Okay, I’m going to admit this is my first drawing that wasn’t started from a rough pencil sketch. Although it turned out not as good compared to what I’ve been done through a ‘proper’ process, I was somewhat satisfied of the overall result.

The drawing is started using a black pen without any planned sketches which is something I wanted to try for so long. Drawing this way on a paper requires lots of confidence given that there is no room for correction, what is done cannot be undone. I should start to practice more on this technique for general sketching as this would greatly reduce the drawing time and boosted efficiency.

Read the chapter here: Asimov’s Ghost - Chapter 40 - The Ancient Path Of Memory by @cryptogee

这是第一次尝试在作画之前不用任何铅笔草稿，不做任何计划，用黑墨笔直接在纸上即兴发挥。这也是我一直以来想要尝试的东西，毕竟最大的魔力就在于没有回头改正的空间，画错就是画错了。而这种技术的优势在于可以大大提高效率，我想以后在普通的描述性作品上都会继续打磨此技术。以这幅作品而言，效果确实没有以往有计划性的创作来的好，但也相当满意了。继续进步吧！

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I started as a minnow and think exactly as one

Coming from the post from @lukestokes, finally it gave me a real insight of the orca/whale how they going to use their SP in order to grow the Steem community.

Bought 3k Steem to make myself a minnow the first day, I know how hard it is to gain a bigger impact on this platform given who owns the larger SP often gets more of the attention. So the priority for my SP is always same as other classes of investment, ‘How can I not lose the money and make as much profit out of it as possible?”

Luke perfectly demonstrated how to make money using current system like voting bots, delegation or SP renting. Honestly, that is what I spent a big portion of my time studying. Which service to buy vote for best profitability? How to take advantage of Steem delayed feed_price and things like that. I have to admit these are made with a narrow perspective and I doubt that would help to improve our ecosystem in a big way.

Long-Term Rational Self-Interest

I’m always curious what motivate whales to delegate that much of SP to non-profit projects which often sums up more than what I have in my total effective SP. If that amount of SP was being rented away to voting bots like @minnowbooster or @smartsteem, the delegator would easily earn a truly passive income of a few thousand dollars every month.

As more as I familiarized with how the system is running, I know how we as the community can do to improve the overall quality and bring up the value of this place. Spam fighting, curating the deserving posts, encouraging newcomers to stay, supporting quality projects. In short, everything about eliminating the bad and promoting the good. I acknowledge and salute the whale’s effort in order to do things that would eventually benefit the community in the long run while constantly sacrificing theirs.

Minnows can contribute in another way

However, minnows following what the whales do will only bring negligible if not zero impact to the system. The analogy of whale and minnow exists for a reason here, the same roll over in the sea will be forming a huge wave for the former while merely a droplet for the later. Imagine a minnow delegating away all of his 100 SP to a project, technically it would help the project to be 100 SP stronger but it would play a bigger role if such amount of minor SP could be used in smaller scale such as:

• Curate worthy content of new users so a dolphin or whale might discover it.
• Not necessarily to downvote spam content because that would hurt the precious VP, at least not upvoting them.
• In making a profit via bots, try to do it with sane service like @buildawhale which says no to bad content creators.
• Self-voting is Okay, but try not to do it like there is no tomorrow. That SP will bring in better return investing in the socialization with others.
• Make quality content. Not necessarily to be a Stem-savior type of content but at least should be something you would read it personally.

I think that would maximize every limited holding of effective holdings and bring more meaning to the owners. Minnow or whales, will eventually benefit by the better Steem environment.

拜读了 @lukestokes 关于 Steem 作者获利的文章，感触良多。无可否认，自掏腰包入手 Steem 加入这个大平台之后， 尽管不断对这系统深入研究，更多的焦点都是放在如何把自身的投资最大化上。比如如何买赞更划算，如何利用延迟化的喂价来获利等。 Luke 兄的见解说白了就是不要看重眼前的短暂利益，而是把目光放长远，想着如何把这里的环境素质提升进而让 STEEM 价格上升才是真正的社区长远获利方法。

然而，并不是所有大鲸做的都值得小鱼们效仿。就好像要是只有 100 SP 的小鱼，全部代理给有价值的项目是很好，但其实也无异于杯水车薪，更好发挥有限 SP 的方法还是有很多：

• 多多发掘并点赞新人们的帖子，提高让大鱼看到的几率。
• 看到垃圾帖不一定要去踩，毕竟会浪费珍贵的 VP，但起码不要去点赞助长歪风。。
• 自我点赞是无可厚非，但起码不要太过，利用手上的 SP 来和其他人互动，获得的只有更多。
• 买卖赞也是无可厚非，但起码选择有良知的平台，比如支持黑名单的 @buildawhale。
• 不需要写超高素质的帖子，但起码不要制造垃圾。

小鱼能够做到上述几点就已经是对平台的最大贡献。

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This was said to be the main villain in the story. Four-legged, able to hover and carry spiky weapons. I’ve decided to draw the important bot with flexible structure so there are rooms to change or enhance it in the future. Things can always be improved right?

The background was left unpainted in order to present the object(Malcraft) with great contrast. Added a simple ground and shadow just to indicate the hovering status.

Read the chapter here: Asimov’s Ghost - Chapter 39 - The Reality Adjustment by @cryptogee

这次出场的据说就是书里的大魔王 Malcraft，有巨大的四肢，能走动和漂浮，充满尖锐的武器等等是他的标志。在画重要的器械人出厂时我都尽可能画得复杂且留有余地，不把造型弄得太死，为的就是为以后的改善留下空间。毕竟人都是在不断的进步的对吧？

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Weeks ago I did a write-up for the entry of Cindicator Insight Challenge sharing my thoughts in using the platform as crypto market predictor.

I have many reasons to write a 2000 word entry including the luxurious prizes(free trip to any crypto event in the world or 5ETH), sharing my love towards this awesome project, and hoping to promote Cindicator to the uninformed crowd.

It was not an easy task that I spend tremendous amount of effort in creating the content and touching up the typesetting. I’m so pleased to be finalised in the final stage!

Now we’re excited to announce the five finalists in each category! You can find them in the Cindicator app - https://app.cindicator.com/ - there are two ranking questions pinned at the top. Your job is to vote for the best insights, arranging entries according to your preferences. The “Useful links” contains links to the original entries. You can vote until 18 May, 23:59 UTC.

Brilliant way for the team to host the voting session using the ready-made Cindicator application which you can access to the very question using desktop:

https://app.cindicator.com/events/9d1ceef6-7b8d-4664-bbc2-bb5efcb873f4

Only the registered user can vote and you may treat this opportunity to join and know more about Cindicator. All the five finalist insightful articles should help you in understand more about this awesome project, you can read mine under the ‘Useful link’ or via link below:

Why do I make forecasts with Cindicator

Vote for me if you think I’m worthy and I shall be grateful for you appreciation!

前些日子写了一篇文章参加 Cindicator Insight Challenge 没想到居然被入选了最后五强！这篇文章主要讲述了作为预测者如何参与 Cindicator，以及种种好处，有兴趣的可以去看看(全英文):

Why do I make forecasts with Cindicator

可以通过这里投票，前提是必须要有 Cindicator 账户才可进行操作。没有账户的朋友也可把这看作加入这大好平台的好时机，进入五强的文章都以各种方式呈现了这里的好玩之处，赶快加入吧！

最后，可以的话就为我投上一票吧，为我的呕心沥血之作先谢了，拿到大奖(出国参加任何一个加密货币活动或是折现5ETH）时一定办个社区回馈活动！

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Set up a VPS

In order to get the node reward by running a SmartNode, you will have to make sure the machine that hosting the node is having high availability.

SmartNodes must run 24/7 and not stop for longer than 1 hour or they drop off the payment queue. - from the Official FAQ

While the current SmartNode payment interval is about 8 days currently, a downtime of 1 hour will wipe out your progress and put you at the bottom of the queue again. Being said that, you will not want to run the node in something unstable(like your own PC) even you can actually.

This is where a VPS(Virtual Private Server) comes in handy. There are many VPS service providers out there these days with a really competitive price. I’ve gone through a several research to find out that Vultr and Digital Ocean are one of the most recommended services in the community starting for only $5 per month. I almost go to sign up my first VPS with Vultr, right before I found this service.

VPS that founded from Steem

I stumbled upon this service while surfing Steemit, it turns out this might be the best opportunity I could find as a Steemian. They have a Steem account @privex and @someguy123 is the main guy behind it. Privex is running a simple website with the sole purpose of accepting VPS order: https://www.privex.io/

Having a researching habit before purchasing anything, Privex is giving me a hard time finding reviews on site like Reddit or general technical forum. Simply because of one reason, this proud VPS is not accepting fiat! So I guess there is no point for the team to run marketing as the focus is on the niche crypto community.

Thus I focus my review hunting in the Steem community and learnt that many of the Steem witnesses are using Privex VPS. The team behind of Privex seems to know their stuff which only makes me more comfortable in getting a VPS from them. But these are not the main reasons after all…

Privex is accepting STEEM/SBD!

Litecoin and BTC is the other crypto being accepted as well, but who cares when we already earning the feeless STEEM?

Their most basic package with 1GB RAM is priced at $8, definitely not the best price I can find from the other offers. I would say being able to pay with a crypto that I’m constantly earning every day is already sounds like a dream to me. This is the single irresistible selling point I simply could not reject. Not sure how long I would stay with them as the server quality, support availability and many other factors(the steep pricing), I’ve decided to give it a try anyhow.

I proceeded with the SBD option and the system calculated the current market price of SBD, hence my first payment is $2.847. Paying crypto to set something that will earn me more crypto? Never heard of a better idea.

Verdict

Finally got received my server information to proceed with my SmartNode setup and here is what I can say about this service so far:

Cons:

• Expensive.
• No confirmation of payment via website or email.
• Could take up to 3 days in getting the VPS ready upon payment. Got mine after 2 days.
• No root access at the handover, I’m trying to request for it.
• No 24-hour support service so user might have to cope with Belize timezone.

Pros:

• Accepting crypto like STEEM/SBD. No unnecessary cost is wasted in the transaction process.
• Helps to grow the real application of STEEM.
• Good reputation in Steem communities.

Related post:

SmartCash#1 - My first crypto node setup for a passive income
SmartCash#2 - Acquiring 10,000 SMART
SmartCash#3 - Setting up a wallet

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Months ago I partook in an ambitious ICO that aims to provide a channel to make real use of payment cryptocurrencies. Due to various reasons, the ICO failed and could not proceed further. Refund was started in immediately in using different mechanisms.

Public sale refund by smart contract

To the public sale(ICO) participant, refund will be executed by smart contract by Ethereum platform where this new coin is build upon. The smart contract says that if the softcap could not be hit by the end of ICO, fund collected to this certain address will be open for refund claiming. Or it hits the softcap development team will gains access to the fund to carry on the project.

So investors in the ICO period can have a peace of mind knowing they have the protection by the code. Unfortunately (or fortunately), I got the chance to experience how the refund works in smart contract.

Overall, the refund is not fully automated but still requires some simple operations on the user side. Following the guidance using MEW, I’ve got my ETH back very quickly without issues.

However, things are not as smooth for another category of investors.

Pre-sale refund by human

Pre-sale is where investor will get maximum benefit for funding a new project right before ICO kicks in and brings in mass investors.

Smart contract is not used in the pre-sale stage and I have no idea why. It seems that all fund is collected via normal transaction. After crowdfunding failed, the dev team announced that pre-sale investor will get the refund after their accountant minus minor admin fee from the collected fund.

Sounds logical to me and not a difficult operation to carry out. None of my business nonetheless. I got my refund from smart contract after the ICO ended and I moved on.

One month later I randomly click in the official Telegram channel and check. What? The refund for presale is not yet done??

It’s been like over a month for a simple refund like this to process, are you kidding me? People are ranting to the admins that they want their fund back, some of them even start to consider taking legal action upon the team.

The admins on the other hand, keep responding in a professional manner and keep the folks cool. But there is only one theme the admin’s response, keep cool can wait for official announcement.

I would be mad if I was one of the poor pre-sale investors.
Now admins you can’t blame people for losing patience or even start to relate this to a scam. I’m not sure how difficult to get the refunding job done definitely it is not something cannot be settled within a month. This is ridiculous.

I’m so glad I didn’t take part in the presale.

Verdict

This is the first time I witnessed and made real use of smart contract. It does help a lot in shifting the trust away from third party(ICO team in this case). I hope the team will figure things out soon as I think this is likely not a scam despite damage has been done.

前一阵子经历了第一次 ICO 失败，在退款上看到了 Smart contract 的威力。那个团队设计 ICO 的筹款是由智能合约来进行，在某个时间之前必须达到一定额度的 Softcap，不然就会启动退款合约，后来也很不幸的 ICO 失败了。经过简单的手续后我也很顺利的收到了退款，反看在 Pre-sale 的投资者就没这么好运了。

Pre-sale 不知为何没有使用智能合约，用的是普通的交易方式。所以 ICO 失败后，团队要扣除点管理费再把余款退换。这样一拖就拖到了一个月后的现在，电报群里的投资者早已怨声载道，有者还打算采取法律行动。而 admin 翻来覆去也得个拖字诀。说真的，是我的话也会很暴躁。希望尽快有个好结果吧。

真好运被强大的智能合约救了。

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