Moving in London

I’ve been living in the St John’s Wood district, London for almost 2 years. It’s a lovely place. I am glad to move in this area as my first place in London. But, now it’s time to move to other place. My wife and I really want to stay, but there is a few reasons I cannot be affordable.

My daughter needs to go to school from next year. And, in this area, there are a lot of good and outstanding private schools. In the UK, “private school”, “independent school”, and “public school” are same terms. It is meaning about that a child taker needs to pay an extra fee for schooling. “State school” or “primary school” are schools meaning about free. The private schools are extremely expensive which cost is going to be £14,000 to £30,000 per year. Of course, there are state schools also in St John’s Wood. But, after figuring out these schools’ score, I couldn’t say to stay St. John’s Wood for my baby.

So we considered area near schools in 3 different places in the Ofsted report, which shows all schools inspection report excluding a few independent schools including the secondary schools and special schools. It doesn’t means all schools not in this report are bad, but the most independent schools in this report are usually outstanding. So I just decided following this report. And also, I selected outstanding scored schools within 2016 to 2019, and then sorted out a few schools continuously outstanding. Yeah, I’m the helicopter father.

The 3 area are Fulham, Notting Hill, and Gospel Oak. Wimbledon is also one of the options, but it is too far from my office, so I decided one of them. I hope my wife and my baby satisfy the place and school. It’s all difficult to me because, it’s all new to me.

Lastly, I viewed a lot of properties. My and my wife’s satisfaction is not only problem, but also my two mischievous cats are normally not allowed in London, especially furnitured property. I finally found an understanding landlord, but it is always pain in my toes.

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#moving #in #london #my #cats #family #loveu

Am I a fully functioning adult?

When I was a kid or before thinking about a life, I thought an adult means just a grown-up. Frankly, the word, “Adult”, was a keyword for searching a vulgar stuff then. Sorry for disappointing, I was a really healthy and vigorous boy. After I was quest of a well recompense job, which is not able to be the most importance consideration, but still top-graded element, thinking about life and death well has been a crucial part of me, grown-up cannot be equated to meaning an adult next.

I don’t want to tell you a recondite story, I am incapable to proceed an profound, speculative subject. I am definitely a scientific, mathematical person. I’m just willing to introduce an article, Why are Adults so busy?. It is easily readable and well written, and also being formed with fascinating cases each of which is calculating the time spent for a functioning adult life approximately. Not all properties are able to be receptive, but these are plausible and believable. Just read for fun.

However, it is certainly right that the time is always a lack of fulfilling my desire.


 

Technical Perspective of Bitcoin (draft)

Abstract. What is different in the technical perspective in comparison with other systems? Specifically, a relational database management system, like Oracle, is considered as the comparing target system.

Introduction

Since Bitcoin is introduced by the dissertation, S. Nakamoto, as an electronic cash system, it becomes one of the most powerful, invaluable financial digital asset. Bitcoin sets a high value on reliability of data, which is a financial transaction history of each user, and availability of system. The negligent disposition of an anonymous requirement or high throughput is well-acquainted shortcomings, which are studied and developed actively with other titles analogous with Bitcoin.

However, in technical perspective, it is doubtful Bitcoin has any novelty or originality in comparison with database management system like Oracle or distributed systems, such as Bigdata, Hadoop, and Elastic.

What makes Bitcoin colossal for technology? Which algorithms or techniques are used, and for what they need? For answering these question, I present this article to expound on technologies that Bitcoin adopt without the monetary notation and to make a comparison between Bitcoin and typical systems.

Bitcoin Technology

Architecture

  • fully distributed system == decentralized system
    • What is the problem of a centralized system?
    • How to prevent fault?
    • How to fulfil the consensus?
  • network
  • data management
    • TX
      • lifecycle: creating –> broadcasting –> propagation
      • orphan pool
      • TX script: stack-based language
    • Block
      • lifecycle: create –>
      • orphan pool
    • Blockchain
  • scalability

Wallet

  • digital keys for a digital signature & address
    • User possesses digital keys in a user’s wallet.
    • User makes use of an address for a transaction.
    • User attaches a digital signature in a transaction to verify it.
  • Public key cryptography
    • digital keys
    • private key
      • generating
        • Type-0 Non-deterministic(Random), aka. Just a Bunch of Keys, JBOK
        •  Hierarchical Deterministic(Seeded), HD
        • Mnemonic Code
          • english words –> seed –> private keys
          • BIP0039
      • format
        • Hex
        • WIF = Base58Check(Hex)
        • WIF-compressed = WIF + ‘_01_’
      • encrypted private key: BIP0038
    • public key
      • generating: secp256k1, one of Elliptic Curve Cryptography, aka. ECC
        • Key = (x, y)
      • format
        • uncompressed(520) = 04 + x(256) + y(256)
        • compressed = 02(even)/03(odd) + x(256)
      • Wallet represents a private key to WIF or WIF-compressed, not both.
        • WIF private key –> uncompressed public key
        • WIF-compressed private key –> compressed public key
    • encryption by private, then decryption by public and vice versa
  • address for Pay-to-Public-Key-Hash, P2PKH
    • Base58Check(HASH160(public key of a recipient)) == address
      • HASH160(x) =RIPEMD160(SHA256(x))
  • address For Pay-to-Script-Hash, P2SH
    • Base58Check(HASH160(script of a recipient)) == address
    • implementation
      • Multi-signature address
  • vanity address == distinctive address
    • prevent to misguide to a different address (really?)

Transaction, TX

  • smallest data structure of Bitcoin
  • TX relies on previous TX.
    • A number of previous unspent transaction output, UTXO, must be designated as an input in TX.
    • Fee = output(new UTXO) – input(prev. UTXO)
  • TX script = a combination of locking and unlocking
    • Pay-to-Public-Key-Hash, P2PKH
      • to simplify Pay-to-Public-Key, P2PK
    • Pay-to-Script-Hash, P2SH
      • to redeem multi-signature

 

Block

  • pile of transactions
  • header
    • 80 bytes
    • previous block hash
    • Merkle root, hash root == TXs fingerprint
    • timestamp
    • difficulty target for PoW
    • nonce for PoW

Blockchain

  • ordered back-linked list of blocks

Emergent consensus

TX verification

  • independently
  • checklist

New block

Block validation

  • propagate new block on the network
  • checklist
    • block header (PoW value, …)
    • TX verification again

Blockchain selection

  • blockchain forks
    • select longest chain
    • greatest cumulative difficulty chain

To do

Reference

  1. Bitcoin: A Peer-to Peer Electronic Cash System, S. Nakamoto
  2. Summarize of Mastering Bitcoin, A. M. Antonopoulos, O’Reilly
  3. Bitcoin Developer Guide
  4. Bitter to Better — How to Make Bitcoin a Better Currency, S. Barber, X. Boyen, E. Shi, and E. Uzun
  5. Minimum Viable Block Chain
  6. Spanner: Google’s Globally-Distributed Database
  7. BigchainDB: A Scalable Blockchain Database

Consensus

 

Efficiency is not your friend!

You can increase your intelligence: 5 ways to maximize your cognitive potential, Andrea Kuszewski, Scientific American (March 7, 2011)

The phrase that I wrote as a title is memorable in the above article.

Long , but not too long in my mind, story is about the intelligence, which is regarded as a connate ability. The author organized five elements below to gain the increased intelligence and/or cognitive ability.

  • Seek Novelty
  • Challenge Yourself
  • Think Creatively
  • Do things The Hard Way
  • Network

More details, please read this article. Long, but not too long 😉

Most of all, it enticed me with “Efficiency is not your friend …”, being used as a title of this post. I always consider the efficiency when working and living. Using the shortest path to drive to a destination, scheduling my day work in hours, and so on. Because, I want to reduce my wasting, which I generally think about, time to do something else, such as studying, reading, or developing something for the future. But, in reality, I became lazy when I used the remnant time to sleep or playing, which doesn’t mean those are bad, after I had adapted my efficient life ironically.

I think the efficiency for my output is important and more valuable. For my life, however, it makes me lazy. I should evade for me and my family.

Done with a smoothie diet

Wish weight is 145 lbs (66kg). I’ll record history of weight and love handle everyday in this post. I’ll proceed 10 days from 5/20/2016 to 5/29/2016 inclusive.

How-To

  • 51 oz (1.5 l) smoothie
  • 13.5 oz (400 ml) BCAA during workout
  • 17 oz (500 ml) protein after workout
  • Some fresh vegetables for a snack: cucumber, carrot, tomato, etc.

History

  • 5/20/2016
    • 185 lbs
    • 41.1 ins
    • No workout = no protein
    • 51 oz smoothie
    • 3 carrots (Hercules)
  • 5/21/2016
    • 182.8 lbs (26.3 % fat, 37.4 % mus)
    • 40 ins
    • 10 hrs sleep (23:00 – 9:00)
    • Workout + 13.5 oz BCAA + 17 oz protein
      • 15 min running(5.0 – 5.5 mph)
      • (10 arm + 10 back + 10 shoulder) x 3 with 15 lbs 2 dumbbells
    • Fresh carrots & steamed green beans, and 1 yogurt (Activia strawberry)
  • 5/22/2016
    • 181.0 lbs (25.7 % fat, 37.7 % mus)
    • 40 ins
    • 6 and half hrs sleep (1:30 – 8:00)
    • Workout + 17 oz BCAA + 17 oz protein
      • 15 min running(3.0 – 9.0 mph)
      • (10 arm + 10 back + 10 shoulder) x 3 with 15 lbs 2 dumbbells
    • Steamed carrots & steamed green beans, and 1 yogurt (Activia blackberry)
  • 5/23/2016
    • 181.2 lbs (25.7 % fat, 37.7 % mus)
    • 40.4 ins
    • 6 and half hrs sleep (12:30 – 7:00)
    • Workout + 13.5 oz BCAA + 17 oz protein
      • 15 min running(3.0 – 9.0 mph)
      • (10 arm + 10 back + 10 shoulder) x 3 with 20 lbs 2 dumbbells
    • Fresh carrots & steamed green beans, 1/4 graphs, and 1 yogurt (Activia strawberry)
  • 5/24/2016
    • 181.0 lbs (25.6 % fat, 37.8 % mus)
    • 40 ins
    • 7 and half hrs sleep (12:00 – 7:30)
    • Workout + 13.5 oz BCAA + 17 oz protein
      • 15 min running(3.0 – 9.0 mph)
      • (10 arm + 10 back + 10 shoulder) x 3 with 20 lbs 2 dumbbells
    • 1 yogurt (Activia blackberry)
  • 5/25/2016
    • 179.8 lbs (25.4 % fat, 37.9 % mus)
    • 39 ins
    • 6 hrs sleep (12:00 – 6:00)
    • Workout + 13.5 oz BCAA + 17 oz protein
      • 15 min running(3.0 – 9.0 mph)
      • (10 arm + 10 back + 10 shoulder) x 3 with 20 lbs 2 dumbbells
    • 1 yogurt (Activia strawberry)
  • 5/26/2016
    • 179.6 lbs (25.2% fat, 38 % mus)
    • 39 ins
    • 5 hrs sleep (2:30 – 7:30)
    • Workout + 13.5 oz BCAA + 17 oz protein
      • 15 min running(3.0 – 9.0 mph)
      • (10 arm + 10 back + 10 shoulder) x 3 with 20 lbs 2 dumbbells
    • 1 dish of grilled tomato & broccoli, 1 yogurt (Activia strawberry)
  • 5/27/2016
    • 178.6 lbs (25.2 % fat, 38 % mus)
    • 39 ins
    • 5 and half hrs (11:00 – 4:30), 4 and half hrs (5:30 – 10:00)
    • fresh chopped cucumber with sesame oil
  • 5/28/2016
    • 178.0 lbs (25.2 % fat, 38% mus)
    • 39 ins
    • 6 hrs (2:00 – 8:00)
    • 1 yogurt (Activia blackberry)
  • 5/29/2016
    • 175.0 lbs (24.4 % fat, 38.4 % mus)
    • 39 ins
    • 8 and half hrs sleep (11:00 – 7:30)
    • 1 yogurt (Activia strawberry)
    • Workout + 13.5 oz BCAA + 17 oz protein
      • 15 min running(3.0 – 9.0 mph)
      • 20 lbs kettle bell swings (20 Russian + 20 American) x 3
  • 5/30/2016
    • 176.0 lbs (24.4 % fat, 38.4 % mus)
    • 39 ins
    • 7 hrs sleep (12:00 – 7:00)

 

Done. Started from 185.0 lbs, finished 176.0 lbs.

I feel starving and lack of vigor. I cannot be sure anything that this is good to loose weight, but I can be that this is cruel when you watch TV, I realized how many food advertisements are on it in the middle of a program, average 40% – 70%, 70% is when you watch a food-themed show.

I’ll keep going with other diet plan until my target is accomplished.

 

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