Setzeus

Clarity, Carefully - Tx-Sender

Minimizing Exploit(s) That Hijack The Persistence Of Tx-Sender

First in a series of deep dives into Clarity, the dev language for Stacks. This opening piece covers tx-sender, one of the most commonly keywords; additionally, we explore how it's key property (persistence) can be hijacked for exploits.

Create Curiously & Consistenly

How Writing 100 Articles Made A Nobody $16k In 2 Months

A quick tale of flashing destitution & how a four year habit saved me at the most unexpected time. An ode to the force of compounding as seen through the lens of soft skills, hard skills, & social proof.

The Fourier Series

A Basic Overview & Visual Introduction To The Magic Of Waves

The Fourier Series is a long, intimidating function that breaks down any periodic function into a simple series of sine & cosine waves. It’s a baffling concept to wrap your mind around, but almost any function can be expressed as a series of sine & cosine waves created from rotating circles.

A Light Intro To Tensors

A Framework For Defining Geometric Objects In Space

How do we define geometric objects regardless of their perspective? In this lengthy guide, we'll cover the very basics of tensors - a mathematical object with invariant properties & meaning. Popularized by Einstein in his General Relativity equations, tensors are, in a way, the truths of the universe.

Young Marie Curie

The One That Radiated Her Way To x2 Nobel Prizes

Perhaps no one else in this series broke glass ceiling after glass ceiling, shattering the misconceptions of their times, like Madame Marie Curie. The eminent polymath scientist, she faced obstacle after obstacle, only to radiate through & rightly earn her legacy. Maintaining the same theme as previous entries in this series, we ask — what was she like in his twenties?

User Personas

Outlining User Types & Preparing User Stories

Product-community fit is paramount as it’s the organic predecessor to product-market fit. Now that we have our findings from the Market Research Survey (the previous deliverable), it’s time to increase the likelihood of product-community fit by piecing together actionable portraits & stories of User Personas.

Mandelbulb: Three Dimensional Fractals

Searching For The Mandelbrot In Higher Dimensions

Previously, we covered the history & the basics of iterating complex numbers in hopes of generating fractals. Starting from scratch with Julia Sets, we worked our way through defining & plotting the eminent Mandelbrot Set. This time, we search for the equivalent but in the 3rd-dimension.

Market Research Survey

Shaping The Early Community & Understanding Their Needs

Undoubtedly, one of the hardest lessons any product veteran learns from launching countless projects is that the fastest way to guarantee failure is by building something that no one cares about. This is why the very second deliverable holds a special place in in this design process: it’s the first user-facing item; aka, the first time we’re actively shaping the early community & leveraging it for actionable feedback.

Young Galileo Galilei

The One Chained To The Ground Yet Gazing At The Stars

It’s hard to highlight just how much courage entry #16 in this series exhibited; a less-spoken part of the legend, Galileo Galilei demonstrated extraordinary resilience from both financial & legal pressures throughout his life. Despite this, his accomplishments are on par & very deserving of his place among fellow polymaths; to better understand the nature & nurture that gave us Galileo, we once again ask — what was he like in his twenties?

From Dev Agency To Design Solution

How Nontechnical Founders Can De-Risk A Startup

The game has changed. App startups have slowly been commoditized which means that speed isn’t the differentiator anymore; early adopters no longer provide authentic feedback on poorly-designed MVPs because they no longer have the same patience for early products. The key differentiator in 2020 for a launching product is now community. And community loosely translates to: who cares about what you’re building?

Competitor & Inspiration Analysis

Or How To Start The Product Design Journey Aligned As A Team

The starting point for the entire SetDesign product design process, the very first deliverable, is none other than the Competitor & Inspiration Analysis. While it’s a design deliverable pieced together by a single designer, it’s paramount that all stakeholders/teammates participate as the exercise is absolutely communal & collaborative.

Fractal Geometry

From Gaston Julia To Benoit Mandelbrot

Fractals, the crux of fractal geometry, are infinitely complex & detailed patterns that are self-similar across different scales; they’re mathematical objects created by recursions of functions in the complex space. As we’ll see shortly, fractal geometry brings us much closer to replicating the irregularities & intricacies that surround us.

Young Mikhail Lomonosov

The Polymath of Russian Enlightenment

Our fifteenth protagonist this Masters of Many series, Lomonosov, led both a cultural & scientific revolution — helping position Russia as a center of 18-century Enlightenment. A man of legendary mystique, he’s well-deserving of his place among this group of polymaths. Persevering our niche focus, we explore his earlier years. In order to uncover their defining habits, choices & experiences we ask again: what was he like in his twenties?

What Is Sleep Hygiene?

Discovering & Maintaining Your Circadian Rhythm

We have the practice of diet as the core tool of our nutritional needs, exercise as the crux of our fitness needs, & therapy as the model for our mental health needs. And yet, counter-intuitively, we have no equivalent structural process for how we sleep. Given the volumes of literature detailing evidence that sleep is incontrovertibly critical to our well-being, it’s bewildering to observe the lack of guidelines.

Young Emanuel Swedenborg

The One That Straddled Science & Religion

From diverse scientist to mechanical inventor to religious philosopher, Emanuel Swedenborg is tragically overlooked as one of the greatest thinkers of the previous century. Maintaining the same focus as previous submissions, we ask again — what was he like in his twenties?

Apple Music — The Inflection Point

Apple Music is not the revolutionary music industry panacea promised, but it is the inflection data point that the music industry needs. Three distinct services encompass the new Apple ecosystem: Apple Music, Apple Music Radio & Apple Music Connect.

Start With Why

I. Why Start With Why?

Orville & Wilbur Wright, Bill Gates, Howard Schultz, Steve Jobs, Sam Walton, & Herb Kelleher didn’t run companies, they led movements. They all had a common way of communicating that’s the complete opposite of everyone else: they all started with the “X factor that trumps all predisposition & access to resources.” They all started with why.

The Effective Executive

Preface

Most books deal with managing other people; this book is about managing oneself for effectiveness. It’s not proven that one can truly “manage” another human — but one can always manage oneself.

All Marketers Are Liars

***Timeless Biz Book Summary #3, All Credit to Seth Godin***

Or, better put, many things that are true are true because you believe them. We believe what we want to believe & once we believe something it becomes a self-fulfilling truth — so the best marketers tell stories.

Peak

Peak opens by detailing a ground-breaking experiment that becomes the scientific support for the rest of the journey. In the 70’s, Steve Faloon, an undergraduate student at CMU was recruited for a simple experiment: memorizing as many digits as possible, each day just trying to memorize a single digit more.

The Power of Habits

Part One — The Habits of Individuals

Our medial temporal lobe houses a collection of organs that collectively make up our “limbic system” in our brain. The limbic system, among other critical “human” functions, is the main driver behind our short & long-term memory.

Starting A Tech Startup With Nontechnical Founders

Introduction & Purpose of Series

Sethau5 v2.0 (above) is now deprecated. No more living, working, and sleeping within the same 20 feet (at least, for now).

Cryptos In 3 Mins — Siacoin

Decentralized Storage for Businesses

AWS S3, Dropbox Business, Azure Storage, Box, & Google Drive — all storage providers for enterprises that have been locked in a fierce battle for corporate data. Even with zero technical knowledge, you’ve probably heard of at least one of the services above, which makes sense.

Cryptos In 3 Mins — Ripple & XRP

The Bridge Currency For A New Standard In Financial Institutions

Ripple, the brainchild of Ripple Labs, is consistently categorized as one of the more confusing cryptocurrencies; this stems from the fact that “Ripple” itself, is not actually a cryptocurrency (XRP, is). The terms I’ll introduce are not interchangeable.

Cryptos In 3 Mins — Monero

Bitcoin With Ring Signatures: Untraceability & Unlinkability

Contrary to popular belief, bitcoin transactions are not completely anonymous nor untraceable. They’re publicly visible on the general ledger.

Cryptos In 3 Mins — Litecoin

If Bitcoin Is Gold, Then Litecoin Is Silver

Except for few differences which we’ll cover, Litecoin, for all intents & purposes, is pretty much the same as Bitcoin. Yet these tiny differences were introduced with a greater philosophy in mind: to introduce a useful cryptocurrency for the common man.

Cryptos In 3 Mins — IOTA

Tangling With Scalability In The Future Internet of Things

It’s often said that Bitcoin likely won’t ever be used to buy coffee. Since mid-2016 the average transaction fee has topped out at a whopping $5. The goal of Bitcoin was to build a censorship-ship free currency, this was certainly accomplished.

Advanced Cryptocurrency Topics: Ethereum’s Plasma Intro

Part I — Revisiting Ethereum & Digging Into Scaling Issues

Ethereum & Vitalik Buterin. Together, product & founder, exploded into cryptocurrency celebrity-status almost immediately after going live in mid-2015. They’ve since remained the universal poster children for the Blockchain 2.0 revolution.

Advanced Cryptocurrency Topics: Plasma Key Innovations

Part III —Key Parts: Fraud Proofs & MadReduce

It’s only my opinion that the Proof-of-Stake bond(s) mechanism is one of the most exciting subtopics within the Plasma whitepaper — Plasma is filled with so much more. It’d be extremely unfair of me to not shine a light on the rest of innovative core features of Plasma.

Advanced Cryptocurrency Topics: Plasma’s Proof-of-Stake Proposal

Part II — Proof-of-Stake Bonds & Economic Incentivization

Before we dive headfirst into the Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm, I want to make something crystal clear: Plasma chains do not have to use POS & POS is not the single solution to scaling. Plasma chains of varying sizes reserve the right to implement whichever consensus algorithm is decided upon by those present for the Plasma origin block.

Cryptos In 3 Mins — Golem

The Worlds Largest Decentralized Supercomputer

What do SETI, the non-profit in charge of the search for extraterrestrials intelligence, & Folding @ Stanford, a research lab studying the millions of ways proteins form & fold, have in common? They’re both academic research projects that leverage computational crowdsourcing to vastly increase the speed at which said research is conducted.

Cryptos In 3 Mins — BAT

Basic[ally Pays For Your] Attention Token

$20 says you’re running an ad-blocker such as AdBlock, AdGuard, or UOrigin this very moment. The numbers are in my favor — over an astounding 600 million devices are running ad-blocking services at any give time.

Cryptos In 3 Mins — Dash

Self-Governing Digital Cash

The industry name “cryptocurrency” is, in my humble opinion, an unfortunate misnomer — it implies that every token & blockchain-based project’s goal is strictly mass adaptability as the one true, universal digital currency. While this was & remains Bitcoin’s goal, out of the literally hundreds of cryptocurrency projects that have entered the industry, less than a handful remain faithful to the original goal.

Cryptos In 3 Mins — Cardano

Blockchain By Philosophy Science

Blockchain platforms, smart contract platforms, & blockchains of blockchains — for the few that have braved exploring past Bitcoin, Litecoin & other digital currencies, you’ve probably noticed that the learning curve gets significantly harder & buzzword-ier. Bitcoin, as a single blockchain, has cemented its significance as a breakthrough technology, yet the majority of those buying Bitcoin still struggle to explain the underlying blockchain technology.

Cryptos In 3 Mins — Populous

Peer-to-Peer Invoice Factoring

Every company, whether a sole proprietorship, a limited partnership or a multinational corporation charges for their services and/or products. The actual document that serves this purpose is known in the business world as an invoice.

Advanced Cryptocurrency Topics: ERC20 Interface

Reviewing & Summarizing The ERC20 Token Interface

The Ethereum blockchain is a distributed, open-source blockchain-based computing platform. The resulting network, the Ethereum network, hosts decentralized applications.

Four Adventures In React VR — Part I

Pulling the curtains behind the upcoming WebVR revolution.

The official WebVR (Web Virtual Reality) https://webvr.info/ defines WebVR as: an open specification that makes it possible to experience VR in your browser. The goal is to make it easier for everyone to get into VR experiences, no matter what device you have.

WebVR Experiment: #1— Album Preview

6/16–3 Hour Sprint

This is a series of mini coding sprint experiments in the breakthrough Web Virtual Reality interface. In case that went over your head , virtual reality & augmented reality headsets allow now for direct browser & web access.

WebVR Experiment: #2 — Semi-Static Discography Preview

6/17–3 Hour Sprint

Experiment sprint number two is underway with a sharper focus on a much more manageable scope — an extension of the origin sprint’s attempt at creating an immersive multi-album artist discography. Well, we have one album…so let’s tackle that issue first by simply hard-coding two additional <a-box> components along the same x-axis as our first album component.

WebVR Experiment: #3— Dynamic Discography Preview

6/18–6/22 –4x45 Mins Sprints

Experiment sprint number three is now underway as the first intra-week sprint. For this sprint I once again elected to extend the previous sprint since I finished just short of the target/goal delivery.

WebVR Experiment: #4— Simple Music Visualizer

6/23–3 Hour Sprint

In case you skipped the italicized paragraph above, I”ll re-iterate here: the core focus of this article is not WebVR technology, but rather how audio works in modern browsers. As you read from the opening statement, the goal was to extend the previous artist discography by somehow inserting a music visualizer into the current scene aka…building a webvr music visualizer.

WebVR Experiment: #5 —Dynamic Discography Preview W/ Visualizer

6/24–3 Hour Sprint

This is a very exciting sprint as we try to integrate the music discography scene we’ve built in Experiment’s 1- 3 with the simple music visualizer made in sprint Experiment 4. I usually wouldn’t recommend this, but if you haven’t read the previous articles in this series it’s likely worth your time as I’m using those practice outcomes as this article’s starting-point. Let’s get into it!

WebVR Experiment: #6 — SummerVR.Club

6/25–6/29 –4x45 Mins Sprints

The first half of 2018 introduced an unreal amount of amazing albums, from the entire G.O.O.D Music album series, to new childhood favorites Gorillaz & Panic! At the Disco, to double-sided Drake & Wiz Khalifa albums. Coincidentally, the first few of these “WebVR Experiment” sprints have led up to a really neat immersive music scene.

Bits & Bytes

Basic To The Basics

It’s been but half a century since the father of the Information Age, Claude Shannon, published the now industry-revered A Mathematical Theory of Communication dissertation. That’s the name of the declassified version published publicly by the then mid-30s mathematician in 1949.

Hashing Basics & History

A generic hash function is a special type of programming function that is used to map data of arbitrary size to data of a fixed size. Hash functions originated from a need to compress data in order to reduce the amount of memory required to store large files.

Blockchain Oracles

What They Are & Why They’re Necessary

In ancient Greek mythology, oracles were known as spiritual beings & sources of infinite wisdom & knowledge due to their connection communication with the gods on Mount Olympus (the spiritual world). The most well-known is the Oracle at Delphi — popularized by the now-revered classic, Oedipus Rex.

An Introduction To Block Explorers

Learning & Leveraging In-Depth Blockchain Data Through The Appropriate Platform

A blockchain, while certainly a marketing buzzword, is generally accepted as an immutable, distributed database; one in which each new “block” of data is confirmed to be truthful by some method (usually a Proof of Something) by a majority or measured minority. These blocks contain a batch of transactions that represent an exchange of value, usually denominated as a token or cryptocurrency.

Intro to Lightning Network Apps (LAPPs)

The idea of a second-layer scaling solution to Bitcoin, such as the Lightning Network, has far surpassed the days of ideation. Yet one of the most exciting features of the recently-implemented Lightning Network remains surprisingly undiscussed: the ability to build decentralized-like apps (known as Lightning Network Apps or LAppps) on top of the Lightning Network mainnet.

Exploring Cryptocurrency & Blockchain Projects Through GitHub

Blockchain/cryptocurrency projects & the ever-mysterious open-source. If you come from a nontechnical background, you’ve probably wondered just exactly what open-source means; if you’ve hung around developers, in particular, you might’ve even heard about the powerful GitHub & the world of repositories.

Blockchain Programming for New Developers — I

Programming Language Basics For Entering the Blockchain space

A few months ago, I had the pleasure of moderating a panel of four active NEO programmers at the San Francisco NEO Dev Conference. The topic of the panel was general blockchain programming, however, an additional caveat made this particular panel of participants very interesting: all four programmers wielded a different language of choice for working on the NEO project.

Blockchain Programming for New Developers — II

The Language Landscape

What’s the best language to kick-start a career in blockchain programming? That’s the question we set out to answer in Part I of this series.

Graph Theory — History & Overview

Part I — What Is Graph Theory & Why Is It Relevant Today?

Maybe it’s the intuitive hunch that analyzing systems as graphs will grow my understanding of decentralized vs centralized networks. The mathematician in me sees how nailing down network analysis can greatly benefit research in incentive-driven systems.

Graph Theory — Set & Matrix Notation

Part II — The Basics of Graph Theory Notation

In this article, in contrast to the opening piece of this series, we’ll work though graph examples. The first example graph we’ll review contains specific properties that classify it as a simple graph.

Graph Theory — Basic Properties

Part III — Moving On From Simple Graphs

Let’s take a step back in order to take a few more forward in our walk through the basics of graph theory. The previous article in this series mainly revolved around explaining & notating something labeled a simple graph.

Graph Theory — On To Network Theory

Part IV — The Basics of Network Theory

Finally, our path in this series of graph theory articles takes us to the heart of a burgeoning sub-branch of graph theory: network theory. Network theory is the application of graph-theoretic principles to the study of complex, dynamic interacting systems.

Logic Theory —Basic Notation

Part II — A Brief Look At Connectives, Implications & Quantifiers

The origin of logic theory starts at the concept of an argument. The majority of logic textbooks contain an opening, central definition for an argument.

Logic Theory — History & Overview

Part I — What Is Logic Theory & Why Is It Relevant Today?

Logic, in it’s multiple definitions, has been around since homo-sapiens evolved through the first cognitive revolution (~70,000 years ago). Without much awareness of the underlying process, our ancestors incontrovertibly displayed signs of reasoning as they rapidly adapted to ever-changing environments — eventually settling in all corners of an early Earth.

Logic Theory — Equivalency

Part IV — Using Truth Tables To Prove Equal Statements

This article extends our knowledge of truth tables by focusing on one, rather involved, final example. Instead of mapping out a single compound premise, we’ll directly compare two compound premises in order prove that they’re logically equivalent.

Logic Theory — Truth Tables

Part III — Intro to the Interdisciplinary Logic Tool

Now equipped with the principles of logic theory as well as basic notation, it’s time to explore the concept of equivalency in logic. Specifically, what makes two compound premises equal?

Set Theory — History & Overview

Part I — What Is Set Theory & Why Is It Relevant Today?

The concept of infinity is ideologically far from the average math terminology — no other topic transverses outside the circle of math in a way that’s translated from a practical, analytical tool to a phenomena of mythical renown. Rubbing shoulders with cultural topics such as religion & philosophy, the notion of infinity holds a peculiar aura of divinity.

Set Theory — Basic Notation

Part II — A Brief Look At Operations, Notation & Venn Diagrams

As stated in the previous article, one of the core benefits in learning set theory stems not from any particular theory, but rather the language established. Which is why the bulk of this follow-up piece covers the very basics of set theory notation, operations & visual representations extensively.

Design Process — Brainstorming

Part I — The Project Vision & Competitor/Inspiration Analysis

Ahhh a fresh, new project — very few things are equally exhilarating, right? Especially if it’s the freedom of a passion project. In this jolt of excitement, as a designer, it’s almost second-nature to immediately begin sketching/wireframing/greyscaling the idea in mind; and yet this is almost always the wrong first step.

Set Theory — Cardinality & Power Sets

Part III — The Intuition Responsible For Allocation Decisions

With basic notation & operations cleared in articles one & two in this series, we’ve now built a fundamental understanding of Set Theory. This third article further compounds this knowledge by zoning in on the most important property of any given set: the total number of unique elements it contains.

Design Process — Researching

Part II — Market Research Survey & User Persona

Part II of this design series shifts the focus from creating an internal guide for all stakeholders, to now combing through potential user markets to clearly identify prospective users & their needs.

Design Process — Mapping

Module III — User Journey Map & UX Wireframes

At this point in the game, through Module I & Module II in this series, we’ve now coalesced a common goal among stakeholders & painted a portrait of our perfect customer. With previous deliverables as reference points, the overarching goal of Module III is to map our product out by carefully accounting for every single possible user action & accompanying view.

Set Theory — Functions

Describing Behavior With Bijectives, Surjectives, & Injectives

Today we’re going to expand on functions within the world of set theory. Similar to previous concepts introduced, the nomenclature for standard functions within sets is slightly different than other branches of math, & therefore requires reviewing.

Design Process — Designing

Part IV — Greyscale, High-Fidelity, Early UI Kit, & Prototype

We’ve finally arrived at the module the majority of the world is familiar with: the mockup module. While the previous modules contained deliverables that aren’t as well-known outside of design circles, the deliverables included here align with the core of everyone’s expectation.

Young Benjamin Franklin

The Only President Who Was Never President

If you live on the American side of the great pond, then this is surely a man that requires little introduction. One of the legendary Founding Fathers of our beloved United States, Benjamin Franklin undoubtedly qualifies as an accomplished polymath.

Number Theory — History & Overview

Part I — What Is Number Theory & Why Is It Relevant Today?

Math is the Universe’s natural tongue. Since the very beginning of our existence as a species, numbers have deeply fascinated us.

Young Bertrand Russell

The English Gentleman That Never Stopped Learning

The second entry in this Masters of Many series, perhaps one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century, is none other than Bertrand Russell. A Nobel Prize-winning writer, extraordinary philosopher, revolutionary mathematician & social activist, he undoubtedly exemplifies the DNA of a true polymath.

Classic Cryptography Systems

A Visual Introduction To Three Basic Ciphers

Written communication is found in every instance of our history — dating back to our earliest days as a species. Prior to our discovery of agriculture & permanent settlements, nomadic tribes famously left behind stories of triumphs & hardships in primitive language structures known as proto-writing(s).

Young Leonardo Da Vinci

The Original Renaissance Man & Master of Many

It’s only appropriate that the third submission to this Masters of Many series lands on the 500th anniversary-month since his passing. Known for his feverishly inventive imagination & unquenchable curiosity, the original Renaissance man, Leonardo Da Vinci, is consistently revered as one of the most important & creative minds of all time.

Da Vinci — As An LGBTQ Icon

Dedicating His 500th Birthday To An Overlooked Triumph

I’m fascinated by fascinating people — particularly those that I consider masters of many. So it’s likely no surprise that Leonardo Da Vinci, the original Renaissance Man & polymath, is a lifelong hero.

Finding A Technical Founder

Or, How To Come Prepared As A Nontechnical Founder

Spend minimal months in tech or startup social media orbits & you’re bound to bounce into a nontechnical-founder horror story. Or worse, a public mocking of a poor business soul trying to build the next Uber for X or AirBNB for Y that’s yet to discover the inspector console.

Perspective On Monthly Subscriptions

Remaining Cash Neutral In A Subscription-Hungry World

Subscription-based business models absolutely eclipse alternatives, such as one-time downloads or in-app purchases; thoroughly-researched psychological concepts drive this cross-industry curiosity. People are very prone to forgetting monthly payments.

Young Thomas Young

The Visionary 20th-Century Universal Genius

The fourth entry in this series of Masters of Many in their formative years lacks the mainstream popularity of our previous protagonists, especially relative to Da Vinci & Franklin; Thomas Young, however, nonetheless embodies the perfect portrait of a 20th-century polymath. Praised by the likes of Eisenstein, Asimov, & Maxwell, Young’s accomplishments are countless & impactful; as renowned author Isaac Asimov once claimed [of Young]:

Differential Equations — History & Overview

Part I — What Is It & Why Is It Relevant Today?

Mathematicians & physicists tend to not agree on a whole lot. One incontrovertible truth that seems to permeate every STEM topic & unify both parties, however, is the principle belief that analyzing the dynamic relationships between individual components leads to a greater understanding of a system as a whole.

Building An WebVR Blockexplorer

Phase I — Why & WebVR

With under a rough total of 10 million consumer headsets sold combined, it’s clear that spatial computing (aka virtual reality & augmented reality) has yet to cross over to the mainstream. But cryptocurrency? Whew.

Young Mary Somerville

The 19th-Century Queen of Science

It’s often said that true mastery of a complicated subject is best marked by the ability to succinctly & clearly explain said subject. If that’s the standard, then there’s little doubt that Mary Somerville, the 19th-century Queen of Science, earned her spot in this series as polymath among the likes of Young, Russell, Da Vinci, & Franklin.

Lessons From Polymaths In Their 20s

Two Large Observations From Five Famous Figures

Polymaths, as masters of multiple fields, are simply fascinating individuals with astonishing levels of accomplishment. It’s commonly said that success leaves clues behind; if that’s the case, then the history of these special academics is surely marked with ocean-wide strokes.

Differential Equations — Basics

Orders Overview & Standard Notation

In the beautiful branch of differential equations (DFQs) there exist many, multiple known types of differential equations. In fact, one of the best ways to ramp-up one’s understanding of DFQ is to first tackle the basic classification system. Why? Because you’ll likely never run into a completely foreign DFQ.

Lessons Learned Scaling An Agency

Three Design Observations To Improve Client Communication

This upcoming July marks my sixth anniversary since setting out to attempt the Silicon Valley dream. Beginning the journey as half of a two-man team, the responsibility of product design fell straight into my lap; a then-business student in grad school, I had embarrassingly minimal exposure to anything in the creative world — principles, tools, practices, etc.

SteamVR 2.0 Tutorial: Laser Pointer

Using The Plugin Script To Raycast On Both 3D & Canvas Items

The use of laser pointers as a form of input is a common requirement for VR developers; yet, since the launch of SteamVR 2.0, close to zero resources exist on how exactly to set this up. Worse, pointers pose a particular problem in VR because, per the Unity documentation, it’s suggested that one use different raycast types when targeting different entities such as 2D, 3D or UI items.

CryptoSpace v1.0 Announcement

An Educational VR Blockexplorer Experience

Tired of nodding along silently when someone starts throwing crypto-babble around? Do you flush, stutter & struggle to make eye-contact when someone asks you to explain Bitcoin?

Young Richard Feynman

The Greatest Professor & Physicist Since Aristotle

t’s a well-known paradox that the most brilliant minds are often mediocre teachers. With decades sculpting advanced mental models, experts typically find it difficult to simplify their knowledge.

3 Lessons For Indie VR Developers

Tools, Patterns, & Stores Involved For Tethered Headsets

Whew! After an exhausting eleven months putting in two hours a weekday & eight hours a weekend, I finally shipped my solo VR experience, CryptoSpace. Since November of 2018, I’ve moonlighted on this project, marrying my two current interests: VR & cryptocurrency.

On Universal Basic Income

The Need To Work — Reflections On A Utopian Experiment

For the first time in our history, the idea of UBI, universal basic income for the uninitiated, is at the forefront of American culture. Whether it’s a sovereign government running experiments, the world’s most powerful VC/accelerator pumping out research, or a literal presidential candidate championing a “Freedom Fund” as his main platform, there’s no denying that the conversation is front & center.

Game Theory — History & Overview

What Is Game Theory & Why Is It Relevant Today?

Life is survival & survival is competition. Whenever two or more entities are faced with constraints, such as a fixed amount of resources, in a win/lose scenario, competition emerges. It’s inevitable & natural.

Young Sir Francis Bacon

The 16th-Century Wordsmith Wunderkind

A rare few people ever write with such elegance, purpose, & brilliance as to gain a conspiracy that suggests him/her as the true identity of William Shakespeare. It’s but guaranteed hearsay, yet this long-standing rumor speaks volumes for the man, one Sir Francis Bacon.

The Endgame of AR/VR

A Clock Is To Time, What A Headset Is To Space

A suite of time-management tools is to time, what eventual mixed reality will be to space. The theory here is that perfected mixed reality will unlock the door for spatial-management as a stand-alone field unlike that of time-management.

Unexpected Beauty in Primes

The Visualization of Primes & Its Potential Significance

The significance of prime numbers, in both everyday applications & as a subtopic pertinent to all branches of math, cannot be overstated. We quietly rely on their special properties to carry the backbone of countless parts of our society — all because they are an irreducible part of the very fabric of nature.

The Basics of Game Theory

Intro To Common Terms & Visual Layouts

Modern game theory, the applied math branch established by Neumann & Nash, is the study of mathematical models in conflict & cooperation between intelligent, rational, decision-makers. A tool used in a wide array of industries & fields ranging from economics, to political science, to computer science — the basics of game theory are surprisingly tenable to the average high-schooler.

Nothing To Hide, Nothing To Fear

3 Counters To The All-Too Common Justified Erosion Of Privacy

It’s a common saying from a cherished poem/song that the next revolution will not be televised. Most people, myself included, misinterpret that saying.

SteamVR 2.0 Tutorial: Scene Switch

The Basics Of Implementing SteamVR_LoadLevel.CS

A “must-have” for any VR experience, the ability to seamlessly transition between scenes can be implemented relatively easily through the SteamVR 2.0 plugin. Like the previous laser-pointer tutorial, the SteamVR plugin comes with a functional script for accomplishing a smooth load screen: SteamVR_LoadLevel.CS.

The Four-Color Theorem

Its Surreal Simplicity & Critical Challenge To Re-Define The Modern Theorem

Few mathematical theorems are ever covered & publicized to the greater mainstream (aka non-academic) crowd. Sometimes, because, well, math is boring to sane people, but mainly because many of these theorems are brutally convoluted & unnecessarily hard to grasp.

Young Jacques Cousteau

Art & Engineering, All Under One Purpose

Covering 70% of Earth’s surface, the ocean, despite our preference for land, remains the largest habitable ecosystem on our planet. Yet among the many polymaths we’ve now covered in this series, not one of them dedicated him or herself to water & its omnipresent properties.

Cones To Pixels

The Mathematics of Digital Color

Light, color & eyes — invisible energy waves, the core of beauty, & the portal to souls. Few topics have captivated the greatest minds like our collaborative search to more deeply understand how & what we see.

Terrible Tips From Da Vinci

How *Not* To Operate Your Freelancing Business

As a creative-tech freelancer, I’m reasonably fascinated by fascinating product people. One of which is my lifelong hero, the prolific Leonardo Da Vinci.

How To Count Cards

An Homage & Walk-Through Of The Infamous Hi-Lo System

A common cultural trope, as portrayed in Hollywood, for a financially-desperate mathematician, is to turn to some grey-shade, barely legal activity that leverages their deep understanding of numbers. Most of the time this entails some type of seemingly-impossible programming job aided by a noire tale of hackers & cyberpunk settings.

Young Nikola Tesla

The Enigmatic Electrician-Magician

Every so often, an individual graces our species with a life so accomplished that it simply escapes comprehension. In modern times, individuals like Elon Musk are admittedly approaching this cultural status — however, only time will tell as he/they likely have decades of progress left.