fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Soar’s Global Super-map SPUR’d on by WA Government Grant
Tags: Mapping, Coinbene News, Blockchain Startup, Blockchain Technology, Cryptocurrency

Soar has made further steps towards the commercialisation of its global Super-map with the awarding of a grant from the Western Australian State Government’s SPURonWA program administered by Landgate.

Soar was one of 8 winners of the SPUR grants which are focused on the development of location-based technologies. The SPURonWA grant will assist Soar through supporting the legal and marketing aspects of Soar’s commercialisation activities.

“The SPURonWA grant is just another validation of Soar’s innovative approach to decentralised mapping on the blockchain” said Soar CEO Amir Farhand. “We appreciate the support that grants like this can provide to businesses like Soar who are developing new geospatial technologies.”

Soar is already advancing with its development and has released its Test Net demonstration at demo.soar.earth which allows users to upload and download drone images and now incorporates satellite imagery from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel series of satellites. The release of Soar’s Main Net is planned for February 2019.

The original Media release by the Western Australian State Government announcing the SPURonWA grant winners can be found here.
Read more UI and search in description on MapHub
Tags: Search, Mapping, Maps, Data, UX

Different users are using MapHub in very different ways: some users create maps with hundreds or thousands of items, while others make each map into a “story” map, like a blog post.

Read more UI for longer descriptions

This update is for those who prefer to have longer texts containing many paragraphs in an item’s description. It was possible before, but there was no visual sign telling the user that there is more to read.

With this update, when an item’s text isn’t fully visible a “Read more” button appears and smoothy scrolls the description to the next page. You can also scroll using your touch pad, touch screen or by using your mouse’s scroll wheel.

Search / filter by description

Previously the filter panel was only searching in the items’ title field. With today’s update, it is also searching in the description field.

This feature also allows you to store tags in the description field, which you can later use for filtering.

This is helped by the newly implemented “{hidden: }” tag. If you add a “{hidden: }” line to the description, it won’t show up in the popup, but it will work in the filter tool.

For example, if you have a map about animals where you’d like to add some tag-line functionality for filtering, you could add this line.

{hidden: mammal africa herbivore}

hidden text not visible in popup

Share your map!

While MapHub is a small community and the website has no list of all public maps, there is a new thread in the forums where some of us have shared a map we created. If you are interested to know how others are using MapHub or would like to share your map and receive some feedback, feel free to do so! Here is the link: Share your map on the forum

Questions, Ideas?

If you have any question or have an idea about a new feature, feel free to open a topic on the forum or email me.

You can follow MapHub updates on Twitter, Facebook or here on Medium.

Zsolt
Mapping the World — Part 3: Introducing ‘Apophis’, a lighting-fast nonlinear optimization library
By: Maurizio Monge
Tags: Optimization, Mapping, Techseries, Computer Vision, Autonomous Vehicles

SfM Fundamentals

The first step of Structure-from-Motion is to take a collection of images, divide them into pairs, and estimate the relative camera position between the two image pairs at the time the images were captured.

We compute the relative position and orientation information between image pairs.

Whilst this gives us a good starting point, for most image pairs, there will be some inaccuracies in the calculated position. For example, if the difference in angle between the two images was 90°, the calculated angle could be 89° or 91°.

Furthermore, as shown below, these relative positionings may not be globally consistent.

For example, we can calculate the difference in angle between image pairs A/B and B/C. But if we add the rotations from A/B and B/C, we might not get the same answer as if we calculate the difference in angle between images A/C directly.

Example of inconsistency in pairwise relative position/orientation data.

How can we get a refined result if individual measurements are prone to inaccuracies?

The answer: We should not rely on any individual measurement!

The Wisdom of Crowds

In his book The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki observed people in an animal fair that try and gauge the weight of an animal. He points out a remarkable phenomenon whereby the average of all guesses will beat any individual guess! This because all individual biases will simply disappear in the multitude while taking the average.

To apply this idea to the camera placement problem, we consider all pairwise positioning information and accommodate for any differences in a fair way as illustrated in the diagram below.

The difference in angles between all images pairs have been globally considered and optimized. Adjusting each estimate by 2° to make it globally consistent.

Reconstructing the scene

Having estimated the optimal position of cameras when they captured the images, we can plan the 3D reconstruction of the observed scene.

We do this using a process called triangulation. This is the act of deducing the position of 3D points from two (or more) observations. However, just like estimating the position of cameras, observations do not always agree on where points are. The result can be quite significant: a small positioning error can yield huge errors in the triangulation of points.

For example, assume two cameras positioned 1m apart observed the same point 40m in the distance. If the calculated angle of one camera is off by just 0.4° this will amount to an inaccuracy of 9–10m for the triangulated point!

Even after applying the Wisdom of the Crowd’s principle and averaging all camera estimates, the result of the triangulation will be inaccurate. This step is just too sensitive to camera placement errors, even tiny ones.

We, therefore, need another method to refine and optimise the results of the triangulated 3D model. We do this using ‘mathematical optimization’.
Python Discord Bots: Formatting Text
By: Drew Seewald
Tags: Bots, Programming, Discord, Software Development, Python

Simple Formatting

These are the easiest to perform. These are very similar to other places you may have seen markdown like on GitHub and in RMarkdown.

Italic — single asterisks ( * ) or single underscores ( _ ) around the text

) or single underscores ( ) around the text Bold — double asterisks ( ** ) around the text

— double asterisks ( ) around the text U͟n͟d͟e͟r͟l͟i͟n͟e͟— double underscores ( __ ) around the text

) around the text S̶t̶r̶i̶k̶e̶t̶h̶r̶o̶u̶g̶h̶— double tildes ( ~~ ) around the text

Example

Let’s create an italic command. It will show off how to format using italics with asterisks and underscores.

2 ways to italicize words

Now for a bold command. We want to explain how to get the bold formatting in the message. If we try to type a double asterisk out, it will make our text bold, so we need to escape the asterisks with backslashes ( \ ).

use backslashes (\) to print special characters

Escape any special character you want in the final message with a backslash ( \)

Now for underline . We’ll underline the entire message to add some serious emphasis.

Let’s do strikethrough . This is helpful to emphasize an edit.

You can also combine these formatting tools. These will all work very similarly to the examples above. Here is a list of combinations from the Discord blog.
CHATBOTS, A pile of clean money sitting to be grabbed.
By: Sumit Raj
Tags: Bots, Chatbots, Nlu, Conversational Ai, Money

A recent study released by New York based GLOBE NEWSWIRE estimated that chatbots market will reach more than $10 billion/year by 2026.

Do you still rely on support@yourcompany.com ?

I should say, sad. If your answer is yes. Just relying on a support email and combing through the email everytime and replying the same template response sucks. If not for you, for me as a customer is does.

Don’t you get frustrated when you make all the effort to:

Open your mailbox Draft an email Attach necessary document Add personal details for verification

Top Articles on How Businesses are using Bots:

and wait for 3–5 business working days to get a reply of a simple question? Are you kidding me? I’ll be happily repharing my text to get that answer instantly by a bot.

Organizations are often either solving a social or a business problem end up to a point where they need money to grow and survive, be it small or big.

Most of the consumer facing products run on a good support by Customer Support Teams. One bad mood or one misinformation by an employee can frustrate your customer and might result into a social media outcast and boom you lose 10 other customer because of that negative review.

And believe me, this is nothing. Don’t count on my words. Read here:

Bigger organization and SME are quickly getting to know this need and moving to chatbots to automate customer interaction.

Few reasons:

No waiting time

24X7 support

Understand customer’s query with pinpoint accuracy

Ultra low cost

Better Data Privacy

On an average US companies pay $50,000/year to an entry level Customer Service Representative. Just 100 of representatives and you’re paying $5 million/year where as a better experience, a productive work flow, a better support will nearly cost lesser than one-tenth of what you’re already paying.

It’s high time to take help of technology and make life easier for your customers and money for you.

Happy to connect with you guys and know your thoughts around it.

#chatbots #business #conversationalAI #NLP #NLU #vernacular #bots #money #cost #saving

Don’t forget to give us your 👏 !
Adopting an Agile Approach for your Chatbot Investment
By: Prashant Sai
Tags: Chatbot Platforms, Bots, Chatbots, Conversational UI, Chatbot Development

The “Conversational User Interfaces,” and its potential to imitate human interaction, is probably the most attractive feature of a chatbot.

So far, however, humans have been molding themselves to software in order to understand the interface of the software (Photoshop, CRM, etc). But for the first time, the software is now adapting itself to the way humans communicate, simply by asking the software.

But picking the right chatbot features for a particular function is the crucial task. Depending on the features, building a chatbot can attract investments ranging from $0 to $10,000. So how do you ensure you get a great measurable Return on Investment (ROI) on your investment?

Following steps will come handy in choosing the right chatbot to invest in also to test your ROI:

Step1: Invest in rule-based chatbot platforms with hybrid functionality

Create a hypothesis on bot workflow based on user personas and services. You can also analyze customer queries from your company website’s LIVE chat conversations, and try to form a hypothesis on bot workflow.

The hypothesis of the workflow will typically resemble a tree structure where a set of anticipated questions can be fed, while also allowing your users to type a unique query. You can address the queries by designing question & answer workflow or by writing rules with keywords. Avoid pitfalls while designing your hypothesis keeping in mind the points enumerated here. One can use the following platforms to create a bot workflow for free and deploy it on your website:

This will cost you around $0/month to $200/month based on the quantum of user traffic and conversations anticipated.
Using Artificial Intelligence in Trading
By: Red Fort Exchange
Tags: Bots, Digital, Artificial Intelligence, Red Fort Exchange, Technology

Artificial intelligence (AI), which is also called machine intelligence, is a wide-ranging branch of computer science focused on building smart machines that can perform tasks, which normally uses human intelligence. In fact, AI enables machines to learn from experience, adapt to new ideas and execute human-like tasks. This advanced technology has been used to power self-driving cars, voice-activated assistants and, now, trading.

Traditional trading strategies use technical analysis conducted by humans, to assess investments and detect trading opportunities. This is done by analysing statistical trends collected from trading activities, like price movement and volume. However, when a technical analysis relies on a person’s ability to understand trends and patterns, it leads to a number of issues including human errors that may occur, biases and the limited amount of data a single person would be able to absorb.

AI-based algorithms enable the analysis of more and deeper data, since this is required to train deep learning models because they learn straight from the data itself. With the use of machine learning, new ideas can be generated, and data can be collected from an unlimited number of articles, chatrooms, and other sources.

This inspired the creation of Red Fort Exchange, a 360-degree Global Crypto Exchange and Trading Platform, which introduced AI-based algorithms meant to solve problems. It is the first platform that enables new traders to participate in crypto trading safely and without much hassle.
Rule-Based Bots vs AI Bots of RFX
By: Red Fort Exchange
Tags: Bots, Digital, Artificial Intelligence, Red Fort Exchange, Technology

Trading bots are best defined by Stefan Tittel as software programs that automate trade executions based on an underlying set of rules. While bots have changed the markets, they are still restricted by their reliance on human intervention. Traders still need to use the knowledge they have obtained in their past experiences in trading as well as the judgments of market experts.

However, not all trading bots necessarily use Artificial Intelligence. Efforts have been made to harness the technology, but these attempts have fallen short of the expectations. Regardless, it is undeniable that AI has a more positive impact on the financial services sector than ever before.

One of the best examples of how AI is shaking up traditional finance trading is seen in the crypto market. AI-based algorithms have also provided opportunities to trading successfully and safely in such nascent and speculative markets. Naturally less predictable and different in numerous ways to traditional financial markets, the cryptocurrency market’s value is prone to wild volatile fluctuations.

In this rapidly changing world, data analysis and AI are the key to unlocking the dynamics of the market and ensuring overall success for investment. While humans are liable to letting emotions cloud their judgement, AI bots simply do not face this issue and, as a result, work more efficiently. With their capabilities to recognize trading signals that are nearly impossible for humans to detect, machines are much better suited to trading in volatile markets.

Harnessing AI algorithms provides a number of advantages for the traders, including enabling them to avoid high risk margins and inefficiencies that invariably arise with human-influenced trading, counteract market manipulation by identifying and analysing any anomalies in the market when in they are still in their infancy, and finally replacing intuition with facts, artificial and data-based intelligence, which streamlines the whole trading process.

Artificial Intelligence has fundamentally transformed the way in which the financial industry trades, increasing efficiencies and higher returns on investments. While open-sourced trading-bots have existed for a number of years, only a handful of companies like Red Fort Exchange are making sophisticated AI algorithms accessible by the general public so everyone can have the strategic benefit when trading.
Electric G-Wagen Volvo’s crypto sourcing ethanol hiccups
Tags: Cryptocurrency Investment, Tesla, Electric Car, Bitcoin News, Cryptocurrency News

The boxy Mercedes G-Wagen will go electric. Trump’s ethanol push isn’t actually making it to many pumps. Lucid moves earth to build Air. Volvo is using tech from cryptocurrencies to track its raw materials for batteries. And is the German auto industry falling behind? This and more today at Green Car Reports.

In the interest of responsible sourcing of raw materials like cobalt for battery production, Volvo is turning to a blockchain-based traceability program that maintains a “digital ledger.”

It seems the strong boost that the Trump administration gave to potentially more smog-prone gasoline with higher ethanol levels isn’t actually changing much about what consumers see at the pump. That’s because state laws, push-back from consumers, and costly pump retrofits are keeping it away.

Mercedes-Benz has a whole suite of electric vehicles on the way — most of them via its EV-focused electric brand. Last week Daimler CEO Ola Källenius revealed that even the brash, boxy G-Wagen SUV — long one of the company’s top gas-guzzlers — is due to go electric.

Lucid is readying the site of its Arizona factory for production of its Air electric sedan — with production to be overseen by former Tesla production VP Peter Hochholdinger. Bear in mind too that Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson was the chief engineer of the original Model S.

The first production Lexus electric vehicle — likely to be a version of the Lexus UX dubbed the UX 300e — is due this month at the Guangzhou auto show.

And over the weekend, we considered a lengthy, well-crafted editorial about how Tesla, Google, and other tech companies may have gotten a huge leap ahead of traditional automakers. What made this all the more unexpected and compelling was that it came from Germany’s Spiegel, and the industry it’s pointing to as in danger of being left behind is the German auto industry.

Credit : Green Cars report
Tesla Just Created a Miracle in China?
By: Shuai Chen
Tags: China, Automobile, Tesla, Electric Car, Automotive

(Photo from min.eastday.com)

On January 7, 2020, the first day of CES 2020 heavily dominated by auto companies, Elon Musk appeared in Shanghai for the “Tesla China-Made Model 3 Delivery Ceremony” and “Model Y Opening Ceremony”. His spontaneous awkward (some say cute) dance moves on stage soon were made into a WeChat emoji for excitement.

Musk has many reasons to cheer compared to a year ago and Tesla’s progress on the China market is a major one. Let’s quickly go through the list of “miracles” he has created so far:

1. Wholly foreign-owned automaker

For years, foreign automakers have had to form joint venture with local companies to do business in China. Tesla was the first to benefit from a new policy on wholly foreign-owned enterprises in May 2018.

2. Government approved NEV manufacturer

A certificate for New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) Production has been a high threshold for players like Byton and Nio. Byton ended up acquiring FAW Huali to gain the certificate, which came with a debt of over RMB 8 million that Byton struggled to pay in 2019. Nio and others have been partnering with traditional OEMs on assembly lines as a solution. Tesla was given the green light, officially listed as approved NEV manufacturers by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on November 13, 2019.

3. Tax and subsidy benefits

Tesla is benefiting from the purchase tax exempt policy as well as subsidies for NEVs like local companies. Meanwhile, China-made Tesla is offering competitive pricing with no import duty and lower production cost compared to the US factory. The imported Standard Range Plus Model 3 is priced at RMB 355,800 while the China-made Model 3 has just been adjusted to 323,000 and the final sales price is 299,050 after subsidy. As Tesla is building up a fully localized supply chain by end of 2020, the price would have room to decrease even more.

4. China speed plus

In October 2018, Tesla acquired an 86-hectare land from the government in Lingang of Shanghai as the only bidder meeting all requirements. In January 2019, construction officially began for the so-called Shanghai Gigafactory and in just 8 months it was ready for trial production. By December 30, the very first 15 Model 3s were ready for buyers. There was a media comment that the speed was fast “even by Chinese standards”.

5. Local funding

In March 2019, Tesla got a loan of RMB 35 million from multiple state-owned banks of China. In October, it got another 50 million. In December, another 100 million was added, all at low interest rate and flexible terms revealed by multiple media sources. When some local companies had been struggling with capital throughout 2019, Tesla seemed quite smooth securing local funding.

There is still a long way to go for Tesla China to meet the expected production capability and growth plan, to receive customer feedbacks on China-made models, and to prove true value on P&L sheets. Regardless, it is a miracle with China being considered difficult for foreign enterprise with huge potential but regulatory and cultural barriers.
Electrostatics
Tags: Electrostatic, Cbse, Science, Electric Car, Physics

Shivam | May 19, 2020, 1:09 p.m.

There are two chapters in Electrostatic

Chapter-1 Electric charges and Field

Chapter-2 Electrostatic potential and capacitance

Topic -1 Electric Charge

About 2500 years back a famous Unani philosopher Thales observed that when a material named “Amber” is ribbed with wool, it acquires the property of attracting light bodies such as pieces of paper, straws, etc.

However, this observation was not given any Importance for about 2000 year, In 1600 Cuibert discovered that like Amber, Several other materials such as glass, ebonite, sulfur, etc. also on being rubbed attract light bodies, clearly, this property in the material is developed due to rubbing, that is by friction. On acquiring the material is said to be ‘electric-field’ and the cause due to which this property is developed is called C frictional electricity, on be electric-field, the material is said to have acquired ‘charge’ Hence an electric field material is also called as charge material.

Definition: “Electric charge is the physical property of matter that causes it to experience a force when placed in an electromagnetic field.”

Types of Charges:- 1. Positive Like Charges ( + ) ←-> ( + )

2. Negative Unlike Charges ( + ) ->-<- ( — )

Symbols:- q (electric charge)

Quantity of Electric Charge:- Scalar quantity unit of electric charge is the coulomb ( c )

Scalar Quantity -

— Magnitude

See Lecture

Electric charge is the physical property of matter that causes it to experience a force when placed in an electromagnetic field.

There are two types of electric charge.

Quantity — Scalar Symbols — q
Electric Car Simulator: Best Android Game.
By: Rishad Khanna
Tags: Electric Car Charging, Electric Vehicles, Electric Car, Game Notes, Games

Electric Car Sim is a self-driving designer car application that will blow your mind and instincts. There are exuberant and charismatic posh cars with highly modern interiors that one need to try. It brings lots of twists and turns and thrills that make one gaga over and over while driving.

Get ready to indulge in this beautiful world of highly amazing designer themes that bring your virtual world feel like reality.

Here you experience some amazing views of offside such as some highly advanced buildings, beautiful scenic nature, enchanting forests, offshores and a lot more.

Here you find some real-world map guide that can lead to some destinations one need to travel and explore virtually.

There are ramps that one can jump to get high points and dive into some fun that any car racer wishes for.

With some amazing high posh cars that you can buy from collecting points and make them run on-road or off-road locations.

If your car gets damaged you have repair facility too.

Not just that you have a GPS facility so you don’t get lost in your destination and have an idea of where you are leading towards to reach your goals.

Here you can change the weather according to your mood and likings.

Use your collected amount to change your paint and other gears such as wheels and stuff.

This free application has some amazing modern graphics that will make you feel like a realistic atmosphere.

Here you can indulge in some amazing music of your likings to set your mood for a pleasant drive.

One can control the car via Accelerometer, On-Screen Buttons or Virtual Steering Wheel.

Now available in all different languages -English, French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, German, Turkish, Russian, Korean, Malay, Portuguese and many more.

Indulge in the ever-new electric car sim, in which you to have the drive and follow the road line, make different moves and reach your goals. Do not take the wrong turns, follow all signals and fasten your seat belts.

Features:

- Open World map with lots of location (city, stunts zone, circuit, off-road etc)

- Different detailed and realistic electric cars with designed interiors

- Visual Damage

- Different Camera Views and Angles

- Car customizations like paint, windows tint, suspension and camber.

- Realistic And 3D graphics

- Missions all around the globe

- Realistic Controls (tilt steering, buttons or virtual steering wheel)

- In-game music

- Desert Zone

-Change of weather

-GPS Facility

-Car Repair

So fasten your virtual seat belts and get ready to thrive into this amazing world of Electric Car Run that will make you enjoy this journey.

We hope you enjoy it!!
Convert .mov to .mp4 on a 🍎 Mac. Quicktime is a great tool to make…
By: Filip Wodnicki
Tags: Videos, Mp4, Mov, Mac, Quicktime

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

Quicktime is a great tool to make screen recordings on a Mac, for example for a product demo.

The problem is that Quicktime creates files in the MOV format, which take up a lot of disk space (500Mb for 5 minutes of video).

Compress

We’re going to convert that big file to .mp4 which will compress it to a more manageable size (64Mb for 5 minutes).

We’ll use ffmpeg, a command line tool, to do that.

Install ffmpeg

First, to install ffmpeg, open Terminal and run this command.

brew install ffmpeg

(Requires homebrew, which by the way is a great way to install software on Mac.)

Convert .mov to .mp4

Now, to convert, run this command:

ffmpeg -i demo.mov -vcodec h264 demo.mp4

Note: you’ll probably need to change the name of the input from demo.mov to whatever you’re using (as well as the output, demo.mp4).

Cheers, that’s it! 🍻 You should now have a smaller .mp4 video file.

Check out the code used here and other helpful code snippets in my Github gists.
How to use the iCloud Drive works with multiple users on a single Mac
Tags: Drive, Icloud, How To, Mac, Apple

How to use the iCloud Drive works with multiple users on a single Mac Globebusinesscenter Jan 14, 2020·3 min read

How to use the iCloud Drive works with multiple users on a single Mac

How to use the iCloud Drive works with multiple users on a single Ma c: Apple presented quick client exchanging years prior to permitting simpler shared utilization of a solitary Mac by numerous individuals. Subsequent to signing into a record and changing endlessly from it, every one of the exercises that were in progress proceeds on their cheerful advancement even while another client has signed in or changed to the closer view.

This incorporates iCloud Drive, Dropbox, and other synchronize applications that do their activities out of sight during a typical session. This can be valuable if numerous individuals depend on synchronized documents, keeping them from signing in and trust that updates will happen.

Apple guarantees its outsider engineers in quick client exchanging documentation that foundation records have no console or mouse input, and applications that keep an eye on-screen action will get a reaction as though the screen were snoozing. That is a kind of assurance that any application or administration that is running will dependably continue running.

In case you’re thinking about whether it’s working practically speaking, there’s a way you can peep on turned records without changing the client on that Mac. In the event that Screen Sharing is empowered for the record and you make a remote association from another Mac utilizing that exchanged away record, you’ll have the option to make a virtual session and collaborate with that record even as another client is working in the frontal area. This can back things off-here and there considerably-for that client, notwithstanding, as the foundation, the record needs to create all the showcase data similarly as though it’s working with a screen.
Testing borg backups on Mac OS X
By: John Wheeler
Tags: Borg, Remote Backups, Borgbase, Mac, OS X

Backups are your last resort. If you are using a backup, generally this means that everything else has failed. I described what I use for backups, borg and where I store it, Borgbase. But what if I actually need that backup? Testing your backups is one of the key steps to your backup strategy and should not be overlooked.

My first test was to attempt to restore a backup to the same machine.

$ mkdir blah

$ cd blah

$ export BORG_PASSPHRASE='thisismyrealpassword'

$ borg extract XXXXXXX@XXXXXX.repo.borgbase.com:repo::my-snapshot

Above I’ve created a temporary directory “blah”, and will restore data from the backup “my-snapshot”. Borg, like most unix commands, completes silently

$ ls

Amazon Photos

$ find . |wc -l

42

I can see the directory was created and 42 files have been restored on this host. I could be more through and verify the checksum of the files from their original, but because my backup (and restore) are images, a brief glace at the files in finder lets me know that they are in tact.

This is the best case scenario. I’m backing up from this host, and restoring to a different directory on this same host. If you are in a worst case scenario, where your host is compromised or unavailable, will your backups work? As a final test, I try to restore from a different host. On my laptop I perform the following

$ mkdir blah

$ cd blah

$ export BORG_PASSPHRASE='thisismyrealpassword'

$ borg extract XXXXXX@XXXXXX.repo.borgbase.com:repo::my-snapshot

Remote: XXXXXXXX@XXXXXX.repo.borgbase.com: Permission denied (publickey,gssapi-keyex,gssapi-with-mic).

Connection closed by remote host. Is borg working on the server?

I’m missing my ssh key! Adding my key from my lastpass vault (adding my private key to ~/.ssh/id_ed25519) and trying again

$ time borg extract XXXXXX@XXXXXX.repo.borgbase.com:repo::my-snapshot

real 0m3.377s

user 0m0.751s

sys 0m0.252s

$ du -sh .

2.0M .

Within seconds, my files are restored to another machine.

Things I learned

Always test your backups! Backups are only as good as your ability to restore.

Test your backups from hosts that they were not taken from. I haven’t even ventured into permissions or groups, both of which can impact your recovery.

taken from. I haven’t even ventured into permissions or groups, both of which can impact your recovery. Borgbase is what I’m useing for offsite storage, but there are lots of options. rsync.net has a great enterprise feature of creating snapshots of your backups to prevent remote writes. This immutable backup is invaluable in the face of ransomware attacks. There are many solutions in the space so worry less about the technology and more about actually having a backup.

Next steps
Is iBoostUp safe?
Tags: Optimization, Macbook Repair, Mac, MacBook Pro, Apple

New Mac users often wonder if their Mac “needs” anti-malware, optimization/cleaning and other utilities.

Contrary to popular belief, deep down a Mac is just like any other computer, and while overall the engineering and integration between hardware and software is superior to that of most other manufacturers, with issues less prevalent, your Mac can still experience similar issues to those seen on other devices. These can include: malware, adware, spyware, 0-day exploits, and a buildup of “cruft” and other unneeded files that take up valuable disk space.

Unfortunately as the popularity of Apple computers increases, unscrupulous organizations are now are targeting Mac users with malware and sub-par or misleading products, such as fake antivirus apps and utilities like “optimizers”. We’re particularly concerned about the increasing number of adware companies targeting Mac users by trying to piggyback off existing known and trusted Mac apps.

As makers of iBoostUp and iZip, we’ve been approached on several occasions by shoddy companies trying to get us to bundle their adware with our products by offering us payment per install.

We’ve refused every single time and will continue to do so. In fact iBoostUp’s Spyware Doctor for Mac is able to detect and remove many of these types of threats.

As a new Mac user you can stay safe by only ever installing legitimate (not pirate or cracked) software from a trusted source and keeping it up-to-date. A trusted source is the Mac App Store or directly from the developer; directly from the developer only if they are legitimate. Legitimate means that they have a proper website with a way to get in touch, have been around for a while, code-sign and also submit their software to the Apple notary service.

When researching any product, beware of overly positive or negative reviews, as unfortunately some people do try and game the system by paying for positive reviews of their own app or negative ones to discredit a competing product.

The iBoostUp app can safely reclaim gigabytes of space, scan for malware, improve your browsing speed, plus generally speed up the responsiveness of your Mac, and many more.

The version from our website is code-signed and notarized by Apple, or if you prefer, it’s also on the Mac App Store. It has been available from there since around 2010. Apple manually reviews every update before approving it for distribution via the App Store.

iBoostUp on macOS Catalina: Apple checked it for malicious software and none was detected.

In summary, iBoostUp is safe to download and use as long as you get it directly from it’s homepage or the Mac App Store.
Two Main Reasons Why Apple Products Are Super Expensive
By: Samuel Halimanto
Tags: Mac, iPhone, Apple, Technology, iPad

“No matter how much it cost. There will always be someone who buys it.”

Pricey? Yes it is. Same specs higher price? Yes it is. But there are reasons for it. When you buy Apple product, let’s say iPhone, you don’t only buy iPhone. There are more to it.

The Software

I make software in my daily life, and of course I get paid by my clients for it. But who pay for the iOS, macOS, and every software Apple makes? Unlike android phone manufacturers, who get their software freely from Google, Apple has to do it’s own R&D (Research and Development) and maintenance for its software. And yes it is very costly. According to appleinsider.com, in Q3 2018 Apple has spent $3.7 billion for R&D.

So who pay for it? The answer is, Apple users do! Think about this, the price for every Apple products are including the software inside it. So if you buy an iPhone for lets say $800, maybe $200 in it is the software, and the phone without the software is only $600. That’s why you can’t find other phone using iOS, because they are selling the software too.

Not only the software inside the phone. You buy the maintenance and updates for those software too. Lets take iPad 2 which came out in 2011 and got its last iOS update at 2016. If you bought iPad 2 by 2011, you got update for 5 years without having to pay anything more. It’s like a subscription for 5 years that you pay in front.

The Brand

Apple fanboys are EVERYWHERE. No matter what apple do, the fanboy will buy their products. But how? How could people fall in love with “Apple” as a brand without thinking about the specs or anything else?

A simple scenario: Two friends coming to you, one uses iPhone, another uses Chinese phone. Your subconscious will think about them differently, won’t it? Why? Because Apple has merged into our lifestyle and it gives luxury to the users. People are willing to pay high to get that Apple logo printed on their devices, because it gives them the luxury. This is why every Apple products are expensive and will always be expensive. Selling something cheap will remove the luxury that Apple gives to the users.

Those luxury that Apple gives is not cheap though. First, they have to limit their products to be only the high end products. It reduces their selling. And then the marketing is pricey too. Have you ever seen a bad looking Apple store? Nope, because it’s part of the marketing team to make Apple looks luxurious and exclusive. But, who pay for the selling margin and the marketing fee? Guess who?
Let’s Install MySQL 5.7 on OS X
By: Irsyad A. Panjaitan
Tags: Mysql5 7, MySQL, Mac, OS X, Brew

So the first thing you need to do is you have to make sure that brew has been installed in your machine. Otherwise you can do now like so

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

When you’ve installed, now we can continue to install the core that we are talking about.

Now when you enter this command:

brew info mysql@5.7

I’ll expect the output like this mysql@5.7: stable 5.7.24 (bottled) [keg-only]. If so, now you can install the mysql itself by run this command:

brew install mysql@5.7

After you finish it, now you running this command: ` brew tap homebrew/services to install the brew services.

Now you can start the mysql service by running this command:

brew services start mysql@5.7

Then please make sure that service has been ran.

brew services list

You’re done ? Yes if you’re fresh installed your new OS, but if you’re not, you need to link the brew to the mysql you’ve just installed, to do that. All you need to do is:

brew link mysql@5.7 — force

Now, you need to make sure that version is the same with you’ve just install, check this out with: `mysql -V`, at this time of writing, it will show you like this `5.7.24`.

By the default, brew will install you the mysql without a password credentials, but you can modify it by running this command:

mysqladmin -u root password 'your_secret_password'

Make sure you type the password with the single quote. But if you’re in local environment, just let it by default (without password)

Now you can manage your database by using anything you want, but I highly recommend you to use SequelPro.

That’s it for today! Happy hacking :)
Part II: Parchment, Paper, Palm: Joint CMA & CWRU Program Explores the CMA’s Global Medieval Manuscripts
By: Cleveland Museum Of Art
Tags: University, Museums, History, Manuscripts, Culture

Students in the Joint Program in Art History at the Cleveland Museum of Art and Case Western Reserve University. Image courtesy Elina Gertsman.

The Joint Program in Art History at the Cleveland Museum of Art and Case Western Reserve University brings together students, professors, curators, and museum educators to work closely with one of the country’s finest encyclopedic collections of art. The proximity of the museum and the university allows classes to be held in the museum, and support from the Mellon Foundation provides funds for curatorial teaching stipends and course development, as well as student fellowships and other resources. Last semester, Sonya Rhie Mace, George P. Bickford Curator of Indian and Southeast Asian Art and interim curator of Islamic art, teamed with Elina Gertsman, Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan Professor in Catholic Studies II and Professor of Art History, to lead a graduate seminar on premodern manuscripts from Europe and Asia, with a special focus on works in the museum’s collection.

Students in the Joint Program in Art History at the Cleveland Museum of Art and Case Western Reserve University. Image courtesy Elina Gertsman.

“Parchment, Paper, Palm: Global Medieval Manuscripts” introduced students to arts of the book from a wide range of religious traditions: Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Islamic, Jain, and Jewish. Every class involved close looking and analysis of original manuscripts and facsimiles from the CMA’s Ingalls Library, so that students could experience the materiality of the works meant for intimate — and often devotional — viewing. The Joint Program provides art history students with the invaluable experience of studying original works of art, and curators benefit from new perspectives on the collection that inform the interpretation of objects for the museum’s wide-ranging audiences.

In this blog, the second in a two-part series, The Thinker features essays by the students in Gertsman’s and Mace’s course, in which they share insights drawn from their research. This group includes essays that focus on the material and social aspects of illuminated books — recipes and meanings of specific pigments, ritual use of codices as tangible objects, self-referential depictions of books within books, and finally, the destruction of manuscripts — seen similarly through a cross-cultural lens. Read the first group here.
From Digitization to Connection
By: Laurell Mccaffrey
Tags: Museums, Fraunces Tavern, Art, Technology, American History

Digital Connectivity 🔗

For the past 3 years I have had the immense pleasure of leading weekly tours at the oldest standing structure in Manhattan, Fraunces Tavern. The building has just celebrated its 300th birthday 🎈, since its construction in 1719. I give my tour every Saturday afternoon at 1pm and end the hour in the Tavern’s most historically significant room, The Long Room. The importance dates back to December 4th, 1783, when George Washington gave his farewell address to his commanding officers. After the revolutionary war ended, Washington gave 3 farewells, but the final one in the Tavern to his officers includes the famous quote:

“With a heart full of love and gratitude I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable.”

In the midst of The Long Room’s period furnishings that include Georgian and Edwardian style chairs, a communal punch bowl, and various metal flatware, hangs an 18th Century portrait of a distinguished man with the typical white curly hairdo and a blue jacket with ornate silver clasps. For the majority of my time at the museum, I have introduced the sitter as the Tavern’s first proprietor, Samuel Fraunces. The painting was acquired in 1913 by the Sons of the Revolution of New York at auction, because the identity of the man was cataloged as Samuel Fraunces.

The Fraunces Tavern Museum has recently digitized their collection, and as a typical art nerd, I rejoiced 🎉 the fact that if people could not visit the museum in person (and hopefully catch my tour), they would at least be able to view the selection of historic paintings, artifacts, and documents at home online.

The collection was now available to anyone with an internet connection including not only the average history buff but also scholars and historians alike. This led to the museum being contacted by the German historian Arthur Kuhle whose topic of research is the Prussian court of Frederick the Great. His research led him to a painting housed in Dresden’s Staatliche Kunstsammlunge, with a subject looking quite familiar to visitors of the Fraunces Tavern Museum.

With the unmistakably same face and very similar ornate blue jacket, it is certainly the same person. But now, the question is, who is it? Since Fraunces lived in a time before photography was invented and almost no written descriptions of him survive, his appearance is still a great mystery. The quest for identifying this person continues with the theory that this portrait is of a member of Frederick the Great’s inner circle, and not Samuel Fraunces. There are no leads on how this painting made it to an American auction house at the beginning of the 20th century, but hopefully this trend of uncovering knowledge continues.

I have now since revised my tour to not introduce this painting as an image of the Tavern owner Samuel Fraunces, but as an example of how the internet is a beautiful tool to connect people and information as well as to make great advancements in research.
The beach on this date becomes a gallery, come and meet
By: Latinos En Toronto
Tags: Museums, Toronto, Exhibition, Art, News

Toronto beach is painted after a snowy season. Well, the colds are not going to end and we cannot ensure that happens today; However, what we can assure is that you are surprised.

That’s right, the beach becomes an open-air museum and it is not just pieces. The truth is that you will be surprised with everything you have to discover on this walk.

The works maintain a different aesthetic, being only the assembly in the cold sands of Toronto the guiding thread of the entire exhibition.

How did this exhibition come about? And more importantly, what’s it called? Ok, let’s go for parts that are missing a lot to tell.

The exhibition / event is called: Winter Stations Design Competition. Which literally was a competition that started last fall to select the artist with the best work of all.

Well, it is not only a montage of a single artist, there are really several authors who explore the multiple possibilities to take advantage of the beach as a museum.

From the texture, colors and stories that our beaches can tell, the works explore all these fronts; leaving in the viewer’s experience a pleasant cocktail of melancholy, emotion, joy, nostalgia and tranquility.

For example, you can explore three lifeguard stations, which for obvious reasons are not occupied at this time, along Woodbine Beach; which, are developed within a surrealist aesthetic inspired by the theme Beyond the Five Senses.

Works such as the aforementioned or that of the British artist Charlie Sutherland, who reuses an old lifeguard chair to rediscover the experience on a beach like Toronto through aromas, sounds and mirrors; they are the ones that give a unique contribution to the rediscovery of the area.

Another work that captivates and hypnotizes is that of Spanish artists Cristina Vega and Pablo Losa Fontangordo, Mirage; which, explores the visual sensations through an interactive piece that reacts to the sun, the temperature and the viewer, showing in that circle of lights a feast of colors that vary with the day and people. Simply unique.

Among these works that explore the immersion of technology in art is the work of the Austrian artist Iheartblob, noodle feed. This work takes full advantage of augmented reality, this being its channel of interaction with the sensations of the viewer.

This exhibition proposal is one of the most impressive and extensive of the season; Not to mention how fun and exultant it can be to rediscover your beach in each of these works.

Be sure to visit the exhibitions and museums of Toronto; Your city is one of those with the greatest cultural wealth, specialized events and many mysteries that await you inside and outside the museums. Do not miss them.

If you like these sections of cultural events or want a more specialized critique of these works leave us a comment. Remember, this is your city, enjoy it. Until next time.

Latinos en Toronto
An Overview of the 2019 Exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art
By: Chaz Berman
Tags: Travel, Cleveland, Museum, Exhibition, Art

Over the course of an entrepreneurial career spanning almost 40 years, Chaz Berman has launched and led a number of successful business projects. He currently serves as the chief executive officer of Grower’s Secret and the founding board chairman of Lojali, Inc. Chaz Berman balances his professional activities with various charitable pursuits, including his support of the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA).

In addition to overseeing a permanent collection that features art from around the world, CMA hosts a variety of temporary exhibits throughout the year. In 2019, CMA will feature the work of Raul de Nieves, a contemporary Mexican artist, and Gordon Parks, a pioneering African-American photographer known for his work on social and cultural issues.

Other CMA exhibits in 2019 will focus on altered photography, Swedish modern design, and Japanese art. The museum will also host an exhibition titled “Medieval Monsters: Terrors, Aliens, Wonders” which will explore the social roles that various monsters played in the Middle Ages. More information about CMA’s past, current, and upcoming exhibits is available at clevelandart.org.