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Legion: Secret Origin #4 review
As the newly formed Legion of Super-Heroes grows, the mysterious attacks on backer RJ Brande continue. Chameleon Boy, Invisible Kid and Colossal Boy sign up, though Brainiac 5 resists the idea when Phantom Girl suggests he does too. The Science Police gripe to the United Planets about the Legion poaching its potential recruits, but the politicians are happy that the team is giving UP youngsters a role model to rally around. Out in space, UP Admiral Allon - Colossal Boy's dad - keeps watch over a wormhole after incursions by an unknown power, while on Earth Circadia Senius enlists Brainiac 5 to unravel the secrets of time travel.
It's all go, I tell you ... and still there's room for a fun fight with robots who don't respect Asimov, representing the Legion's first tussle as an official team. With less of the politicking of previous instalments of this mini-series, and more of our title characters, this is the best issue yet. Fun touches include Brainy using his force field to keep the dirty hordes of 31st-century Metropolis at bay, an experiment connected to the Silver Age of Comics and Invisible Kid's unexpected reasons for signing up with Brande. And it ends on a wonderfully hopeful note, delivered by Jaclyn Smith-lookalike Phantom Girl.
Speaking of Phantom Girl, Brainy seems a little in love with her, and he's not the only one, if Chris Batista's gratuitous shot of her intangible arse is anything to go by. Tut.
I really do like the penciller's work with Mark Deering, though, even if figures occasionally look as if they're being squeezed sideways. There are some superb expressions at play, and the background work is first-rate, with the 31st century looking most inviting. Top work, too, from colourist Wes Hartman and letterer Dezi Sienty - this story is going to make a fine-looking trade. And it doesn't read badly, either, with interesting parallel storylines and lots of character quirks from writer Paul Levitz. As a love letter to the Legion, this series is strictly niche, but it's a heckuva nice niche.
Chris Batista Dezi Sienty Legion of Super-Heroes Legion: Secret Origin #4 review Marc Deering Paul Levitz Wes Hartman
Baron von Renable Friday, 27 January, 2012
I really hope this series gets collected into a hard cover or trade paperback...
Martin Gray Wednesday, 01 February, 2012
October, Baron!
LEGION: SECRET ORIGIN TP
Writer: Paul Levitz
Artists: Chris Batista, Rich Perotta and Marc Deering
Collects: LEGION: SECRET ORIGIN #1-6
$14.99 US, 144 pg
And-Ru Friday, 27 January, 2012
I really can't stand this series. Every time I see it on my standing order list I feel like 'oh no, I'll have to read this.'
The framing device is bizarre and really stands in the way of any interest in the supposedly lead characters developing.
Like last issue when Phantom Girl joined the Legion more or less off panel.
Each of these characters had their own little origin story in the olden days and it doesn't work here. Who are these three busy bodies presiding over everything? Using them as the framing device is a massive impediment to generating any interest in the title characters.
Paul Levitz was my favourite Legion writer but he doesn't seem to be adapting to the times well. They should let him go back to having thought bubbles and narration boxes if it helps him tell the story - there should be room for all sorts of comics writing. I doubt this is going to attract new readers anyway...
Martin Gray Friday, 27 January, 2012
Excellent point about writing styles, Andrew, I'd love thought balloons to make a proper comeback.
Stop reading his book, though ... life and money are too short to support work you're not enjoying.
Novelty Sunday, 29 January, 2012
I have to say I like reading this. It's a fresh new look on an old old story.
And martin, are there problems with the images? I'm getting errors with them :(
Martin Gray Sunday, 29 January, 2012
Something's up ... It's like I've been attacked by the Dark Circle. I'll be near my scanner later, and will put them through again.
Rob S. Monday, 30 January, 2012
NOW they're working!
One of my favorite things about this series (and Legion) is the (new?) notion that Braniac 5's force field really is head-and-shoulders above any similar technology, and the concurrent revelation that it can't be shared because of its unique (and so far unrevealed) power source. Color me curious, Greenie.
I think it's a new idea. I never even questioned previously as to why Brainiac never shared the force field tech with the outside world, I thought of it as a super power.
Help me here ... didn't he give his belt to Luornu after her second body died, or am I misremembering?
Rob S. Thursday, 02 February, 2012
I think he did, yes.
Now I'm trying to remember when her second body died. During the fight with the Trapper at the end of time?
Martin Gray Thursday, 02 February, 2012
Yep, avenging Superboy. But she got it back!
Anonymous Friday, 03 February, 2012
And more! Me, I'm loving this series. It's actually adding something to the origin for the first time in ages. When it's done I'd like to see the security folks back or whomever is in the position now. I'm also not sure everyone's little origin stories don't still fit. With Colossal Boy, for example, there's nothing that says he wasn't on on Mars cannoodling with Gigi when exposed to that rock and then caught proto-Starfinger with her. yeah, Tinya is redone a bit (and maybe it's because she's not my cup of tea but I didn't see any gratuitousness to the butt shot) but what did she and Bgtzl have before this. She had a brother and that's the extent of what we knew, right?
Martin Gray Saturday, 04 February, 2012
Yeah, I reckon that was about it, Steve.
I'd say the bottom was gratuitous because when someone is speaking it's traditional to see the mouth. Call me old fashioned ...


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Package: org.gradle.api.artifacts

[Java] Interface ConfigurationContainer

java.util.Collection

All Superinterfaces:

NamedDomainObjectContainer, NamedDomainObjectSet, DomainObjectCollection, Iterable, NamedDomainObjectCollection, Collection

A ConfigurationContainer is responsible for declaring and managing configurations. See also Configuration.

You can obtain a ConfigurationContainer instance by calling Project.getConfigurations,
 or using the configurations property in your build script.

The configurations in a container are accessible as read-only properties of the container, using the name of the
 configuration as the property name. For example:

 configurations.create('myConfiguration')
 configurations.myConfiguration.transitive = false

A dynamic method is added for each configuration which takes a configuration closure. This is equivalent to
 calling getByName(String, groovy.lang.Closure). For example:

 configurations.create('myConfiguration')
 configurations.myConfiguration {
     transitive = false
 }

Examples

 An example showing how to refer to a given configuration by name
 in order to get hold of all dependencies (e.g. jars, but only)

   apply plugin: 'java' //so that I can use 'compile' configuration

   //copying all dependencies attached to 'compile' into a specific folder
   task copyAllDependencies(type: Copy) {
     //referring to the 'compile' configuration
     from configurations.compile
     into 'allLibs'
   }

 An example showing how to declare and configure configurations

 apply plugin: 'java' //so that I can use 'compile', 'testCompile' configurations

 configurations {
   //adding a configuration:
   myConfiguration

   //adding a configuration that extends existing configuration:
   //(testCompile was added by the java plugin)
   myIntegrationTestsCompile.extendsFrom(testCompile)

   //configuring existing configurations not to put transitive dependencies on the compile classpath
   //this way you can avoid issues with implicit dependencies to transitive libraries
   compile.transitive = false
   testCompile.transitive = false
 }

 Examples on configuring the resolution strategy - see docs for ResolutionStrategy

Methods Summary

Methods

                            Type
                            Name and description

                            Configuration
                            detachedConfiguration(Dependency... dependencies)
Creates a configuration, but does not add it to this container.

                            Configuration
                            getAt(String name)
{@inheritDoc}

                            Configuration
                            getByName(String name)
{@inheritDoc}

                            Configuration
                            getByName(String name, Closure configureClosure)
{@inheritDoc}

Inherited Methods Summary

Inherited Methods

                            Methods inherited from class
                            Name

                            interface NamedDomainObjectContainer
                            configure, create, create, <a href='../../../../org/gradle/api/NamedDomainObjectContainer.html#create(java.lang.String, Action<? super T>)'>create, maybeCreate

                            interface NamedDomainObjectSet
                            findAll, <a href='../../../../org/gradle/api/NamedDomainObjectSet.html#matching(Spec<? super T>)'>matching, matching, <a href='../../../../org/gradle/api/NamedDomainObjectSet.html#withType(Class<S>)'>withType

                            interface org.gradle.util.Configurable
                            org.gradle.util.Configurable#configure(groovy.lang.Closure)

Method Detail

public Configuration detachedConfiguration(Dependency... dependencies)

 Creates a configuration, but does not add it to this container.

Parameters:

dependencies -  The dependencies of the configuration.

Returns:

The configuration.

public Configuration getAt(String name)

 {@inheritDoc}

public Configuration getByName(String name)

 {@inheritDoc}

public Configuration getByName(String name, Closure configureClosure)

 {@inheritDoc}

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Gradle API 2.3

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Well around here it is a little bit. My mom and I started a compost pile. But very little of my stuff ever gets there.
That's right I have the compost cardigans. They love hanging around in hopes of scamming egg shells, carrot tops, squash ends, apple peels, whatever I'm cooking. Ok well they don't get the onion stuff but everything else. Today some one ate a mushroom that hit the floor. I'm always surprised what they like. Stoney like bananas. Funny guys!


With swooning surveys for top of the line phones, for example, the P20 Pro and smooth entrancing gadgets cordiality of its Honor subbrand, any reasonable person would agree Huawei is presently a noteworthy player in the worldwide cell phone circle.
Disregard all that you think about a 3D shape being a 3D general hexahedron with six indistinguishable square faces. Chinese tech Goliath Huawei is here to rethink the block, and the main thing you have to think about its elucidation is that it's… round.
At IFA 2018 in Berlin prior today, Huawei revealed plans to invade the blossoming shrewd speaker space, as well. The Huawei AI Cube is a little Alexa-controlled gadget that ticks the vast majority of the cases as far as what we've generally expected from a virtual partner implanted savvy speaker it bolsters the standard scope of Alexa voice orders and reconciliations and works with in excess of 20,000 brilliant home contraptions from 3,500 brands.
Design-wise, the AI Cube resembles a taller Google Home, with an arrangement of control catches to finish everything. It won't hurt your eyes.
It's not little: it weighs 900g and is 218mm tall. It has four receivers for voice input and just a solitary, 15W mono speaker, so don't expect some insane stereo encompass impacts here. Huawei says that its substantial, 400ml sound cavity expands the sound quality, and Huawei's Histen set of innovations, which incorporates stuff like virtual bass, versatile gain control and a direct stage equalizer, should help enhance the sound too.
The organization, which in any event up to this point hasn't been known for its aptitude in sound, has fused its own exclusive tech, called Histen, into the Cube, which evidently enables the first timbre of music to be regarded.
The network tech within the AI Cube makes it somewhat more intriguing. There's a LTE Cat 6 modem and a 802.11ac Wi-Fi connector inside, which make this gadget a truly proficient home switch. My figure is that, down the line, telecoms will offer the AI Cube together with web designs — either as an upsell or an overhaul of a customary, exhausting home switch.
The AI Cube will be launched in Europe first, amid this Christmas season. It's not going to the U.S. what's more, it's most certainly not.


text:
The heterogeneous HLA genetic makeup of the Swiss population.
Buhler S, Nunes JM, Nicoloso G, Tiercy JM, Sanchez-Mazas A. PLoS ONE 2012 ;7(7):e41400. 10.1371/journal.pone.0041400. PONE-D-12-01163. PMC3405111.
This study aims at investigating the HLA molecular variation across Switzerland in order to determine possible regional differences, which would be highly relevant to several purposes: optimizing donor recruitment strategies in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), providing reliable reference data in HLA and disease association studies, and understanding the population genetic background(s) of this culturally heterogeneous country. HLA molecular data of more than 20,000 HSCT donors from 9-13 recruitment centers of the whole country were analyzed. Allele and haplotype frequencies were estimated by using new computer tools adapted to the heterogeneity and ambiguity of the data. Non-parametric and resampling statistical tests were performed to assess Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, selective neutrality and linkage disequilibrium among different loci, both in each recruitment center and in the whole national registry. Genetic variation was explored through genetic distance and hierarchical analysis of variance taking into account both geographic and linguistic subdivisions in Switzerland. The results indicate a heterogeneous genetic makeup of the Swiss population: first, allele frequencies estimated on the whole national registry strongly deviate from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, by contrast with the results obtained for individual centers; second, a pronounced differentiation is observed for Ticino, Graubünden, and, to a lesser extent, Wallis, suggesting that the Alps represent(ed) a barrier to gene flow; finally, although cultural (linguistic) boundaries do not represent a main genetic differentiation factor in Switzerland, the genetic relatedness between population from south-eastern Switzerland and Italy agrees with historical and linguistic data. Overall, this study justifies the maintenance of a decentralized donor recruitment structure in Switzerland allowing increasing the genetic diversity of the national--and hence global--donor registry. It also indicates that HLA data of local donor recruitment centers can be used as reference data in both epidemiological and population genetic studies focusing on the genetic history of present European populations.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
La Corea del Sud partecipò ai XIV Giochi olimpici invernali, svoltisi a Sarajevo, Jugoslavia, dall'8 al 19 febbraio 1984, con una delegazione di 15 atleti impegnati in cinque discipline.

Risultati

Collegamenti esterni

1984
Corea del Sud

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Forrester finds that, in 2020, over 27% of organizations improved their customer experience (CX) index scores, a big number compared to the few who were making progress in the years before.
"To emerge successfully from this global crisis, brands must build experiences that help them engage with their customers at an emotional level," wrote Forrester SVP, Sharyn Leaver.
So, how do enterprises engage customers at an emotional level when the predominant
channel of interaction is now digital?
By delivering insights-driven, personalized, contextual, end-to-end digital customer experiences anytime, anywhere, across channels and devices.
To achieve this, at accelerated time-to-value and scale, enterprises need a springboard: A Digital Experience Platform.
Gartner defines a Digital Experience Platform (DXP), as an integrated set of technologies, based on a common platform, that provides a broad range of audiences with consistent, secure, and personalized access to information and applications across many digital touchpoints.
At WaveMaker, we visualize it in three layers:
Foundational Business Engine
Digital Engagement Hub, which brings together APIs from the business engine
Customer Experience Suite, which is the UX layer, made up of apps
Most enterprises have the business engine and the digital engagement hub, even if some of them might be legacy software. However, the digital customer experience layer needs to respond to rapidly evolving needs, offering opportunities for experimentation and rapid implementation. It is here that low-code can help. Here's how.
Transforming applications to a customer-oriented approach
In most industries, IT is designed around the organizational structure, not customer needs. For instance, the technology architecture of a retail organization is driven by the supply chain — divided into inventory, point of sale, customer relationship management, e-commerce, etc. So, if a customer wants to check on the company's website whether a product is available in their nearby store, it would be next to impossible because the e-commerce engine doesn't speak to the inventory management system.
A digital experience platform can enable enterprises to address such use cases without elaborate investments in product development. When the business engine is built on customer-oriented architecture, deploying applications as microservices, loosely coupled, and API-driven with functional encapsulation, the low-code customer experience suite empowers you to drag and drop any combination of features and functionalities to create a new app. It effortlessly abstracts the various business engines to create apps with little manual programming.
Leveraging data for personalized digital experience
No customer wants to search and scroll endlessly on their shopping app to find the product they want. Nor do they want to manually drag and drop features into their interface to personalize it themselves. They want personalized experiences that are meaningful, engaging, and, most importantly, efficient.
A digital experience platform can leverage advanced analytics to deliver that. The low-code customer experience suite can form the abstraction over the analytics engine to bring together user, interaction, and business data to create a 360-degree view of the customer. It can enable dynamic user experiences, ensuring continuity of customer relationships, displaying cross-sell/up-sell opportunities contextually.
Delivering omnichannel engagement
In the era of 'hand-off' between devices, customers demand a smooth omnichannel experience from enterprises. For instance, an e-commerce customer today wants to add items to their cart from any device, anywhere, anytime, and purchase them all together when they're ready.
Digital experience platforms are built to enable this seamlessly. By integrating various digital business engines, the low-code customer experience suite allows you to build omnichannel customer journeys — effortlessly moving from one channel to another, ensuring continuity of engagement across devices.
Enabling dynamic content delivery
Traditional applications are optimized for short-term transactions, while digital experience platforms are built to create long-term customer value. For instance, an e-commerce application is typically built around capabilities like search and checkout, focussing on the efficiency of shopping. But customers today are seeking more engagement. Perhaps why social commerce — blending of social media like Instagram and shopping — is gaining popularity, as it stresses the 'experience' of shopping.
The digital customer experience suite enables enterprises, especially in industries like banking, media, retail, or fashion to design websites, portals, apps, etc. to deliver personalized, contextual, relevant, and timely content to improve stickiness and loyalty.
Ensuring end-to-end digital service
Today, saying "you need to come to the store to get this done" is a sure-shot way of losing a customer, especially given that the cost of switching to a new provider is the lowest it has ever been. However, traditional shelf-ware is heavily restrictive in the functionalities they can offer.
Digital experience platforms enable you to deliver end-to-end digital service. With the customer engagement suite, enterprises can:
Build and deploy new applications quickly for customers
Enable dashboards with predictive analytics for employees
Create chatbots to automate answers to common concerns
Automate data collection in the form of feedback through email, SMS, or app notifications
Streamline product and business innovation based on customer behavior and preferences
In 2018, PwC found 32% of customers say they would stop doing business with a brand after one bad experience, even if they had loved it before. On the other hand, customers are willing to pay a 7-16% price premium for a good experience. This becomes even more telling in the post-pandemic era.
Today, just offering a digital avenue isn't enough. The digital channel(s) is the storefront, relationship manager, customer service, marketing, sales, product catalog — all rolled into one. The true success of a digital channel is in dynamically adapting to customer needs. A digital experience platform helps you achieve that.
With a robust low-code customer experience suite built with WaveMaker, you can accelerate your digital experience platform journey significantly. Its ability to provide features such as a composable architecture, scalability, cloud-native capabilities, customizability, repeatability and security strengths enable your application teams to create differentiated experiences at a fraction of the time and cost.
To see how low-code can accelerate your digital platform journey, try a demo of WaveMaker today.
Authored by Gopi Mishra, Principal Architect - Development, WaveMaker, Inc
Enterprises are increasingly using 'Direct-to-Consumer' digital initiatives. They are parallelly digitizing their internal processes with increased velocity. These changes bring with them a tide of security threats. From insider threats to exposed marketplaces, there is always a security hazard lurking around the corner--one that can assume mammoth proportions if security doesn't become an ingrained part of application development. In fact, according to a report by cyber security firm 'Checkpoint', cyberattacks on organizations worldwide jumped by 29% during the first half of 2021 as compared to the same period in the previous year.
So if an enterprise is adopting the web, mobile, and cloud, and directly selling to the consumer, it would be paramount that the IT team prioritizes the security of its product, and most importantly ingrain the best practices of weaving security into the development process.
Who better to don the mantle of defense than the 'developer'? After all, when it comes to the security of an application, 'developers' are the first line of defense!
Defense-In-Depth
A 'Defense-In-Depth' approach to security for applications is a layered approach to security. What it essentially means, is that developers should take necessary action to mitigate security risks at every layer, be it the front-end (client), middle-tier, database services, or even the network layer. To do that, developers need to collaborate with various stakeholders: customers, DevOps teams, IT-networking, and the security teams handling the necessary infrastructure.
A developer has to have the same approach while developing secure applications using a low-code platform. WaveMaker comes fortified with SAST tested auto-generated code that is VeracodeTM verified. While developers working with WaveMaker can rest assured of the inherent security of the platform, there are a few best practices that a one can follow while using WaveMaker low-code to develop secure applications.
Embed security using WaveMaker
Developers need to think about security primarily in three areas: Data, Business Logic, and Coding. Data in itself could be static or could be in transmission. Depending on its state, the developer needs to keep an eye out for the following checkpoints:
Data at Rest:
Ensure that no personally identifiable information is stored at the client-side (in-cache of web application or in device storage of a mobile application)
For mobile applications, store relevant and critical information in secure elements
Avoid storing information such as service credentials and connection strings in an accessible file. If stored, ensure that there is a proper authentication and authorization mechanism in place to access these files
If possible, use rooted/jailbreaking detection for mobile apps.
Cordova provides plugins for the same. This can be added to the application by importing the plugin to the application. Plugins can be imported as described here.
Data in Motion:
Secure data in motion from being intercepted
Use HTTPS for all calls between the client and the server-side
Use TLSv1.2
Ensure that the data between client and server-side is encrypted
Use updated security certificates that have the latest and secure cipher algorithms
Ensure validity of certificates. In case, certificate pinning is used on mobile applications ensure that certificates are renewed before expiry and app uploaded to app/play store to avoid apps breaking in production
Protect API calls with authentication
Do not include PII data as a part of a GET call
Business Logic:
Use multi-factor authentication
Have a password policy and validation
Include input validation as a part of data length, type, and white-listed characters
Do not include passwords as a part of the 'Remember Me' functionality
Do not provide the reason for the failure of authentication in event of a validation failure
Coding Best practices :
Do not log sensitive information like passwords
Include all loggings as a part of the 'isDebugEnabled' flag so that they can be disabled in the production
If 'Request' and 'Response' are logged or can be logged in debug mode then create filters for sensitive data
Use the latest versions of third-party plugins that are imported into the application
Use the latest SDKs/APIs that are tested against vulnerabilities
Flush out session data during logout
Error stack trace should not have sensitive information. It is always advisable to add custom messages as error messages rather than simply passing or printing the error stack trace which may have application class/file names or sensitive data.
WaveMaker is VeracodeTM certified and the auto-generated code is protected against OWASP Top 10 security risks. However, while designing an application the developer should keep these risks in mind and design the application to safeguard it against them (For a greater list of guidelines, follow this OWASP cheat sheet]
When using WaveMaker low-code platform, ensure that VeracodeTM-like scans are performed for both JavaScript and Java code
Security is an inarguable conclusion
While security best practices can help developers immensely, what is more important, is that they develop a 'security mindset'. Security must be a priority and not an afterthought. While developing applications using 'Agile Practices', security should be a criterion in the 'Definition of Done' of user stories. Bigger pieces should be taken up as enabler stories. Regular penetration tests should be performed early in the development stage and should be a part of every sprint release. A security loophole caught early in the game will alleviate future pain points, bring down costs and reduce technical debt.
Being secure is not an option, it is an inarguable conclusion. Developers with a finer sense of security will hold this as their mantra.
Gopi is a software architect with over 15 years of experience in the financial tech and IT domain including 9 years he spent on mastering mobile architecture design. He presently leads a team of low-code developers and mentors them about best practices in software development. In his free time, he loves to read non-fiction, watch history channels or binge-watch movies.
Write to Gopi Mishra at info@wavemaker.com
Authored by Akhil Pillai, Principal Engineer, WaveMaker, Inc
The web has been a unique platform to develop applications for decades. Of late, platform-specific applications have created a lot of buzz, mainly owing to their reliability and extensive features. Some of them work offline, some have hardware capabilities while some of them can notify users of important updates. PWAs or Progressive Web Applications are the web's newest attempt at matching the level of reliability and richness that these native applications offer.
What exactly are Progressive Web Applications?
Progressive Web Apps are just plain old web applications with newer capabilities enabled on modern browsers using progressive enhancement. That is, even if the modern features are not supported by the browser, the user still gets the core experience of a web app. PWAs make use of web-platform features like service workers and manifests to give users an experience on par with native apps.
Some of the features that PWAs offer are:
Installable
PWAs allow users to install them through prompts that are either on the browser or implemented by the developer. Once installed, they mimic native apps that are available on home screens, docks, or taskbars. The application opens up as a different window rather than as a tab in a browser and is shown as part of the app switcher, thus tightly integrating it with the platform.
Speed is crucial to keep the user interested and reduce bounce rates. Google's research shows that an increase in page load times from 1 to 10 seconds leads to a 123% increase in bounce rates. The capability of PWAs to cache resources and load them from the cache greatly increases speed and performance. This not only helps with load times but also helps when the network is slow or there is no network at all. This means even when offline you have access to your favorite application unless network connections are indispensable.
Linkable
Being a web application, PWAs can be easily shared using URLs. Anybody with a URL can install a PWA on any platform with a supported browser. This greatly reduces the effort it takes to distribute an app through an app store. Managing versions are made easy too with auto-updates or prompted updates that allow partial updates. With this feature, gone are the days when we had to download entire applications for just a small change in text.
Enables Notifications
One of the biggest flexes that native applications had over web applications is the ability to push updates to the user. Though web applications could show notifications, they needed to be running in a window to do so. PWAs have overcome this hurdle through service workers. A service worker is a piece of code that runs in the background even after the web application is closed by the user. This allows the web application to run background tasks and receive notifications. This makes it easy to keep the user engaged even when the application is not running.
PWAs are inherently secure. The service worker, which is the core part of a PWA, is only activated if the connection is secure. If the connection is not established over a secure HTTPS protocol, PWAs behave just like normal web applications.
Though these are some of the main features that PWAs offer, there is much more to them like background sync and hardware communication among others.
How can PWAs impact business?
Most of the features directly or indirectly affect the way users interact with web applications. This in turn drives business decisions. For example, giving a native feel to a web application is made easier with PWA. This allows businesses to ship applications faster while skipping app stores and their complex policies. PWAs while reducing development effort also reduce the associated development cost. Faster loading times give a big boost to customer retention while notification capabilities keep the user engaged.
In terms of data supporting these tall claims, let's take the case of Twitter. Twitter saw a 65% increase in pages per session, 75% more Tweets, and a 20% decrease in bounce rate. Nikkei saw 2.3 times more organic traffic, 58% more subscriptions, and 49% more daily active users. Hulu replaced their platform-specific desktop experience with a Progressive Web App and saw a 27% increase in return visits. As they say, numbers don't lie. PWAs are definitely influencing customer interaction with applications.
How can WaveMaker help?
PWAs combine the native feel of platform-specific applications with the dynamic nature of web applications. But how do we implement all these features? Using vanilla JavaScript and HTML to implement such rich features would take a lot of time and effort. Of course, libraries like Angular and Workbox can help but WaveMaker goes a step further. With the latest 10.9 release, PWA is officially in its beta stage on WaveMaker. All the user has to do is enable an 'app.pwa.enabled' flag in the profile they use for production. Detailed instructions can be found here.
WaveMaker uses Angular's built-in support for PWA and throws in a bit of its own magic to enable these features. As soon as the flag is enabled, two of the most prominent features are baked right into the WaveMaker web applications - installability and caching. Notifications are also enabled by default that can be made to work with a few app-specific changes. WaveMaker also allows the user to choose a custom icon for the installable app. What better than having your brand image in your user's app drawer!
At WaveMaker we realize that continuous improvement and innovation is the path to creating customer satisfaction. As of now, PWA features that are in the beta stage are subject to continuous improvement. The way forward is to enhance features like notifications and to gradually add features dictated by customer interests.
PWAs are here to stay and WaveMaker will help your business embrace the technology with as little code as possible.
Watch this video to know more.
Akhil Pillai is a full-stack developer with more than 10 years of experience in software development. He is a technology enthusiast and a polyglot with a soft spot for machine learning. In his free time, he loves to read technical content and listen to music.
Mankind and the systems that it relies on are in a constant state of flux. From the transportation systems we travel in, to the medicines we take, evolution has been a constant phenomenon in human life. If that were not so, we would still be stuck in stone-age. Development tools are no different. From low-level languages like COBOL to high-level languages like Java and Python, coding has evolved to make application development easy. Similarly, IDEs are constantly evolving to make the developer's life easy. From text editors to GUI-based IDEs to IDEs that even autocomplete your code, development environments have come a long way. Low-code is the next eventual milestone.
Hi! I am Sagar Vemala, from Hyderabad, India and I work for WaveMaker, Inc. After completing my engineering course, I joined WaveMaker as an intern where I was introduced to low-code development and I found the concept of converting ideas into products rapidly; absolutely fascinating! I had an offer in hand to join a reputed technology company as a developer even before I was offered an internship at WaveMaker, but I must say that the internship introduced me to a whole new world of application development and I decided to stay. When I started as a full-time developer at WaveMaker, I was warned by my peers about being labeled as a 'low-code developer' but my gut instincts told me that I was making the right decision. Looking back, am glad I stuck to my decision. A low-code developer's job is not restricted to simple coding, it is an expansive sea of learning, of thinking outside the box and more importantly, it is a job that solves a problem.
In this context, I would like to share my experiences from my journey, clear some misconceptions and present my point of view about my career as a low-code developer. Here are a few pertinent questions that I get asked about low-code:
If it is just drag and drop, then what is there for a developer to do?
I learned Java on notepad++. While it is the best way to learn Java, it is not necessarily the best way to develop faster. Seeing me code on a text editor, my friend introduced my novice self to the Eclipse IDE and it is there that I was introduced to the world of GUI IDEs with cool features like generating import statements, getters, and setters methods automatically.
My 'world of coding' just became so much more flexible.
The first time I saw how WaveMaker worked, it was déjà vu--Once again a complicated process had been made so much easier. My life as a developer is made 'easier' by WaveMaker. Here is how:
WaveMaker has a real code-behind approach and allows full customization and extension on every level. I consider WaveMaker as an advanced IDE (RAD) which generates open standards-based code following best architectural practices. It offloads monotonous tasks like setting up the project and environment, managing framework, and library upgrades and allows me to focus on the problem at hand. Also, it helps developers by providing configurational code for standard features like multi-language support, security, and scalability. With all that being taken care of by WaveMaker, I can focus on areas where my knowledge and experience are needed, like solving requirements and writing business and integration logic.
By being a low-code developer, am I restricting my learning and knowledge?
Absolutely not! I see myself as a problem solver and not just as a developer. I get to work on so many layers of technologies, right from designing the DB schema to preparing the backend to composing the UI and deploying the app.
In a traditional setup, this would require a large team of dedicated backend and front-end developers working for months to build an app. In today's world, there is an imminent danger of irrelevance by the time an app is developed. With WaveMaker, a small team does the job in weeks that would traditionally take months and as a plus, I get to dip my toes in every kind of technology.
As development became more agile and the time frame became shorter, I got to work on many applications across different domains. At times, I would digest requirements directly from the client. With total control over development at all layers, I was able to provide accurate estimates. After observing diverse apps getting built, I started to think about another important aspect of development--user experience. This skill that I picked up while using low-code helped me deliver applications even without the help of a business analyst or a user interaction designer. My learning outside just coding, sky-rocketed.
I also got the opportunity to work with DBAs, senior developers, technical team leads, and architects of various enterprises as a WaveMaker SME. All apprehensions about not being 'technical enough' disappeared after my conversations with them and I believe that I was able to add value to decisions that are agnostic of WaveMaker.
In a nutshell, the horizon of my learning expanded.
If the platform generates most of the code, won't that make developer's learning gloomy and less interesting?
Circling back to the point of learning, let's elucidate with an example. Let's say, a 'traditional' JavaScript developer has just started learning Angular. If the said person follows the documentation of a 'to-do' app and merely replicates the steps without understanding the intricacies of how Angular is helping, will the person be able to actually 'learn' and contribute to projects? No, right? The same logic applies here as well. There is learning in any sphere of creation. Developers who aspire to work with WaveMaker low-code need to use or will learn the below-mentioned skills to understand WaveMaker generated code and make the best use of it.
As a low-code developer, am I stuck? What is the future of a low-code developer?
I strongly believe that low-code may not be a hammer for every nail but is a necessary tool in the developer kit. Enterprises have and will adopt this methodology into their practices for years to come. Digital transformation has become ubiquitous with every enterprise and if an enterprise is looking at ways to create safe, scalable, and modern products with faster go-to-market, low-code is a safe bet. According to Gartner, the low-code development market is predicted to reach a worldwide total of $13.8 billion in 2021. In fact, the demand for low-code developers has been rising exponentially.
After having worked for WaveMaker for more than 5 years, I find myself with an abundance of choice and skills. I have the skills and knowledge to go the full-stack way, I can lead teams of low-code developers, I can be a solution architect, or I can choose to use low-code for hybrid development. There is a myriad of opportunities and options available. You only have to choose.
Finally, I think I chose the road less taken, even though opinions around me were not as positive about low-code, as they are today, I feel I made an interesting choice that fueled a unique career for me, and that has made all the difference.
Sagar Vemala has been with WaveMaker since 2015 and has implemented several customer projects as part of the professional services team. He has built a variety of API-driven applications in workforce planning, inventory management, finance and insurance. If you are developing an application and plan to use low-code, Sagar can share best practices using WaveMaker. Write to him at info@wavemaker.com
Tech-savvy users are swiping left aggressively and swiping right selectively. No, we are not talking about dating apps. We are talking about how quickly the customers of today are changing their banking preferences. Loyalty is a fickle emotion. As Jeffrey Gitomer says "You don't earn loyalty in a day. You earn loyalty day-by-day", by responding to the customer's needs every single day. Otherwise, they just move on.
How responsive banks are to the changing needs of the customer will now decide their longevity. Or else, it's a swipe left for sure.
With so much at stake, what can banks do to retain their customer's loyalty?
Going digital is an obvious answer, but then everyone is doing it. Every bank of repute has a digital face--some, more advanced than others. What spruces up the relationship between the customer and the banking app is the customer journey. It is all about how the relationship started and how it sustains--the qualities that keep the customer engaged, the features that make a banking app sticky. So what are the features in a banking application that entices customers, and how does the WaveMaker low-code platform help?
Intuitive interfaces
Clean and intuitive interfaces that keep screens simple but engaging to use, top-grade UI widgets that help create this clean look should be integrated into the low-code platform that aids this kind of interaction. WaveMaker has a plethora of widgets with diverse themes and styles that can be further customized per customer needs.
Account information at a glance
Accessing account information need not be a cumbersome process involving multiple authentications. Modern banking systems allow their customers to view their account information with just Touch ID or Face ID without having to log in using a password. WaveMaker low-code allows developers to interface with external biometric components by providing customized abstractions over the APIs.
Corporate and Personal bank accounts management
A single app should be able to handle multiple associated accounts, link to third-party offers, offer rewards like cash backs, and provide intelligent and relevant offers. The WaveMaker low-code platform allows the creation of prefabs or reusable software components customized to the banks' requirements enabling composable banking and bringing in value addition to the application.
Virtual smart cards management
Physical credit cards are passe. Virtual cards are in. Modern banking apps allow the creation of virtual cards within the application within minutes. Customers can transfer funds in and out of the cards and perform transactions all within the context of the application. Virtual card management prefabs within the WaveMaker low-code platform allow developers to just pull in the prefab and customize it according to their requirements with just a few changes.
Visualization of data
Customers should be able to see their information in one place. It is not just what information they see but what inferences that they can draw--spend analysis, expense management, ways to improve credit score--a real-time visual dashboard. WaveMaker facilitates these visualizations where developers can access data from all modern data sources and integrate them with relevant UI abstractions with just a few steps.
Interlinked payment gateways, QR code scanners, OCRs, loan applications made easy, instant digital KYC, added conditional authentication, currency converters, instant loans, multi-device support, mobile photo bills, wearables and so on.
Though a banking application may not necessarily be composed of all of the above, it should at the very least be provided compatible platforms that enable the development of these features leading to the creation of a composable banking app. So the question one may ask is, does WaveMaker as a low-code platform support the integration of these features into a composable banking app?
The answer is a resounding yes!
A developer working on WaveMaker can take two approaches:
One, use the built-in prefabs to quickly conjure up a banking-specific component.
Two, integrate third-party banking components into the application.
This is helped by two factors:
One that Wavemaker has an exhaustive repository of reusable components (also an evolving list of customizable banking components)
Two, WaveMaker is an API-first development platform that allows the integration of third-party components easily
WaveMaker allows seamless collaboration of ecosystem partners with ease--the foundation of a composable banking architecture. It helps banks, BaaS players, fintech, and ISVs respond to what customers ask for--modern experiences, intuitive interfaces with stunning visual components, security, smooth onboarding, and device-agnostic feature-rich applications. WaveMaker with its API-first approach, prefabs, support for all major databases, and vault-like security with VeracodeTM certified code has all the qualities to broker a long-lasting partnership with the bank and the customer with agility.
Banks can expand the reuse of legacy core banking, offer services to brands as a BaaS player, or launch greenfield initiatives; with WaveMaker, the possibilities are endless.
So, this time when the user swipes right, banks can swipe right back at them!
Swipe right to know more about WaveMaker
*Watch this space for our next article on our banking software components
By Vikram Srivats, Vice President, WaveMaker
Enough has been said and written about the effect of the pandemic in hyper-accelerating the shift to digital – for enterprises and consumers alike. This is one widely accepted fact we can note and move on from.
The combination of low-code development and BaaS APIs are enabling more companies than ever to add banking services to existing apps and products
However, another rising wave has been afoot for a few years now – something that Bain Capital Ventures (BCV) thinks is far greater than the Internet, Cloud, and Mobile combined (yes, you read that right) – with a projected market value of $3.6 trillion by 2030. BCV heralds this wave as the Fourth Platform: financial services in an embedded (or integrated) form within technology-driven businesses.
Andreesen-Horowitz (a16z) and CB Insights talk about this being the banking industry's "AWS moment", with new Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) players offering all (or parts of) the banking stack as-a-service for a new crop of fintech and tech-driven brands. a16z further predicts that every company will become a fintech company – embedding finance across digital and traditional brands – by leveraging offerings from BaaS providers.
Embedded finance and BaaS are two sides of the same coin. Brands and fintech offer embedded financial services to consumers and businesses while BaaS providers are the suppliers and enablers for those brands and fintech.
Two trends collide to form one massive opportunity
With the pandemic driving a tectonic shift to online, virtual, and instant gratification, embedded finance allows brands and disruptive new financial products to gain and delight customers, increase share-of-wallet and create stickiness. From a customer standpoint, the financial experience is in the moment, contextual and seamless within the brand experience – to the extent that the finance is almost invisible.
For example, think of Apple – which now offers a credit card backed by Goldman Sachs – or Shopify – going above and beyond by offering embedded payments, balance accounts, and loans to aspiring e-commerce businesses. With the likes of Amazon, Google, Doordash, Chime and Affirm, the list of embedded finance and BaaS-powered use cases and players is growing rapidly.
This growth is primarily fueled by a whole slew of capable BaaS players – Synapse, Treasury Prime, Stripe, Marqeta, Bond, Finastra, Railsbank, Solarisbank, Unit, Galileo, BBVA Open Platform, GPS, and many more – offering differentiated and compelling technical and financial propositions. These BaaS players in turn have partnerships with one or more banks and offer APIs (sometimes a single API) for a brand or fintech customer to call and access the offered financial service via the API.
In a way, things have come full circle – from the software powering financial services (core and engagement platforms) at FIs, we now have banking subsumed into software and offered via APIs.
BaaS APIs are becoming the new currency in the world of financial services
With this BaaS revolution going on in the background, the low-code market has grown exponentially, with more than 100 platform providers – with different specializations – competing for market share.
Microsoft, Mendix, OutSystems, and ServiceNow are some of the leading players while there are specialist challenger firms more focused on specific personas (professional developers, citizen developers, and business process users) and target areas (apps, workflow, automation, analytics, and so on).
To say that low-code adoption was propelled further by the pandemic is an understatement. Whether for businesses urgently wanting to digitally transform or for more advanced corporations, low-code has comfortably hit its stride as a new paradigm in software development.
Now, with over 2,000 fintech launched in 2019, the rise and maturity of BaaS offerings and differentiated embedded finance use cases/opportunities, and a world where APIs rule, developers are now the first customers of the banking and financial services capability stack.
Brands and fintech, banks and third-party software developers, independent software vendors, and system integrators need to find, attract, hire, train, mentor, motivate, manage and drive world-class development teams to deliver business outcomes.
They must do all this in the face of non-trivial challenges:
Talent wars in a field of wider opportunities as business lines blur and career options abound for software developers.
Walking the fine line between investing to build a truly high-quality product that customers will love, yet balancing cash burn and ROI.
Navigate a web of technology choices for every aspect of the tech stack, including most importantly, the BaaS vendor stack itself.
Be prepared to execute quickly – and pivot on a dime – to get ahead of the market in an extremely competitive, dynamic, and fast-paced environment.
A breed of developer-friendly, open, API-driven, modern, enterprise-grade low-code platforms could be the answer. Here is how:
Serious B2C and B2B2C digital experiences at the speed of change – delivered using visual full-stack development with pre-existing widgets, themes, styles, and layouts – while still playing well with existing assets, best practices, and architectural choices.
Significantly cut development (specifically UI) cost by reuse – Lego-like composable experience development by dragging and dropping custom-built, rich multi-API widgets – "prefabs" – that combine powerful functionality, pixel-perfect UI, and data.
Democratized and collaborative development – Citizen developers build out experiences based on user journeys and hand them to pros to make apps "enterprise-compliant"; or in a B2B2C context, expert developers build out the core app which is then extended and customized by less-skilled professional services teams.
Deliver on tough innovation problems – convert teams to full-stack development, become agnostic to tech stack changes, handle custom UI demands through app lifecycle, move B2B customers to a self-serve model, and more.
Peace of mind guaranteed – apps built are performant and secure, the tech stack is modern and future-proof, deploy anywhere without lock-in, generated code is "real" code that can be exported and extended (as an insurance policy), easily available, low-cost skills for writing custom extensions, no price tag for scaling up apps/app objects/app end users and such like.
In 2020, Microsoft cited research predicting that more than 500 million new apps will be built in the next five years, which is more than the total number of apps built in the last 40 years, even as companies struggle to find software developers. According to KPMG, despite the overall market softness in H1 2020, H2 rebounded and saw almost $72 billion in fintech investment (across PE, VC, and M&A deals). Klarna, Revolut, and Chime raised mega rounds north of $500 million each. KPMG goes on to predict that embedded finance will emerge as the *new North Star* in fintech.
Low-code development layered on BaaS APIs may be embedded finance's hockey stick moment
Embedded fintech and low-code development are massive scale markets in their own right. The next 1,000 or 10,000 fintech, FIs, and brands that deliver embedded financial services will need to be laser-focused on their customers and business to compete and win. Agility, automation, and reuse will underpin composable enterprises and personalized experiences, and modern, powerful low-code platforms already are delivering complex, compelling and contextual experiences for discerning development and business teams globally.
To further explore banking solutions by WaveMaker, please view our exclusive BFSI offerings here.
Or, start a conversation with our expert consultants for solutions to your unique requirements.
Originally published in Fintech Futures


SUPERGIRL: It's only been two episodes, but there could be a real argument about Jon Cryer's Lex being the best villain of the ARROWverse so far? I'm not as invested in Red Daughter as I feel I should be at this point, but Lex's interactions with her were great. Very curious to see how they bring him in next.
THE SIMPSONS: Nothing made me laugh as hard last night as the joke about a panelist who doesn't want to be at the convention, but got mad every time attention was paid to someone else. An unfortunate staple at some conventions.
I was relieved the episode didn't feel skewed; the topic of all-female reboots is delicate, but the show was pretty clear about saying that objecting to it on principle, without bothering to give it a chance, is pretty dumb. I'm sure it pissed off some people, but good for them.
It also felt like a lot of the cuts didn't really land. They always have to cycle through a lot of contestants in a short amount of time, but very few were memorable. But Luke Bryan giving a contestant the literal boots off his feet…that was one of the most emotionally gut-punching moments of the season.
Unexpected Vibes should have all gotten through, too. And…how were more accommodations not made for Shayla?
BOB'S BURGERS: Oh. My. God. THAT PUPPET BATTLE. It was so weird and perfect.


Sure, Broadway tuner "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" has endured more than its fair share of media ridicule — but sometimes it still manages a superheroic feat.
Take week 31 (Dec. 26, 2011-Jan. 1, 2012), when the show came cliffhanger-close to hitting the $3 million mark in sales from the single frame between Christmas and New Year's.
Topping $2 million was once a rare feat along the Main Stem.But the high-demand holiday sesh that annually rings in as the year's most profitable included four shows at more than $2 million each: besides "Spider-Man" were "Wicked" ($2,712,535), "The Lion King" ($2,444,132) and the closing "Hugh Jackman, Back on Broadway" ($2,056,957). Each played nine perfs rather than the usual eight, common among shows looking to capitalize on the timeframe's tourist-boosted biz.
Overall, the week left Broadway with broken house records as several shows pulled in venue-best numbers; every production posted an increase vs. the previous week. An astonishing 18 shows logged sales of more than $1 million each, helped by the year-end tradition of higher ticket prices.
The cume hit $37,657,455 for the 34 shows on the boards, up from the $35 million logged last year at this time. Attendance hit 321,152, down slightly from the 330,000 posted a year ago.
The 25 musicals grossed $32,940,313 for 86.5% of the Broadway total, with attendance of 246,720 and an average paid admission of $122.52.
The nine plays grossed $4,717,142 for 13.5% of the Broadway total, with attendance of 58,151 and an average paid admission of $81.12.


These two only have eyes for each other.
A man and woman made out so intensely at the Tap Inn bar and casino in Billings, Mont. that they failed to notice the establishment was being held up as they played tonsil hockey.
Watch the video and you'll see the couple cannot keep their paws off each other, even as the bartender sticks his hands in the air and an armed masked man comes around to his side of the bar to help himself to cash from the til.
Then, another suspect walks right by the couple who continue to peck at each other like they're under the high school bleachers when they should be in study hall.
The holdup, part of a rash of robberies in the city in the last week, took place around 1:15 a.m. this past Monday and no arrests have been made (and don't expect these lovebirds to be the most reliable of witnesses if the goons ever appear in a police lineup).
It's unclear how much money the three suspects believed to be responsible for the robbery stole. The bartender was not hurt in the incident. It's also not clear whether the kissing couple has come up for air.


Something many individuals struggle with in regards to makeup application is ensuring their eyeliner stays put on the waterline without smudging or moving around at all throughout the day. I for one am not ashamed to say that it took me time to figure out. I only really did after going through proper makeup artistry instruction. After testing several different eyeliners and techniques not only on myself but while working with clients as well, I can finally say I have it down pat. Today I am going to share some of my favorite tips and tricks with you all so that you will no longer have trouble with it, if you have in the past. If you love wearing eyeliner on a day to day basis like I do, you are surely going to find these tips useful in keeping it in place for hours on end.
Tip #1: Pick your eyeliner. (Smashbox Always Sharp Eyeliners, Rimmel Scandal Eye Pencils and Anastasia Covet Liners are shown here) Smudgy pencils are great for the upper lash line because they don't tug or pull and they glide right on. They also are great for creating the smudged out smokey effect sort of look. They are the last thing you'll want to use on your waterline though. If a pencil is too soft it won't take long before it's moving around and sliding right off. You'll also need to choose one that isn't too harsh or dry. One like that will only irritate your eyes. A waterproof or water resistant version is also a great choice as it will add on a few more hours of wear. The perfect balance is key with regards to eyeliners used on the waterline. There are several great options both drugstore and high end to choose from too.
Tip #2 Many of the "eyeliner not lasting on the waterline" situations are due solely to the body chemistry of the person. Sweat, oil and tears are all components most commonly related to eyeliner moving about, only moments after being applied. The good news here is that there is an easy fix. A q-tip will be the best way to go. Swab the waterline from side to side to soak up anything that needs removing. A q-tip is small and easy to work with and is also sure to treat the waterline gently.
Tip #3 An excellent product for keeping shadows on is an eyelid primer or cream shadow. I use one every day all over my entire lid to keep my eyeshadows from creasing or fading and to optimize the pigmentation. While doing that, it's easy to get another job done too and use it below the lower lash line. The trick is to keep it as close to the waterline as possible so that if any of the liner product were to crease at all, it won't get passed this barrier you've created.
Tip #4 Always set with a powder. After applying eyeliner to the waterline, go in with a very small extremely precise brush of your choice. Pick up some shadow most similar in color to the eyeliner you've applied. Then tap it off to avoid any of the extra bits of shadow ending up in your eye and irritating. Try to use a product that isn't too famous for fallout and doesn't contain too much glitter if you have overly sensitive eyes. Gently press press the powder into and over top of the liner. This will set it in place and truly ensure that it doesn't budge for a long while. Think of it in the same sense as adding a loose setting powder over a liquid or cream face product to set in place. It works just the same. You can also add a little bit of the same shadow just under the lower lash line and this will catch eyeliner if it does for some reason move around at all.
Those are some of the tricks I utilize daily to keep the dreaded raccoon eyes away as the day wears on. They work very well for me and so I thought it would be nice to share them with the rest of you. If you've been having difficulty at all with keeping your eyeliner in the waterline, perhaps giving these a try will help.
Do you have some tips and tricks of your own that aid you in keeping your eyeliner in place? Leave them in the comments for below! They will surely be useful for us all and I absolutely love hearing from you!


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With MSK Leading the Way, Precision Medicine Links Lab Research to Patient Care
By Julie Grisham Thursday, February 9, 2017
Hear from our experts about MSK's groundbreaking approach to precision oncology and how it is changing the way we treat cancer.
Three leaders in precision oncology at MSK have released a State of the Union-style report on where the field is going. Learn how we're already helping people with cancer, and how we're uniquely prepared to address the many challenges that still remain in the field.
Precision oncology is based on the development of drugs that target genetic changes in cancer cells.
These therapies may provide more-effective control of disease with fewer side effects.
There are still many challenges in developing these kinds of drugs.
MSK is positioned to remain a leader in this development, while at the same time helping these treatments become accessible to more patients.
Precision oncology — also known as genome-based oncology or personalized cancer medicine — is based on the idea that once we understand the genetic alterations that drive cancer cells to grow and spread, we can develop drugs to target them. Memorial Sloan Kettering has been a leader in the field by bringing together lab researchers and clinicians to focus on developing innovative ways to improve care for patients.
The concept seemed wildly futuristic as recently as two decades ago. Now, tens of thousands of people with cancer every year are benefiting from treatment with targeted therapies, which provide more-effective control of tumors while avoiding many harmful side effects common to more-traditional cancer treatments.
"Using precision oncology in cancer patients is an attractive strategy," says Barry Taylor, Associate Director of MSK's Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Center for Molecular Oncology (CMO). "But it's difficult, and there are great challenges. We're really only at the end of the beginning in this process."
These challenges are twofold: They're scientific, as the genetic complexities of cancer are not completely understood; and societal, as currently only a small percentage of cancer patients have access to genetic testing and clinical trials.
Dr. Taylor — along with MSK's Physician-in-Chief José Baselga and Director of Developmental Therapeutics David Hyman — this week published an article in the journal Cell highlighting some of the many accomplishments in the field of precision oncology to date and acknowledging the barriers still to be overcome.
A State of the Union for Oncology
"This report is like a State of the Union for genome-based oncology," Dr. Baselga explains. "It's an in-depth description of where the field is today and where it's going. MSK has been engaged in precision medicine for longer than most institutions, and we're probably leading more clinical trials in this area than any other center."
The CMO, which was established in 2014 and is just one reason that MSK is at the forefront in this field, aims to identify the functional significance of genetic alterations in tumors so that people with cancer can receive the most individualized treatments. MSK's Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program (HOPP), established eight years prior, brings together basic and clinical research, with the goal of bringing what happens in the lab into the clinic.
MSK's researchers have also created a genetic sequencing test called MSK-IMPACT, which looks for mutations in more than 400 genes that are known to play a role in cancer. This test is currently offered to all patients with advanced cancers, and the findings from it can help shepherd patients into clinical trials for drugs that are based on the unique characteristics of their tumors. MSK currently has about 30 clinical trials under way that assign patients to targeted therapy based on the results from MSK-IMPACT.
Addressing the Challenges
Despite the value in identifying which mutations are responsible for a cancer's growth and spread — an aspect of precision medicine that MSK and many other institutions are getting better and better at doing — this is only part of the battle. Just because we know what causes a tumor to grow doesn't mean drugs are available to fix the problem.
Even for mutations that have effective drugs available, challenges remain. For one thing, tumor cells often evolve and develop resistance to the drugs that once worked against them, much like bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics. More research is needed to determine how this process occurs, and how new drugs can be developed to combat it.
Another aspect of tumor biology that makes precision medicine difficult to carry out is what is called tumor heterogeneity. This means that not all areas of a tumor have the same mutations; therefore drugs that are very effective at destroying one part of a tumor may have no effect on another part, which greatly reduces the chances that it can be completely eliminated.
Precision medicine is changing the way that many clinical trials are conducted.
MSK is already set up to address these challenges through "the integration of our scientific and clinical missions," Dr. Taylor says. "We have an enormous multidisciplinary team and an institutional commitment to building the infrastructure that's needed to move this work forward. We've already removed many of the barriers to moving new treatments into clinical trials and collecting as much data as we can on those patients so that others can benefit in the future."
Because of the high volume of patients that MSK treats, both those with common cancers and those with rare ones, "we're able to identify large populations of patients with specific mutations very rapidly," Dr. Taylor says. "This is the first step in designing these kinds of studies in which you are targeting a particular mutation with a particular therapy."
Focus on Clinical Trials
One aspect of precision medicine that MSK has been focused on is improving access to clinical trials. "We've opened up studies to patients at our MSK Cancer Alliance partners, and we've expanded our genetic sequencing out to those centers," Dr. Hyman says. "This program is just starting, but the number is increasing."
"If an MSK Cancer Alliance site does its own genetic testing, we will open our studies to them so that they can enroll their patients," he adds. "If they don't do their own testing, we can analyze patients' samples for them."
Another area in which MSK has been at the forefront is expanding precision medicine trials to pediatric patients.
"Pediatrics is an underserved patient population as far as trials, but we've been aggressive about lowering the age of eligibility so that younger patients can benefit from these new drugs sooner," Dr. Hyman says. "In the past there have been ethical and safety concerns about conducting trials in children, but we think the best way to protect children is to give them access to the same drugs that our adult patients have."
He notes that for drugs that don't have available trials, pediatric patients may be able to get access to them through compassionate-use or expanded-access programs.
A patient describes her successful treatment for Erdheim-Chester disease as a result of participating in an MSK basket trial.
Overall, the way clinical trials are being conducted is changing. The traditional three-phase structure is less important in an era in which a drug's activity and effectiveness can be determined right from the beginning. "Some drugs are going right from phase I or phase II to approval," Dr. Hyman says.
Drug development is not going to be easy, Dr. Baselga says. "It's not going to be one-size-fits-all. It's going to be one gene at a time and one disease at a time. But more and more stories are coming out of these trials about patients whose cancer has been eliminated by some of these new drugs."
Going Beyond Genetic Analysis of Tumors
Another area that MSK is also focused on is the analysis of mutations in the DNA code. "We need to go beyond genes and look at things on the epigenetic level," Dr. Baselga says. (Epigenetic changes affect which genes are activated to make proteins, without changing the genes themselves.) Investigators are developing new ways to analyze proteins in tumors to look for these kinds of changes.
MSK researchers are also looking at new ways to obtain genetic material to study. One of these methods involves isolating cell-free tumor DNA, which is found in patients' blood. This technology, sometimes called liquid biopsy, would enable doctors to monitor patients' disease by analyzing their blood, rather than repeatedly having to conduct biopsies. It's expected to provide new insight into how patients respond to targeted therapies, and how resistance develops.
One of the biggest challenges facing precision oncology and the cancer community is the sheer volume of data. Many efforts are now focusing on ways to aggregate findings from genetic studies and pooling the insights gained from clinical trials. One of these is AACR Project GENIE, a multicenter effort being coordinated by the American Association for Cancer Research, to which MSK has been the principal contributor.
Experts say that better data sharing will improve clinical decision-making and provide new information for diagnosis and treatment. Large compilations of data not only serve as a tool for cancer researchers around the world but also help to inform treatment decisions in community oncology centers.
"MSK has been an early adopter of many of the approaches to analyzing these kinds of data, and an important part of data-sharing initiatives," Dr. Taylor says. "I firmly believe that these technologies should be democratized to all patients, and sharing our data and analysis is an important part of that."
Renne Gross
Feb 27, 2017 • 3:30 PM
Elaine Renwrick
Oct 25, 2017 • 10:25 AM
I'm seeking information for my thirty-three year old daughter who has been dealing with cancer since the age of two. How can she become apart of these trials?
In reply to I'm seeking information for… by Elaine Renwrick
Dear Elaine, we're very sorry to hear that your daughter has been through all this. If she would like to come to MSK for a consultation and to learn about our trials, the number to call is 800-525-2225. You can go to https://www.mskcc.org/experience/become-patient/appointment for more information on making an appointment. Thank you for your comment and best wishes to you and your family.
Alison Abend
Hi-
Are there successful trials for stage 4 pancreatic cancer with mets to the liver. Currently undergoing GAX chemotherapy since May.
In reply to Hi-… by Alison Abend
Dear Alison, we're very sorry to hear about your diagnosis. MSK has a number of trials for metastatic pancreatic cancer. If you would like to come here for a consultation to learn more, you can call 800-525-2225 or go to https://www.mskcc.org/experience/become-patient/appointment for more information on making an appointment. Thank you for your comment, and best wishes to you.
Just diagnosed on Sept 13th with Multiple myeloma. I had it in Dec. 13,2013. Stage Iv. Had tmt.clinical trial and stem cell transplant. Went Into remission, Sept. 2014. Any chance for advice?
In reply to Just diagnosed on Sept 13th… by Cynthia
Dear Cynthia, we're sorry to hear about your diagnosis. If you'd like to arrange a consultation with one of the experts at MSK, you can call 800-525-2225 or go to https://www.mskcc.org/experience/become-patient/appointment for more information on making an appointment. Thank you for your comment, and best wishes to you.
The Future of Cancer Research: Five Reasons for Optimism
AACR Project GENIE Seeks to Advance Cancer Treatment
Landmark $100 Million Gift from the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Foundation Supports a Groundbreaking Approach to Precision Oncology
Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Center for Molecular Oncology
MSK-IMPACT: A Targeted Test for Mutations in Both Rare and Common Cancers
MSK Cancer Alliance Members


text:
Home Comic Books DragonCon 2016 Con Report!
DragonCon 2016 Con Report!
Anthony Aycock
Overheard on an Atlanta street corner:
"Look at that person with blue hair."
"Over there?"
"No, over there."
"Oh, I see."
"Cool, isn't it?"
"Yeah. What other place can you say, 'No, the other person with blue hair."
The "place," of course, was DragonCon. September 2-5. I have been for the last six years, but this year was special: the 30th anniversary. It started in two downtown hotels, Hyatt and Marriott. The Hilton was added later, then the Sheraton and Westin. When five hotels were not enough space, the vendors were moved into the AmericasMart, a four-building, seven-million-square-foot trade show monolith. This year, AmericasMart became the new home of two other DragonCon mainstays, tabletop gaming (formerly in the Hilton) and Comic and Pop Artist Alley (neé the Hyatt)—evidence that DragonCon, despite its venerability, is still figuring things out. Perhaps that is how it became venerable: refusing to be complacent.
And more growth is on the way. Some programming was held on Thursday this year, and according to media director Dan Carroll, we will see Thursday "full-time real soon." My colleague Michaela McPherson has written about shifts in the Saturday morning parade. This was the inaugural year for the Dragon Awards, a fan-driven awards program to "recognize the creators of science fiction and fantasy in books, comic books, games and filmed entertainment," according to a press release. (Awards results are located here.) Attendance grew this year as it does every year, with over 77,000 showing up–and, in some cases, suiting up–for the weekend. These attendees walked (Walk to End Lupus Now), gave blood (about 6,000 units), raised money ($98,000 for the Atlanta Center for Self-Sufficiency through auctions, karaoke, a lip-synch battle, and other events), and enjoyed the 400+ actors, artists, writers, and other guests who formed the convention's foundation.
I was excited about one guest I had never seen at DragonCon, or any convention: Christopher Paolini, author of the four-volume Inheritance Cycle. Paolini wrote the first volume, Eragon, the story of a farm boy who protects a dragon egg from an evil king, when he was a teenager. His parents self-published the book, and for a year, Paolini promoted it himself at libraries, book shows, and other events. In 2002, the book came to the attention of the publisher Alfred A. Knopf, which re-released the book a year later. This led to three other books, the last one appearing in 2011.
On Friday night, Paolini was one of several panelists for a discussion of self-publishing. The other panelists were freelance writer/editor Jaym Gates, editor Dayna Linton, Baen Books publisher Toni Weisskopf, writer Chris Kennedy, and Todd McCaffrey, son of Anne McCaffrey and custodian of her Pern universe, to which he has contributed several volumes. Some highlights from the panel:
McCaffrey: The biggest mistake in self-publishing is to "think you can do everything yourself."
Eragon was a family project. Paolini's father, who had press experience, designed the book. Paolini drew the cover and the maps. They borrowed money to finance the printing (the first 50 copies were cut wrong). He dressed in medieval costume and made presentations to schools, libraries, and bookstores. Sold maybe 15 books at a time. Two chain bookstores rejected him, saying the novel was "not commercially viable."
Gates: "Readers and writers have different ideas of what works." This led to a vigorous discussion of the value of editing. It's the biggest difference between professional publishing and self-publishing (a view echoed by this Slate article). Writers know their own story, but editors are storehouses of stories. They understand the market, and what will appeal to readers. Thus, they can guide the author, helping to bring out his/her voice. As Gates said, "it is the editor's job to help the writer say what he/she wants to say in the best way."
Paolini was skeptical of the wisdom of a beginning writer paying for editorial services, but the other panelists–I won't say they shouted him down, but they were unified in saying that it would be money well spent. Paolini did agree on the worth of an editor, saying an editor "can fix bad writing. They can't fix a bad story." Bottom line: the author has a job, and the editor has a job. Good books result when each person does their job.
McCaffrey talked about "hybrid authors"–authors who write for traditional publishers and do some self-publishing. Here is a good discussion of this type of writer. The panel agreed that the hybrid approach is the best, blending the advantages of self-publishing (speed; flexibility; more profit per sale) with the comfort of traditional publishing (editorial, design, and marketing services; bulk sales; multi-book deals; advances against royalties). More authors are taking this approach, which is new in the history of publishing. According to Weisskopf, the "received wisdom" used to be that, if you self-publish, you've "tainted the waters and will never get a traditional contract." The panel agreed that this is no longer the case.
On traditional contracts: beware the predators. Gates brought up two blog posts by John Scalzi (here and here), who has always been an advocate of authorial self-interest, about Hydra, an imprint of Random House with shockingly bad contract terms. The panel's message: don't be so desperate to publish that you'll sign anything.
All the growth in DragonCon has brought some irritation. At 2:30 on Friday afternoon, the vendor room in the AmericasMart reached capacity and was shut down. I have never experienced that at a convention (I read about it happening a couple of years ago at the Rhode Island Comic-Con). The room was open an hour or so later, I think–I didn't wait around to find out–so it wasn't a disastrous inconvenience. But I did find myself wondering, is there no building in Atlanta large enough to handle DragonCon?
The lines in the hotels were certainly longer than ever. I waited nearly two hours to buy Saturday-only badges for members of my party. (It is useless to buy these in advance because DragonCon mails you a card that you have to redeem on-site for a badge.) There may be no space to do this, but I would love to see registration expanded. Or split into two buildings. Why do one-day badges have to be claimed on site? Why can't they be mailed? One thing is for sure: a single ballroom in the basement of the Sheraton is inadequate for the thousands upon thousands of people who opt for one-day badges.
DragonCon is a study in lines. Walking around the sidewalks, you'll often see a line with no discernible beginning snaking into an unmarked side door. It's like a speakeasy line. If you ask someone what they're waiting for, they respond without confusion, but what if they're wrong? What if the real purpose of the queue has been miscommunicated all the way down, so that someone who thinks they're waiting for William Shatner's photo op is actually in line for the blood bank?
It isn't that hard to form a line, after all. My wife and I did it for Chris Paolini's Sunday autograph session, which was scheduled for 2:30. Jim Butcher had started signing in the same room at 1:00. His line was capped at 1:30, and we knew that people looking for Paolini would start showing up soon. So we stood a few feet behind the last person for Jim Butcher and declared it the Start of the Line. Within minutes, a hundred people were standing behind us, and when a DragonCon staffer came along and legitimized us, I felt like Saul Alinsky.
If you have never been to DragonCon, you need to go. It is not the largest convention in the U.S., but it is unique, being spread across five Atlanta hotels. I have often wondered why it doesn't move to the Georgia International Convention Center or the Georgia World Congress Center. It may need to, especially when attendance reaches 100,000, as I believe it will. But I hope DragonCon doesn't move. I love the atmosphere of hotel-based conventions. There are other hotels in downtown Atlanta, and maybe DragonCon will incorporate those. Whatever happens, I look forward to many more years of attending this convention, which was my first and will always be one of the best.
So THIS is the horse of a different color I've heard tell of.
The official store is the place to get your swag on.
No, Storm Shadow isn't wearing a hat. Some pirate photo bombed us.
Pikachu takes some pictures with fans.
Recognize the guy in the middle? Here's a hint: it rhymes with Bash Jordan.
Christopher Paolini pauses for a pic during his (only!) book signing of the weekend.
I want a suit like that, but my wife probably wouldn't let me wear it.
The dealer room was closed on Friday afternoon due to overcrowding. I can't imagine why.
Peter, meet Victor. Victor, Peter.
This guy had been to 44 Weird Al concerts in 2016, with plans to attend several more. Check him out on Facebook at Mandatory Fun Al.
Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia . . . or a George R.R. Martin autograph, whichever.
This cosplay (yes, a person is inside) was made using 318 ballons!
Ran into this couple at the convention. They're crazy for each other.
DragonCon is a place to spare no expense.
Mr. Roper doesn't know how good he has it.
Todd McCaffrey
Previous articleLINK: Meet the Evil Genius Behind New York Comic Con
Next articleLINK: A Look Back at WonderCon 2016
NM – 1000 Times Good Night Screening + Q&A
NYC – Project Blue Book Q&A


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With all of your help, we have hit 10% of our puzzle goal! Thank you to everyone who has adopted a piece (or pieces) of our puzzle! If you haven't had a chance to be a part of it yet, click here for the info on how you can be a part of helping us bring our little one home from Guinea, Africa.
Our adoption story has just begun, but at this time, it is somewhat like a story of being on a road trip, using a map with all of the directions already clearly drawn out for you, getting lost anyway, and discovering a man on the side of the road who points you in a new, more adventurous direction. With a leap of faith, you opt for a journey of the unknown.
Ben and I have both witnessed the orphan crisis firsthand at different times in our lives, in different places. Once you see with your own eyes, it doesn't escape you. We always thought we may adopt a child someday, but thought it would be after we had our own biological children. Over the last few years, when "trying" to grow our family didn't result in conceiving, we had some decisions to make. It was at this time that the Lord began placing people in our lives that would openly share their adoption stories and experiences with me without invitation.
At a turning point in our story, (the day after getting news that we weren't pregnant after a long medical process and procedure) I had to fly down to Phoenix for a work event. It was in Phoenix where I met up with a friend who I had gotten to know through work. That evening, as we prepared for the event the next day, she began to tell me the story of adopting her son from Uganda. Given the news Ben and I had just received, I began to ask her more questions than I typically would have, including who she used as her adoption agency. She shared that she worked with a woman named Emily, who worked out of a small agency in California, and that she was the reason they used the agency they did. She then explained that Emily was no longer working at the agency in California, but was now at a small agency in Minnesota. At that point, I thought it was a little strange, because the only other person I've ever talked with about their adoption process is a friend of mine that lives in Fort Collins, and worked with a woman named Emily at an agency in Minnesota. I remembered the name of the agency, so I proceeded to ask this friend of mine if the agency that the "Emily" she worked at was the one I knew of in Minnesota, and with a puzzled look on her face, said "yes, that is the one." So, this friend of mine in Phoenix had used Emily as her adoption coordinator while she was in California, and my friend in Fort Collins had used this same coordinator after she had transitioned to a small agency in Minnesota. What are the odds? I knew this was not just a coincidence, but the first sign of Gods gentle guidance in the direction of adoption. It was then that I knew our next step for us was to call this "Emily" that they worked with and spoke so highly of. No commitment. Just a phone call. As this was just the first of many clear next steps He has given us in this journey.
So we called Emily. Through our conversations with her, and discussions with the executive director about the need in Guinea, Africa, we just knew this is what the Lord had been guiding us to at this time. It seems that at any point we run into road bumps or have questions at any step along the way, He provides someone or something in our lives that help us press on.
The Lord knows what we need. That's why He's used others in our lives, and His gentle prompting countless times to be that "man we run into on the side of the road," who offers us a detour in our adventure. It might be more bumpy, risky, scary, challenging, and is certainly unknown, but we know that as we follow the route God has for us to bring this child home, there will be times of immense joy, valleys of beauty, and more adventure than we have ever experienced.


Philip Salvato has been working professionally in the field of art for 45 years.
Philip has traveled throughout the world painting and teaching plein air painting and now resides in his spacious studio above 3rd Street Gallery in Carnegie, Pa. Where he is currently undertaking many portrait commissions and working on projects to develop the community of Carnegie into a art center.
"I feel as artists, it's our responsibility to inspire humanity. We do this by giving homage and living in the splendor of life. If I could leave anything behind, it would be a statement about the beauty of the world".


text:
This is what has moulded me into who I have
 become today:
TAKEN FOR GRANTED are the things we most appreciate and enjoy:
The Song Birds cheering the early morning risers;
The majesty of the Bull Moose and the Blue Whale;
The serenity of the Bald Eagle circling high overhead;
The hunting cry of the Timber Wolf and the Coyote;
The cunning of the Fox;
The lordship of the Grizzly Bear;
The kinship between Man and the Dolphin on the high seas;
The beauty Nature blesses us with, every day of our lives;
What if - tomorrow, THEY WERE GONE?
It is my hope that my sculpture will arouse in you an awareness of the beauty of our Heritage and why we must preserve it for the future generations. Our Creator bestowed upon every one of us the custodianship of this wondrous Planet and all its creatures.
Greed and fear are Man's greatest faults, and Nature's greatest enemies.
I have chosen to work in the most difficult and challenging medium, Stone.
Each sculpture is a One-Of-A-Kind, the mineral composition, color and markings
are its own unique, individual characteristics.
My motivation is the conservation of what we are losing and the preservation of what
we have already lost.
My style is realistic, my subjects are our vanishing wildlife.
Born in 1942, second of seven children, Gerald grew up on a farm near Maple Creek, Saskatchewan, in the historic Cypress Hills, in the heart of the Canadian prairies. An expert horseman at an early age, he spent his free time roaming the Cypress Hills, acquiring a kinship with the wild and the free. To him the First Nations winter camp on the outskirts of Maple Creek, the enormous buffalo wallows he played in as a child and the hundred yard ribbon of wagon ruts crossing the farm towards the Hills, all attested to the reality and richness of our Heritage. During his school years Gerald excelled in equestrian events, sporting events and art classes, but the love for horses and the outdoors was his passion. His school teachers labelled him a dreamer.
Gerald grew-up on the back of a horse in the summer and on his trap line in the winter, a sharp jackknife always in his pocket, from a piece of wood he carved his toys. 1961 saw him graduate from high school. The following year he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force. After training in firefighting and crash rescue he spent the next five years with the Canadian Air Force in France and Germany. In the Base Fire Hall in Marville, France, is where he began to explore his talent and started his first challenging carving project. While holidaying in Ostend, Belgium, he met the love of his life, Yvonne. That same year they were married in Yvonne's home town of Rochdale. Lancashire, England.
In 1967 Gerald was posted to Winnipeg, Manitoba and decided to end his Air Force career and go back to the family farm which had relocated in southern Alberta. He took back to Canada a deep appreciation of the rich Art Culture of the European countries. They farmed in Scandia, Alberta for the next sixteen years and raised three wonderful children. While farming, wildlife and habitat protection were a priority. In the community and district, he organized and trained the Volunteer Fire Department, and was the Fire Chief there for ten years.
In 1984 they moved to Chilliwack. Here Gerald was employed as a firefighter at Canadian Forces Base Chilliwack, and when not working on the Base, operated his own renovation business. It's during this time he created many more beautiful pieces. The British Columbia forests provided a bountiful variety of medium. However, he had not yet found his true calling. In 1995 an accident amputated the four fingers of his left hand, making it impossible to hold the wood sculptures while working on them. Out of necessity, he turned to stone as a medium. "One does not move a three hundred pound piece of stone around, one move's around it." Incredibly, with the limited use of his left hand and no formal training in the Arts, Gerald can turn large lumps of stone into detailed three dimensional images. He says, "God blessed each one of His Children with special, unique talents and gifts. As parents and guardians, help and encourage the children, so they may reach their full potential as God intended."
Today, if not spending time with his grandchildren, or Barbershop singing, you will find him in his studio, putting his imagination and perception into preserving, with love, a piece of our Heritage.
UA-49290496-2 UA-49290496-2


Previously I shared photographs of four Texas county courthouses taken on our Thanksgiving vacation. Now I only need to photograph the other 247 county courthouses in Texas!
Today, Gillespie, Jones, Stonewall, and Hays County courthouses for your viewing pleasure. The Stonewall County courthouse pictured, replaced the original courthouse some years ago. I believe the 1911 courthouse stood in the location of the parking lot where I was standing to take my photo.


Mount Hope Plantation House, on the historic Highland Road, is a gorgeous designer event location that radiates classical Southern hospitality. Clients can entertain their guests for any occasion in this timeless setting adorned with beautiful backdrops and scenery.
dezinsINTERACTIVE wanted to complement the grandeur of Mount Hope and the stunning surroundings. So, we designed a logo featuring a unique, whimsical elegance. In the same tenor, the site itself was created to portray the pictures as the main focus. We used soft colors and an easy-to-use navigation to make the engaging experience all about the visitor.


Conflict modeling offers a novel framework for identifying and mitigating the risks of social conflict on an online system.
Conflict, in the colloquial sense, can be a productive and even an indispensable aspect of online systems. But the last several years have featured conflict that feels almost novel in hostility and severity. At best, systems confronted with conflict adopt idiosyncratic approaches that tend to be opaque and not public. At worst, ad hoc attempts to mitigate conflict creates what I call a "Valley Fallacy:" We have a problem, we must do something, this is something, so we must do this. Except this often exacerbates existing conflicts or creates new ones. In the security and privacy contexts, threat modeling developed as a predictable methodology to recognize and analyze technical shortcomings of software systems. And when compared with security and privacy threat modeling, systems have lagged in developing similarly consistent, robust approaches to online conflict.
This paper-in-progress offers a predictable framework to structure thinking around online conflict by suggesting a methodology for conflict modeling, defining a taxonomy of conflict—safety, comfort, usability, legal, privacy, and transparency (SCULPT)—and examining common mitigation techniques adopted by systems to reduce the risk of certain conflicts. In so doing, it hopes to apply the same rigor of technical threat modeling to social threats.
A draft of Conflict Modeling was presented at the 2017 Privacy Law Scholars Conference, held at Berkeley Law.


Yet another of the projects I submitted for Style Sample Magazine and New York Design Shop's Create Couture Challenge.
1. Start on bottom chain of necklace. Stitch chain links onto top of Suedette Fringe (I stitched through every other link).
2. Cut fringe once you've reached the end of the chain.
3. Repeat for the lighter-colored fringe and the top chain.
4. If desired, trim edges of fringe so they hang better whilst wearing.
**This was actually the project that the person who won the random commenter drawing commented on, saying she loved it! (I know that sentence doesn't seem to make sense, but my brain is feeling muddled right now:-) So I sent this fringed necklace to the winner – and I hope she likes it! Congrats, Monica!
Just found your blog and it's wonderful… Thanks for the inspiration!
This is so fun and easy! I can see it really spicing up a plain white tee or being a great layering piece. Congrats on your win again with NYDS!
Wow…… true Indian Wedding Jewelry completes the beauty of a bride. I was looking for Wedding jewelry online and came across the site http://www.kaneesha.com and purchased an exclusive set. It just added a special touch to my bridal wear.