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Home > Insights > Industries > Real Estate > Real Estate & Construction Monitor Newsletter - Fall 2017
Real Estate & Construction Monitor Newsletter - Fall 2017
Mission Critical Infrastructure: Cyber Threats Shake the Nation's Foundation
Brick & Mortar Life Expectancy: Here's How to Fight Obsolescence
Sustainability in Real Estate: Is it Easy to Be Green?
How Low Can You Go? CMBS Market in Limbo
Mission Critical Infrastructure: Cyber Threats Shake the Nation's Foundation
By Eric Chuang and Ian Shapiro
Increasing infrastructure spending to the tune of $1 trillion was a core pillar of Donald Trump's campaign for office, and a welcome refrain for the construction industry. Whether the new administration will deliver on this promise remains to be seen. Despite some cuts to the Department of Transportation in the administration's first budget blueprint for fiscal year 2018, the White House reaffirmed a commitment to support the nation's critical infrastructure in subsequent proposals.
With infrastructure investment still on the president's agenda, one vital consideration remains largely absent from the conversation: cybersecurity vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure.
What are the cyber risks?
Cybersecurity risks associated with infrastructure projects have recently received attention at the federal level. In March of 2017, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a cybersecurity alert for critical infrastructure owners and operators outlining top cyber threats. DHS asserted that "any sector that uses industrial control systems (ICS)"—ranging from energy to manufacturing to technology—could be susceptible to cyber attacks. ICS automates industrial distribution and processes, and comprises hardware and software components integrated via the Internet of Things (IoT).
Critical infrastructure encompasses 16 sectors—several of which are within the scope of the construction industry, including transportation systems, government and commercial facilities, energy and defense industrial bases. A cyber attack on firms involved in the construction of critical infrastructure, sensitive government facilities, or even facilities for emergency management, public health or medical providers, could jeopardize those services. Hackers could glean potentially vulnerable information housed in construction firms' databases, including proprietary employee data, sensitive client data, tenant personally identifiable information and non-public material information. Construction firms also house computer-aided design drawings and blue prints to sensitive buildings, which hackers can exploit to inflict physical damage.
Triple Threat: IoT, DDoS and PDoS
Cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the construction industry are compounded by growing industry adoption of cloud computing and the IoT. Smart buildings technology, such as sensor-enabled heating and cooling systems, can be physically compromised or provide an entry point to the larger corporate network. With increased connectivity, the security (or lack thereof) of each individual device impacts the whole system's integrity. And because IoT devices fall outside the traditional scope of IT, they are often overlooked.
The top threats specific to physical infrastructure are distributed denial of service (DDoS) and the emerging threat of permanent denial of service (PDoS) attacks. DDoS and PDoS attacks aim to temporarily disable or permanently destroy technology—such as power grids, heating and cooling systems and internet providers—by overwhelming the targeted system with traffic, thereby disrupting the distribution and delivery of a service.
And then there is ransomware, another type of denial of service (DoS) attack that uses encryption malware, generally downloaded via phishing emails, to block user access to computer files, potentially permanently if the victim is unable or unwilling to pay the ransom for the encryption key. Ransomware attacks quadrupled in 2016 with an average of 4,000 per day, according to data from the U.S. Justice Department. The problem from a critical infrastructure perspective? Ransomware could infect operational technology, disrupting essential processes or taking entire systems offline.
The NotPetya "wiper-ware" in June of 2017 demonstrated the next level of sophistication of malwares that did not require the use of phishing emails to infect and propagate across the victims' networks, and the non-reversible encryption of the victims' hard drives have every indication that it was intended to be a PDoS attack and not for ransom.
Although DoS-style threats emerged nearly two decades ago, hackers have leveraged IoT to carry out much more sophisticated attacks in recent years. For example, the October 2016 attack against Domain Name System provider Dyn, used IoT and a Mirai botnet to increase the attack's scope and impact. Mirai botnets are a strain of malware that infects internet-connected devices and corrals them into an IoT "army" to overwhelm a target's servers with malicious traffic, shutting down highly trafficked websites for several hours. While the Dyn attack caused arguably little more than inconvenience, it spurred speculation about the chaos and physical harm a DDoS—or worse PDoS—attack of that scale, or bigger, on the nation's infrastructure could potentially cause.
Cyber attacks to date on critical infrastructure have largely targeted power grids and the electrical sector. In 2016, ransomware and DDoS attacks of that nature stole headlines worldwide. In Finland, a DDoS attack targeted computerized heating distribution centers, disabling heat to apartment buildings. In December 2016, a cyber attack on the Ukrainian capitol's power grid caused a power outage in various areas of the city. The attack has roots in malware—employees at Ukrainian power companies received infected emails, which allowed the hackers to seize control over their computers and carry out the attack. In June, 2017, the NotPetya wiper-ware infected the Chernobyl power plant's radiation monitoring system, but this time, the attack was believed to have originated via the MEDoc accounting software's update service, and no phishing email was used. Beyond the technical semantics of the attack, it appears both acts might have been cyber warfare. Multiple security and media sources reported that Russia was likely tied to both attacks, motivated by the war in Eastern Ukraine. With these incidents in mind, securing the U.S.'s critical infrastructure against cyber attacks becomes a matter of national security.
What role can contractors play in hedging against cyber warfare?
From a business perspective, construction companies would be wise to shore up their cybersecurity. Construction firms looking to win federal or state government contracts under the much-anticipated infrastructure spend will be held to stringent cybersecurity standards. The U.S. government produces, collects, consumes and disseminates huge volumes of data and entrusts sensitive information to federal contractors. At the federal level, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) requires basic safeguarding of contractor information systems that process, store or transmit federal contract information, and contractors can face fines or contract termination if there are levels of cyber negligence. Construction companies contracting with the government must also consider their subcontractor's cybersecurity standards: Any weak cyber link can create a vulnerability.
While the construction industry looks forward to the promise of financial boon from new infrastructure projects, cybersecurity should remain top-of-mind. Too often, contractors may have basic cyber defenses in place but don't prepare any real coordinated response plan until after an incident occurs. Cybersecurity controls addressing current threats are essential, but with the rapidly emerging swath of risks, contractors need to set their sights on the future and invest in monitoring, responding to and mitigating the next big threat.
This article originally appeared in Construction Today.
Eric Chuang is a managing director in BDO's Forensic Technology Services practice, and may be reached at echuang@bdo.com.
Ian Shapiro is a partner and co-leader of BDO's Real Estate and Construction practice, and may be reached at ishapiro@bdo.com.
Brick & Mortar Life Expectancy Isn't What It Used to Be: Here's How to Fight Obsolescence
By Dennis Duffy, MAI
Buyers, owners, investors and developers of real estate are facing questions regarding how properties are valued in the current market, especially where there are problems appraising a property's highest and best use. More specifically, this question focuses on reversion value.
Recent Class B or lower valuation projects (as well as some lower level Class A properties) have presented serious, widespread questions from a valuation standpoint. The main question is simple: What should be done with "obsolete" buildings?
Historically, such a question became pertinent only after 50-100 years. Buildings were "built to last," and most were designed to be updated over time. Part of the reason for that long horizon was that ample land was available for expansion. Another was that zoning was very prescriptive and clearly defined in many ways. Lastly, fixed real estate was a capital-intensive asset class.
In the past five years alone, that question, however, is now being asked about buildings that are only 20 to 30 years old. Many buildings that have been constructed in the last 30 years or so, like suburban office buildings and parks, retail centers and malls, some well-located industrial parks and even sports stadiums, now face the wrecking ball because they are, effectively, obsolete. Some investors report that many U.S. submarkets, for a variety of uses, are "under-demolished."
What Has Driven This?
The short answer is technology. The longer answer is human interaction with technology.
Historically, most companies had fairly simple operations and spatial needs, so real estate decisions were driven by location and/or resources, with physical building changes limited by cost and location. The current digital revolution, however, is changing that—literally at the speed of light. Locations are not as "fixed" as they were previously, and businesses' physical space needs tend to change quickly due to technological shifts. Flexibility will be the key to long-term survival in all industries, including real estate.
Traditionally, real estate has been a fixed asset acquired at high prices compared to most assets. Such requirements mandated long lead times, high fixed costs, significant capital resources, segregation of uses, long-term contracts (i.e., leases and mortgages) and zoning. The industry faces the challenge of adapting fixed physical space needs, and all that goes along with it, to meet the new reality of demand for change at the snap of a finger, and how to underwrite office or other spaces that will likely shift to "creative space" when re-financed (at lower rents, not higher).
What are Possible Solutions?
From a valuation standpoint, there are two traditional factors: zoning/legal issues and physical utility. To maintain real estate flexibility, underwriters, analysts, municipalities and all industries will have to consider:
1. Revised zoning codes that stress density/form over use. The economic lives of buildings are getting shorter and it may be necessary to re-configure space more quickly. This change, however, often runs afoul of local zoning ordinances, minimally, as it relates to uses. If structures in the future are more generic in form, site-specific codes may have to be revised to reflect multiple future uses. By "pre-coding" such code requirements, one of the major impediments to re-development (generically, all permitting costs) can be streamlined for material cost savings and faster re-use. Urban areas already have an advantage in this regard due to greater densities and uses. Suburban areas will need to adapt this concept, or face an even stronger "back to the city" trend than currently in the market. Otherwise, suburban office parks and similar "obsolete concepts" could risk vacancy. All jurisdictions, in order to retain and attract industry—their tax base—will have to re-write zoning laws to allow rapid flexibility.
2. In terms of physical utility, architects and engineers will have to design buildings that can be quickly adapted to alternate uses at a reasonable cost. Aesthetics will still be important. Those who are able to successfully design and build the most flexible buildings first will fare the best. Prime locations will also continue to have great importance. These locations, however, will not be limited strictly to traditional site selection parameters. The key will be how flexible the site and/or building improvements are perceived to be for needed changes due to technological shifts that dramatically alter market demand for that space.
The combination of these elements will require a shorter-term view, and investors and municipalities should incorporate some level of alternate use analysis, even from the original construction date. Underwriters would then have the benefit of downside underwriting (to consider future conversion costs)—on a current basis.
For many years, zoning and functional utility have simply been boxes to check during the valuation process. Moving forward, and given the rapid clip of technological change, it is now time to remove it from a box and think about a real exit strategy beyond the end of a lease or mortgage term.
Dennis Duffy is a director in BDO's Valuation and Business Analytics practice, and may be reached at dduffy@bdo.com.
By Sebastian Stevens and Sjoerd Hubregtse
With sustainability a key trend in real estate and construction, BDO International asks, what are the key drivers of this trend, and what are the results?
Every year seems to bring with it more news of natural disasters around the world: hurricanes, forest fires, flooding and typhoons to name a few. Trump's recent decision to back out of the Paris climate accord was swiftly followed by massive floods in the state of Missouri, so the battle against climate change is certainly a hot-button issue. In the global real estate and construction (REC) sector, green targets and environmental policies have far-reaching impact on the world around us and sustainability remains a key trend, worldwide.
Although sustainable or neutral building is widespread, the end results differ from country to country, driven often by profitability and the availability of space. It is easier and cheaper to build a new energy-efficient building than it is to retrofit an old one. In the U.S. or Australia, space is an accessible commodity but, in Europe, space is at a premium, particularly in its ancient cities.
Moreover, it is the older buildings that are often the root of environmental damage. In the U.K., for example, commercial properties account for 18 percent of the country's carbon emissions. And by 2050, roughly six out of 10 commercial buildings will be more than 40 years old, according to research from the Building Research Establishment. In order to meet green targets, older buildings must be retrofitted, yet this will come with a significant cost.
In order to combat global warming, EU-member countries have taken on binding national targets, with the goal of increasing production and use of renewable energy by 2020. These measures have had considerable impact on the REC sector. In the Netherlands, the Dutch government has sought to encourage the production of renewable energy, and the reduction of energy consumption, by subsidizing and giving tax benefits to those that opt for renewable energy.
Although the share of renewable energy has increased significantly, the Netherlands has yet to meet its 2020 goals. Consequently, yet more legislation has come into force in recent years, which obligates companies to reduce their energy consumption. Larger firms are now legally required to regularly investigate new potential methods of boosting energy efficiency. And, from 2023, Dutch office buildings will be required to have an energy label with at least a C-rating; buildings with a D-rating or below will no longer be allowed to be used as offices. By imposing a minimum level of energy efficiency for office buildings, the Dutch government aims to drastically reduce the country's carbon footprint. As a result, we are seeing significant investment in the renovation of commercial properties.
Profitability and cost effectiveness
In addition to legislation, another key driver of sustainability initiatives in the global REC sector is interest in profit and cost effectiveness. In Australia, "green," new-building property construction is on the rise. These properties run on renewable energy and often use smart technology to monitor and reduce water consumption - an expensive commodity in Australia. In Sydney, a residential development has recently been built in which all the properties use Tesla Powerwalls, which store electricity for solar self-consumption, backup power and off-the-grid use. These green buildings are sometimes more expensive to build but are considerably less expensive to run long term.
In the Netherlands, companies that demonstrate efforts to improve energy efficiency or produce renewable energy can benefit from subsidies or tax benefits. These projects are therefore planned carefully to maximize tax benefits. Conversely, companies that choose not to implement green policies must consider the consequences: government legislation influences property value and investor decisions, not to mention tenants. Sustainability can thus affect all real estate owners and tenants, be it positively or negatively.
For REC businesses interested in cost-effective construction and building management, the durability of a building will have considerable impact. Companies worldwide are increasingly looking to use building materials that require minimal maintenance and need replacing less frequently. For example, Powerhouse Kjorbo in Oslo, Norway, is constructed with fire-treated wood, which is both fire and insect resistant; the material is extremely durable thanks to its low reactivity, and is expected to last 80 years. Durable materials generate cost savings, whilst also being more green than standard building materials, like concrete.
Often, the motivation for sustainability initiatives is pecuniary - but the results are inarguably positive. For example, smart monitoring is increasingly popular in Australia, where some businesses are now using smart-meter technology across multiple buildings. This means that energy usage can be monitored and, importantly, redistributed across a cluster of properties, depending on requirements, thus reducing waste, not just in individual buildings, but across an entire community or even city.
Of course, more immediate concerns are also driving environmental efforts. In Australia, increasing population density has resulted in legislation that requires buildings to have minimal impact on the local area in terms of traffic, air and noise pollution. Meanwhile, in Europe, gas extraction from one of the largest natural gas fields in Europe has caused a number of earthquakes in the Netherlands. To curb demand on gas and reduce tremors, the Dutch government has set a new target to have no houses heated by gas by 2050.
Looking to the future, legislation will continue to demand that the property industry shift away from traditional methods of construction and property maintenance, and employ clean, green technologies. To its clients, BDO Global would suggest that REC companies embrace this legislation, as environmental initiatives are, more often than not, highly cost effective; whilst ignoring legislation could later be costly. And, with the importance of BREEAM sustainability ratings and similar environmental assessments on the rise, green buildings can be seen as an asset and an accolade.
This article originally appeared on the BDO Global Real Estate & Construction blog. View the original post here.
Sebastian Stevens is the national head of real estate for BDO Australia. He can be reached at sebastian.stevens@bdo.com.au.
Sjoerd Hubregtse is a manager for BDO Netherlands. He can be reached at Sjoerd.Hubregtse@bdo.nl.
By Stuart Eisenberg
A mountain of maturing CMBS loans hung overhead at the start of 2017, with legacy loans issued during the heart of the lending boom set to come due. An estimated $65.5 billion in CMBS debt reached maturity in the first half of the year and an additional $17.04 billion is expected to mature before year's end, according to Trepp and Morningstar.
Despite early anxieties about the influx of maturing CMBS loans, the commercial real estate markets demonstrated resilience in the first half of the year. Delinquencies increased, but at lower rates than anticipated. In June, the delinquency rate rose 28 basis points to hit 5.75 percent, according to Trepp's June CMBS Delinquency Report.
Midway through 2017, rising delinquency rates are no longer the chief concern. Instead, the CMBS market worries about the sustained slowdown in issuances. U.S. CMBS loans totaling $55.4 billion were issued through August and the market is expected to end the year with more than $70 billion issuances. While the forecast annual total is on pace to surpass 2016 numbers, it is far below historical levels. At the height of the CMBS market in 2007, Commercial Mortgage Alert reports a total of $228.56 billion loans were issued.
What's Causing the Slowdown?
The Dodd-Frank risk retention rules that went into effect last December are a contributing factor to the subdued state of the CMBS market. Under that regulation, lenders—or a third-party—are required to keep 5 percent of securities created in a transaction on their books for a period of 10 years. For lenders, this capital requirement poses a considerable barrier to increasing the volume of CMBS originations.
Shifting investor interest is also contributing to the slowdown. The CMBS market all but halted during the recession, as investors pulled out of the securities. While confidence in CMBS has recovered considerably, investors are still buying CMBS loans at less aggressive rates.
Private Equity, REITs & Other Alternative Lenders Fill the Gap
CMBS accounted for about 23 percent of the trillion-dollar loan market at its height, but currently holds a 16 percent share, according to Trepp. During a year where CMBS loans reached maturity at such a rapid clip, the low issuance rate is even more striking.
In addition to traditional balance sheet lenders, alternative lenders, including private equity firms and REITs, which are not subject to risk retention rules, are increasingly stepping in to fund commercial real estate loans. Alternative lenders' presence in the debt markets is not new, but is poised to grow and is likely to be at the expense of CMBS's market share.
What Lies Ahead for CMBS?
The dynamics of the debt market are shifting, creating more channels for borrowers to obtain funds. While CMBS issuers appear to have addressed many of the regulatory concerns, they now find themselves facing a new hurdle: increased competition. As many new players provide financing, including first mortgage loans, mezzanine loans and bridge loans, CMBS issuers could see their slice of the debt financing pie shrink.
This article originally appeared in Commercial Property Executive.
Stuart Eisenberg is a partner and the national leader of the Real Estate and Construction practice. He may be reached at seisenberg@bdo.com.
Detroit has the highest commercial property tax rate among U.S. cities at 4.09 percent, National Real Estate Investor reported.
A recent Trepp report shows that large banks are growing their CRE lending faster than community and medium-sized banks. Large banks increased their CRE loan portfolio by 2.56 percent in the second quarter.
The construction industry created 28,000 net new jobs in August, bringing industry unemployment down to 4.7 percent, according to the Associated Builder and Contractors trade association.
In the last 12 months, bank lenders increased real estate construction loans by $30.4 billion, or 10.31 percent, compared to the previous year, National Real Estate Investor reported.
For more information on BDO USA's service offerings to this industry, please contact one of the following practice leaders:
Stuart Eisenberg
Practice Leader
Edward Plunkett
Assurance Partner
Greater Washington, D.C.
Ian Shapiro
Practice Co-Leader John Rainis
Brian Bader
New York Carrie Shagat
Brent Horak


Heartwood Fence Co. was established in 1987 by our dearly missed friend, Bill Fischer.
John Edwards and Kevin Brulport are the owners and they continue running the business as Bill had always done: with honesty, dependability and taking pride in knowing that you as our customer will get everything you request. We guarantee 100% satisfaction!
We know how important your property is, so all jobs are done by the owners from start to finish.
Please sign our comment page and feel free to call or email us for a free estimate.


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National Science Foundation awards $1M to UD biologist to study how traits evolve
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Monday October 17, 2022
By Dave Larsen
The National Science Foundation awarded University of Dayton biologist Thomas Williams more than $1 million to study how physical traits develop and evolve at the DNA level, and then test his findings through genetic engineering.
The four-year, $1,036,507 grant that started Sept. 1 also will enable Williams to sustain a research lab staff of one doctoral, two master's and eight undergraduate students, allowing him to resume training future scientists at his pre-pandemic level. Williams shares the award with research collaborator Mark Rebeiz, professor in the University of Pittsburgh Department of Biological Sciences.
The grant is Williams' third and largest from the NSF in the last 10 years, following awards of $839,000 in 2016 to and $450,000 in 2012. Under his previous funding, he developed an investigative model using color patterns on the abdomens of fruit flies to study the ways in which DNA sequences function to switch genes "on" and "off" during an organism's development. He then studied how evolution used these so-called "genetic switches" to develop biological diversity.
"By answering questions, we've created lots of new questions within this same model," said Williams, associate professor of biology. "So, we are trying to understand for an organism that has around 13,000 genes, which are the 100 or 200 that are responsible for making one characteristic, and how is it that these genes know in which cells and when during life to be active."
Williams will study DNA in the model fruit fly species Drosophila melanogaster to find and characterize the parts of genes responsible for variations in the abdomen color patterns of male fruit flies. He also will look at DNA in two less well-studied fruit fly species that look different but have the same genes. His goal is to understand how a genetic program changed to make them appear different.
"Everything we're asking here about fruit flies are the same things that have to be spelled out in the language of our own DNA to make sure things are produced in the right place at the right times during development," Williams said. "When changes happen in the DNA sequence and it goes wrong, we get things like genetic diseases or a variation from one individual to another."
Williams is an evolutionary developmental — or "evo-devo" — biologist. His research is rooted on 1980s discoveries that found radically different organisms have similar sets of genes, suggesting much of the Earth's biological diversity comes not from new genes, but how the same genes are used differently.
Roughly 60% of the fruit fly's genes can be found in humans in similar form, and about 75% of the genes responsible for human diseases have counterparts in flies.
"The lessons we learn about the genes in fruit flies give us insights about how these genes might be functioning in our bodies as well," he said.
Advances in genetic research since Williams' 2016 NSF grant now make it possible to edit animal genomes, allowing him to remove and replace DNA sequences from fruit flies to study how those genes impact their appearance over time. Because the fruit fly can birth a new generation in only 10 to 15 days, Williams can follow evolutionary changes through as many as 24 generations per year.He said taking DNA sequences from Drosophila melanogaster and editing them into the other emerging model species is considered a safe procedure.
"Nobody has to worry that we're making some sort of genetically engineered monsters," Williams said. "The stuff that we're playing with, at best it's going to affect a little bit of melanin on the abdomen of fruit flies."
Karolyn Hansen, associate professor and Department of Biology chair, likened Williams' approach to having a drawer with a variety of hand tools that, when used in varying combinations, result in objects with different colors and patterns.
"That's what is really cool about Dr. Williams' genetics research: he is not just identifying what happens, rather he is investigating how different 'tools' determine gene expression, and his science will inform the wider gene expression research community," Hansen said.
The NSF grant will allow Williams to support several graduate students, as well as two undergraduates from each academic year — freshman, sophomore, junior and senior — to work in his research lab. He also plans to mentor a number of undergraduates in genetic experimentation outside of the traditional school year through the College of Arts and Sciences Dean's Summer Fellowship program.
In addition, he expects Dayton-area high school science teachers and community college students to visit his lab through the UD Sinclair Academy and a partnership with the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation, a NSF-funded program intended to support historically underrepresented students in the STEM fields.
"In addition to pursuing groundbreaking science, Dr. Williams focuses on sharing his science, passion and inquisitiveness with the many students who are trained in his laboratory," Hansen said. "His training continuum includes undergraduate researchers, honors thesis students, and master's and doctoral students. His students have gone on to medical school, graduate school, and successful careers in academia and industry."
For more information, visit the Department of Biology website.
New physics chair seeks to prepare students for Intel, Air Force Research Lab careers
In his new role at UD, Jason Deibel plans to increase the number of undergraduate physics students and advance the department's curricular offerings.
In memoriam: Albino Carrillo
Albino "Al" Carrillo, an associate professor of English who specialized in creative writing and contemporary American poetry, died Oct. 18. He was 58.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Anything relating to information and communications technology – including programming, networking, gadgets.
When we decided to replace of our aging Cisco ASA firewalls, one thing we knew for sure was that we needed a VPN to give staff working in our remote offices access to the internal resources located at our HQ in London.
On the ASAs we used the Easy VPN feature to do this. This is different from traditional IPSEC VPNs in that you don't need to know the IP address for each node. Since several ISPs we use for our global offices only give us dynamic IP addresses, this style of VPN isn't possible. Easy VPN gets around this by treating each ASA as a VPN client – the remote ASA 5505s initiate the VPN connection to a known hostname or IP address at the HQ.
This worked really well with the Cisco ASAs, so we wanted VPN that was as easy to roll out and maintain. The Meraki security appliances proved to be even easier.
Full tunnel (all internet traffic from the device is sent over the VPN tunnel.
At Christian Aid we use the Split tunnel option. We know that the majority of traffic from each site is to and from the Internet (increasingly more so as we move our own resources to the cloud) and having that traffic first travel via HQ is not the very efficient, and will hammer our HQ internet connection.
Even simpler – only two options. The first option to Connect Cirectly creates a mesh VPN – each node connects to every other node. Traditional IPSEC VPNs can do this but have to configure the fixed public IP address of each node on all the other nodes. The Meraki cloud handles this automatically. Easy VPN did not allow us this option at all, so we never had to face the challenge of keeping IP addresses updated across over 40 locations.
A benefit of a mesh VPN is if clients at remote sites need to communicate directly without passing through HQ. This lends itself to distributed Active Directory networks – with a mesh VPN domain controllers at different locations can replicate with each other. Previously replication had to come via our headquarters. A mesh VPN promised better replication and redundancy – if our headquarters went down for any reason, or DCs could still replicate.
We also wondered whether peer to peer communication solutions such as Skype would work better, although we haven't really answered that yet.
There is a hidden third option that appears if you select Connect directly to only one peer that allows a hybrid of the two – if you select hub and spoke mode you can select multiple hubs – a spoke can create VPN tunnels to multiple locations.
You can also configure different topology settings for each node.
This allows you a great level of flexibility. In our case, sites that have a DC are set to connect directly to all VPN peers. Sites without a DC are set to only connect to our HQ. This results in the DC sites being meshed so they can replicate, but non-DC sites aren't part of the mesh.
More of this later when I discuss Non-Meraki VPN Peers.
This sets up port forwarding through the Meraki device (not through the ISP equipment which may be doing NAT – more on that later). In our case Automatic has always worked fine.
With three basic settings in place across our MX devices, we had a working VPN network up and running so quickly we actually spent some time looking for additional settings before we realised we'd completed the job! Meraki MX devices easily met or exceeded our requirements in this area.
Here is a map of our 45 sites connected by VPN at the time of writing this article.
Note that sites physically close together (at this scale) are grouped.


If you are a train aficionado, then Williams, Arizona is the place for you. As mentioned in my last post, we decided to take the Grand Canyon Railway instead of riding the Harley to the Grand Canyon. The weather was too unpredictable and taking the train felt right. Back in 2002, my Father and I took the train to the Grand Canyon, it was a great experience and I thought Elaine would enjoy it as well. Moreover, the train ride is very reasonably priced at $56 per ticket and includes entertainment.
After purchasing our tickets, we rode to the Route 66 Diner and enjoyed an excellent breakfast in a nostalgic environment. Yes, I know, I'm a sucker for classic diners and nostalgia and the Mother Road is full of them. After breakfast, we had some time to kill at the train station, so we took photos of the railway's machines.
On certain days in the summer, the railroad uses an old steam locomotive, unfortunately, Aug 23 was not such a day. Our train was pulled by a refurbished 1950's diesel electric locomotive that was originally used by CP Rail. The passenger cars are also refurbished, the oldest being a 1923 Pullman coach and the others were constructed in the 1950's and 1960's. We opted for the 1923 Pullman, not only because it was the least expensive, it was the one we wanted to experience. It is actually quite comfortable and spacious, much more so than a modern passenger train. The restoration job was immaculate and it almost seemed new.
The ride to Canyon is quite scenic and it winds through cattle ranches and ponderosa pine forests. Along the way, we were entertained by a singing cowboy. His repertoire included plenty of Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and old western sing alongs.
The train arrived at the Grand Canyon just before lunch. After we disembarked, Elaine made a shocking discovery – she lost a very expensive ring. She had taken it off the night before and in all likelihood, it was left back at the motel in Williams. Naturally, this really upset her and she feared the ring may have been pilfered by new guests, the staff or worse…sucked up into a vacuum cleaner. I called the motel and they claimed not to have seen it. I was confident the ring was still on the dressing table and we would retrieve it by the end of the day. Understandably, this damped our spirits for the day. Despite this setback, the incredible views offered by the Grand Canyon did its magic and restored our spirits.
These are the same shots taken by hundreds of thousands of tourists over the years. Yet, how can one resist with a camera in hand? One of these days I will have to take these photos from a different vantage point when the golden light comes at sunrise or sunset. Mid-day sun is just so clinical.
The train ride back to Williams amused us with a fake train robbery complete with a gang of thieves attacking on horseback, firearms loaded with blanks and a fake sheriff to save the day. Granted, this is not an experience we would have had riding the Harley up to the canyon.
Upon returning to Williams, we went back to our motel to look for Elaine's ring. It took some convincing to get the motel clerk to grant us access to the room which was rented out to new guests. Since the guests were not in the room, he did not want us to enter, I said we won't touch anything and the ring is very expensive and it means a lot to her. Moreover, if he refused, I was going to notify the police. All it took was 20 seconds to find her ring which was left on top the the dresser. Elaine was elated and relieved and so was I.
With the ring back on Elaine's finger, it was time to ride out to Flagstaff, eat dinner, visit a country and western club and sleep in budget motel all on Route 66. As it turns out, the town was exceptionally busy that night since students were moving in for their semester at Northern Arizona University.
I am quite familiar with Flagstaff and have visited it well over a dozen times, but who's counting? It was my summer retreat to escape the heat when I lived in Phoenix, since Flagstaff is over 8000 feet above sea level and is generally 20 degrees cooler. As I know this town so well, it was great to reconnect with it. I suggested we eat at Granny's Closet Restaurant whose fare is mainly "down home" country cooking and comfort food.
After dinner, I was itching to go to The Museum Club, a historic country and western bar, where Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Patsy Cline were regular performers back in the day. I strongly urge anyone visiting Flagstaff to sink a drink or two at the Museum Club, even if you are not a country and western fan, the hunting themed decor and history alone justifies it. That night, a good country band was playing, Crown Royal shots were half price and Elaine even convinced me to dance with her, despite my two left feet and my white boy sense of rhythm. A perfect ending to a day at the Grand Canyon.


The other day I was talking with a UK online centre trainer about how the people she had engaged on the talk about local project were finding the WordPress interface quite difficult – the group haven't been using the internet for long and are just getting used to using email and the like, so were finding WordPress a bit of a leap.
So I started thinking about platforms other than WordPress that are a bit easier to use. By far the easiest I can think of is Posterous, which publishes emails you send to the site's email address as blog posts. A quick run-down of what it does can be found in the Posterous FAQ section. Posterous also support autoposting to other platforms such as WordPress.
Some good examples of interesting Posterous sites are creativeopenworkshops.com and the community website for Central Birmingham grounds.posterous.com, which takes advantage of one of the best Posterous features – with the correct settings it can allow for contributions from anyone who has the website's email to post address, whilst the site administrator keeps full control over what does and doesn't get published. They will receive an email every time someone submits a post, and can check it before releasing it to go live on the website.
The interface on Blogger is a little simpler than WordPress and there are some good community sites that use this, such as welovelarkhall.com and alexandraandainsworth.blogspot.com. A demo video on how to set up a Blogger website is above. However Blogger does have a limited number of themes, so it may be hard to get your website looking exactly how you want it to.
Both Posterous and Blogger have a good import/export feature, so you can import the content from blogs created on other platforms to them, and export to them to again to another platform later if you want to. For instance Wrote Under Publishing, a Birmingham creative writing and spoken word collective, originally started a website in Blogger, but exported the content from Blogger to a WordPress blog once they felt they had reached the limitations of the Blogger platform.
Another platform is Tumblr. I've not had a terribly long play with this as yet, but from my use of it, it seems to have a very easy-to-use interface. However, it has a kind of 'scrapbook' feel to it, and seems to be purely a place to post content to – you can't really add a great deal of extra features. An example of a community website created with Tumblr is kingsheathen.co.uk.
Jonathan Davies has written quite an in-depth article that discusses the pros and cons of using Tumblr – The Blog Herald: Should Your Blog Be On Tumblr? is well worth a read before you start using it.
I am extremely impressed together with your writing talents and also with the layout to your blog. Is that this a paid subject or did you modify it yourself? Either way keep up the nice high quality writing, it is uncommon to look a great weblog like this one nowadays..


text:
Community Q&A - Q3 2019 Summary Call
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Dash Core Group
Dash Support Group
This thread lists questions and answers from the DCG Q3 2019 Summary Call. The first posts contain transcribed answers from the call, and remaining questions will be collected and posted here over the course of the week. Questions are as follows:
Q: To what extent has block reward reallocation been discussed/considered?
A (Ryan): One of the questions that emerged following the introduction of ChainLocks is does it make sense to continue spending as much as we do of the block reward on hash rate given that ChainLocks essentially adds another layer of security and in many respects a much better layer of security to the network than proof-of-work. I think that it is an excellent question. It's obvious that that the right answer is not to continue to spend as much as we have in the past on that. I believe that there can be significant improvements made to the cost efficiency of our network without sacrificing security. So we are going to be engaging in a process of evaluating those options and presenting a proposal for discussion to the community. Ultimately a change of this magnitude would require not only a significant discussion, but probably a vote in order to facilitate it. But we are actively working on a proposed change in this regard. It's really an opportunity for us to do a more comprehensive view of how all of the economics and security of the network works. We know that we can make this more efficient. So I think the answer is an unequivocal yes. It makes sense for us to evaluate it. There's a lot of technical questions to be resolved surrounding it and and broad input needed from the team to make sure that we're putting forward a very logical solution to this. So stay tuned - I would anticipate introducing something for discussion before the end of the year.
Q: Where is the demand for what Dash Platform does?
A (Ryan): Dash Platform basically extends the capabilities of the network and enables completely new use cases. We are seeing demand from businesses in particular that want to do much more than simply facilitate a payment. This is coming in the form of logistics: being able to attach data to the network along with payments, i.e. the ability to send information through the network beyond the payment itself. An example here is making it easier for consumers to check out. A lot of the payments industry best practices that we want to introduce into the network are dependent on this capability. Just last week at the Cipher Trace conference in San Francisco that Glenn mentioned earlier, some developers approached me and had many ideas about how they planned on utilizing Dash Platform, and had wanted my input on on the ways that they might be able to use it. We have no less than half a dozen launch partners that are eagerly awaiting the capabilities of Dash Platform, and those are the ones that we've largely filtered down to supporting as launch partners. So we know that there's demand out there for this. Another example is one of the prominent Bitcoin payment processors had a conversation with them at Money 2020 and they expressed a lot of interest in how they might be able to utilize this. The short answer is there's a lot of demand for this type of capability and we think that it's gonna be a game changer for the network. That's the reason we're pursuing it.
Q: Have we tried spending money to advertise our proposal system to expand awareness? Would this sot of advertising get around the crypto ads ban on Facebook, as it's not really advertising a cryptocurrency, but rather a job opportunity?
A (Fernando): First, it's worth noting that Facebook has softened the limitations on cryptocurrencies a lot. Right now, as long as you are not trying to sell coins, you are mostly okay. Although some certain things require previous approval, it's still possible. However, we have not advertised the proposal system ever, and I don't think anyone has done it. But there has been some discussion in the community about how we could bring in good partners and projects to the proposal system. But I think most of the people agree, and I definitely agree, that broad advertising would probably not be the way. We would need to develop some kind of RFP (request for proposal) system, and then chase the appropriate format partners for each of these RFPs. That would probably be a much better approach than just advertising as a job opportunity. Because we need to first establish what are the needs, not just bring people in to the proposal system to search for money.
A (Ryan): I would add that if others feel differently, there's nothing stopping the community from putting a proposal up to do exactly this. Or at least having a discussion publicly about whether or not the masternodes would vote for such a proposal. So that's one of the advantages of our open system - it's not dependent on whether or not Dash Core Group takes action on it.
Q: What marketing activity is Core currently pursuing and what marketing activities are planned for the future?
A (Fernando): The marketing function within DCG is working to bring Dash to the market and gain adoption. Obviously we can't do that just by ourselves, so we do work through different multiplier groups. On one side, we work with community and media to put out the message about Dash. These are the three topics which we mostly pursue:
- product adoption
- integrations
We create content around that, and we also do some brand work. We put that through the channels which we build and maintain. This is mostly the website that we maintain and update. We also have the user-facing documentation hosted at docs.dash.org, all our social media channels and the conferences we attend. We don't do as many as we would like these days, but we still get some offers. We sponsor a few, and we attend many for free. But we are very careful which ones we choose. We produce some events, like the open house we are throwing in December. And we also do PR work through the PR firm that the network selected. Sometimes we do direct outreach and try to keep the media informed about what does.
The other big part that marketing is busy with is supporting our partners in getting Dash into the hands of their users. Sometimes this happens through business development, and we support them in the promotions we do with partners when they integrate, like the promotion that was launched yesterday with Binance US. In other cases there is no integration, but for different reasons, the partners which have to also reach out to them to do things. An example of this is Abra with their new wallet and promotional activities we are going to be doing in the next few weeks. Other times this activity with partners comes through other funded organizations in the ecosystem. We work very closely with all the embassies and Dash News, Dash Turkey, Dash Thailand, D-A-CH to also provide support where possible with the communication around all those integrations.
As for the future, resources are limited but we would expect to keep improving on all these areas of work, because there are many things we would like to do that we are we need to prioritize. So we have a big backlog of things we would like to do. Only if all these things were covered to our satisfaction would we tackle new areas like paid media advertising and things like that to a significant degree. If not, we'll limit our activities so we can do them to a more complete extent.
Q: Has DCG considered changing the CEO title to avoid confusion in the press? Would Ryan Taylor consider the role of General Manager?
A (Ryan): I know there's a lot of concern within the community when whenever a journalist shortens a headline or misquotes my position. A lot of the suggestions are can you change it to General Manager, can you change it to President... I think whatever you change it to, this mistake is likely to continue. Changing it to President or some other title would still result in the same root problem which is: "Ryan Taylor, President of Dash". So I don't think that's actually a solution. Probably a more practical solution would be having a very different name for Dash Core Group - in the case of Zcash, they have Electric Coin Company - and that might allow that distinction to be made much more clearly as opposed to a title change. I think that there's been a lot of noise on this. What we continue to focus on is correcting it whenever we see it, and hopefully continuing to clarify. Whether or not a change of entity name is warranted, that's not a serious discussion we've had, but I'd be interested in what the trust protectors are hearing from the community as a whole and whether or not they feel it needs to be addressed. Personally I don't think that it holds back a lot, but my point of view may be may be different than the community as a whole. I'm open to suggestions on that front.
Q: Would DCG take out a "key man" life insurance policy on Ryan Taylor with DCG as beneficiary?
A (Glenn): In the past we hadn't considered taking out key man life insurance for Ryan. I think it's actually a pretty interesting idea. So we should bring it to the board of directors for our next meeting to consider it. I think it's also important to consult with the trust protectors on the subject. But I think this is one of those questions where we'll go back, take it as homework, and make a decision based on a number of factors.
Q: What has been done to address the presentation setup for online interviews?
A (Ryan): A lot of this is directed at interviews that I did, particularly over the summer. I think there's a lot of confusion over the timing of some of the criticism that I got and what I fixed and when I fixed it. I did see the criticisms of the lighting in my office, and unfortunately I've done about four or five interviews in a very short period of time. The first one came out, the criticisms resulted from that, and I ordered some lighting and things. Over the course of the next three to six weeks, the remaining interviews continued to come out, and a lot of people continued to criticize those videos. And not only criticize the lighting, but now criticized me for not listening to the community and fixing the lighting issue. So I think there were some timing issues there where it's like, well, I can't control when the videos come out. Subsequent to that, I did get some additional feedback that it wasn't sufficient. I switch to actually taking all of my interviews from the office if video was to be used on any of those, including when videos were being recorded from other time zones - I've gone in as early as six o'clock in the morning to the SkySong offices to take those. We don't have a studio at the office, it's just a one room office. There's not a lot that we can do about the arrangement of the furniture which is in the room and attached to the walls.
So we did get some feedback from Tao recently on this issue. He did a video on the poor quality and had some suggestions for us. He sent over a list of equipment, and I've been working with him on exactly what the setup of the room is and generating ideas. There are some limitations, but I'm going to take further steps to address this, including ordering of a backdrop that we can set up in the middle of the room so that you're not looking at a wall behind me. Some additional equipment around lighting as well as microphones in order to get rid of the headset and things of other nature. So I have been listening to the community, the timing of the videos doesn't always work in my favor, after I fix something and then more videos come out. But I am listening to you, I am trying to fix it within the limitations that we do have. So Tao has been very helpful on that, I thank him for the help, we're ordering the equipment and hopefully this addresses the community's concern about the professional presentation issues.
Q: What progress has been made with Shift PR?
A (Fernando): The six months that were included in their proposal that was approved are ending this month. The proposal was made at a higher Dash price but then it went down and was cashed out at a lower rate. So in the end both effects have canceled out and they've been able to provide service for the full six months. They are doing another proposal - I think it's going live today, so there will be a lot of information in there with all the Dash Watch reports and all that. But as for the key achievements nearing these months, one good thing to talk about is they've successfully established a full network collaboration. It's not them working with Dash Core Group - we are coordinating that work - but they are also working with the other funded organizations that are doing outreach. Dash Next, D-A-CH, Dash News... in some capacity they usually attend the meetings we have so that's been a good improvement for them to really be the PR firm of the network, not of DCG. Also they've managed to finally open CoinDesk to Dash. We've had a series of positive articles in the last few months. Also in other crypto media, but CoinDesk was probably the most desired by all of us. They have also managed to put a few pieces in more mainstream media. But in any case, I'll just ask everyone to examine the proposal they make and see the Dash Watch reports and with that make a decision. I think we would be good keeping some PR support for the upcoming months, but that's for everyone to decide in the same way in which we decide everything at Dash.
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Q: Dash v1.0 release is approaching, does DCG have any planned advertisement and/or publicity campaign for this long-awaited release?
A (Fernando): As everyone has heard, Dash Platform is gonna hit Evonet later this year. But as Bob said, it's going to be a complex testing phase because the release is huge and complex. So we don't have a certain date when it's going to hit Mainnet yet. What we are going to be doing is a lot of outreach and education to media partners and developers during this testing phase, also with some smaller events. And then do more communication and a big event when we hit Mainnet, hopefully tagging along a big crypto conference to capitalize on their audience and developers being in town. We have some plans for that and budget, but everything will depend on dates and money available. We'll be doing a proposal to replenish the marketing budget probably in January, and then we'll have a bit more visibility on what we can do and what we can't. And also we'll be closer and have more information on dates by then. At the open house we will explicitly address this topic with more details on the plans for the next few months for that launch. Because as the person who asked the question says, this is a very long awaited release and we need to be doing everything we can for everyone to understand that Dash is now much much more and we have a platform which people can develop on top of for them to do amazing things.
Q: What is being done to make sure Evolution is delivered on time, on budget and in scope? Can the Evolution backlog be made public? Can you publish your sprint goals and how they relate to Evolution?
A (Bob): Great question! I'll take the opportunity for some clarification on it as well in my response. First of all, Evolution can't be delivered on time because Evolution isn't a product. Evolution is a vision that's made up of multiple products and so if we keep asking when is Evolution going to be delivered, I could answer that it already has, as the foundational components have been delivered, or that it never will, because a vision will always continue to evolve and be completed or grow. So I think we want to start shifting our questions to when will Dash Platform be available, when will DashPay be available, when will specific release numbers of those be available. That will be really helpful for the community overall to start referencing the individual products that make up and comprise the grand vision of what what Evolution is and was. So that's just a sidebar.
But to the point of the question, what are we doing to ensure that we can deliver everything on time? I'll apply this to all products to let you know what we've been doing on that. Really it centers around the adoption of agile development processes, which include specific roles on our teams such as product owners, who helped collect requirements and prioritize those, as well as using scrum masters to organize our backlog grooming, our sprint planning and our sprint review sessions. Those are being done religiously on both the the Dash Platform and the DashPay teams, which is what we're looking at here in the Evo types of releases. We've also had, as budget has allowed us, we've had a couple of very low-cost in-person meetups. Those have been important, because driving through tough technical discussions requires whiteboards and long days and repeated sessions that just is almost impossible in a distributed environment such as we are. Those meetups have been very helpful. We have adjusted resources - that's included adding a developer to our Platform team and and so we'll continue to look at that. We've also eliminated unnecessary complexities. So through our planning as well as our meeting efforts we've looked at opportunities to eliminate complexity and to pull things back, which really led to the approach of Evonet. Let's get the basics out, let's start building on it because if we continue to try to build the overall project or deliver the end goal in the first release, we just won't get there. So I think that those have all been very helpful.
As far as transparency on publishing sprint goals and how they really relate to releases: absolutely. We're very comfortable with that. Liz produces the product updates on a weekly basis, and I'll work with her to look at how we can tweak that and tie those into it to be a little bit more transparent on the products. So great questions, don't take my criticism as far as using the term Evo as as being anything else but clarifying to help us make sure that we're all setting realistic and achievable expectations.
Q: Is DCG actively researching ways to provide Dash price stability in terms of USD (e.g. some sort of Dash-based stable token) or is it still counting on "mass adoption" to solve it?
A (Ryan): Obviously right now our focus is on delivering Platform and the related capabilities such as Dashpay, those types of things. So that that's where our development resources are focused. What Dash Platform does allow for is the issuance of tokens in a similar way to SLP on Bitcoin Cash, but in a far more elegant and extensible fashion. Bitcoin Cash relies it on larger OP-return field in order to facilitate that. You'll be able to do much more in a much more customizable way on Dash Platform. So it is absolutely possible to issue tokens. It is possible to issue some type of algorithmic or stable token, custody fund token of some sort upon the Dash blockchain so there will be the ability to do that. I think as far as Dash Core Group goes, I don't think this will be our immediate focus. We do have a lot of other components that we plan to release that add value. But there's nothing stopping other teams from pursuing something like this or companies that would want to issue something on on our blockchain. So it's absolutely possible.
Beyond this though, as part of the work that we're doing on the economic revamp, there will be some component that delivers additional price stability that is kind of an incidental benefit if the initial ideas that we're batting around there come to fruition. Hopefully more details on how that would affect volatility will be available to the community before the end of the year. So there are some steps that we can take even without introducing a stable token of some type.
Q: Looking forward, can illegal material be kept on the Dash blockchain. If so, can it be eradicated?
A (Ryan): The impetus for this question is concerns over things like child pornography and other data that might be unsavory and certainly could be against the morals or ethics of people involved in running masternodes, as well as a reputational risk for the network and so on. The answer is... is it technically feasible to submit data to the network of this nature? The answer is yes. Is it economically feasible? Probably not. The cost of transactions will be tied to the size, and certainly things like images and videos in particular would be extremely expensive to support. Beyond that, we are planning to introduce features that enable the data to be pruned, or in a decentralized manner, for data to be eradicated from the network. These are very complicated features. They aren't necessary for us to deliver Evolution or deliver Platform (excuse me). So they'll have to come in a subsequent release. But we are contemplating how this could be done and evaluating alternatives there. I think there there can be some protections in place where the network overwhelmingly objects to hosting certain types of data. It does need to be done in a decentralized fashion though, and that certainly increases the complexity of doing something like that. But we're at least thinking about it and how it could be done in a future release.
Q: What changes have happened at DCG that resulted in Dash Evolution being late? How many resources have been retired in favor of more efficient ones?
A (Bob): Well, I gave you my soapbox speech before about Evo being a vision as opposed to a specific product. I think that led to a long timeline from original announcement to when the first set of code and product is actually hitting the market. It was announced in early 2016 without a full design but with, you know, an aspiration to develop it, which was great. And a year later there was somewhat of a design at that point in time. Again, all of this was before even the formation of Dash Core Group as an entity. I think understanding that there wasn't a realistic plan put in place when some original timelines and dates were communicated is probably fair to recognize.
As projects and priorities have come up, obviously we needed to lay down some foundational elements in Dash Core, and we also started to prioritize other efforts such as the security of our network over just pure delivery towards Platform and Dashpay. ChainLocks and InstantSend improvements are good examples of that. So when I came on board, my observation was we had a great vision, which we still do. We had a potential design: it was a design, but it was only a potential design. There were very little details of implementation, so until you get into those details, obviously then the design has to be able to change as well, which it has. We've worked very hard at that over the last year. The team is a great team and is excited about this impending delivery. So again, we've delivered those those foundational components and will continue to deliver quarter-over-quarter. I think that's the commitment that we have as a team. I'm excited to see Dash Platform and watch it really provide as a catalyst for growth of the Dash network overall, just as any platform entree into the market does. Salesforce as a platform, Amazon as a platform... Dash as a platform has great opportunities there. So I'm excited about that.
As far as resources go - the question asks how many resources have been retired in favor of more efficient ones - you know, I would say our personnel decisions that have been made over the last year have led to a significant reduction in resources. All of those have been in favor of greater efficiency and greater productivity out of our resources. My sense is (and this is based on other opinions that are shared with me as well) is that we we've never had levels of efficiency in development before that we're having right now. So I think that's great. Part of it is again going back to the the previous question about the fact that we have good processes in place. We have a team that really enjoys working together. Trust is continuing to grow and we just have to get the delivery out the door. I won't go into details, because numbers lead to names, and just out of respect for everybody who's contributed to the project, let me just say that we have a very efficient yet unfortunately a very lean team today. We'd love to have more resources, but we just can't afford it at this point.
A (Ryan): We are a significantly smaller team than we were a year ago, but certainly from my vantage point, the output of the team is higher than it's ever been. So I think that really speaks to a lot of things, including the deployment of lean methodology, Bob's leadership, the team learning to work together more efficiently and clear direction. We're just getting better at all the aspects, including planning. I think that you've seen that in the most recent couple of quarters where these dates haven't moved. We have a much better handle on what it takes to get the job done.
Q: What is the impact on price of the monthly budget payout and subsequent monthly cashout from treasury funding?
A (Ryan): That is very difficult to predict for obvious reasons, including the fact that with a lot of exchanges it's difficult to ascertain what our true trading volume is, because a lot of exchanges exaggerate their trading volume. There is a correlation between the budget payouts and price that surrounds the budget payout date. Price tends to be depressed in the couple of days before and couple of days after the budget payout. There is some kind of an impact. That impact seems to be temporary, but it's very difficult to ascertain. You simply can't determine the exact impact. But I would say that the budget payout pales in comparison to the amount of payout that we experience every day throughout the rest of the month for mining operations which are essentially breakeven operations. Counting the cost of equipment and electricity and operations, the network obtains about as much hash rate as that funding can afford. So those operations have a tendency to need to liquidate their income in order to pay for their operations. That is probably a much larger impact on price than the monthly budget payout. Dash Core Group does spread its selling out over the course of the month. That tends to yield a better price for Dash Core Group, and it also has less of an impact on volatility around that budget payout period. Whatever impact there is, it is small, but it is statistically significant that there is a small drop in price right around the budget payout every month. People can use that information to their advantage: perhaps if you're planning on buying Dash, that would be a good time as a month to do it, and it would help stabilize price during those periods. At this point as the monetary base grows, I believe that impact will become less and less because it'll be such a small percentage of the circulating coin.
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Q: Which Dash Platform fees collection scenario has been selected by Dash Core Group for collecting fees from state transitions? (scenarios: fees collected by the nodes who processed the state transition, versus fees added to ordinary masternode payouts, versus a fees hybrid solution) Has consensus been reached on that part?
A (Liz): The team has completed initial research to define several possible approaches to this, and our next step is to have a discussion about which of the various options laid out will suit the network's needs most effectively. The tradeoffs are around preventing malicious nodes from gaming the system and causing storage costs to rise for other nodes, while still ensuring consistent payouts.
Q: The Dash Blog states: "Deterministic fees are desirable for businesses and developers that may want to adopt Dash Platform, as they make it possible to calculate costs in advance for budgeting and planning purposes." Deterministic is a mathematical term, and is not understandable to businesses making budget plans. What do deterministic fees mean in economic terms? Can you give an example?
A: Deterministic just means that they will be stable and thus can be forecasted. The previous design of Dash Platform had state transitions being added to the core chain through mining the way other transactions are. However this would have subjected the fees to volatility as a result, with miners essentially determining the fee amount for a state transition. It was decided this volatility would not be acceptable to a business trying to do budget planning as you noted, or to a user who wants to know how much a particular action within an application will cost.
Q: There seem to be new initiatives using our old logo. Is anything being done to manage and guide people to the correct Dash branding? I note that Trezor is using our old logo on their wiki
A: The issue specific to Trezor has been resolved in cooperation with Trezor support since this question was raised. All branding is available in a comprehensive brand guidelines section on dash.org, together with image assets in all common formats. We have created accounts and uploaded vector art compliant with our new branding style guide to all of the most popular vector art and logo sharing sites. We reached out to popular independent artists responsible for the rendered art common in crypto news media on stock image sites, and commissioned one of them to create new high resolution rendered art according to our new branding guidelines. We are also pleased to note that some community members are creating high quality art, and we encourage submissions to both free and paid image sharing sites to ensure this content is readily available.
Q: How are Ryan and the various team members emotionally handling this extended bear market and drop in ranking?
A: The price does impact our ability to staff the team with all of the roles we need, which places extra responsibility on all of us. We are all playing multiple roles for extended periods. Emotionally, the team is holding up extremely well, and the prevailing attitude is to put our heads down and work our way through it. We are also more prepared to endure low prices than we were in December 2018.
Q: Do Tim Drapers decentralized accounts pose a threat to Dash Evolution?
A: Liz (w/ help from Dana): This solution simply resolves an address to a username. This means that funds will be sent repeatedly to the same address, making it much easier to know how much money is being held with a particular username. As a result, this solution has some drawbacks when it comes to security and privacy. On the other hand, the name service being introduced as part of Dash Platform will preserve all the best features of HD wallets. Every time you send a payment, the blockchain records a different address. We are also looking at enabling interoperability with other coins in the future.
Q: Is it viable to develop a #BlockchainApp on a platform which has only one #token (no #ColouredCoins, #ERCtokens, etc)? Would this attract #developers? How important is for #startups to monetize their app through subtokens?
A (Liz): The concept of subtokens is being explored as a potential roadmap item and could be added to Dash Platform in the future. We do believe there is potential to attract additional developers to the project by allowing them to easily bootstrap applications using our infrastructure. In the interim, developers will be able to create apps with Dash-based business models.
Q: Dash Evolution is one product with many functionalities. What % of the final vision will be delivered in testnet in 2019? The devil is in the details?
A (Liz): As Bob alluded to on the quarterly, we actually view Evolution as a vision rather than a product. Therefore it is really one vision with many products, as opposed to one product with many functionalities. The release of the initial set of components of Dash Platform to the public testnet (Evonet) represents the next big step towards it. It is hard to say what % of the final vision that represents, as our goal is to follow an iterative release process that involves repeated testing and optimization based on the results and feedback we get.
Q: @RTaylor05 if you had to go 5 years back in time which decisions would you change? How does this answer affect your future decisions?
A (Ryan): I get asked this question often. I would have made completion of the legal structures - particularly Dash Core Group and the trust - as my top priority in 2017. My vision was to get those structures in place and operational (e.g., elected trust protectors) so that DCG could build a reserve, and open bank and exchange accounts. In the absence of those structures, entrusting individuals with a core team wallet with millions of dollars was an unacceptable legal risk. If that work had happened faster, we could have built a massive reserve in late 2017 and early 2018 hedged out to USD. A financially strong DCG would have been valuable for the network going into this bear market. Much of the funding during that time went unused or was directed to low-value initiatives. Glenn and I have worked out extremely robust hedging, cash flow, and reserves processes that take advantage during high price periods to build reserves and preserve funding during low price periods.
Our growth during 2017 was chaotic and frankly inefficient. I would have grown the team more slowly and taken a more active role on the technology side to ensure more structure and processes were in place before adding team members at the pace that we did. Bob has done a tremendous job making the technology activities efficient and high performing.
Q: What is the strategy, if any, regarding Dashpay username allocation?
A (Liz): On the initial release of Dash Platform to the public testnet (Evonet), folks will be able to register test identities and names. However these will not be transferred to mainnet automatically when Platform is launched to mainnet, so users will have to re-register identities and names at that time. We have been considering various approaches to how to appropriately manage username registration on mainnet in a decentralized way that protects users of the system from fraud, and the username registration behavior observed on Evonet will help shed light on the best option to pursue.
Q: Have PR companies such as SHIFT given any advice on improving Dash's branding and image or pointed out faults in Dash's branding or image, and what are they?
A (Fernando): We discuss our branding and how we are perceived constantly. Summarizing, they always insist on simplifying the messaging. Talking more about the users and the problems we solve. They've also brought up on several occasions the need for everyone involved in Dash to behave in a professional and friendly manner. More specifically, they have mentioned on several occasions how journalists have complained that the Dash project is too aggressive with them on social media and how that makes covering Dash less attractive to them.
Q: Does PR firm SHIFT have a marketing strategy for the release of Dash Core v1.0 ?
A (Fernando): Shift is a PR firm. PR is an important part of our marketing mix, but it is just one part. The PR plan is to increase outreach to journalists during testing so we can then push for more coverage when Dash Platform reaches mainnet. However, their contract is due at the end of this month and they have just posted a new proposal, so they will only be involved if that proposal passes.
Q: Has there been any discussion regarding some sort of anonymous "payment code", whereby people can accept payments without doing the username thing? For example, a six digit number with a two minute lifetime (similar to google authenticator).
A (Liz): users who don't want to register usernames will still be able to accept payment via any cryptographic address in the same way they do today. That said, our implementation of usernames is going to offer a higher level of financial privacy than many of the other username implementations out there in crypto at the moment, which often expose the entire payment history for a particular username and placing their financial security at risk. The Dash Platform implementation will ensure that a new address is recorded on the blockchain each time a payment is made for a particular username.
Q: How will usernames work? I think it is important that everyone has a unique username (like twitter or email) rather than multiple people with the same username but with the hidden identifier number like on Discord. People should be able to hold up a sign that says "please send Dash to @mastermined" or tell people on youtube/video to send donations to @mastermined. Is that how it will work?
A (Liz): Yes, currently our plan is for usernames to be unique at the platform level for usability reasons, as you described. In addition, users of DashPay will have the ability to add a display name (also called a "nickname"), similar to most apps (for instance, on Twitter you have your handle of @mastermined, plus your display name). Unlike the username, the display name will live at the app level, meaning it is a specific feature of the DashPay app.
Q: Chain analysis companies are not only using on-chain data, they are analyzing communications between nodes (ping times etc). What can we do about this?
A (pasta): All communication between nodes is non encrypted, bitcoin is working on changes a v2 P2P setup which is encrypted. We plan to backport that asap once it is merged into bitcoin (bitcoin works slow, may be a while).
Q: Is there a possibility to integrate some kind of "dispute resolution" for Dash transactions? I believe this to be a large barrier to mass adoption.
A (Robert): This is one of the items on our backlog for long term, however it won't be implemented with the MVP version.
Q: Has anyone considered Coinbase Earn, and if so is that a possibility? what's the status is those talks have already begun?
A (Fernando): Yes, we've discussed this with Coinbase. We are working with them in finding ways to fund the campaign since the token pays for everything, and the cost is much higher than what we can pay at once.
Q: Why was the Open House announced so late, only 3 weeks away?
A (Fernando): We needed to be sure about certain development milestones were reached so we could be sure that everything and everyone was available at a specific date. This didn't happen until quite recently, and then we had to work with SkySong to find an available date, which took us a few days. It is worth noting, however, that we already mentioned in the previous quarterly call deck that there would be an event. It was also mentioned in the Dash Convention Europe.
Q: Considering the high cost, difficulty, and loss of privacy involved in exchanging the money people earn (e.g. USD, VES) into DASH, what's DCG strategy to facilitate sustainable consumer adoption?
A (Fernando): We are looking for ways for users to receive Dash in exchange for their work, services or products. If they get paid in Dash and they use it, the costs and complications are drastically reduced. This also ends in someone else receiving Dash and repeating the cycle. Remittances or salaries paid partially or fully in Dash are examples of this.
Reactions: mastermined


Leaked documents show the paper trail of the Heritage Oil and Gas Limited Company's attempts to avoid tax payments in Uganda, writes Tabu Butagira.
The Heritage Oil and Gas Limited Company knew beforehand of a capital gains tax that Uganda intended to impose, and worked aggressively to circumvent it, according to previously unreported details about the scandal.
The company, also known as HOGL, besides deciding to fight the tax liability head-on, engineered a re-domiciliation from the Bahamas to Mauritius as the latter has a double-taxation agreement with Uganda.
In an email on 1 April 2016 to the UK's Guardian newspaper, HOGL, through its law firm, Carter-Ruck Solicitors, said the process of re-domiciliation began "long before the completion of the transaction [in Uganda] … [and] for a variety of business reasons".
After HOGL sold its 50% stake in Uganda's oil fields to Tullow Uganda Limited in 2010 for $1.5 billion, the biggest windfall of the country's nascent petroleum sector at the time, through the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), the Ugandan government applied a $404 million capital gains tax on the transaction.
Tullow Uganda is a subsidiary of Tullow Oil, which, like HOGL at the time, was listed on the London Stock Exchange. HOGL shares' listing and trading on the stock market was suspended on 27 June 2014 and cancelled four days later, on 1 July, according to information from the company's website.
The tax dispute became a protracted legal battle and different courts, including a Ugandan Tax Appeal Tribunal and a commercial court in London, took four years to resolve it.
New evidence shows that HOGL learned of the imminent tax liability weeks before it was officially imposed and contracted tax accountants and lawyers to fight it off as unwarranted and illegal.
The oil firm settled for two options: tackle the levy head-on and, if that failed, move the business and assets to a tax haven with the professional help of lawyers and accountants. Whereas HOGL was at liberty to restructure its business portfolio, including for the purpose of paying the least taxes, its re-domiciliation approach was contrived to defeat the tax liability in Uganda, according to copies of emails obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
The proposal to re-domicile from the Bahamas to Mauritius correspondence shows, was "primarily due to the double tax agreement between Uganda and Mauritius".
HOGL then contacted Bruce McNaught, a chartered accountant and then director of Hansard, the firm's administration office in Guernsey, who on 8 February 2010 wrote to Messrs Moller and Morris introducing Mossack Fonseca's Bahamas office as the oil firm's registered agent. The identities of Moller and Morris are not clear. Mossack Fonseca the law firm at the center of the Panama Papers scandal and is renowned for helping investors set up companies in tax havens.
The double-taxation agreement enables only one of two countries where an individual or entity earns income to collect tax, and Kampala signed one with Mauritius to attract direct foreign investment, Uganda's Foreign Affairs ministry Permanent Secretary James Mugume said on 20 March 2016.
"The double-taxation principle is to benefit us, not the foreign oil companies," Mugume told Uganda's Daily Monitor newspaper. HOGL, however, embarked on a different game plan that people familiar with the dealings in the underworld of tax evasion say could have only been to deprive Uganda of the tax revenue.
"The proposal to re-domicile its operations is clearly an attempt at aggressive tax avoidance since the only motive is to dodge a potential tax liability," the executive director of the London-based Tax Justice Network John Christensen said.
Shortly after HOGL initiated the tax avoidance scheme, Hansard's general counsel Jonathan Hart, in a follow up to his colleague McNaught's email, wrote to the Mossack Fonseca's Bahamas office to emphasize how "extremely urgent" it was to stop the capital gains tax.
The teams then set up an impromptu conference call to discuss the nitty-gritty, shortly after McNaught, in his email, sought guidance on know-your-customer requirements and key information to minimise risks across jurisdictions, including on anti-money laundering, to allow them to assemble the material necessary to save HOGL from the huge capital gains tax.
In July 2015, International Monetary Fund (IMF) researchers published an estimate of profits shifted by multinational companies, suggesting that developing countries such as Uganda lose around $213 billion a year, almost 2% of their GDP, to this practice.
In 2000, the IMF's Monetary and Exchange Affairs department listed Mauritius as one of the offshore financial centers where companies prefer to be headquartered to avoid paying tax, Uganda's Observer newspaper reported, adding that the operation of offshore financial centers reduces transparency in different jurisdictions and impacts negatively on good governance.
At below 14%, Uganda's tax to GDP ratio is one of the lowest in East Africa, putting authorities on tenterhooks to muster resources from all tax heads.
The London court heard that in one such meeting on 3 August 2010 with Tullow's head of tax Richard Inch, Kagina lost her temper and "there was shouting and she was angry". When they met two months later, on 23 October 2010, Kagina told Inch, "tax is imposed and collected by law, not compromise".
Because Tullow, as the buyer, had yet to pay HOGL, the Ugandan government threatened to not renew its exploration licenses, which were due to expire, unless it deducted and remitted the equivalent capital gains tax.
In April 2011 Tullow capitulated and sent paid the Ugandan government $121 million, the equivalent of a 30% threshold down payment, antecedent to filing of tax appeals under the country's laws. The balance of $283 million was deposited on an escrow account with Standard Chartered Bank in London, pending resolution of the tax dispute that ended in 2013.
Another $30 million was separately assessed on a $100 million that HOGL additionally paid Tullow as a cash settlement arising from a breach of the companies' Sharing and Production Agreement.
HOGL later opposed these tax payments as "collusion" between Tullow and the Ugandan government, resulting in the case in London that Justice Burton decided in Tullow's favour on on 14 June 2013.
The URA deferred comments for this story on lessons it learned from the tax dispute, but Uganda's Parliament is currently considering proposed amendments to the country's income tax law to help close some of the loopholes that foreign investors exploit.
HOGL, alongside Hardman Resources Pty, which the parent Tullow Oil Plc later acquired, and Tullow Uganda Ltd, gained a reputation in Uganda by striking the first commercially viable quantities of the hydrocarbon deposits, bringing the country closer to becoming an oil producer.


The prickly pear cactus produces pads and fruit that are a wonderful addition to any diet. They are good for you and taste good. Many are scared off by the spiny surface that makes harvesting, let alone cooking, seem impossible. With a few simple precautions, harvesting your own prickly pear pads and fruit can be a rewarding experience.
Prickly pears are not only spiny, they have microscopic hairs called glochids that will stick in your skin and drive you to distraction. Protect your skin during the harvesting process, as well as the cleaning process.
The fruit will lose its glochids when it's most ripe, but that season varies depending on the type of prickly pear. Young pads are softer, while older pads are tough, with thicker sap. Choose your preference, but most prefer the younger pads and leave the older ones for the animals to forage from.
Pads can be cut off or torn off. Cutting the pads off stresses the rest of the cactus less and is therefore preferable. You can either grip them with your gloves or a pair of long handled tongs. The fruit should be twisted off gently so as not to damage the connecting pads. Place harvested pads and fruit into your bucket.
This will rinse off a large percentage of the glochids. You can attempt to tweeze off further glochids, but be careful to rinse the tweezers regularly to minimize transference. You can also rub off glochids with paper towels. Make sure to support the fruit with the towel at all times and avoid bare skin.
For the fruit, cut the thick skin off at the top and the bottom. It will take practice to get the cuts accurate. Rinse the knife between cuts in case of glochids. Cut the fruit in half and peel off the skin gently.
For the pads, either use the vegetable peeler to remove the spines and glochids, or burn them off. Some place the pad on the stove or a barbeque, others prefer to direct the flame of a culinary blow torch. Don't worry about charring the surface a little. You can always cut that part off when you prepare the pad.
Eat! Once your pads and fruit are spine free, enjoy them in any number of recipes.


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Q: Approach to struct inheritance in SwiftUI let's imagine the following situation: there's a book with different sections and each sections consists of different paragraphs.
strut Book: Identifiable {
  let id = UUID()
  var title: String
  var author: String
  var sections: [Section]
}

struct Section: Identifiable {
  let id = UUID()
  var label: String
  var paragraphs: [Paragraph]
}

Within this paragraphs, there are different types too, so let's say: ParagraphQuestion, ParagraphAsk and ParagraphWork. These paragraph structs have something in common and inspired by other languages, inheritance would be the way to go I guess.
protocol Paragraph {
  var id: UUID
  var title: String
  var text: String
}

struct ParagraphA: Paragraph, Identifiable {
  let id = UUID()
  var title: String
  var text: String
  var isA: Bool
}

struct ParagraphB: Paragraph, Identifiable {
  let id = UUID()
  var title: String
  var text: String
  var isB: Bool
}

struct ParagraphC: Paragraph, Identifiable {
  let id = UUID()
  var title: String
  var text: String
  var isC: Bool
}

The second problem is, I don't how the best practice looks like to render those different paragraphs. According to the above example, a section object would have a property called paragraphs, that consists of one or more objects of those different paragraph structs. To achieve it, maybe a parent-protocol would be a proper solution, that has all the shared properties of each Paragraph* struct.
At the end a switch/case in the view template would decide which child view to render, based on the object type at the specific index at the current iteration.
var label: String
@Binding var paragraphs: [Paragraph]

var body: some View {
        NavigationView {
            ScrollView(.vertical, showsIndicators: false) {
                ForEach(paragraphs.indices) { index in
                    switch type(of: paragraphs[index]) {
                      case ParagraphA.Type:
                          ParagraphAView(
                              paragraph: self.$paragraphs[index]
                          )
                      case ParagraphB.Type:
                          ParagraphBView(
                              paragraph: self.$paragraphs[index]
                          )
                      case ParagraphC.Type:
                          ParagraphCView(
                              paragraph: self.$paragraphs[index]
                          )
                    }
                }.foregroundColor(Color(.darkText))
            }
            .navigationBarItems(trailing: Image(systemName: "plus").padding(8))
            .navigationBarTitle(label)
        }

    }

At the moment, I'm not able solve the error Failed to produce diagnostic for expression occurring at the returning body view
Any other approaches to solve this situation? Would it be better to have one "big" struct with all shared properties required and isA, isB and isC as optionals?
Thank you very much in advice!

A:
These paragraph structs have something in common

That suggests a protocol, but you'd need to explain what that "something" is. It may also suggest composition (HAS-A rather than IS-A). It may also suggest an enum. It really depends on what these look like.
In Swift, however, inheritance should generally be your last choice. There are definitely reasons to use it, and it's fully supported. But is not the preferred way to do things. (You'll notice very little inheritance in stdlib. That's on purpose.)

and inspired by other languages

You should be very careful before allowing that to influence your design in Swift. Different languages have different patterns that make sense. There's an old saying that you can write FORTRAN in any language (but you shouldn't). If you take each word of an English sentence and translate them into Spanish, the result may be comprehensible, but it'll be horrible Spanish. The same is true of computer languages. Think about your problem and solve it in Swift. Don't try to transliterate some other language into Swift.
How to render the paragraphs will depend strongly on the problem. The paragraphs could know how to render themselves into a context (like a UIView and a CGContext), or they could just be data and some renderer might know how to render them (like an NSAttributedString and a CTFramesetter). Both approaches are sensible. It depends how you expect your program to evolve in the future. Do you expect there to be more kinds of paragraphs or more kinds of renderers in the future?
If you're uncertain, start by just making each type a struct that represents itself in the most obvious way (don't worry about rendering or methods). If you can't think of any data the struct absolutely needs, let it be an empty struct to start with. Then write the renderer based an initially-empty "Renderable" protocol. Whenever the renderer needs some information, add a method or property to the protocol. Then create extensions on your structs to conform to the protocol. This is not always the right design, but if you don't have another approach, it's decent starting point to explore the problem.

Your Paragraph protocol looks fine, but your isX booleans don't make a lot of sense. Is there any case where a ParagraphC wouldn't return isC == true? You're just reproducing the type.
In the example you've given, however, all your structs have precisely the same structure (id, title, text), and the only difference seems to be how they're rendered. If that's the case, then they just need a property that indicates how they're rendered. One way to do that would be an enum. That would look like:
struct Paragraph: Identifiable {
    enum Kind {
        case a, b, c
    }
    let id = UUID()
    var kind: Kind
    var title: String
    var text: String
}

struct ParagraphView: View {
    var paragraph: Paragraph

    var body: some View {
        switch paragraph.kind {
        case .a:
            ParagraphAView(paragraph: paragraph)
        case .b:
            ParagraphBView(paragraph: paragraph)
        case .c:
            ParagraphCView(paragraph: paragraph)
        }
    }
}

...

            ForEach(paragraphs) { paragraph in
                ParagraphView(paragraph: paragraph)
            }

Now maybe your Paragraphs have different properties, so you really do need a protocol:
protocol Paragraph {
    var id: UUID { get }
    var title: String { get }
    var text: String { get }
}

struct ParagraphA: Paragraph, Identifiable {
    let id = UUID()
    var title: String
    var text: String
    var aStuff: String
}

// ...

Then ParagraphView might look like:
struct ParagraphView: View {
    var paragraph: Paragraph

    var body: some View {
        switch paragraph {
        case let p as ParagraphA:
            ParagraphAView(paragraph: p)
        case let p as ParagraphB:
            ParagraphBView(paragraph: p)
        case let p as ParagraphC:
            ParagraphCView(paragraph: p)
        default:
            EmptyView() // You must handle every case
        }
    }
}

And the loop would need to call out \.id since a protocol can't be Identifiable.
            ForEach(paragraphs, id: \.id) { paragraph in
                ParagraphView(paragraph: paragraph)
            }

If there were many paragraph types (or they were likely to change over time), then the ParagraphView switch statement could become unwieldy, and there are other techniques you could start to use, generally by wrapping things in AnyView. For example:
protocol Paragraph {
    ... existing ...
    func makeView() -> AnyView
}

struct ParagraphA: Paragraph, Identifiable {
    ... existing ...

    func makeView() -> AnyView { AnyView(ParagraphAView(paragraph: self)) }
}

struct ParagraphView: View {
    var paragraph: Paragraph

    var body: some View {
        paragraph.makeView()
    }
}

There are many other approaches. Deciding the best one depends on your exact situation, how many paragraph types there are and how they're likely to change over time. There's no single best practice here. But a switch statement like in ParagraphView is probably fine.
(The reason you're having compilation problems is that your current switch statement doesn't handle all cases. It just falls through if the type isn't one of the ones given. You can't do that in SwiftUI; you must handle every case. But the compiler isn't always very good about giving helpful error messages. The best way to find what's going wrong is to split things into smaller Views, like I did with ParagraphView.)

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