Blockchain described in one sentence: A blockchain is really a kind of database that’s shared across loads of different computers that are each running the same software; each bit of data is secured using some complicated bits of cryptography that means that only people that are meant to be adding to or editing the data can do that job. WIRED Magazine, 2018 Recently, I had a job interview with a company that builds their business model on providing add-on services for their customers’ databases built upon the open source centralized DB platform known as PostgreSQL. Probably the reason why I was considered to do digital copywriting for them is my previous experience writing for tech companies like PTC, Satcon, and L-1 to name a few. For PTC, I did a ton of writing for their PLM Product Marketing Group. PLM (i.e. product lifecycle management) is a massive technology platform and manufacturing methodology that relies heavily on data-driven digital thread content, product data management, and databases to name a few. So as you can see, I know a thing or two about databases. Also, I have written about Blockchain Technology (or BlockTech as I will be using this portmanteau from now on) in the past; therefore, I am well aware of the hot new trends for this distributed cutting-edge decentralized data-repository/processing platform. During the interview, I asked a simple question: How is your approach to utilizing a centralized DB value-add over the hot new decentralized DB technology trend known as Blockchain? Digital Batman’s Alter Ego, Nick, 2021 Needless to say, the developer that I was interviewing with did not really like the question all that much. His answer was more defensive rather than enlightening: “…centralized DBs are not going away anytime soon, so people need to understand that Blockchain is more like a curiosity right...
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April 9, 2021I’m going to go in a different direction here with my usual pithy and challenging brain teasers. In today’s challenge, answer the following 7 Grammatical Questions correctly. And if you do, you will be a Grammarian! 1. Which of these sayings is using the correct pronoun? This is I, Hamlet the Dane! It ain’t me, babe. 2. Which of these is grammatically incorrect? Different to Different from Different than 3. Which is these is correct? The Californian Poppy is the state flower. The California Poppy is the state flower. 4. Which is ungrammatical? Telephone Television 5. What is the error in the popular Star Trek overture: To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before. Fractured infinitive particle Wrong use of a determiner They are both subjunctive clauses 6. Which of these is a grammatically incorrect phrase? A book well worth the read A path well worth the walk A meal well worth the eat 7. Why isn’t it Bill’s and Ted’s Excellent Adventure? Only Ted had the adventure It’s a compound possession—only one apostrophe is needed. There you have it! Did you get 7 out of 7? If so, then you are a Grammarian! If not, then I highly suggest you read this book! LOL!
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April 6, 2021The Challenge Your task is to input a string, and output the number of spaces in the string. This is Code Golf, so least number of bytes win. Test Cases "test" => 0 "Hello, World!" => 1 "C O D E G O L F" => 7 " " => 6
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March 24, 2021Digital Batman Recommends Like everything else in life, all things are connected, such as medicine and physiology, astronomy and astrology, biology and technology, zoology and ecology, or digital tech trends and literature. With visionaries and industrial pioneers such as Elon Musk and Peter Diamandis leading the way for the next phase of human civilization, we shouldn’t forget that without literary inspiration to fuel our imaginations, we would not be driven to such bold accomplishments like reaching for the stars. The authors include (but not limited to): Edgar Rice Burroughs (of the famous John Carter of Mars/Barsoom series); Jules Verne (of the iconic steampunk adventure 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea); Frank Herbert (of the socio‐economic‐political sci‐fi epic DUNE Chronicles); Sheri S. Tepper (of the Baroque interplanetary classic Grass); Ursula K. Le Guin (of the mind‐bending tome The Lathe of Heaven); and the eponymous novelist of this blog post, the highly‐acclaimed Kim Stanley Robinson. KSR for short. Robinson has won a mountain of awards for his work in the genre of hardcore science‐fiction, eco‐fiction, metaphysical‐ fiction, and political‐fiction, including the Nebula and Hugo Awards (the Academy Awards for genre literature). Of all his iconic works, his magnum opus, the Mars Series (Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars—and The Martians), are seminal tomes that discuss in phenomenal detail the exploration and terraforming of the planet Mars. The books detail not only the intense scientific, technological, and biological challenges of human activities upon the red planet, but also the socio‐economic and political costs to both worlds (Earth and Mars). And there’s a huge genetic‐engineering component to these stories that clearly portends our real future. The Martians is a collection of similarly-themed short stories set in KSR’s Mars universe. Extrapolated from the most cutting‐edge scientific discoveries at the time (ca. late 1990s), these books...
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February 17, 2021Recently, the US Department of Justice levied an indictment against three North Korean military hackers for their role in cyber-related crimes (see video below). These included (but not limited to): Targeting of and Cyberattacks on the Entertainment Industry: Such as the destructive cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment in November 2014 in retaliation for the farcical movie The Interview. Cyber-Enabled Heists from Banks: Attempts to steal more than $1.2 billion from banks in Vietnam, Bangladesh, Taiwan, Mexico, Malta and Africa. Creation and Deployment of Malicious Cryptocurrency Applications: Development of multiple malicious cryptocurrency applications including Celas Trade Pro, WorldBit-Bot, iCryptoFx, Union Crypto Trader, and more, which would provide the North Korean hackers a backdoor into the victims’ computers. Spear-Phishing Campaigns: Multiple spear-phishing campaigns that targeted employees of United States cleared defense contractors, energy companies, aerospace companies, technology companies, and more. Ransomware and Cyber-Enabled Extortion: Creation of the destructive WannaCry 2.0 ransomware in May 2017, and the extortion and attempted extortion of victim companies involving the theft of sensitive data and deployment of other ransomware. And it is to that last point that I thought a brief discussion on Ransomware would be warranted. Even Digital Batman’s own father was a victim of a ransomware attack that left him $400 poorer! In 2019 over 187.9 million users were affected by this bold malicious threat to online activities such as web‐surfing, e-commerce, gaming, and more. Put simply, this highly‐disruptive form of Internet‐viral malicious software (malware for short), not only infects your computer but holds all of your most precious files (i.e. photos, documents, apps, etc.) completely hostage—via permanently encrypting such files—until the victim is forced to pay a “ransom” to the criminal entity behind the attack for a decryption key to unlock the files. Usually to the tune of $100 ‐ $400 or more for...
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February 4, 2021In honor of Black History Month, I very much wanted to profile two wonderful Black American scientists who have greatly contributed to the advancement of humanity’s health and well-being and to our understanding of the universe! I’m speaking of none other than Progressive Pioneers Doctors Marie M. Daly and Neil deGrasse Tyson. Let’s take a look into the lives of these great Americans who make us all proud—for we are all one color: beautiful. Dr. Marie Daly STEM Revolution of Equal Opportunity When the 45th president signed into law the Hidden Figures Act honoring the four African‐American women who were instrumental in the success of NASA’s space race to the moon, we should not forget other accomplished women who have also contributed our nation’s scientific knowledge. One such venerated pioneer is Dr. Marie Maynard Daly. Dr. Daly was born in Queens, NY on April 16, 1921. She was the daughter of Ivan Daly (an immigrant from the British West Indies) and Helen Page of Washington DC. Her parents settled in the New York City area where Mr. Daly attended Cornell University in pursuit of a chemistry degree. Like her father, Dr. Marie Daly also chose to pursue a career in chemistry. She was spurred on by her grandfather’s extensive library of books about scientists and their scientific achievements. Dr. Daly graduated from Queens College magna cum laude with a BA in Chemistry. Due to labor shortages and the need for scientists during World War II, she was able to garner fellowships to study at both New York and Columbia Universities earning her a master’s and a Ph.D. (respectively). Daly’s first major publication was her thesis on the formation of pancreatic amylase on corn starch. From there, her scientific career soared. She was awarded a grant from the American Cancer Society...
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December 14, 2020This is a cute little post I wrote about the science behind Santa’s Enchantment. There are fictional interviews with three of the world’s leading experts on Christmas Magic.
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December 13, 2020There haven’t been too many famous snowmen over the years, the most recent one is arguably Olaf from Disney’s Frozen movie series. Here’s a quick list: The Abominable Snowman, A.K.A. The Yeti The Wampa of Hoth, from Star Wars, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back Michelangelo’s famous 1494 snowman for the Medici prince, Piero the Unfortunate Jack Frost, from the 1998 Warner Bros. film of the same name starring Michael Keaton as the eponymous character The Bumble, seen in the 1964 stop-motion animation television Christmas special, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer The aforementioned Olaf And Frosty the Snowman! And this is where our story begins, with Frosty. Arguably no one has done more to raise awareness for snowmen and snowwomen than good Ole Frosty. After all, he was a jolly happy soul. It all began on a temperate winter’s day. The school kids were making a snowman who sported a corn cobb pipe, a button nose, and two eyes make out of coal. They had just finished when one of the children found an old hat to place upon Frosty’s frozen head. Well, there must have been some magic in that old silk hat they found, for when they placed it on his head he began to dance around! From that point on, Frosty was as alive as he could be! However, the sun was hot that day. So they knew that they had to get him to the North Pole before he melted away. It was a sad goodbye, but Frosty said, “Don’t you cry, I’ll be back again someday!” And has come back, many times! One of Frosty’s most famous friends is Santa Claus, who along with the elves up at the North Pole, have given him a great home where he and his snow-family live a comfortable life...
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November 5, 2020With Apple, Inc. adding 117 new emojis for iOS 14.2 update, I thought it might be interesting to look at some cool emoji facts for a change:🎉 Fact 1: World Emoji Day is Saturday July 17, 2021🌎 Fact 2: Emojis were created in 1998👍🏻 Fact 3: Emojis originated in Japan🇯🇵 Fact 4: Over 48% of adults use emojis👫 Fact 5: Most tweeted emoji is Tears of Joy (14.5 billion mentions)😂 Fact 6: Number of emojis sent by brands – 145 million messages📱 Fact 7: Number of people/smiley emojis – >2000😎 Fact 8: Number of animals & nature emojis – 212🐕 Fact 9: Average number of emojis sent on Facebook each day – >60 million🦄 Fact 10: Amount of money earned at the box office for The Emoji Movie ‐ $217 million😐 Fact 11: Apple’s iOS 14.2 update now supports 3,292 emojis, including one with a medical mask (appropriate in this time of the Global COVID-19 Pandemic)😷 Fact 12: Emoji 13.0 is the set of emojis approved for release in 2020 (3,304 emojis supported all or in part on iOS 14.2, Android 11, Samsung, and soon Windows)👏 Fact 13: There is an entire website dedicated to tracking and cataloguing everything there is to know about emojis: The Emojipedia📔 Now we just need an emoji of 2020 and Satan, that’d be great way to convey via text how everyone feels right now!😱
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Happy Halloween Denizens of Digital Gotham! Tonight is Halloween, and tomorrow is November 1st, which is the famed Mexican holiday Día de Muertos (A.K.A. Day of the Dead)—a scary-fun time indeed! Therefore, I’m honoring the traditional holiday of “Tricks and Treats” (and other things to go “bump in the night”) in this post just because. All Hallows’ Eve, as Halloween is sometimes known, is celebrated not only in America but in countries from Australia, most countries in Europe, to Japan, among others. Though this holiday unofficially kicks off the American Holiday Season (consisting also of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year’s Eve, to name a few), it has its roots in Gaelic, Welsh, and Christian influences. For most people who celebrate Halloween it’s usually about getting in costume (like a Bat with a cape! LOL!), going to parties, and if you’re a kid, ringing on people’s doors and “legally” asking for candy! Of course, Digital Batman celebrates Halloween every week when he writes this blog in his cape and cowl. Hahaha!