Skip to main content


Showing posts from 2019

task oriented programming languages

Categorizing the thousands of programming languages that exist is no easy task, but software trends over the years have revealed two sovereign frameworks: imperative (object-oriented) and declarative (functional) languages.
Imperative: The programmer defines how to perform algorithms and how memory is accessed. Examples include C++, JavaScript, and Python.
Declarative: The programmer defines the composition of functions, and lets the run-time optimize algorithms. Examples include Haskell, Erlang, and OCaml.
A classic way to describe the distinction between declarative and imperative programming is that declarative languages let the programmer describe what to do, whereas imperative languages let the programmer define how to do it.
If we extend this idea to a third type of language that lets the programmer define why choices are made, then we have discovered task-oriented programming languages.
Task-oriented: The programmer defines desired states, and lets the runtime resolve the compositio…

Microsoft & ethereum

Microsft announced a collaboration with the Enjin gaming system which saw a 50% rise in ENJ, ETH completed its latest hard fork.ETHEthereum’s Istanbul hard fork went live at the end of the week. The fork is the third this year and is the latest upgrade as the network moves towards Serenity (ETH 2.0), Ethereum’s transition from its current proof of work consensus mechanism towards proof of stake consensus. The fork occurred as previously expected at block number 9069000.

edge or fog computing coming on strong in 2020

What is this edge or fog computing trend ? 
Both edge and fog computing provide similar functionalities where smart devices or items or sensors push data and analytics to cloud platforms.
Fog computing and edge computing are effectively the same thing." 
 Both are concerned with leveraging the computing capabilities within a smaller simpler server / gateway or sensor hardware device and process and share data via a localized network to carry out computation tasks that would ordinarily have been carried out in the cloud. More advanced AI and data processing still are done on the cloud.   
Both technologies can help organizations reduce their reliance on cloud-based platforms to analyze data, provide intelligent automation and analysis.
The main difference between edge computing and fog computing comes down to where the processing of that data takes place.
Edge computing usually occurs directly on the devices to which the sensors are attached or a gateway device that is physically “clos…

stellar for payments and more

I like stellar. Have used it.  Bought it. Validated it. Forked it.   " It seems like we are on the cusp of these things actually making people’s lives better "

blockchain smart contracts lawyer and data feeds

Cool stuff going on in blockchain and side chains and smart contracts. 
" OpenLaw, the smart contract pioneer from New York, has partnered with Thomson Reuters to conduct a proof of concept (POC) that tests how Contract Express and the OpenLaw system can work together to log hashed data points from contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. That in turn has made it possible to begin with a Contract Express document and turn it into a smart contract with digital currency transaction and self-execution elements. 
The POC included executing smart contracts ‘on-chain’ from data inputted through Contract Express. "

ai solves Rubik cube

"Artificial intelligence research organization OpenAI has achieved a new milestone in its quest to build general purpose, self-learning robots. The group’s robotics division says Dactyl, its humanoid robotic hand first developed last year, has learned to solve a Rubik’s cube one-handed. OpenAI sees the feat as a leap forward both for the dexterity of robotic appendages and its own AI software, which allows Dactyl to learn new tasks using virtual simulations before it is presented with a real, physical challenge to overcome."

This year, 22 cyberattacks have shut down city, county and state government computer systems

So almost 250 mayors from cities across the United States have signed a resolution agreement not to pay ransoms when it comes to cyber attacks, ransomware, and hacks.  It's a stand against the multiple ransomware attacks that have crippled city and countht government computer systems in recent years. Baltimore and Atlanta come to mind. But 250 out of thousands of cities and mayor's mean there is a long way to go. 
What is a  ransomware attack ? Ransomware attacks usually use some form of malware to lock out users. Lock out networks, databases, cloud access, mobile phones, applications, etc. And  unless the hackers get paid, they won't unlock the system.  Quite a few have demanded Bitcoin or other crypto tokens and even gave details on how to create or sign up for  a bitcoin wallet and buy and sell Bitcoin.  So these random or Targeted Cities have been picked off one by one, with seemingly little recourse. Cities and governments have  been prime targets for ransomware atta…

Floods, storms, loss of life and communities but no funding to fix it this

We gotta save the planet.  Escape to Mars to Nuke it, makes sense.  Not." Globally, the question of equity is even more acute, with cities in developed nations far better able to fund climate change adaptation projects than in developing countries. “In an environment of scarce resources for local authorities, especially in poor countries, mobilizing such resources will be a real political and institutional challenge,” according to a World Bank study."" There is no coordinated strategy nationally, there is not enough money, states are not moving, and this loose talk of resilience bonds in the private sector is not a reality yet,” Stiles says."The Cost of Rising Seas: More Than $400 Billion

Finland flexible work

My company,  Pagarba,  believes in the philosophy of remote work, respect and as much flexibility as possible. Just get work done when you need to. If you need to drop kids off at school, take college classes, go surfing , go the gym, whatever it's all about flexibility and creating an environment where you get your work and life in order.   I guess you could call it  the work life balance to the extreme philosophy. " Employees will be able to decide when and where they work for at least half of their hours. As well as fitting their job around childcare commitments or exercise sessions, most full-time workers will be able to “bank” time off and use it to take extended holidays.Daily treks into the city could become unnecessary as the new rules facilitate a choice of working remotely."Finland is about to take flexible working a step further

Bring on qutrits... because Quantum physicists successfully teleported qutrits

What’s a qutrit?It’s like a qubit. A qunit is an entangled pair of particles used to carry info in a quantum computing system. Qubits are sort of similar to bits, the binary units of information used by computers we use today.  Bits can be represented by the numbers 0 and 1, qubits can be 0, 1, or both at the same time.
Trits, used in classical tenary systems , add a 2 into the mix. And qutrits are the quantum version of trits, capable of carrying even more  information than their qubit counterparts. Cool stuff quantum computing..

High rental costs create most expensive cities in USA

Housing was the biggest expense for those living in the top 5 cities, forming 29.34% of the overall composite index of the cost of living.A  one bedroom apartment in  Manhattan goes for $3,100 a month now. The Median annual household income was around $75,400 in NYC.   The average rent in San Francisco is around $3,600 for an apartment now.  But median income is a little higher so events it out and why NYC,  statistically speaking, is the most expensive. 

Another mass shooting and lost hope

It's not just the guns.  I usually sway middle ground on gun rights, second amendment and so on. I am not a gun person. I don't go out to the range nor collect guns. But i did grow up in a military family where my father and most of my uncle's server from a few years to over 30 in the Marines , army, navy, air Force, national guard and so on. I've had friends in various branches. I even tried to be a chemical weapons kind of engineer in the army myself.  So I'm well aware and familiar with guns and the love of guns.  But this love affair with Rambo and assault weapons pretty much meant for one thing is a bit absurd.   A couple people in a community owning a boatload of assault weapons and even granades aren't going to stop the military, the feds or national guard or the swat team from storming a town.  It might deter them for a moment, but what side of the coin are all these people on anyway?   Former Military and police officers are going to attack their own…

Smart city and IoT security vulnerabilities

Smart cities and IoT is here to stay. And going forward , 5g,  Elon Musks satellites laser internet whatever system and things like nb-iot, lorawan, microwaves and more , things will only become more vulnerable. And connected.   Hardware is hard.  Margins can also be rough.  Look at half the scams on Kickstarter and even crypto ICOs.  Sell a vision to naive folks and never deliver anything real.  Or deliver an insecure raspberry pi with no security features. The Intel's of the world have vulnerabilities much less some fly by night sell some $9.99 sensor company.   Security is hard.  It's not sexy. Nobody cares till they have to care.  Plain text passwords, lack of security knowledge, it's all easy and faster to just pretend security isn't real.  Robinhood takes money from millennials and stores in plain text. Nice.  Not really. But even the unicorns and hot companies get caught in this release faster and who cares about software development lifecycle and security proc…

Smart city IoT is here ...

Pagarba ( worked on some real time location tracking sensors and data collection projects.   We've been diving into radio frequencies, Lora , lorawan and private decentralized mesh networks lately to build better smarter Internet of things systems.  Good stuff. Interesting city." Wireless sensors can be used to monitor traffic data and analytics.  An ongoing pilot program on lower Union Street aims to count vehicles with the goal of reducing flow and idling. Traffic patterns differ between sport utility vehicles and compact cars. With a better understanding of the types of vehicles on city streets, the city can schedule traffic lights more efficiently. Data will also allow vehicles can be re-routed in the event of a crash or some other kind of large-scale event. "

Distributed computing CALM - ness or not


Why so many Fake artificial intelligence companies

Quite interesting that 40% of these "AI" firms don't use artificial intelligence at all. Do some even know what tensorflow or mxnet or neural networks even means ?   Also funny how Google decided this post had issues.  Real products with real artificial intelligence would make sense. But hype and marketing fake news sells I guess.