or health insurers are accepted to provide pilot products to give scope for innovation.

This intended that if an insurer plans a product that would, as an instance, offer dynamic pricing primarily based on how energetic someone is, they may release it for some months and test it with some customers. If the response is advantageous, they may carry it to the mass market.

Since IRDA has asked insurers to inspire the wellness and preventive behavior of the policyholders, it is anticipated that most of the pilot products might be an aggregate of functions that encourage fitness and wholesome behavior.

Health insurers, especially, are trying to tie up with gymnasiums and swimming pools to become aware of if any in their clients visit those places on a normal foundation. Based on the quantity of days of interest and a wide variety of hours that a person works out on a weekly foundation, custom designed coverage and higher pricing may be supplied.

Laser Weapons – They Are Here Today, Soon Ubiquitous In The Modern Battlespace

Ronald Reagan was all about selling the concept of Star Wars laser guns with the capacity to shoot down incoming ICBM guns, Soviet Bombers or something else that changed into deemed a threat. The Space Race and Cold War was in full bloom and coming to an give up, specifically because of the U.S. Jogging out of money and economically imploding trying to hold up. Back then, we did not have laser guns, however, wanted them, a lot become a bluff, however quickly, these laser weapon systems could be anywhere and used for all varieties of makes use of. Let’s speak, shall we?

Not lengthy in the past, I was interviewed about the future of superior laser weapon structures. Daniel the interviewer asks; “Do you believe you studied we can soon see laser weapons? Why?”

Yes, and within the US we’re sincerely already there, now onto the project of miniaturization.

Perhaps building a small laser system the dimensions of a small fridge to in shape into the bomb bay of an F-35 or F-22 and I have no doubt as a way to occur within 5-10 years, terrific for our allies who purchase our stealthy F-35, but horrific for any and all adversaries. We are running on a smaller system mounted on truck and Humvee, we have demonstrated a concept.

In the USA we additionally have the ship set up laser guns gadgets for protection too. In the close to future possibly even a handheld device, no longer like a Star Trek Phaser, but more like a larger model of an assault rifle. There are still demanding situations with those types of weapons such as air density and the sort of laser in airborne applications. Also, the strength wanted, especially within the case of man-transportable devices. Another problem is the time required on target for a great kill whilst the usage of lasers to shield against swarm assault.

Laser guns do no longer make sense for every area of interest inside the battlespace or future battlespaces, however,

They are viable, however. It might be the technological know-how fiction loving minds of researchers or our love for Star Wars which keeps assuring the funding for such things. But excessive-tech weapon structures simply for the sake of it, makes no feel. Cash-strapped nations have to recollect fees of such systems, and they’ll.

The US has many allies who would like to have these structures, and BAE and others are running on systems in their very own now. The Russians have a studies software too, and the Chinese as properly, yes, an awful lot of its miles borrowed tech, were given to like the spy international and cyber hackers – it appears in recent times Top Secret = 1 Month, and then there is WikiLeaks, you understand how it’s miles?

Healthy Living – Don’t Take Your Health For Granted

I am going to assume you live busy lifestyles and it is tough to find a hazard to do whatever no longer without delay vital. It is not going this assumption is inaccurate considering maximum adults are inquisitive about work, friends, and own family, or other each day topics. If you are like most, it’s miles hard so one can locate time to do whatever new, in no way mind exercising.

What you could now not recognize, however

Is often running out isn’t just a beneficial hobby: it is a vital one. Physical interest is broadly overlooked in spite of its significance, which sadly comes at a steep price. Don’t make this error.

Finding time to workout can be difficult, however, you need to be sincere with yourself. Are you clearly so occupied you can not squeeze in some weekly workouts or are you making excuses? Going for a workout is not the most fun manner to spend an hour of your precious unfastened time, however, it is also no longer as bad as it is able to seem. Rarely will you ever regret an exercising, now not to say there’s a surge of endorphins to enhance your temper when you are done along with your ordinary? Especially if you do cardio, which is an extraordinary manner to burn fat and enhance your coronary heart.

Whether you are aware of it or not, you can discover the time to workout,

Even if you are the busiest you’ve got ever been. Waking up an hour or so in advance 3 to four times every week may be all you need. Or, cut down your television and internet time by an hour in the evenings for some vital physical hobby. As previously mentioned, whether or not you recognize it or now not, you need to consist of bodily pastime on your existence if you are to preserve your fitness and nicely-being.

Don’t take your fitness for granted. Crippling diseases like Type 2 diabetes and the headaches it brings are extraordinarily probably within the “right” situations. An aggregate of bodily inactiveness and a dangerous weight loss plan are sufficient for the majority to increase excessive blood sugar stages and emerge as obese, that is the core recipe for one of the most debilitating diseases recognized to man.

Finding time to exercising can mean the distinction among a healthy life and an ill one filled with remorse,

Worry, and pain. You could choice to be healthy, even if your will to exercise is not wholehearted yet. You cannot understand what may show up, but prevention is in no way unwise.

Take movement now even as you may set up a buffer against common health troubles so that they by no means become an issue on your lifestyles.

Although managing your disorder may be very hard, Type 2 diabetes isn’t always a condition you have to just live with. You could make easy adjustments in your daily recurring and decrease each your weight and your blood sugar tiers. Hang in there, the longer you do it, the simpler it receives.

Understanding Caravan Insurance Covers

If you’ll be the use of your caravan at some stage in the holidays it’s always encouraged which you insure it in order to protect yourself from any danger that might come to your manner.

Types of caravan insurance covers

There are three styles of caravan coverage covers you can cross for: journeying, static, and trailer tent cowl. Caravan insurance covers are inclusive of the caravan this is being towed at the back of every other vehicle.The static cowl covers a caravan that you vicinity at a hard and fast area. For instance, the caravan that your area at a vacation park. In maximum cases, the quilt protects even the contents in the caravan. It covers the tent and once in a while the contents in the tent. Since the tent is typically exposed, most of the insurance groups pull away from protecting the content. The few that accept to insure the caravan often charge an excessive fee.

Factors to don’t forget whilst getting a caravan insurance cowl

To keep away from misunderstanding within the event you’ve got a coincidence or your contents are broken, you ought to get the proper caravan insurance cover. The first issue to keep in mind is the reputation of the organization you are running with. As rule of thumb make certain that the company is of excessive reputation and can’t rip-off you.

You should also bear in mind the size regulations of the duvet. It’s commonplace for agencies to cover caravans of a sure weight or length. To keep away from troubles in the future you need to weigh your caravan which includes its contents and ensure that the agency you’re shopping for the cover from will ensure it.