#the real battle was the network technical difficulties

[ffxivtribehydrae]

A contract with the company for once! Hunting corrupted beasts in the Burning Wall. Though Bexy said she needed them to help Sayuri too, so it was for more than one good cause to fight them.

And as we were heading out, Adelle was there! I didn't know she was back, with Khu even, but he wasn't here. I hope to see him soon!

I did well in the battle, but everyone else got pretty beat... Or almost all, Erjon was fine too afterwards. But everyone could make it back, which was most important. And we got everything we needed to help Sayuri, I think and didn't encounter the slavers we been hunting in the area.

#Fragmented Tales #Dusk Hydrae #the real battle was the network technical difficulties #that kept disconnecting us all

[techtrends24]

Tech Roundup: AI Innovation, Legal Battles, and Social Media Shifts

The tech landscape is constantly evolving, and today is no different. From legal battles between tech giants to advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), there's a lot to unpack. Let's delve into the top tech news stories dominating headlines on March 7th, 2024.

AI in the Spotlight:

HP's Amplify Conference: AI took center stage at HP's Amplify conference in Las Vegas. The focus was on how AI can revolutionize various industries, from healthcare and manufacturing to customer service and product development. We can expect to see more innovative applications of AI emerge in the coming months.

US Army's War Games with AI Chatbots: A fascinating development comes from the US army, which is reportedly experimenting with generative AI chatbots in war games. These chatbots can simulate real-world interactions with adversaries, potentially enhancing military training and strategy development. However, ethical considerations surrounding AI use in warfare remain a critical discussion point.

Legal Battles and Corporate Intrigue:

Google vs. Ex-Employee over AI Secrets: Google is embroiled in a legal battle with a former employee, Linwei Ding. Google accuses Ding of stealing confidential AI research data and sharing it with Chinese companies. This incident highlights the growing importance of data security and intellectual property protection in the age of AI.

OpenAI Fires Back at Elon Musk: The feud between Elon Musk and OpenAI, a research company he co-founded, escalates. OpenAI claims Musk attempted to merge with Tesla, seeking "full control" of the company. This power struggle sheds light on the complex dynamics within AI development and its relationship with commercial interests.

Apple and iOS Updates:

iOS 17.4 Released with Third-Party App Store Support: Apple rolled out the iOS 17.4 update, introducing a significant change in compliance with the EU's Digital Markets Act. This update allows third-party app stores on iPhones and iPads, potentially impacting Apple's app store dominance. It's a move towards greater user choice and potential cost savings for developers.

Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account: Adding fuel to the ongoing legal battle between Apple and Fortnite creator Epic Games, Apple has reportedly terminated the developer account of Epic Games. This move could limit Epic's ability to distribute future games and updates on iOS devices.

Social Media and Beyond:

Instagram and Facebook Outage: Many users worldwide reported outages on Instagram and Facebook, causing temporary disruptions in social media activity. While the specific causes are yet to be determined, this event underscores our growing reliance on these platforms and the potential impact of technical difficulties.

Rili.ai: AI-powered Social Network for Loneliness? A new platform called Rili.ai aims to combat loneliness through AI-powered social interactions. Users can connect with virtual companions who engage in conversation and offer emotional support. The rise of such platforms raises interesting questions about the future of social interaction and the potential benefits and drawbacks of AI companionship.

Other Tech Tidbits:

Jeff Bezos Reclaims World's Richest Title: In a shift of fortunes, Jeff Bezos surpassed Elon Musk to become the world's richest person once again, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. This news highlights the volatility of wealth accumulation in the tech sector.

Webb Telescope's Potential Discovery: The James Webb Space Telescope may have spotted evidence of the very first stars to ever light up the universe. This groundbreaking discovery could revolutionize our understanding of cosmic evolution.

US Mulls Banning TikTok: Following India's example, the US government might be considering a ban on TikTok. This potential move stems from growing national security concerns surrounding the popular short-form video platform owned by a Chinese company.

Looking Ahead:

These are just some of the top tech news stories shaping the landscape today. As we move forward, we can expect continued advancements in AI, evolving legal battles surrounding its development and use, and potential changes to the social media landscape. Additionally, the Webb Telescope's discoveries promise to broaden our understanding of the universe. This is an exciting time for technology, but it's crucial to stay informed and engage in critical discussions about its impact on society.

#artificial intelligence #tech #technology

[cryptoonus]

Ethereum Dev Team To Launch Shapella And Sepolia On Zheijang Testnet

Ethereum dev team to launch Shapella (Shanghai & Capella forks) on Zheijang testnet Feb 7, 2023, as per Time Beiko. Sepolia & Goerli testnets to follow. The Shanghai fork upgrades Ethereum execution, Capella fork upgrades Beacon Chain consensus. There were some config issues in launching the network, but the devops and client teams are looking into it. The Shapella fork is planned for Tuesday 3pm UTC Beiko urges Shapella validators to get 33 ETH from the Zheijang faucet before launch. Zhejiang public testnet launched Feb 1 with taps, Beacon chain explorer, & tx explorer. Testnets let devs find tx issues without risking real funds before the mainnet upgrade. Devs agree Sepolia testnet launches before Goerli, giving time for tooling/docs for March's Shanghai mainnet upgrade. Beiko is optimistic about the Sepolia launch next week. Last year's Merge on Sep 15, 2022, switched Ethereum from PoW to PoS, assigning security to validators and reducing energy consumption by 99%. Validators become network validators by sending 32 ETH to staking contracts on a new consensus layer, incentivized by annual yield. Shanghai upgrade enables staked ETH withdrawals and more. Unlocking 16 Million ETH: Developers Prioritize Delivery Despite Concerns Upgrade on track, but dev minority worries majority bowing to public pressure, sacrificing Ethereum's future. Devs rejected SSZ's withdrawal proposal and chose RLP despite potential deprecation, causing minority worry. Micah Zoltu expressed concern at Jan 19 dev meeting. I focused too much on meeting public demands, neglecting Ethereum's long-term health. Developers are conscious of delays causing investor frustration. Delays could put billions in DeFi protocols at risk if glitches occurred post-Merge. Technical difficulties repeatedly postponed the Merge date. Related Reading | Wahlberg & Fortune Present: The FTX Tale – CZ Vs. SBF’s Controversial Crypto Battle Developers opt for shipping a bug-free product with deprecated encoding instead of delaying it with 16 million ETH staked. Updating the transaction encoding needs extensive changes to the Ethereum codebase, which is better suited for future upgrades. Read the full article

[itsbenedict]

I didn’t post about everything I played this year, so here’s my opinions on the stuff I played that I didn’t make a rec post for:

Raging Loop 

Raging Loop is one of them twisty meta Zero Escape-y branching-path visual novels where an ensemble cast is trapped in a mysterious circumstance where people are dying gruesomely, and you have to find out what’s happening and stop it by looping a bunch. 

I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it, because... it tries to have its cake and eat it too with the supernatural elements. Clearly magic is real and has important impacts on the scenario, but then other parts are trickery you’re supposed to see through, and it’s entirely uninterested in cluing you in to how that trickery was accomplished. Not exactly a fair play mystery, in that regard- you have to kind of just be along for the ride, rather than try to figure it out.

That said, it’s a good ride- pretty strong character writing, and the central conceit of the Werewolf/Mafia-style murder scenario creates really interesting drama. It’s more concerned with making itself feel clever than letting the player feel clever, but it’s still well-paced and gripping and has a pretty decent resolution.

Detective Grimoire

I recommended Tangle Tower, the sequel, pretty strongly- and this one, while obviously a little rougher around the edges with the art and mechanics (the suspicion tracker system is a total dud; I didn’t even realize it existed until I realized I was missing an achievement for using it), it’s still pretty darn good. Really fun character designs and animations, fully-voiced, and a solid whodunit backing it all. Plus- while the two are more or less self-contained, the continuity threads with Tangle Tower raised some really interesting questions.

Contradiction - the all-video murder mystery

This one was pretty fun, largely on the strength of the actors. The main mechanic of interrogating people on evidence and using their own statements against each other was some good stuff, too. Definitely had that Phoenix Wright quality to the deductions, and Jenks is a really fun character. (Had a few points where progression was just linked to standing in a certain previously-abandoned area of the map where a clue was suddenly there for no reason, there- good thing it had a hint system.)

As a mystery, it could use a little work- most of what you end up finding out is sequel bait (for a sequel that never actually came together, unfortunately), and the actual whodunit is just sort of hiding in the cracks of all that. And... cornering the culprit just sort of happens out of nowhere once you’ve got your hands on the right piece of evidence, without much fanfare. You’re following up on leads like usual, you find a little lie in someone’s testimony, and then- oh, shit, they’re just confessing everything! Unlike all the previous times you questioned them and they were super evasive like everyone else! And then the game is over. 

All in all, it’s pretty meaty and entertaining and I’d recommend it, but unfortunately the creators have moved on to other things, so there’s not going to be any follow-up on the stuff it left unresolved.

Ikenfell

Ikenfell is a tightly-designed RPG about kids at a magic school, with Paper Mario-style action command mechanics and a battle system that makes a big deal out of careful positioning and movement, which was really enjoyable. The difficulty’s a little high (I recommend always always always speccing into max damage because killing things before they kill you is worth more than any amount of defense, speed doesn’t work, and healing is cheap), but I found it really satisfying.

There’s... something... off? About... I don’t know how to put it, it’s... doing that “yes, everyone is queer and mentally ill, deal with it” thing, which, sure, okay. But for a lot of them it’s such a background thing, like... half the playable cast is unambiguously nonbinary, but like... I don’t know if it’s trying to make some statement on how there are no rules to being NB and you can 100% perform a particular binary gender presentation but still count, or if they wrote the whole story and then changed the pronouns of some of the characters for Representation Points, or what. Probably the former? I dunno, it just feels weird. Maybe I’m just not woke enough to Get It.

(unrelatedly: why the heck is the official art they use everywhere so... off-model? none of them look like they do in-game- they look like the creator commissioned someone to draw a group shot with one reference image each and didn’t tell them anything about the characters. how much you wanna bet they commissioned a friend and it came out wrong but they were too polite to say “sorry, no, this is wrong, can you do it over?”)

Trails of Cold Steel IV

Hoo boy. It’s... not great, and it’s not great in a pretty predictable way for an even-numbered entry in the Trails series. It happens every time- first there’s a game in a new engine with new characters and a new world to explore, and it’s really nice and does interesting things... and then it ends on a cliffhanger, and then there’s a sequel game in the same engine with the same characters and the same world, reusing as many assets as possible. Also the League Of Generically Evil Anime Supervillains is there causing trouble for reasons they refuse to explain, and the plot is a storm of magicbabble and macguffin-chasing that makes little to no sense. 

Cold Steel IV is that for Cold Steel III, full stop. Welcome back to all the same places you visited last game, except this time there’s some stupid magic apocalypse happening (not that it stops you from taking the time to do random sidequests constantly, of course). The whole “oh, the evil curse mind controls people and that’s why they do stupid bullshit that’s in no one’s interest” plot point is leaned on super hard, and it’s just a big yawn the whole way through.

It’s still really fun, though, because the battle system remains really well-designed. (The same battle system that was just as fun in Cold Steel III, mind you, but it hasn’t gotten old.) And- though they’re struggling to square it with the dumb mind control apocalypse plot, the NPC dialogue continues to make the world feel believable and lived-in. They don’t slack on the parts that make Trails good- it’s just the parts that make Trails bad are making themselves more evident than ever.

did finally get to date Towa though so that’s a win

One Step From Eden

OSFE is... uh. It’s fucking hard is what it is. It’s sort of a deckbuilding roguelike, and there’s this combat that takes place on a grid, and- wait, it’s like Mega Man Battle Network, it’s exactly like Mega Man Battle Network. Man, I forgot about that, but the mechanical influence is extremely obvious. It’s MMBN meets Slay the Spire.

Except it’s super duper hard as hell, because unlike MMBN you can’t pause and swap out chips or anything- everything is just always happening so much, all at once, everywhere, and you have no recourse but to git gud and learn all the enemy patterns and the behavior of your own spells and develop the twitch reflexes necessary to not fucking die from all the shit that’s on the screen always.

(What’s the story? Uhhhh, there was some kind of magic apocalypse, and some anime girls are trying to reach a city for some reason that doesn’t really get explained ever. The game doesn’t really care to build its world at all- it’s all mechanics plus a little token character dialogue that doesn’t say much.)

The point is it’s really frickin’ hard but I am an epic pro gamer and I got ALL THE ACHIEVEMENTS, MOTHERFUCKER. If you’ve played it, I expect you to be really god damn impressed with me, okay???

A Short Hike

This one was really relaxing! It’s a platformer where you explore an Animal Crossing-y island of cartoon animal people, collecting mobility upgrades- but like, mainly it’s about straight chillin’. The flight controls are fun and there’s lots of little secrets to find and it’s just a nice time that doesn’t drag on too long. Not too much to say about this one.

Pokémon Sword

Ehhhhh.

I’m not here for the hot takes about how Dexit is good actually. Development hell happened, they had to make cuts for time, I get it. It’s disappointing and makes the game a little bit worse, but it’s not the end of the world.

Apart from that... perfectly serviceable? The Wild Area could’ve used a little more technical polish (as could most things in the game, really) but was a step in the right direction, giving the player a wider array of early-game team-building options than ever before. No HMs is good. Story and characters were kind of nothing, but that’s par for the course. “At least this time they’re not shoehorning in some kind of stupid evil-team-wants-legendary-pokemon-to-destroy-the-world apocalypse plot”, I thought to myself before they managed to shoehorn one in at the last minute with zero buildup- but, hey, beats wasting half the game on it.

It’s nothing special and it’s missing a lot of polish, but its problems are mainly due to being rushed, and presumably next gen they’ll be able to reuse a lot of the models and animations (maybe even improve the animations so they’re not so boring??? a man can dream) and make something interesting. SwSh seem like they were testing the waters for something else, and not taking too many chances in the meantime. 

(yo why would you sell all these cosmetic items and then turn them all off during gym battles, though) 

Hades

Hades is- oh, who am I kidding? Everyone knows Hades, it’s the game of the year, greatest thing since sliced bread, Supergiant are heroes, yada yada yada. I’ve played almost 300 hours of it and I’ve completed everything except all the Resources Director levels (currently a Sigma Wraith), it’s extremely fun and you don’t need me to tell you that.

Petal Crash

It was that thing the Paranatural creator helped on? It’s, uh. It’s a block-sliding puzzle game thing, sort of in a Puyo Puyo vein. It has fun character designs and some good dialogue, like you’d expect from Zack’s involvement, but it didn’t really leave an impression otherwise (besides how got dang infuriating some of its Turn Trial puzzles can be.) The story is... kinda heartwarming, kinda didactic, kinda childish, not especially deep or interesting. Hard for it to be, when it’s told through little bits of fluffy character dialogue that exist to set up a puzzle battle as quickly as possible. Not super recommended unless you really really like block-sliding puzzles.

Hollow Knight

Man, why’d I sleep on this for so long? It’s a metroidvania platformer with heavy Dark Souls inspiration, in terms of tone and difficulty and death mechanics and environmental storytelling. And it’s... apart from all that, just really good as a game, with tight controls and juicy movement and great animation. Progression is linked as much to mastery as it is to upgrades collected- I found myself in lategame areas facing down things that would’ve killed me ten times over at the start- not because I had the best gear, but because I’d learned the game’s language and understood how to move in ways that wouldn’t get me killed.

(Usually. Sometimes I’d walk into a room and sit on a bench and suddenly there’d be a boss fight and I’d get slaughtered. Ain’t that just the way it goes?)

Anyway, on top of all that it’s just charming as hell, with a really unique and well-realized world full of little bug people. I love how, like, your character is clearly some kind of eldritch abomination, but it’s small and cute and so everyone (besides enemies that attack you on sight because they’re possessed by some kinda evil mold) is like “awww, who’s this little guy? want some help, little guy?”

(except Zote, who is just an ass hole. i love him.)

#game rec #also some game non recs #long post

[myhahnestopinion]

THE AARONS 2020 - Best TV Show

It was prime time for TV in 2020, with many more free hours to fill. I managed to get through a lot of my backlog in fact, finally getting around to watching shows like The Strain. It’s a show about a deadly disease that tears society apart because a lot of arrogant people think they are exempt from quarantining. The disease turns people into vampires, so it’s technically escapism. Here are the Aarons for Best TV Show: 

#10. The Plot Against America (Miniseries) - HBO

It’s not TV, it’s not HBO, it’s real life. The Wire-creator David Simon’s penchant for illustrating the human fallout of institutional failures made him a perfect collaborator for HBO’s Plot Against America, an adaptation of Phillip Roth’s alternate-history novel. Following a Jewish family in New Jersey navigating the increasingly-fascist America of a hypothetical Charles Lindbergh administration, the show is a terrifying warning of what happens when hatred and conspiracy theories are allowed to accumulate political force. Notably, while the book ends with history back on the right track, the closing moments here are left ambiguous. The show was a limited series, but in many ways, The Plot Against America is ongoing.

#9. Mrs. America (Miniseries) - FX

Its interests are married to The Plot Against America, but Mrs. America traces the country’s rising extremism from a more historically accurate perspective. The miniseries centers on political activists in the 1970s on opposing sides of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, but its dialogue isn’t a strict dichotomy. The episodic format is expertly utilized to build out intersectional ideas from the likes of Rose Byrne’s Gloria Steinem, Uzo Aduba’s Shirley Crisholm, and Margo Martindale’s Bella Abzug, detailing the difficulties in building a diverse coalition, and the dangers of a single-minded one. Drawing parallels to current debates, its compelling centerpiece is how conservative Phylis Shafley (Cate Blanchett) successfully defeats the Amendment; voting against your own self-interests, Mrs. America says, is as American as apple pie.

#8. The Outsider (Miniseries) - HBO

Societal collapse comes from within in the two shows mentioned above, but the threat in HBO’s adaptation of Stephen King’s 2018 novel is decidedly an “other.” King clearly had his mind on modern manipulations of truth when crafting the ingenious premise: a man is arrested for the murder of two young boys due to irrefutable DNA evidence, only to provide an air-tight alibi for the crime. To match King’s procedural prose, HBO brought on The Night Of’s David Price, who layers the original work with meticulous mysteries. The Outsider has all the pulpy jolts expected of the author, but the show’s true horror lies in its overbearing grief, best brought to life by Ben Mendelsohn’s Detective Anderson. To say more would be to spoil its secrets; you’ll want to be on the inside.

#7. Perry Mason (Season 1) - HBO

Just like the famous fictional attorney, HBO can’t seem to lose, with Perry Mason marking its third entry on this list. The reimagining of the long running court drama actually takes place before the character’s illustrious law career; here he’s a down-on-his-luck private eye caught up in a scandalous child kidnapping case. The result’s a gangbusters production of old-fashioned moody noir: political corruption, femme fatales, and a more morally-complicated Mason, as played by The Americans’ Matthew Rhys. The lavish period details and character-actor cast, including Shea Whigham, John Lithgow, and Tatiana Maslany, will help draw viewers in, but, I’ll confess, I was already hooked by the season’s chilling opening moments.

#6. Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist (Season 1) - NBC

Dour seasons have dominated this list thus far, but Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist sings a different tune. It’s a lovably oddball premise: an accident during an MRI causes a young woman, played by Jane Levy, to hear other people’s thoughts in the form of popular music. It’s all karaoke, but, emphasized by the presence of Skylar Astin, a worthy inheritor to Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s musical-comedy crown. The tracklist, workplace antics, and love-triangle drama all exist in a comfortingly familiar network TV realm, but the show takes additional steps for inclusion with stories highlighting Zoey’s genderfluid neighbor (Alex Newell) and an American Sign Language performance of Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song.” During a year in need of shuffling off stress, there was no better time to queue up Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist.

#5. What We Do in The Shadows (Season 2) - FX

FX’s expansion of the mockumentary feature film of the same name lit up some of the darker corners of its universe in the show’s second season, transforming mundane-seeming material into something completely, uniquely batty. Each creature of Shadows took their turn in the spotlight this season, from a middle-management promotion gifting energy-vampire Colin Robinson unlimited supernatural power, to undead Nadja befriending a doll possessed by her own ghost, to Matt Berry’s Lazlo forging a small-town persona as a bartender/volleyball coach to escape a vengeful Mark Hamill. As always, it was the sympathetic Guillermo (Harvey Guillén), a Van Helsing descendent desperate to become a vampire, who gave the show its emotional stakes, and the vampires within a different kind altogether.

#4. Stargirl (Season 1) - DC Universe

Shadows was lit, but few things burned brighter this year than Stargirl (perhaps too brightly for the flamed-out DC Universe). The superhero drama is one of several that will outlive its original streaming service - fitting, given its obsession with legacy. Based on a character created by DC Comics stalwart Geoff Johns after the tragic loss of his sister, the show finds a young girl taking on the mantle of a fallen hero after moving to a town run in secret by supervillains. With sprightly fight choreography and an unabashed embrace of its comic book lore, Stargirl outshines the overabundance of small-screen superheroes out there. Its highlight is the bright performance of lead Brec Bassinger; put simply, she’s a star, girl.

#3. BoJack Horseman (Season 6b) - Netflix

Throughout its run, BoJack Horseman garnered acclaim for routinely delivering unexpected pathos, and the final season kept it on that track until the end. ...Get it, because horses run on tracks? The unexpected porter of television’s legacy of antiheroes ended in much the same vein as its sister shows - with consequences finally catching up with its protagonist. No amount of fanciful animal puns could soften that painful catharsis, as the show finally trampled its tricky web of abuse through bittersweet means. The series closed out with an especially thoughtful scene, the kind viewers who looked past the wonky pilot years ago were regularly blessed with; to the very end, BoJack, you were a gift, horse.

#2. Better Call Saul (Season 5) - AMC

As good as Bad ever was and better than ever before, the fifth season of AMC’s spin-off completely upended the world of its eponymous lawyer while bringing Vince Gilligan’s universe one step away from full-circle. Saul Goodman found himself in way over his head, and viewers found themselves way on the edge of their seats, as his first foray into “criminal” lawyering swiftly dovetailed with an escalating drug war. Despite the emotional distress of watching fan-favorite character Kim Wexler placed in perilous situations, there are no objections to be had with the drama’s continued masterful storytelling. Ramping up the slow-burn storytelling, season five saw Kim and Saul’s relationship develop in rich and unexpected ways, while still keeping their final fates unresolved. Fans are thus waiting with bated breath for the show’s final call next year. 

#1. The Great (Season 1) - Hulu

Who could be the best but The Great? There was a minor television controversy this year over Netflix marketing The Crown as a historical drama despite its fictional interpretation of events; The Great has no such pretentions. An asterix adorns every title card of the show, letting viewers know that its take on Catherine the Great’s coup against Emperor Peter III of Russia is only “an occasionally true story.” The show indeed is not great for education, but it’s the most entertaining television of the year, locking stars Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult in a battle of wits and a fight for the country’s soul under the watch of The Favourite co-writer Tony McNamara. The uproarious comedy slyly collates leadership based in cruelty with leadership based in goodwill in the background of its quite bawdy escapades, a subtle bit of relevant political maneuvering that lets it successfully claim the crown this year.

NEXT UP: THE 2020 AARONS FOR BEST TV EPISODE!

#tv #TheAarons #TheAarons2020 #TheAaronsTV #best of 2020 #the plot against america #mrs america #the outsider #perry mason #zoey's extraordinary playlist #what we do in the shadows #stargirl #bojack horseman #better call saul #the great

[foreverlogical]

To battle the economic crash from the coronavirus pandemic, Congress is sending Americans cash. The deal just hammered out will send $1,200 to every adult making under a certain income threshold, and $500 for every child. But will the money actually get to everyone?

In many cases, it turns out, it could take weeks or months. And many of the poorest and most vulnerable Americans will face further difficulties once the check arrives.

"The Treasury Department is expected to begin directly depositing checks within a few weeks of the bill's passing," The New York Times reported. "But mailed payments will take one or two weeks longer, Republican Senate aides said Wednesday." It sounds like the mailed checks, for individuals who don't have bank information already on file with the IRS, could take up to two months, and earlier reports suggested they could take up to four. And that time frame doesn't even get to the question of people who may be too poor to have filed taxes, who may move a lot, or who may not have reliable housing, and whose address has to be pieced together from Social Security data or the Veterans Administration.

Meanwhile, one out of every four U.S. households either has no bank account or has real trouble accessing one, which adds further hurdles to actually being able to use the money. "You'll have to cash that check, and take that cash and put it into a money order again to pay your bills," Mehsra Baradaran, a professor at the University of California at Irvine who studies banking inclusion and inequality, told The Week. That process will impose further fees, not to mention the costs, time, and effort required to physically go from the check casher to the utility and landlord's offices to pay bills and rent.

Senate Democrats, including Sen. Sherrod Brown's office, tried to do something about this. Baradaran helped Brown draft a provision that would give any American who needed it a free banking account — available at any local bank or post office — in which the $1,200 aid could be directly dropped. Others in the House, like Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), have their own proposals to do something similar. Ultimately, none of this made it into the Senate deal, which has now passed the House and is headed to President Trump for signing. But Brown and Tlaib have also introduced their proposals as standalone bills. And we really need to fix this, for both moral and economic reasons.

Around 8.4 million U.S. households (or 6.5 percent) are "unbanked," meaning they have no bank account at all. Another 24.2 million households (18.7 percent) are "underbanked," meaning they technically have a bank account but have real difficulty using it. As Baradaran explained, low-income Americans' finances don't mesh well with banks' business models, which are designed more for the steady income flows of the middle class. Less fortunate Americans are constantly hit with fees for things like overdrafts or not having enough money in their accounts. Nor are they particularly profitable for banks, so many institutions have simply abandoned those communities, leaving people with either no banking option, or a branch that's 50 miles away. Regulations used to require banks to keep a branch in every community, but those rules were dismantled in the 1990s, and "those voids were filled with payday lenders and check cashers" as Baradaran put it. Those outfits charge even more onerous fees and interest rates for their services.

Imagine the U.S. payments system as three concentric networks, with each network serving different groups — and each of very different quality. The innermost circle links the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve with the major private banks, and those banks to each other. This network can settle transactions extremely fast, say three to five days. (There are efforts afoot to get this down to 24 hours or less.)

The next network out is essentially the public-facing side of the private banking system — it's what connects individuals and households and businesses to the banks. This is the network that can get everyone their direct deposits in a few weeks.

This situation is already rather remarkable, since we have a public system — the first innermost network — that no one but big private banks are allowed to participate in. Meanwhile, private for-profit banks get the privilege of being the middle-man between that public system and the actual public. "There's no reason banks should be that middle man unless they're mandated to give everyone an account, and they're not," Baradaran noted.

Things are even worse out at the fringes of the circles of inclusion. That's the third network that serves the unbanked and the underbanked and people less directly tied into the second network. This is where people have to wait two months for a check in the mail, cash it with a bank if they're lucky, and otherwise go through the whole obstacle course of check cashers and payday lenders and money orders.

At a minimum, we should plug the people in the third fringe network directly into the first, which is what Brown's bill would do. Under that proposal, when your check got mailed to you, you could pick it up at the post office and open a simple banking account — free, no fees, no minimums — that would plug you directly into the Fed and Treasury Department's payment system. You could cash your check right there and use the money via a debit card that would come with the account, without dealing with any profit-seeking third parties.

Providing a public option for basic banking services via the U.S. Postal Service is an idea that's actually been floating around for a while — in fact America did do that, from 1911 to 1966. (There are also proposals to just give every American an account with the Federal Reserve directly.) Baradaran said her "dream version would be every post office would have this option" — i.e. use this scheme to take every American in both the second and third networks, and plug them directly into the first, innermost network. But Brown's more limited bill would've at least plugged the third network's unbanked and underbanked into that first inner network.

Admittedly, this wouldn't completely solve the initial problem of how fast the checks go out. But it would help, and it would end the obstacles and exploitation that marginalized Americans face when using the money. And if Congress needs to authorize more of these payments — which will almost certainly be needed — the bank accounts will now be in place.

Tlaib's bill is even more ambitious: It would give every American a pre-paid debit card that would plug directly into that inner network, and that Congress and the Treasury Department could automatically refill with money whenever they wanted. In fact, Tlaib's proposal called for four payments of $2,000 each to every person of all ages. "It's trying to provide a novel infrastructure through the pre-paid cards, to get past the limitations of direct deposit or mailing checks," Rohan Grey, president of the Modern Money Network, who helped Tlaib's office draft the proposal, told The Week. (News reports tended to ignore this aspect of Tlaib's bill, focusing instead on its unusual financing mechanism: have the Treasury Department mint trillion-dollar coins and deposit them with the Fed to avoid having to issue new debt.)

The U.S. government already uses similar debit card systems for programs like food stamps, so the basic infrastructure is in place. Between mailing the cards and making them available for distribution at banks and post offices and schools and the like, Tlaib's proposal might actually have been able to get the first payment out even faster. And again, further payments would be automatic, and the debit card system could be integrated with a postal banking public option or Fed-accounts-for-all down the line.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned, none of these ideas made it into the final package. It's not clear why, but we can speculate: lobbyists for industries like payday lenders have clout on Capitol Hill, and these proposals would be an existential threat to their industry. For the moment, the ease and reliability of that inner network remains a privilege reserved for the powers of the banking and financial industries, while we mere citizens have to deal with the private banking system on its terms — and the least fortunate among us are left out in the cold entirely.

Many of the millions who have already lost jobs probably need money now. Even people who still have jobs, but who don't earn much, face a coming cascade of hardships, from the need for food, rent, utility bills, and more. (The government also didn't do itself any favors by making the money means-tested, which will add further time for government agencies to calculate what everyone is owed.) Millions of human beings will suffer because of the delay. Meanwhile, the longer it takes for that money to hit people's pocketbooks, the more time there is for the negative feedback loop of job loss leading to less spending leading to business closures leading to more job loss to build on itself, deepening the hole the economy will eventually have to dig out of.

But Congress can always pass more bills, and by all accounts the coronavirus crisis will last long enough that political pressure for more cash aid to average Americans will likely become overwhelming. The sooner we can stand up a fast and simple public banking option for all, the faster we can get aid out to everyone — both in this crisis and the next.

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[vprprajakta]

Video Surveillance Market Trends, Key Players, And Report 2027

Market Overview

Video observation as a Service is a sort of explicit course of steady checking and everyday noticing the exercises, the manual conduct, and easygoing developments of any individual or a specific gathering to give progressed superior security. The rising interest for current cloud innovation helps undertakings like little, medium, and enormous specialty units to fittingly store their significant information into the cloud for checking and vigilances. These ascending on-cloud sending processes likewise assume an imperative part in havinga greater piece of the pie before the finish of the projected period. The different Industrial portion, for example, little retail locations, government divisions in neighborhoods, transportation area, among others, are a couple of the quickest rising regions where the idea of video observation is really utilized as a help. The high level mix of video observation arrangements with a cutting edge transportation industry is likewise an essential area of interest in contemporary years for the greater players as a whole. There are numerous associations, for instance, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co., Ltd. who is the noticeable provider of essential imaginative video reconnaissance significant items and arrangements; the organization has collaborated with the neighborhood office of Memphis Police Department (MPD) to moderate the nearby occupants of the spot of Memphis in Tennessee, the U.S. The neighborhood city has likewise developed a Real-Time Crime Center, an organization where they can see current live video takes care of and regulate basic data to legitimate officials before they show up at a crime location.

The COVID 19 has impacted 215 nations and the Video Surveillance Market too. To battle the adverse consequences, nations lead lockdowns that have unfavorably impacted the Global Video Surveillance Market. The pandemic prompts a few difficulties to the area; it is impacted everywhere. A lot of variables like the gamble of continuous creation, production network, conveyance, absence of labor force workers, and much-diminished improvement exercises have fundamentally impacted the continuous interest and supply. Individuals are not quite so dynamic as prior. Major key improvements are occurring. MNC are putting more in Video reconnaissance as a Service on account of the rising interest from customers across the globe.

Key Players

HKVISION, Ltd., Bosch Security System, Honeywell Security Group, Dahua Technology, FLIR, Panasonic, Avigilon, Axis Communication, Infinova, and Pelco are Major Key Players of Video  Surveillance  Market.

Get More Professional and Technical Industry Insights @ https://valuepropresearch.com/report/video-surveillance-market-277/

Market Dynamics

• Drivers

The significant drivers who are significantly adding to the spread of worldwide Video Surveillance Market are rising acknowledgment of incredibly very good quality cameras and the rising web of things of cutting edge innovation in different areas. The order of predominant innovation inbuilt cameras, for example, progressed HD cameras, current IP cameras aids everyday catch clear and more explicit pictures that can again be used for significant examination as and when it is implied or expected, by the speedy execution of significant VSaaS administrations, for example, a roaring security framework which can be made across distant regions or segments without even significantly conveying distinct labor. The appearance of development of most renowned progressed video observation innovations is additionally projected to drive or control the general development of the market. The essential controlling elements or reasons towards the genuine development of the market are neighborhood network security, effective high foundation cost, which is basically connected with everyday establishment and corporate conventions.

#Video Surveillance Market

[aion-rsa]

Mr. Soul! Review: TV Has Never Been So Radical

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Just past the halfway point in the documentary Mr. Soul!, poet Felipe Luciano calls Ellis Haizlip “the most effective, insidious revolutionary that I have ever met.” It isn’t meant as a specific accolade, but it is a badge of honor for a man who honored the true meaning of sedition. Subversion in the arts is a skill which can be expressed as simply as putting a mustache on the Mona Lisa. Seditious political expression is rarely so subtle. The creator and host of the all-too-short lived public television variety program Soul! achieved a dream mix of diverse thought, some which went under the radar, some designed to be unnoticed, all of which was riveting, and everything absolutely accessible.

Soul! captured everyday insurrection. Melvin Van Peebles’ 1971 independent feature Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song proclaimed to be unapologetically Black, Haizlip saw no reason to bring apology into the equation. Nothing he was doing, no act he was showing, no poem or word or emotion needed clarification, only amplification. Everything Haizlip brought to the soundstage was an ordinary pain or exultation expressed with unadulterated realism. Yet, it subverted every expectation, and proved a street battle could be fought on the airwaves. In 1970, Gil Scott-Heron frustratingly sang “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” but from Sept. 12, 1968 through March 7, 1973, not only was a coup mounted on small screens, but it had great beats you could dance to. Even the spoken word performances had rhythm, the oral arguments and affirmations of the interviews were lyrical blasts of staccato, flowing, chaos.

Patti LaBelle was the first musical guest. Backed by the Bluebelles, their voices brought home audiences “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Stevie Wonder got so caught up in the energy of the studio audience, cameramen had to change reels and excitedly wondered if he would ever get tired of playing. Earth, Wind & Fire showed how live playing on TV could be done. There was no lip-syncing on Soul!. It would be another few years before Soul Train would answer for American Bandstand, but Soul!’s host Ellis Haizlip never tried to be a hip Johnny Carson.

Mr. Soul! is the story of the man behind the first Black variety show on American television. The documentary explains how the March 1968 Kerner Commission Report found the media played a big part in the racial divide in America. Black Americans rarely saw themselves reflected on the small screen. Shows with African-American actors, stars, and hosts had been produced by networks, but most were only short-lived, no one was really allowed to be themselves, and their social limitations were strictly enforced. African Americans did get one featured role in nationally broadcast network and affiliate television.

The Six O’clock News guaranteed on-the-spot footage. They showed every graffiti-tagged trash can left overfilled on ghettos streets. They fetishized poverty, and promoted riot coverage before the first windows shattered. They didn’t cover much of the burgeoning renaissance which was happening in the culture. Public broadcast stations led the first charge, the documentary details, programming shows like Inside Bedford-Stuyvesant, Say Brother, Black Journal, and Like It Is, socially conscious and educational content made by and for African Americans. Haizlip, was asked to help create a “Black Tonight Show” in the late ’60s. Mr. Soul! shows nothing could have been further from his mind. “What he was doing, every night he was on that program, was changing someone’s mind about Black folks,” poet Sonia Sanchez says in an interview.

The documentary casts the show as much more than a groundbreaking arts showcase. It presents it as an in-your-face avant garde performance art entity in itself. One that could take on any character, as long as it was real. Soul! was also the first true poets’ coffeehouse on television, the film points out, and it danced all over any rhymes the Beats might have snapped to. The Last Poets bounced epithets off percussion onto an audience who shook words like maracas, and fed a need to the people watching at home. Mae Jackson’s words could build a castle of words big enough to transition from the frenetic ensemble jazz of the McCoy Tyner Quartet to the somber acoustic guitar of Bill Withers..

The show also served as a church, its congregation reaching far beyond West 55th Street, the studio at WNET in New York, where it was filmed. The documentary makes a great case for the show as a conduit of spiritual affirmation. Haizlip was brought up in the church, and brought the fervor of his faith in all things Soul!. Wilson Pickett and gospel singer Marion Williams’ rendition of “Oh Happy Day” lifted the faithful off their seats and onto their feet. Billy Preston and the God Squad channeled holy spirit through his fingertips. Meditations proclaiming the inner beauty of blackness raise the very chakras of the viewing community.

The program was a political roundtable, in the round, surrounded by a studio audience constituency, as well. The conversations ranged from the global environment to the nature of creation. The interview guests ncluded Cicely Tyson, Stokely Carmichael, Kathleen Cleaver, Muhammad Ali, Sidney Poitier, Kathleen Cleaver, and Harry Belafonte. Haizlip, who was gay in the world before Stonewall, gets Louis Farrakhan to find a place in the heart of The Nation of Islam for those whose sexuality deviated from proscribed norms. James Baldwin grants more than an interview to poet Nikki Giovanni. The documentary brings out how each of these lives touched one another more than what could ever be shown on screen.

Don’t let this fool you into thinking the documentary is all righteous rage and rhythm and blues. Mr. Soul! has many funny bits, and not just from the performers. Soul! was usually taped live, and this proves to be problematic for the limits of public television. Live broadcasts mean no interruptions and no censorship. Haizlip was brilliant, no doubt. More than educated, he had an inner emotional wisdom which transcends even artistic thought. But he never quite understands the meaning of the word censored. When he’s finally forced to bleep the shit out of a poem by Amiri Baraka on heroin addiction, Haizlip makes sure everyone hears his reluctance to cut it. He instructs the sound engineers to turn the volume way up so the fill-in noise on TV is as ugly as viewers are supposed to think the word is. This is more than a poetic choice. It is a punchline in a running gag.

Everyone interviewed behind the scenes has a funny story. What they are trying to say may be painful, hurtful, or even dangerous. But they know which words bite, and when to chew. Whether it’s the true stories behind the accepted myths or on-the-spot improvisations to cover technical difficulties, each anecdote ends with a shake of the head and an appreciative grin. Haizlip created Soul! with producer Christopher Lukas, who stuck the exclamation point on the title, and brings funny behind-the-scenes stories throughout. The theatrical producer Haizlip took on host duties out of necessity after trying academics, like Harvard psychiatry Professor Dr. Alvin Poussaint. With his horn-rimmed glasses, ultra-calm demeanor, and “right on” encouragements, Haizlip made some big gaffes on live TV. All of these are celebrated gleefully.

President Nixon wasn’t a fan, but the documentary shows he watched. He may not have tuned in, and he certainly wasn’t turned on, but inasmuch as he could be, the paranoid president was aware of the sounds and voice of Black life. Mr. Soul! shows how the Public Broadcasting Corporation suffered a tidal shift in programming after the Johnson administration vacated the White House. The show lasted five years before it was cancelled by the Nixon administration, which cut PBS funding so deep, it needed The Electric Company to pay its bills. But how cool it must be for Bill Moyers to be the only person specifically named, besides the Black cultural programming, as someone Nixon didn’t want to be blamed for silencing.

Mr. Soul!’s finest cinematic achievement is translating a feeling of exhilaration and expectation. Heizlip had an eye toward the future, a radar for young talent, and the sense to balance established acts with rising talent. Dancers like Carmen de Lavallade might find themselves free to experiment with cutting edge moves to a solo piano performance by Stevie Wonder. A 25-year-old Al Green is as surprised as the audience at how much he is instantaneously embraced. Hit-writing songwriters Ashford and Simpson never even thought about performing until they were approached to perform on the show. Haizlip saw art in individuals before even some artists noticed it in themselves.

B.B. King brought old school blues, while jazz be bopper Max Roach teases the future of avant garde jazz. Haizlip asks Rahsaan Roland Kirk, whose innovative, all-inclusive, impresario reed playing laid seed for Jethro Tull, to sit in just because he is crazy.

Haizlip died in 1991. Mr. Soul! was co-directed by Samuel D. Pollard and Ellis’s niece Melissa Haizlip, who also wrote it. The documentary profiles a man who stayed true to his mission by remaining true to himself. He electrified public television through his vision of “Black love and Black strength and Black encouragement.” With a voiceover delivered by Blair Underwood, Mr. Soul! captures a historic run of unique and visionary television. It is as much fun to discover the show as it must have been when it first aired, in a three-networks climate expertly captured in the documentary’s opening, “in living color.”

CNN recently did a special on the history of sitcoms. Everyone watching will remember most of the clips they show, certainly every series they highlight, and almost all the stars in the highlights. There are some very recognizable faces strewn throughout Mr. Soul!, and you really have to keep a sharp eye out at all times, especially in the photographs. Younger versions of household names are all over this documentary, even a 15-year-old Arsenio Hall pulls a rabbit out of a hat.

Soul! is an important chapter of television history, but it feels unfinished because of its unrealized potential. “Can you imagine what Soul! would have been like for a 20-year run,” Questlove asks towards the end of the documentary. “Like, how different would our lives have been?” Mr. Soul! finds hope in the sting of lost possibilities. 

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Mr. Soul! launches on HBO Max on August 1.

The post Mr. Soul! Review: TV Has Never Been So Radical appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[filmstruck]

William Wyler at His Most Personal: THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (’46) by Jill Blake

In 1942, after the United States entered into World War II, William Wyler enlisted in the United States Air Force. During his service, he flew on several bombing missions, including with the crew of the legendary Memphis Belle. During these missions, Wyler shot footage which was later edited and released as the 1944 documentary film MEMPHIS BELLE: A STORY OF A FLYING FORTRESS. Wyler also accompanied a bomber squadron in the Mediterranean, filming some of their missions for another documentary, THUNDERBOLT!, which wasn’t finished and released until 1947, a full two years after the war ended. After spending countless hours in noisy bomber planes, Wyler discovered he had suffered severe nerve damage in one of his ears, resulting in total hearing loss. Because of that hearing loss, Wyler was unsure if he would have a future in filmmaking. Not only did he return home as a disabled veteran, but he was also a profoundly changed man, much like his fellow directors John Ford, Frank Capra, George Stevens and John Huston, who had also served and captured much of the valuable footage of World War II that is available to us today. (Their wartime experiences and post-war work is brilliantly explored in Mark Harris’s must-read book, Five Came Back, and the adapted miniseries of the same name, currently available on Netflix.) After regaining a portion of his hearing in the damaged ear, Wyler set out to direct his most ambitious project to date, as well as his most personal: THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (‘46).

Like so many veterans of World War II, Wyler struggled with his physical disability and with adapting to civilian life after spending years away from his family. To mark his return to Hollywood, Wyler was drawn to direct a film project where he could put a spotlight on not just the physical and mental toll the war had on returning veterans, but the difficulties with transitioning from soldier to civilian. Most war films of the era avoided the struggles of servicemen being uprooted from their jobs and disconnected from their loved ones to be thrown into unspeakably horrific and unfamiliar situations. Wyler felt like he owed it to his fellow brothers in arms, to show the rest of America—and the world—the real and very complicated cost of war. As part of that necessary cost, Wyler wanted to explore the loneliness and isolation that many returning veterans experienced and quietly suffered through, despite being surrounded by family and friends; and the unbreakable and complicated brotherly bonds that were formed with their fellow servicemen. But most importantly, showing the long, difficult journey of men and their families coming to terms with the fact that things can never be the same as they were before the war.

For the on-screen adaptation of author MacKinlay Kantor’s novella Glory for Me, producer Samuel Goldwyn hired screenwriter Robert E. Sherwood. THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES would tell the story of three servicemen returning home to the fictional town of Boone City, after spending several years in the war. Wyler wanted to make sure that the characters were real and relatable, and he insisted upon casting a young disabled veteran, Harold Russell. After enlisting in the Army, Russell was stationed stateside for the Army as an instructor. While shooting footage for a training film, Russell was badly injured by a defective explosive device. As a result, Russell lost both of his hands, and was left with a pair of prosthetic hooks. After seeing Russell in a short film about disabled veterans, Wyler knew he was the right choice to play the high school football star-turned-sailor, Homer Parrish.

For the other two servicemen featured in THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, Wyler cast veteran actor Fredric March and Dana Andrews. March, who was in his late forties and slipping past his prime as a romantic leading man and transitioning to more character-driven roles, was cast in the part of Sergeant Al Stephenson. Before the war, Al was a well-respected banker living in a luxury apartment in Boone City with his wife of twenty years, Milly (Myrna Loy) and two children, Peggy (Teresa Wright) and Rob (Michael Hall). Dana Andrews was cast in the role of Captain Fred Derry, a decorated bomber pilot who finds his war record has little influence on the civilian world, and as a result, has difficulty finding work and a sense of greater purpose.

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES is a carefully woven tale of how these three men and their families, each from different backgrounds, adjust and reintegrate into a life outside of the war, while battling their emotional and physical challenges. For Homer, he not only has to contend with a new and drastically different existence because of his prosthetic hooks, but he struggles with his family’s treatment of him. He fails to understand, at least initially, that much like him, his family and his fiancée Wilma (Cathy O’Donnell) must adjust to the new normal. But before they can do that, there is a long, difficult period of grieving. And although he feels like he has fully dealt with his disability, Homer hasn’t even begun to face the mental aspect, succumbing to feelings of worthlessness, depression and embarrassment, and pushing away those who love him unconditionally, in a desperate act of self-defense. For Al, he’s struggling with transitioning back to a job where he is forced to value a person’s worth by what’s on paper rather than what’s inside of them, which is in direct opposition to how he fought the war alongside his fellow soldiers. He also has to come to terms with his children growing up, especially his daughter Peggy, who is now a strong, fearless young woman. To cope with these difficult changes, Al self-medicates with alcohol. His wife, Milly, understands her husband’s struggles and remains a steadfast presence in his life, lending support whenever she can. And for Fred, all he wants is to feel valued like he was in the Air Force (which was technically the U.S. Army Air Force during WWII), and have a respectable job so that he can provide for his wife, Marie (Virginia Mayo), whom he married in the days leading up to his deployment. But the medals and citations Fred earned sadly carry no meaning outside of the Air Force, and he is forced to return to his old job at the drug store as a soda jerk. This feeling of inadequacy is compounded by his vivid flashbacks (which today we identify as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD). And unlike his fellow Boone City veterans Al and Homer, Fred lacks the resources and support network they have and often take for granted.

In the wrong hands, a story like this could have very easily been a sappy, over-the-top melodrama with gratuitous reliance upon patriotism and the dramatic after-glow of the war to drive the motivations of the characters. There is no emotional manipulation of the audience. Instead, William Wyler crafted a meaningful, heartfelt and real look into the lives of men who literally gave everything they had to fight for the most basic of human rights. And although the war was over and won, these men continued their sacrifice for the rest of their lives. THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES was Wyler’s love letter to his fellow servicemen, and we’re fortunate that he chose to share it with all of us.

#The Best Years of Our Lives #Harold Russell #William Wyler #Veterans Day #Academy Awards #FilmStruck #StreamLine Blog #Jill Blake

[airdropsandcryptonews]

The cryptocurrency sector is overflowing with dead projects

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The cryptocurrency sector is overflowing with dead projects

In 2017, when everything concerned with cryptocurrency and blockchain still looked fresh and interesting, it seemed that there would be no day without a new “revolutionary” project or idea. Decentralized financial system, decentralized torrent tracker, decentralized office documentation system. Decentralized, decentralized, decentralized.

The overuse of terms like “transparent,” “distributed” and “blockchain-based” soon made most press papers look generic. The closer we got to the peak of the Bitcoin price at the end of 2017, the more absurd the names of new projects became: “Ethereum-based payment system for slaughterhouse industry workers,” “decentralized blockchain-based dwarf horse breeding platform,” “peer-to-peer personal banking service for divorced blind people,” and so on.

Who would ever need any of that, one might ask. Well, in many cases, nobody. Of the several thousand cryptocurrencies launched since the spread of blockchain technology, only about 30 are currently of any investment interest.

Following cryptocurrencies, many crypto exchanges launched on the wave of blockchain popularity are dying — they just have nothing to trade anymore. The situation is especially visible on review platforms, which store cards of hundreds of closed projects, often together with angry user reviews.

Let’s take a look at a few projects and analyze the reasons for their failure.

Telegram Open Network, or TON

In late 2017 to early 2018, it was first reported that Telegram was planning to launch its own blockchain platform and native cryptocurrency.

Also known as Grams, the TON coins were intended to be based on Telegram Open Network, with the TON blockchain at the core of the platform. In the project white paper, the developers presented this future coin as a potential standard cryptocurrency that could be used for the regular exchange of value in daily life.

It was stated that while Bitcoin (BTC) was considered “digital gold” and Ethereum was a platform for token crowd sales, this new TON cryptocurrency would be a substitute for traditional money and traditional payment systems such as Visa and Mastercard. According to the white paper, other cryptocurrencies lacked the qualities required to attract a mass consumer. In its turn, Telegram would be able to implement a system eligible for mass use, given its expertise in encrypted distributed data storage, experience in creating user-friendly interfaces, and an enormous user base.

While the company did have a point in part of its claims, to me all of it looked like a huge PR campaign. Why should Telegram implement this new financial system and not some corporation with experience in the financial services industry? How would it be able to distinguish this new currency from other, similar products? How would it be any better than traditional financial systems being implemented by a large centralized company?

No answers were given. However, the Telegram initial coin offering, launched in 2018, was a huge success. The company was able to raise $1.7 billion from investor funds in two private token sale rounds, and that was really promising.

Related: Exclusive: New report reveals details of Telegram’s TON blockchain

But it didn’t end well. On May 12, 2020, Pavel Durov announced that Telegram would officially terminate its involvement with the project after a long legal battle with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Surely, the company didn’t have the legal resources necessary for implementing such an ambitious idea. Most likely, technical difficulties and strong competition on the market also played a role.

Related: SEC vs. Telegram: Part 1 — Key takeaways for now

For me, this case epitomizes the whole cryptocurrency hysteria of 2018 — a company that gets involved in an enterprise for which it is not ready, either legally or technologically, without a clear positioning of the product. The end result is failure.

Petchains

Petchains was presented as the future global information management system and trading platform for the pet market. According to its press papers, the system would allow its users to maintain and keep data of the animals living in homes and shelters. The presented project goal was to create a community of pet owners, experts, professionals, institutions, service providers and volunteers. The system was intended to be developed using blockchain and big data technologies as usual. The initial funding was going to be gathered through the process of an initial coin offering.

It’s a good question if the world really needs a blockchain-based information and trading platform for the pet market. I wouldn’t say there are many problems with over-centralization there. Pet shops are usually chosen by customers after analyzing brand reputation and online presence.

Some problems that customers on this market may face include unreliable information about the acquired animal’s health or previous owners. However, these difficulties comprise not a technical, but a legal problem that is unlikely to be solved using blockchain technology.

Moreover, since animal welfare laws vary between different countries, creating a unified international platform in this field is a legally challenging task, hardly suitable for a small technological startup.

The Petchain project team consisted mainly of no-names who had no proven experience in any serious projects. It was not even possible to say for sure whether these were real people — some of the project advisors turned out to have been presented with fake photos.

Despite some marketing efforts, no serious funding was attracted to the project. At the moment, the official website of the project is inactive and its social media accounts haven’t been updated for more than a year. The link that used to lead to the project’s white paper now contains a text describing in general terms the reasons for failures in the cryptocurrency industry.

Wiki token

One more dead project with an incoherent, not thought-through idea at the base of it.

Wiki token (WIKI) was an Ethereum-based, ERC-20 compatible token designed to be used as a means of payment at the so-called Crypto University. This future platform, built around the Bitcoin Wiki project, was described as a totally independent, decentralized, censorship-free educational system.

The learning courses for Crypto University were meant to be created by members of the project community. For writing articles and creating courses, these members would get the previously mentioned ERC-20 Wiki tokens. These tokens would be listed on various crypto exchanges and could be spent on other Crypto University courses.

I first noticed this project in 2018, and it didn’t make much sense right from the beginning. First of all, what kind of secret knowledge is there in the cryptocurrency industry that it should be distributed using token-based payment systems? How would it compete with other content, available for free?

Theoretically, it’s possible to create a platform similar to Coursera based on blockchain. Crypto University, like Coursera, could become a platform that brings together creators and consumers of educational materials. But here, some difficulties arise.

The value of an educational product is usually based on the reputation of its creators. Most of the courses at Coursera are university education programs created by well-known, highly reputable institutions. These courses include interaction with a teacher, who is also a well-known education professional. Upon completion of a course, students usually receive certificates recognized by companies and educational institutions. All these factors add up to the value of the course, and it’s thanks to them that people are willing to pay for it.

In its turn, the Wiki token project could hardly offer any of the above. No collaboration with large institutions or renowned educators. Moreover, the highly specialized area of ​​expertise (cryptocurrency and blockchain) chosen did not imply the presence of educational professionals who could potentially create valuable educational content. Why would it be any better than free YouTube videos or easily searchable internet articles?

What we see here is just another technical embodiment of a dubious business idea. Having neither a well-thought-out concept nor a product, the team rushed to implement it using fashionable technology. The result is a technical wrapper with no content and no interest outside of blockchain hysteria.

As of October 2020, the project’s website is no longer available and its social media accounts have been dead for a couple of years.

Conclusions

The projects listed above did not in fact offer anything except technical execution that was fashionable at the time. Hastily launched on the wave of blockchain popularity, with no market or audience research, they were unable to offer any meaningful value to a potential customer.

One of the key marketing rules: Sell the problem to be solved, not the product you offer. Product developers should always think about consumer needs first. Otherwise, they risk ending up in the same way as the developers of the projects mentioned above — creating only product packaging that has no intrinsic value.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Bert Kozma is a writer and an associate editor at Cryptogeek.info. Previously a sales and marketing expert, he has been an author covering cryptocurrency and financial markets for the last decade. He holds a bachelor’s degree in international business from Saimaa University of Applied Sciences.

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[entergamingxp]

The Steam Game Festival 2020: Demo Impressions Lightning Round

June 26, 2020 4:00 PM EST

Having played the best, I now play the rest. Here are more demo impressions from The Steam Game Festival that didn’t leave the same mark.

The Steam Game Festival – Summer Edition’s first iteration has come and gone, and I feel like it was an overall success. Lots of up and coming games got fresh eyes on them to drum up interest and feedback. I took it upon myself to play huge swathes of them, and I’ve already covered the games that most stood out to me. But that’s only the 10 most impressive games of the 24 in total I played.

As before, I’ve written impressions and limited myself to two paragraphs per game. They aren’t as universally good quality this time around, but there’s still some potential gems buried away here. So, here’s the lightning round of my remaining demo impressions from The Steam Game Festival – Summer Edition.

Iron Harvest

A squad based RTS with steampunk mechs in an alternate history set a little after World War I. It’s set in the same world as the acclaimed board game Scythe. In practice, Iron Harvest plays a lot like Company of Heroes with a WWI skin featuring steampunk mechs. You build up your forces, take and hold resource points on the map, and try to beat the enemy before they beat you. I was looking forward to this game, but I honestly found myself quite underwhelmed.

The ability to pick up weapons from defeated enemies and change up your infantry armaments on the fly is neat, and the presentation is quite nice. But I just found that the gameplay is missing something. The cover system is very barren and requires you to build most of it, and units just don’t feel like they’re as effective as they should be. Unit control feels unresponsive, the mechs are visually impressive but clunky to move, and I just found myself failing to engage with it. It all felt very hollow and lacked any sort of punch or X factor when playing. I hope this can be improved before launch, but it ultimately feels like it’s too barren an experience as it stands.

The Survivalists

The Survivalists is a somewhat standard survival/simulation game. You’re a castaway on an island and have to scrounge for resources to survive, thrive, and eventually escape. In addition to the colourful pixel art, The Survivalists’ main gimmick are the friendly monkeys you can bring on your side. These can be trained to gather materials for you, mass produce basic crafting, or aid you in combat.

In practice however, I found the controls and UI to be fairly imprecise and unclear. Multiple times I thought I was teaching my monkey pal a new task and assigning him orders, only for it to do nothing or go completely awry. The system needs a little cleaning up, I think. Beyond this, The Survivalists is colourful, functional, and entertaining enough. It’s fairly generic survival stuff beyond the presentation at this early point, though. With that said, there did seem to be the promise of ancient ruins, pirate treasures, and other intriguing things to unearth from hints gleaned in the world. Hopefully there’s more spark and variety in the full thing.

Builders of Egypt

Back in 1999, Impressions Games released an Egyptian flavoured city builder called Pharaoh. This is a game that my teenage history nerd self played quite a lot of. Apparently, so did the makers of Builders of Egypt. This is effectively an attempt at making that classic game on a modern engine. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be anything on offer here that I couldn’t get from just replaying Pharaoh. And I don’t mean that to be a reflection of the early nature of development; it just seems like it will be a lesser game even when complete.

Pharaoh had real charm to its presentation, sound, and general design that I just don’t feel in Builders of Egypt. There’s a lack of colour and personality here that no amount of historical accuracy and high fidelity Unreal Engine lighting can replace. Now to be fair to Builders of Egypt, it’s a perfectly serviceable city builder with a solid theme. It’s possible that with enough time and effort, the mechanics and options for building cities here will really stand out. I just don’t see it currently, is all. It’s not a great feeling to want to go and replay a 20-year-old game after playing a new demo, unfortunately.

Stronghold: Warlords

After finishing this demo, I went to check who had developed this. I thought that this was someone trying to capitalise on the Stronghold name and legacy with a cheap knockoff, or else they’d managed to get their hands on the IP. To my surprise, it’s still the same developer that’s had the series since the original game. Sadly, that’s not the only thing that hasn’t changed since the first game, either.

Stronghold: Warlords is a city-builder/RTS with a focus on building and defending a castle or stronghold. Warlords is an eastern-themed one, and has a diplomacy feature by which you can bring the titular Warlords into your fold for bonuses. But the entire thing is ugly, slapdash, and controls awfully. Again, it feels like there hasn’t been any forward development or improvement from the very first Stronghold game(s) almost two decades ago. This will need a lot of work to make it even slightly comparable to those games. Given the poor reception Stronghold 3 got, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Occupy Mars

Another survival game, and this one just begging comparison to the book (and film adaptation of) The Martian. The aim of Occupy Mars is exactly what the title says. You’re an astronaut on Mars and you have to gather resources and build up the facilities needed for future colonisation prospects. The gimmick for this one is that it is intensely micro-management heavy. For example, let’s say you want to get ore from a rock. Generally, survival games will let you hit it twice with a pickaxe and then pick up the ore. In Occupy Mars, you’ll start by breaking up rocks into smaller chunks a few times until they’re small enough for your rover’s crane arm to load them. Then you’ll be manually moving and opening/closing the crane’s claw to load chunks of ore into your trailer.

That’s only the beginning of the tiny details you’ll need to control and pay attention to. How about manually setting power consumption, dragging power cables around and placing them in the right sockets? Or having separate oxygen metres for your spacesuit and interior structures? I generally don’t mind this genre of game, but Occupy Mars felt way too technical and fiddly for me to gel with it. That said, this is absolutely a dream for a small niche of players who crave that level of simulation. I respect its commitment to detail-oriented gameplay and wish it well, so check it out if this is your thing.

Haven

Haven’s a potentially interesting one, but the short demo didn’t give me a lot to go off. It starts with a gorgeously vivid animated cutscene full of life and colour. The actual gameplay can’t match those visuals, but it definitely tries to match the aesthetic. Said gameplay is very movement centric, as you control your character(s) and glide over the landscape to collect resources and investigate the world. At the tail end of the demo, it surprised me by becoming an RPG, featuring an ATB-esque battle system. You control two characters with their inputs mapped to each half of the controller, and you unleash their appropriate actions in combos or sequence as appropriate.

More than anything, Haven is aiming to be a story-driven experience. The two characters are young and in a relationship together, making that abundantly clear in their early actions and dialogue. It’s all set amidst a somewhat fantastical sci-fi backdrop, and there’s definitely enough threads that pique my curiosity. At the same time, it could very easily crash and burn hard based on execution, and there’s a couple red flags in the dialogue that make me worried about that. So I’ve got a curious eye on this one, and we’ll see if it pans out.

Learning Factory

I’m still not entirely sure what to make of Learning Factory. It’s not unlike Factorio, that delightfully complex game in which you build massive automated resource collection networks. The look, layout, and mechanics of Learning Factory are almost identical to that, but on a very simple level. Despite this, it’s got a very stylised appearance, and the machines are being built in order to sell goods to cats and satisfy their needs.

Just when I thought this was a kid’s first Factorio, that’s when it kicked off the learning machines and data analytics angle. You take the data from selling goods to cats and then refine it via these learning machines to perfect your algorithm and maximise your sales. There’s even a tutorial and links to educational sources for more about learning machines. By the looks of it, the developers Luden.io have a focus on making educational games, so on that front I could see this being a useful resource. It’s not something that I’d want to play over its contemporaries, but I nonetheless respect this approach and wish the devs all the best in this undertaking!

Ostranauts

Ostranauts is a top-down adventure/simulation where you get a derelict spaceship working and set off into space with it, hiring your crew and making life work out there. Unfortunately, that description ends up being far more alluring than the game is to play. It’s another case of having incredibly technical mechanics that end up being really esoteric in practice. There’s an audience for this, but it isn’t for me. Instead, I just found it very unclear how I was supposed to proceed with actions and tasks, and struggled to even begin doing so.

In fairness, this seemed to be one of the least ready-to-experience demos I played; so much of this could just be technical difficulties. Lots of trial and error was required to even really begin, only to find certain aspects clearly bugged and broken. This is a game in dire need of a manual, but that’s currently complete absent. I get the feeling that I’d be able to fly a real space shuttle easier than I could a ship in Ostranauts, at least until there’s actual documentation present. There’s not really a lot I can say about this one, unfortunately. Alas, I’m not interested in seeing more of it.

Mr. Prepper

Based on its appearance, I assumed Mr. Prepper was going to play something like Fallout Shelter. In practice, it’s much more a standard survival game with resource collection and crafting. Even so, the unique perspective and dystopian “hyper American Dream” setting and narrative makes for a fairly compelling time.

You have to manage your usual gauges for survival and scrounge what resources you can, but you’re also being watched by government agents. There will be routine inspections of your house, so you have to hide all evidence of your secret bunker and illicit activities. This means keeping your house above ground in complete order, covering up workbenches, putting bunker entrances under a rug, and so on. It’s an interesting little spin on things, and I have to say that I’m intrigued by Mr. Prepper. Will keep an eye on this one.

Grounded

I’m still surprised that this is made by Obsidian. But then, considering the systems are largely just adding more survival and crafting aspects to The Outer Worlds, it’s not all that unbelievable. Grounded is yet another survival game, but this plays with the Honey I Shrunk The Kids formula. You’re a child/teenager who has been shrunk to the size of a bug, and has to survive a suburban backyard amidst an assortment of now very large insects.

Like so many survival games, the general mechanics and crafting options on offer here are nothing new. The aesthetic and concept of your resources being chunks of grass stalks and bug parts is remarkably endearing, though. There’s also a lot of nods to the era of ’80s/’90s aesthetics and a general Weird Science feel to it all, though. I’m not sure how much content and variety this will feature, but Grounded definitely felt more charming than I expected. Worth a look at the very least.

Arietta of Spirits

At a glance, Arietta of Spirits ticks a lot of boxes for a somewhat generic indie game. Colourful pixel art, classic action/adventure mechanics that evoke memories of classic games — 2D Zelda titles in this case — and a story that promises to be emotional and personal? That’s all here, and there wasn’t anything in my time with Arietta of Spirits that I hadn’t experienced like that before. Still, that’s disingenuous of me to say. Something doesn’t have to be unique to be good, and Arietta’s demo was good.

It’s pretty, playable, charming and fairly well-written. The concept of the spirit realm bleeding into the physical has lots of potential to work with. Gameplay mechanics were somewhat bland though, with little in the way of unlocks or special moves beyond slash with sword and dodge roll. There’s nothing bad or out of place here, it just hasn’t really done much to elevate itself. I’d need to see how Arietta of Spirits plays in later parts before I can make a solid judgement call here.

Wild Terra 2: New Lands

Wild Terra 2: New Lands is another survival game, but this time it’s an MMORPG. You start in the wilderness and have to gather resources to survive, eventually building up a base and developing technology. Skills will increase through use, and some scavenged items will be higher quality than others. Once again, nothing that the genre hasn’t seen before, but it’s got some depth and a decent amount of options in its tech tree to entice players.

What killed the game for me, then, was the MMORPG aspect. As an Australian, I connected to the Asia Pacific server first, only to find that lag and rubber-banding was pretty extreme. I tested out the gameplay systems and found them enticing enough, but swapped to the US server to see if performance was better. Technically, the latency was improved, but in exchange? Everywhere I moved to in every direction was filled with the camps and huts of other players, and almost all usable resources were now impossible to find and respawning insanely slowly. For a new character, it was practically unplayable. If this isn’t fixed or addressed by launch, Wild Terra 2 is likely dead on arrival. Some potential here, but the current state is worrisome.

Earth From Another Sun

This is a lawsuit waiting to happen. I feel like Activision-Blizzard is going to smite me just for even speaking about the existence of this game. Still, here it goes: Earth From Another Sun is a blatant asset flip that shamelessly plunders visuals and designs from the likes of StarCraft. If the thumbnail wasn’t a dead giveaway, then the fact that I was fighting a slightly modified Hydralisk almost immediately was. Mechanically, it’s a horde-mode FPS that tasks you with killing enough units in a time limit to progress to the next wave, gathering pickups and loot along the way.

There is so much wrong with this game, quite frankly. It’s a visual mess; not just for the cheaply-designed or copied assets but also just in how readable the UI and systems are. Nothing describes trying to figure out what I was doing better than “trial by fire,” as I had no recourse but to wing everything. And yet? I couldn’t help but find the idea of the game enthralling. A fast-paced and frantic FPS with numerous progression and customisation elements? I could see myself playing that. Or hell, just make a StarCraft FPS. Anything that isn’t this much of a mess. Steer clear of this one, but do take note of the ideas in the process, developers!

EarthBreakers

Speaking of an FPS based on an RTS franchise, who else remembers Command and Conquer: Renegade? Petroglyph does, because that’s what they’re attempting to reimagine with EarthBreakers. It’s a team-based FPS where you use resources collected by harvesting or through kills on building up an RTS-style base. You can use money on upgrades for you and your team, eventually producing base defences and vehicles to deploy. Ultimately, the last base standing is the winner.

References to the original C&C Renegade notwithstanding, EarthBreakers is a decent proof of concept. It’s going to need a lot more work to really shine, though. Movement was very floaty, and weapons didn’t feel particularly satisfying to shoot or land. Hitboxes were an awkward affair, and currently the only vehicle on offer are tanks so there’s not a lot of variety. As much as I love the concept and really hope for it to be polished and delivered, I’m not sure that Petroglyph has the chops to land a strong FPS that feels solid to play. Let’s hope I’m proven wrong.

And that’s everything I played for the Summer Edition of The Steam Game Festival. The event is over now, but many of these games will be developed further and available in the future. Some are worth keeping an eye on, and some are less so. But overall, this was a good event, and the availability of demos is only a good for customers.

Here’s hoping the trend will continue, and I shall likely to do this again for future events. For now, if anything piques your interest, you can click the links on each game in the piece above to wishlist them on Steam.

June 26, 2020 4:00 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/06/the-steam-game-festival-2020-demo-impressions-lightning-round/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-steam-game-festival-2020-demo-impressions-lightning-round

[sciencenewser]

Startup Opportunities after Coronavirus Pandemic

The novel coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing lockdown is going to kept an impact on Startup Opportunities. Some Startup Opportunities after Coronavirus are going to end. The impact of Coronavirus in the world economy is totally critical. Cashflow looking on shaky grounds, Start-ups will resort to revamping their financial strategy. The post-COVID-19 impact may lead to the trimming of excess resources. Some startups or businesses create work from home strategy and digitalized processes to save themselves from the market crashing.

Startups During COVID-19

As the outbreak of COVID-19 continues to spread throughout the world. The world after coronavirus pandemic, where research for a cure is on the peak. Companies like Google, Jio, Apple are coming through for startups, allowing them the financial support to grow and also the technical solutions. In each part of their business, from raising money to clients to representatives and providers, web new companies—like different organizations—are battling to adapt to the effect of the infection. Some are scrambling to spare their organizations from breakdown. How to earn money online from scratch in 2020 The organizer of one unicorn Startup Opportunities after Coronavirus, on the state of secrecy, said that after a crisis executive gathering, his firm is drawing up alternate courses of action that incorporate activity cuts and the suspension of tasks in a few urban areas. In the event that the infection spreads in India, numerous new businesses will be compelled to do likewise, he included. Finding the following round of capital, specifically, has gotten dangerous. What's more, it is going to rapidly transform into an income issue for firms that have up to this point offered need to client procurement as opposed to creating benefits. Raising money across stages has eased back to a close to stopping.

How the Start-ups are suffering for COVID-19 Outbreak

COVID-19 pandemic is the dark swan occasion of the decade that has overwhelmed the world. With phenomenal difficulties and circumstances, business people and new businesses are confronting each day, their interests for endurance and overcoming these intense occasions are just expanding. The social disengagement has set some cognizant or oblivious constraints on representatives' profitability. Though, increasingly substantial issues like brokenness of supply chain and upset interest are simpler to break down. In any case, these somewhat terrible occasions have helped the worldwide networks to meet up in whatever limit conceivable. This present reality execution of computerized advancement and tech-based stages has come through as a genuine legend, it will be energizing to observe how business visionaries and new companies practice digitalization in post coronavirus pandemic.

Decrease in efficiency

In the advanced age, a large portion of the recently shaped organizations and new companies have been embracing the lean association structure, which implies progressively cross-utilitarian jobs. With offices being closed down, even a little lessening in workers' efficiency can develop major issues for the Startup Opportunities after Coronavirus. Plus, these intense occasions likewise require extra time and consideration on cultural necessities, for example, to stay aware of the worldwide responses and screen conceivable advancement of the infection around the vicinity. One additionally must be progressively mindful towards individual needs like family unit concerns, dealing with the family, and guaranteeing the stable psychological wellness of family and their own. Nobody can question these are intense and phenomenal occasions, yet the total effect of the loss of staff profitability spread over weeks and perhaps months will be extremely difficult to deal with for organizations around the world.

The Supply chain breakdown

With the worldwide trade network being more associated than any time in recent memory, it isn't unexpected to see that a lot of organizations are likewise confronting issues since they can't speak with sellers in the red zone zones. As per the whitepaper by Dun and Bradstreet, 94% of the Fortune 1000 organizations have some essential parts of their flexible steel to the focal point of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The issues in the gracefully join are ending up being a major test for new businesses inside a wide scope of areas, for example, social insurance and innovation. As the issue escapes the control of business visionaries and private ventures, the dysfunctionality of the graceful chain is further raising worries about enduring the pandemic.

Shutting down the premises

As a component of the preventive measure, an expanding number of nations are rehearsing social and business lockdown, aside from human services and other vital business. The shutting down or limitation of running activities is significantly influencing the exhibition of new businesses and different associations. For a ton of independent ventures, their administration frameworks are either not satisfactorily settled to can't be completely taken on the web. This is again ending up being another purpose behind concern. Despite the fact that specialists have requested organizations to close down their premises, and as a major aspect of the social separating, representatives are required to work as a virtual workforce without allowing their efficiency to productivity, which is a lot to request, given the present circumstance.

Investors come through for new companies

There is no uncertainty business visionaries and new companies will endure because of this rising financial vulnerability. In addition, the United Nations has expressed, alongside other appalling outcomes of coronavirus, the log jam in the worldwide economy will cost the world around $1 trillion inside the year. In any case, with every one of that has changed in negligible time, it is basic for the administration, concerned specialists and pioneers of the business and advanced world, to meet up for the more defenseless network of business people and new companies.

Startup Opportunities after Coronavirus Private companies in the Worldwide Emergency

Where a few governments are coming through for the business network and are giving budgetary and duty help in the manner and structure they can, some are as yet bantering over the subtleties. Notwithstanding, innovation and corporate pioneers are venturing up and doing their part. Tech giants like Facebook have declared to offer $100 million in real money awards, just as promotion attributes that are legitimate for up to 30,000 independent ventures situated in more than 30 nations where Facebook works. These organizations promptly get the cash, which can assist them with making due through the emergency.

Some ways that Startup companies are trying to create profitability

The pandemic of the novel coronavirus is smashing worldwide markets and influencing everything from air travel to the film business to neighborhood organizations. All things considered, a few organizations remain to profit some way, which has now spread to scores of nations and spoiled in excess of 100,000 people.

In any case, the venders of some unknown items likewise appear to see the coronavirus as a remarkable business opportunity. These organizations are pushing that contraptions like air purifiers, robots, and even spit-protecting caps could be useful in battling the infection. While a portion of these merchants is effectively advancing the connection between their items and Covid-19, the infection brought about by the coronavirus. Different organizations state purchasers are making the association themselves and searching out their items. Like face covers, some unordinary items may be valuable for human services laborers on the bleeding edges yet presumably aren't intended for the normal solid individual. Thus, in light of a legitimate concern for comprehending this reality. We gathered together probably the oddest ways Startup Opportunities after Coronavirus are looking to profit by the novel coronavirus. In the next part of this topic, we will Discuss Startup ideas after the Novel coronavirus Pandemic. Read the full article

#Coronavirus #startup #startupopportunities

[junker-town]

U.S. Soccer closing the Development Academy doesn’t have to be a bad thing

U.S. Soccer’s Development Academy program was inefficient and too often ineffective. Now, something better can take its place.

U.S. Soccer announced the permanent closure of its development academy Wednesday, citing financial difficulties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. U.S. Soccer had previously anticipated spending $12 million on the DA in 2021, but between recent lost revenue and an anticipated settlement with the USWNT over its lawsuit, the federation wanted to cut costs.

The boys’ DA was founded in 2007 to create a consistent standard for top youth clubs in the United States that could then feed into the national team programs. The girls’ DA was founded in 2017 with the same mission. Several top American players came out of the DA, but the program may have garnered more complaints than praise over its lifetime. It placed tight restrictions on players’ lives, controlled training methods, limited competition against teams in other leagues, and required heavy travel. Among the DA’s most controversial rules was its insistence that players had to participate in the program exclusively, and could not play high school soccer.

More than 100 clubs and 20,000 players will now have to make difficult decisions about their futures — where they will play, or how they will remain solvent — when American youth soccer resumes play.

It is with profound disappointment that we have made the determination to end the operation of the U.S. Soccer Development Academy, effective immediately. pic.twitter.com/DB8Fr1Qkvu

— U.S. Soccer (@ussoccer) April 15, 2020

U.S. Soccer’s decision does not appear to be entirely driven by the pandemic, but merely accelerated by it. Before the announcement, boys and girls teams had been leaving the DA for an independent rival league, ECNL, that has looser requirements. And immediately following the announcement, MLS announced that it is starting its own development program, suggesting that the league has known about U.S. Soccer’s plans for some time.

NWSL hasn’t announced similar measures, but top women’s coaches have been calling for the DA’s radical reform or dissolution.

In a letter to U.S. Soccer membership, new CEO Will Wilson outlined how the federation anticipates supporting the youth game when it restarts.

At U.S. Soccer, we will also be looking at other ways to positively impact youth development moving forward, including an increased emphasis on coaching education, a more comprehensive scouting effort, and working with clubs to maintain and expand the philosophy and standards established through the Development Academies.

The story of why the DA wasn’t working will take much more than one day to piece together, and it should come out over the next few months. But the CliffsNotes version is this: The DA was annoying more people than it was helping, and that’s not worth spending $12 million during good times.

In the short-term, U.S. Soccer’s decision will be difficult for players and clubs. While some clubs will find new leagues quickly and keep players in competitions and training environments that work for them, others will need more time, and some could ultimately close shop. Thousands of players now don’t know where they’ll be once they’re allowed to play soccer again, and could miss a season at a critical time in their development.

But in the long-term, the end of the DA could be a huge positive for youth soccer in America. Having big league that was run out of an ivory tower in Chicago didn’t serve players well, and now American soccer’s various stakeholders have an opportunity to create a variety of development pathways that fit the needs of different players and regions around the country.

It was time for the DA to go for a lot of reasons, but most of them stem from three big overarching problems.

America is just too damn big

If you spend one day on Youth Soccer Twitter, you’ll run into some galaxy brain geniuses asking why U.S. Soccer doesn’t emulate the youth setup of one of Europe’s most successful footballing nations. The answer is pretty simple: All of those countries are smaller than Texas.

And yet, U.S. Soccer tried to run a national league in which teenagers spent more time on buses and airplanes than they did on playing fields. Getting the best players in the country to play against each other makes sense on a surface level, but the logistics of making those matches happen require a massive waste of time and money.

Development isn’t just technical, it’s also emotional

Getting the best players into the best environments, with the best coaches and best training programs, helps them improve the tangible parts of their games. Unfortunately, the DA also turned a lot of players into soccer robots who didn’t care about the matches and weren’t as competitive as their predecessors.

USMNT legend, pro coach and DA parent Eric Wynalda explained why the DA’s ban on high school soccer created a bigger problem than the one it was trying to solve:

Even referees complained that DA games were “manufactured “ lacked “real emotion” -thousands of practice games will never prepare you for the raw emotion of playing for your school in front of your peers with an opportunity to represent more than just yourself -define development https://t.co/7kdLrIHj17

— Eric Wynalda (@EricWynalda) April 15, 2020

Coach and former player Skye Eddy Bruce made a similar point about why a shift to regional leagues should be better for player development going forward.

Youth players today lack the understanding of what it means to be on a team and battle, to celebrate a win — or survive the pain of defeat together. We have actually fed and created this mentality in our children through our league structures where winning just doesn’t matter as much and we are more concerned with “showcasing” players instead of showing them the value of battling to win together.

The ability and desire to win matters.

With regionalized competition comes stronger rivalries and with stronger competition comes increased development.

DA was preparing players for the technical and tactical realities of pro soccer, but not for the high level of competition.

One size doesn’t fit all

In an ideal system, all players will have access to the same opportunities if they want them. But the realities of the American soccer — how young the professional scene is, how large the country is, and how many parents absolutely cannot be convinced that there is more to think about than just a college scholarship — mean that there have to be several different youth development pathways.

The different needs of players need to be considered. Some 14-year-olds are ready to go off to Soccer Army and commit to two-a-days for the rest of their lives, and some aren’t. Some kids are dying to play high school soccer and some don’t care. Some have difficult family situations, or other hobbies they’re extremely passionate about, or live an hour away from the nearest soccer field. All of these kids should have an opportunity to play soccer at a high level and be evaluated by youth national team coaches if they’re talented enough.

There is room for MLS, NWSL, USL, U.S. Soccer, ECNL and other American youth soccer organizations to execute their own visions for player development. The lack of one master league will not make finding the best players impossibles. U.S. Soccer and the big pro clubs can still host or compete against smaller clubs and find top talent. And an improved state Olympic Development Program that meets once a month could help, too.

I don’t have the solution to what ails American youth soccer, and neither does anyone else. U.S. Soccer need to admit the same thing to themselves. That the only way a system which produces great professional players and works for all people involved in the game can be achieved. What is best for New York City is not best for western Texas. What is best for a kid who’s been obsessed with becoming a great soccer player since they were in kindergarten is not what’s best for a multi-sport athlete who discovers the game at 14.

MLS can, and should, set its own standards for what an MLS academy should look like. So should NWSL, ECNL and everyone else. U.S. Soccer’s role in youth development shouldn’t be to set rigid standards, but to facilitate collaboration while establishing a wide scouting network, so that top talents who aren’t playing in hermetic environments can be noticed and given different opportunities.

The idea behind the DA was logical: create a better training standard for top players and get America’s best players to compete against each other. But there wasn’t enough consideration given to the problems it might create. American youth soccer has an opportunity to learn from the DA’s mistakes and improve dramatically in its absence.

[georgecmatthews]

Cell towers and data centers: Secular growth in a slowing economy

Economic growth has clearly slowed both in the US and around the world, and that’s before we account for the impact of the coronavirus.  Despite the tax cuts, rate cuts, fiscal stimulus and government deregulation, US GDP expanded at 2.3% in 2019, precisely in line with the average of the last 10 years.1  But there are some bright spots—and one of them includes the cell tower and data center real estate investment trusts (REITs) that should benefit from the coming wave of 5G.      

What exactly is 5G and why should investors care?  Every investor with a cell phone understands that 5G (or fifth generation) is the next step in the technology progression of wireless connectivity from 2G to 3G to 4G (see chart 1).  5G works in tandem with existing 4G networks to deliver speeds that are similar to those of wired fiber connections, while essentially eliminating lag times and drastically reducing power consumption and signal interference.  Initial 5G smartphones are expected to consume 270x more data than 2G-era phones and roughly 3x the data of current phone models.2  What many investors may not appreciate is how big a step change 5G could be and how long it could act as the growth gift that keeps on giving. 

In this regard, we believe 5G will differ in kind from earlier generation wireless technologies.  While 2G through 4G were largely driven by consumer usage and applications, 5G will expand the industrial and enterprise use cases for mobile connectivity by enabling a volume of simultaneous connections that was not available previously, at data speeds not available previously and with a ubiquity of coverage not available previously.  The sheer number of devices that can be managed simultaneously on a wireless network could usher in a new era of machine-to-machine communications that finally makes the internet-of-things a large-scale reality.  Simply put, 5G holds the promise of 10x faster speeds than 4G with 1/50th the latency and should support up to 100x more simultaneous connections than prior generations of technologies.3  Through a combination of developer creativity, user ingenuity and network effects, we believe that new use cases for mobile connectivity will emerge that are not practical or even possible today.

For example, many investors have read about self-driving vehicles, and some have even seen prototypes driving around cities in the US.  But what many may not appreciate is the volume of data necessary for the technology to work along with the necessity of seamless coverage, low latency and robust mobility features.  A single driverless car could generate as much data as ~3,000 current-model smartphones.4  Industry experts estimate that a large-scale rollout of autonomous vehicles could increase global wireless data traffic by up to 40x over current levels—a step change in volume that would overwhelm the capabilities of 4G but could become a reality with 5G.5 

Other 5G use cases could include remote healthcare, smart manufacturing, smart cities, drones-as-a-service, connected transportation and augmented reality/virtual reality, among others.  Simply put, 5G could become the critical value driver for global telecom companies over the next ten years.  Industry experts project that capital expenditures for the 5G buildout could top $2.0 trillion worldwide, including over $270 billion in the US to cover spectrum, base transceiver stations, transmission, cell towers and related infrastructure.6  Moreover, 5G is not simply a secular growth play in the US.  We expect to see meaningful 5G-driven growth in Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific, although each market has its own investment dynamics and will develop on its own schedule.          

Of course, secular growth waves driven by new technologies are never risk free, and broad deployment of 5G will face certain challenges.  For example, the high radio frequencies used in 5G cannot travel as far as current 4G wavelengths, necessitating network densification.  In addition, 5G frequencies have greater difficulty moving through objects, which means the technology will require an enormous expansion of current cell tower and small cell node infrastructure in order to function.  Beyond the technical challenges, 5G will face issues related to permitting, spectrum allocation, regulatory buy-in and carrier consolidation.  On balance, however, we expect the 5G wave to drive a multi-year period of secular growth for telecom companies and related industries.

How to invest in 5G?  There are numerous ways to invest in the coming wave of 5G.  These include telco service providers, equipment manufacturers, spectrum holders, fiber providers, construction companies, cell tower owners and data centers, among others.  We prefer the owners of critical communications infrastructure—including cell tower and data center REITs—for several reasons.  First, towers and data centers have shown relatively low sensitivity to macro factors such as economic cycles and interest rates while offering attractive cash flow growth profiles.  Second, the infrastructure is must-have, not nice-to-have, for the buildout of 5G.  Third, they can support continued growth in data usage, and their business models (and the economic rents they capture) are highly scalable.  Fourth, incumbency is a valuable moat around their businesses.  We expect 5G to leverage much of the same infrastructure used in current 4G networks, and the incumbents own that infrastructure.  When it comes to towers, new entrants often face onerous zoning restrictions designed the protect property values.  This often induces carriers to install new equipment on existing towers to avoid lengthy zoning battles.  Not surprisingly, tower customers tend to be quite sticky, which means tower companies typically enjoy high rates of customer renewals.  This dynamic translates into stable and predictable cash flows for the asset owners, and long-term leases that typically include annual inflation-linked adjustments.  We also expect the spike in both wireless and wired data traffic driven by 5G deployments to create meaningful sustained demand for data centers. 

Today, tower and data center REITs make up a meaningful portion of the U.S. REIT market and are valued at approximately $400 billion.7  In the US, the leading tower companies include American Tower, Crown Castle and SBA Communications.  The leading data centers include Digital Realty, Equinix, CyrusOne, QTS, CoreSite and Switch.  A host of additional companies serve markets outside the US.

Why will the cell towers and data centers benefit from 5G?  Investors have seen this movie before.  In both the 3G and 4G cycles, infrastructure players like tower companies and data centers were major beneficiaries of the initial network buildout, and then continued to benefit as customer use of next generation technologies drove ever increasing network traffic.  As 5G expands, we believe cell towers and data centers will remain must-have infrastructure.  The addition of more transmitters to existing networks (i.e., densification) and the construction of potentially thousands of new small cell nodes should allow the transmission of higher frequency signals that are necessary in a 5G deployment.

Stepping back for a moment, cell towers are the physical foundation of nearly all wireless connectivity. Tower companies own the vertical real estate—usually a tower or pole—often with a land parcel underneath and the fiber cable underground.  Wireless carriers, broadband providers, cable companies and government agencies lease space on towers to mount equipment such as cell transmitters or antennas.  In addition to traditional towers (known as macro towers), tower companies may own small cell nodes designed for short-range, high frequency 5G signals.  Towers and small cell nodes serve as the edge of the wireless network and are the first point of connection for end-user devices.  Towers offer one of the most cost-efficient ways to deploy wireless spectrum.  The physical structures are unlikely to change in a 5G network, although the equipment placed on them certainly will.  Their ability to serve a large population across a wide geographic area from a single location makes them ideal for serving the expected 5G growth in consumer, industrial and enterprise demand.

The 5G buildout should also push tower companies to build more small cell nodes.  Like macro towers, these nodes function as the edge of a wireless network and consist of equipment that is often attached to utility poles, signposts or streetlights.  Because they are low-powered and sit closer to the ground, small cell nodes are an ideal way to meet growing data demands in a more precise and targeted way—especially in densely populated areas including stadiums, convention centers, campus environments and offices.  They work seamlessly with towers to increase capacity, and because they are fiber fed, small cells can support the high speeds that 5G requires.            

Data centers are secured warehouses containing equipment racks that house network equipment and servers that are critical for data processing and storage as well as cloud connectivity.  These facilities provide sophisticated amenities like backup generators, industrial air conditioners and optical connections for the linking of business partners and service providers.  In a 5G network, additional computing capacity and storage will be needed closer to the network edge to meet the low latency needs of customers.  While data center shells are relatively simple to build, the complexity of the interior infrastructure requires high upfront capital expenditures and a level of operating expertise that constitute significant barriers to entry.  Not surprisingly, lease terms are often 5-10 years and data center REITs typically enjoy high customer retention rates due to the complexity and cost of moving.  Tenants often form a network ecosystem through colocation that tends to increase the value of a data center as more tenants locate there.

A bright spot in commercial real estate.  The business case is solid, customer demand is real, the telecom carriers are committed and the 5G wave is coming.  We expect telecom carriers both in the US and around the world to make a massive investment over the next 5-10 years in the infrastructure necessary to enable 5G.  We also believe the tower and data center REITs are uniquely positioned to benefit from the initial multi-year infrastructure buildout, and later from the step change increase in data transmission that will result from 5G deployments.  We view the expected scale and durability of the 5G-driven growth wave to be a very bright spot in the commercial real estate landscape.     

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Footnotes

1. Source: Bloomberg L.P., 3/5/20.

2. Source: Vella, H., 5G vs. 4G: What Is the Difference?, Raconteur (2019); 5G vs. 4G: A Side-by-Side Comparison, Western Digital (2019).

3. Source: Fritzsche, J., et al., 5G Big Picture Thoughts / Primer, Wells Fargo Securities (2019).

4. Source: Barua, S., Flood of Data Will Get Generated in Autonomous Cars, Auto Tech Review (2020).

5. Source: DeGrasse, M., Autonomous Vehicles, FierceWireless (2018). 

6. Source: Busvine, D., 5G Infrastructure, Disruptive Asia (2019); Roy, H., Tackling the Cost of a 5G Build, Accenture Strategy, (2018).

7. Source: Bloomberg L.P., 3/5/20.

Important Information

The mention of specific companies, industries, sectors or issuers does not constitute a recommendation by Invesco Distributors, Inc. Certain Invesco funds may hold the securities of the companies mentioned. A list of the top 10 holdings of each fund can be found by visiting invesco.com.

The opinions expressed are based on current market conditions and are subject to change without notice. These opinions may differ from those of other Invesco investment professionals.

To the extent the fund invests a greater amount in any one sector or industry, there is increased risk to the fund if conditions adversely affect that sector or industry.

Before investing, investors should carefully read the prospectus and/or summary prospectus and carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. For this and more complete information about the fund(s), investors should ask their advisors for a prospectus/summary prospectus or visit invesco.com.

from Expert Investment Views: Invesco Blog https://www.blog.invesco.us.com/cell-towers-and-data-centers-secular-growth-in-a-slowing-economy/

[ericdewaynemanns44-blog]

Eric Dewayne Manns, Atlanta, Georgia

Eric Dewayne Manns is one of Atlanta’s home-grown talents and an excellent addition to any personal or professional network. A self-made man, Eric Manns, is ambitious and hardworking with a passion for disseminating knowledge as well as creating and sustaining networks.

A professional Network Engineer & Business Manager by qualification, Eric Manns Atlanta career showcases a man of high adaptability. He has had experience as Network Administrator, Technical Support Executive, Market Researcher & Business Professional. He also has an experience for over half a decade in systems administration, desktop support, and the management of data and voice networks. Eric Manns is the holder of a double master's degree, the first a MS in Technology Management (2015), and the second being an MBA (2017), both from University of Maryland University College.

Eric Manns, Georgia, has always been a creative, friendly, and engaged individual with a tendency to pour himself entirely into any endeavor he undertakes. He is a big believer in harnessing the power of technology as a way to build real and virtual networks and connecting people in meaningful ways. Well-seasoned as Networking Professional, he is exceptionally proficient and determined even in the face of network barriers or high-pressure NOC environments. If anything, he flourishes under pressure managing to efficiently utilize his professional skills in sustaining networks even through difficulties in reachability, layered connectivity, and end-user software & hardware issues.

In his free time, Eric Dewayne Manns, Georgia loves indulging in his creative side with a passion for quality content creation that is accessible and has mass appeal.  With a passion for video-editing, video-making & educational content – his videos can be found on most video upload sites. He is also active on social media and can be found across all the popular social media platforms.  Those who know Eric Dewayne Manns Atlanta are aware that he is a weightlifting aficionado and can be found pumping iron on any holiday. He is out-going and enjoys spending time with his friends.

Eric Manns Georgia, is also a family man and believes in prioritizing family time no matter his work-load and spending quality time with his loved ones. Much of this includes spending great time with his wife Hannah, and children Zoey and Jalen Manns. Jalen is a courageous fighter who has been battling cancer for the last few years, and who serves as a primary inspiration to his entire family. He also believes in giving back to the community and actively organizes and participates in community-oriented activities. He is known to be reliable and an active pillar of support amongst his friends and community.

Eric Dewayne Manns is a focused, ambitious individual who is focused on achieving personal and professional success while also uplifting those around him. He is a kind, charming, and the solid guy who is equally comfortable in high-powered professional settings as he is outside them.

[jbaquerot]

These days, we have the opposite problem we had 5-10 years ago…

Back then, it was actually difficult to find datasets for data science and machine learning projects.

Since then, we’ve been flooded with lists and lists of datasets. Today, the problem is not finding datasets, but rather sifting through them to keep the relevant ones.

Well, we’ve done that for you right here.

Below, you’ll find a curated list of free datasets for data science and machine learning, organized by their use case. You’ll find both hand-picked datasets and our favorite aggregators.

Datasets for Exploratory Analysis

Exploratory analysis is your first step in most data science exercises. The best datasets for practicing exploratory analysis should be fun, interesting, and non-trivial (i.e. require you to dig a little to uncover all the insights).

Our picks:

Game of Thrones - Game of Thrones is a popular TV series based on George R.R. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice book series. With this dataset, you can explore its political landscape, characters, and battles.

World University Rankings - Ranking universities can be difficult and controversial. There are hundreds of ranking systems, and they rarely reach a consensus. This dataset contains three global university rankings.

IMDB 5000 Movie Dataset - This dataset explores the question of whether we can anticipate a movie's popularity before it's even released.

Aggregators:

Kaggle Datasets - Open datasets contributed by the Kaggle community. Here, you'll find a grab bag of topics. Plus, you can learn from the short tutorials and scripts that accompany the datasets.

r/datasets - Open datasets contributed by the Reddit community. This is another source of interesting and quirky datasets, but the datasets tend to less refined.

Datasets for General Machine Learning

In this context, we refer to "general" machine learning as Regression, Classification, and Clustering with relational (i.e. table-format) data. These are the most common ML tasks.

Our picks:

Wine Quality (Regression) - Properties of red and white vinho verde wine samples from the north of Portugal. The goal is to model wine quality based on physicochemical tests. (We also have a tutorial.)

Credit Card Default (Classification) - Predicting credit card default is a valuable and common use for machine learning. This rich dataset includes demographics, payment history, credit, and default data.

US Census Data (Clustering) - Clustering based on demographics is a tried and true way to perform market research and segmentation.

Aggregators:

UCI Machine Learning Repository - The UCI ML repository is an old and popular aggregator for machine learning datasets. Tip: Most of their datasets have linked academic papers that you can use for benchmarks.

Datasets for Deep Learning

While not appropriate for general-purpose machine learning, deep learning has been dominating certain niches, especially those that use image, text, or audio data. From our experience, the best way to get started with deep learning is to practice on image data because of the wealth of tutorials available.

Our picks:

MNIST - MNIST contains images for handwritten digit classification. It's considered a great entry dataset for deep learning because it's complex enough to warrant neural networks, while still being manageable on a single CPU. (We also have a tutorial.)

CIFAR - The next step up in difficulty is the CIFAR-10 dataset, which contains 60,000 images broken into 10 different classes. For a bigger challenge, you can try the CIFAR-100 dataset, which has 100 different classes.

ImageNet - ImageNet hosts a computer vision competition every year, and many consider it to be the benchmark for modern performance. The current image dataset has 1000 different classes.

YouTube 8M - Ready to tackle videos, but can't spare terabytes of storage? This dataset contains millions of YouTube video ID's and billions of audio and visual features that were pre-extracted using the latest deep learning models.

Aggregators:

Deeplearning.net - Up-to-date list of datasets for benchmarking deep learning algorithms.

DeepLearning4J.org - Up-to-date list of high-quality datasets for deep learning research.

Datasets for Natural Language Processing

Natural Language Processing (N.L.P.) is about text data. And for messy data like text, it's especially important for the datasets to have real-world applications so that you can perform easy sanity checks.

Our picks:

Enron Dataset - Email data from the senior management of Enron, organized into folders. This dataset was originally made public and posted to the web by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission during its investigation.

Amazon Reviews - Contains ~35 million reviews from Amazon spanning 18 years. Data include product and user information, ratings, and the plaintext review.

Newsgroup Classification - Collection of approximately 20,000 newsgroup documents, partitioned (nearly) evenly across 20 different newsgroups. Great for practicing text classification and topic modeling.

Aggregators:

nlp-datasets (Github) - Alphabetical list of free/public domain datasets with text data for use in NLP.

Quora Answer - List of annotated corpora for NLP.

Datasets for Cloud Machine Learning

Technically, any dataset can be used for cloud-based machine learning if you just upload it to the cloud. However, if you're just starting out and evaluating a platform, you may wish to skip all the data piping.

Fortunately, the major cloud computing services all provide public datasets that you can easily import. Their datasets are all comparable.

Our picks:

AWS Public Datasets

Google Cloud Public Datasets

Microsoft Azure Public Datasets

Datasets for Time Series Analysis

Time series analysis requires observations marked with a timestamp. In other words, each subject and/or feature is tracked across time.

Our picks:

EOD Stock Prices - End of day stock prices, dividends, and splits for 3,000 US companies, curated by the Quandl community.

Zillow Real Estate Research - Home prices and rents by size, type, and tier, sliced by zip code, neighborhood, city, metro area, county and state.

Global Education Statistics - Over 4,000 internationally comparable indicators for education access, progression, completion, literacy, teachers, population, and expenditures.

Aggregators:

Quandl - Quandl contains free and premium time series datasets for financial analysis.

The World Bank - Contains global macroeconomic time series and searchable by country or indicator.

Datasets for Recommender Systems

Recommender systems have taken the entertainment and e-commerce industries by storm. Amazon, Netflix, and Spotify are great examples.

Our picks:

MovieLens - Rating data sets from the MovieLens web site. Perfect for getting started thanks to the various dataset sizes available. Jester - Ideal for building a simple collaborative filter. Contains 4.1 Million continuous ratings (-10.00 to +10.00) of 100 jokes from 73,421 users.

Million Song Dataset - Large, rich dataset for music recommendations. You can start with a pure collaborative filter and then expand it with other methods such as content-based models or web scraping.

Aggregators:

entaroadun (Github) - Collection of datasets for recommender systems. Tip: Check the comments section for recent datasets.

Datasets for Specific Industries

In this compendium, we've organized datasets by their use case. This is helpful if you need to practice a certain skill, such as deep learning or time series analysis.

However, you may also wish to search by a specific industry, such as datasets for neuroscience, weather, or manufacturing. Here are a couple options:

Aggregators:

Awesome Public Datasets - High quality datasets separated by industry.

Data.gov - Curated government data separated by industry.

Datasets for Streaming

Streaming datasets are used for building real-time applications, such as data visualization, trend tracking, or updatable (i.e. "online") machine learning models.

Our picks:

Twitter API - The twitter API is a classic source for streaming data. You can track tweets, hashtags, and more.

StockTwits API - StockTwits is like a twitter for traders and investors. You can expand this dataset in many interesting ways by joining it to time series datasets using the timestamp and ticker symbol.

Weather Underground - A reliable weather API with global coverage. Features a free tier and paid options for scaling up.

Aggregators:

Satori - Satori is a platform that lets you connect to streaming live data at ultra-low latency (for free). They frequently add new datasets.

Datasets for Web Scraping

Web scraping is a common part of data science research, but you must be careful of violating websites' terms of services. Fortunately, there's a whole site that's designed to be freely scraped.

Our picks:

ToScrape.com - Web scraping sandbox with two subdomains. You can practice scraping a fictional bookstore or a site that lists quotes from famous people.

Datasets for Current Events

Finding datasets for current events can be tricky. Fortunately, some publications have started releasing the datasets they use in their articles.

Aggregators:

FiveThirtyEight - FiveThirtyEight is a news and sports site with data-driven articles. They make their datasets openly available on Github.

BuzzFeedNews - BuzzFeed became (in)famous for their listicles and superficial pieces, but they've since expanded into investigative journalism. Their datasets are available on Github.

#datasets #machine learning #data analysis #data science