I’ve decided to start using Smartsteem for content promoting via the @smartmarket bot. However, as a normal user which the platform regard as ‘everyone’, I can only get a vote up to $0.776 as the time being.

At the same time, whitelisted users are entitled to vote-value up to $84.581. I wanted to be one of them and I proceeded to submit my request through their site. Knowing that they have a 40 pages pending whitelist request and have only 4 moderators, I prepared to have a long wait.

To my surprise, I got whitelisted the second day, wow!

I was whitelisted as an one-SmartScore user first, only to find out I was promoted to two star user just now. Not bad! Nonetheless, it wasn’t clear what the is difference between different star users and how to promote to higher grade. Keep posing quality post I supposed?

Anyway, glad that I can buy votes with more value now and get to know that my content is recognized by the team. One stone two birds. Awesome idea execution by @therealwolf and his team by actually make user feels good using little tweaks like these.

Sign up now and get whitelisted if you think your content is quality enough: https://smartsteem.com?r=fr3eze

上篇分享了 @smartsteem 的强大。但是对买赞来说，Smartsteem 把用家分为两类。

第一类就是大众，任何人都可以买赞，但是赞的价值被限制得很厉害。根据上图，大众用家只可以买到最多价值 $0.776 的赞。第二类就是今天的重点介绍啦，白名单用家。用家必须经过团队的审核才可以进入白名单，而成功进入后可买到最高 $84 的赞，差别可是非常之大。

基于自己创作的高度信心我毫不犹豫申请了白名单。没想到第二天就通过了，还获得了二星的评价，这寥寥数人的团队效率真是高得吓人。要知道等待名单可是又四十页之多。

这下好了，我不单可以买到更有价值的赞，也还因为创作内容品质被承认而沾沾自喜不已，一箭双雕也！

如果你想享受高质量服务和对自己的创作品质有信心，马上注册和申请白名单吧: https://smartsteem.com?r=fr3eze

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As a minnow, my most favorite content promoting platform is @minnowbooster as they have around 2.7x return on vote buying servuce. However, lately their supply of upvotes is constant hovering at very low level and that makes the service unusable for me.

Introducing Smartsteem

This is a service founded and maintained by @therealwolf. It works pretty much the same as Minnowbooster, you can buy and sell votes, and delegate SP to the bot. They have a really clean and user-friendly site that makes things really clear even for those who are first time in using such service.

Vote buying

There are two bots to vote base on request using different mechanism.

@smartsteem is a bid bot that votes every 2.4 hours. The return of vote value is not guaranteed as it is depends on how many bids it received within the time frame. So it doesn’t have much different compared to the other bid bot.

@smartmarket however, is a their signature upvote-service. They claimed to provide fixed value of vote that is at least 2.0~2.5 times the amount user sent. From my experience, it provides at least 2 times of vote value by sending SBD. For instance, sending 5 SBD for will get a vote that worth $10.

The voting happens almost instantly so no waiting time is needed. For more please visit their faq page.

To use @smartsteem better, it is advisable to sign up as a user via steemconnect and your posting key. Please use my referral link if you found this article useful:
https://smartsteem.com?r=fr3eze

常用的 @minnowbooster 近来时常不够 vote supply 来提供赞，这时候新发现的 Smartsteem 就派上用场啦。

Smartsteem 其实是一个类似 @minnowbooster 的平台，由 @therealwolf 负责开发维护，用家可以通过它买卖赞。而卖赞的部分，主要有两个机器人负责，@smartsteem 和 @smartmarket 。

前者只是普通的拍卖式卖赞，所以得到的赞是看每 2.4 小时所收到的竞标有多少而定。而后者 @smartmarket 就是更为优越的机器人了。它固定了卖赞收到的一定是起码 2.0~2.5 的倍数，即是说要是你寄过去 2SBD，得到的赞起码会价值 $4 。再者，点赞是立即进行的，没有等待时间。想了解更多可以访问他们的有 faq 页面，解说都很简单明了。

Smartsteem 还有更多玩法，想更好的使用所有好处到他们的网站授权还是很有必要的，只是需要用到 posting key。如果你觉得这篇文章对你有帮助，请使用我的链接来注册：https://smartsteem.com?r=fr3eze

下回我会分享白名单的玩法。

This page is synchronized from the post: ‘Another great platform to promote content, Smartsteem 推广内容好平台’

Japan is very well known for its art culture with tons of anime and manga. While my girlfriend is ready to sweep the cosmetic shops really bad, I was hoping to visit some art supplies store to enrich my art creating supplies.

With some Googling, I found a truly awesome art store in Osaka, the U-ARTS.

Summary

The only drawback of U-ARTS is their pricing which is slightly more expensive than others. For someone who stays longer in Japan, try to opt for Amazon Japan for similar products for a lower price.

However, their strength is the easily the completeness and wide variety of product lines that available in one-stop. You will be able to try out all the markers, pencils and tools on the racks. One huge bonus for the travelers, their products are all tax-free! Nice point to have to offset the above-average pricing.

So if you are in Osaka and eager to find some art supplies, you can’t miss U-ARTS!

_{Address: 3-10 Nanbasennichimae, Chuo, Osaka, Osaka Prefecture 542-0075, Japan}

U-ARTS 是我在大阪难得逛到的美术用品店。缺点是价格比同行稍微贵点，但它的强大优势绝对可以弥补这个缺点。虽然还是有点肉疼。这间店的规模虽然不会太大，但是所装备的货物绝对齐全，从铅笔油彩马克笔，到手工模型道具，一应俱全。最重要的是还有我最爱的 Copic 马克笔！还要是全套颜色一各都不缺。当然我还没到全部买下的程度，那可是需要近 1700 新币的代价！

对旅游者而言这里还有个很大的好处，就是他们提供免税服务，这样本来高昂的价格带来的伤害就可以减轻些啦。

要是你在大阪又想找些艺术用品，必不可以错过这里。

This page is synchronized from the post: ‘Best art supplies store in Osaka with tons of Copic markers 大阪艺术用品店’

We were in this random alley somewhere in Nara looking for a restaurant that Google Map suggested.

Alley was totally deserted, sun is warmly bright, and sky is thoroughly blue. Then I met this unknown house with a cute logo. Not sure what this logo implies but it looks very much like a Shapeshift and PRISM logo.

While this one is much more clean and simplified, it is not likely this house has something to do with crypto. Damn, a random symbol in a random alley in Japan could reminds me something about crypto, I must be deeply poisoned.

在日本奈良的某个巷子前往觅食的路途上，阳光明媚，小巷里空无一人，天空蓝得好像假的一样。经过一间屋宇，边上有个很可爱的小标志，直接联想到 Shapeshift 和 PRISM 的图标，活脱像个小狐狸的头。只是我更喜欢这个，线条更简洁有力。

在异国陌生小巷里的随机标志都可以让我想起加密货币，真的是中毒太深了。

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Few days ago I shared in the previous post that I was making a small bet on Cindicator’s indicator about Stellar coin. It gave a 78% probability that XLM/BTC would trade above 0.000051 before February 20.

And it was wrong.

While the whole market is starting to recover, Bitcoin is taking the rising lead from the bad crash to $6000 to around $11000. This resulted in a drop of the majority of altcoins in term of BTC value, including XLM.

Bad thing is, obviously, I ‘lose money’ because it doesn’t play out as planned. But it’s OK as I’m more than well-prepared for this to happen and this is just a little fun experiment for me. I felt worse in losing 24 points in the application as I took part in the XLM prediction as well.

As you can see, I made a 74% prediction in that question as well. Couldn’t put all the blame on the indicator nonetheless right?

The good thing is I get to know more about Stellar by acquiring them. And I’m not going to sell just because it doesn’t meet the initial target, all I have to do is just converting this investment from short-term to medium-term. If I had to be more optimistic, this represents a longer opportunity to buy in with a lower price using Bitcoin.

Will I still believe in Cindicator?

Of course, it’s not like they have failed me 10 times in a row. In fact, they never guaranteed a 100% accuracy, nothing did.

几天前根据 Cindicator 买的 XLM 信号，结局是预测错误。XLM/.BTC 并没有在二月二十号之前越过 0.000051 BTC 。比特币从前一阵子的狂跌至 $6000 恢复到目前的 $11000，可谓十分强势。也难怪所有小货币们在和比特币的对比当中落下风了。

算了吧，反正这也是预料中事，几天的短期投机本来就是充满风险。不卖就不算亏损。

好处是，透过这次的投机行动我认识了 Stellar 这个很不错的项目，就算短期内脱不了手也大可转为长期持有。如果说还不够乐观，那就把这次机会当作是低价入手 XLM 的时机拉长了吧。

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Today is our last night at Osaka before flying back to Singapore. My girl was doing the last shopping at a drugstore for some snacks, and I as usual, ended up find a staircase to sit as I can’t find any chairs nearby.

Then I spotted this worker by her machine-like, echoing voice.

She was repeating the promotion phrase in Chinese language like “Please come visit our store for 85% discount if you purchase more than…”, “We’ve got huge variation of products…”, and so on, while waving the advertisement board at the crowd manually.

For the whole period I was sitting at the staircase, non-stop. Guess she and her coworkers will have to do this all day long.

This is probably the most meaningless job I’ve ever witnessed in first world country. Totally replaceable by a machine and her workforce would be producing more value elsewhere instead of just shouting the same phrases over and over. May be the store owner thought this is a effective way of attracting the traffic. Anyway, the owner need someone to get the job done and the girls need a job. Supply and demand right?

I felt bad for existence of such teribble job.

今天最后一天在大阪，入夜前我们杀入药妆店买最后一波要带回去的日本零食。女人去购物，而我就一如既往的坐在楼梯上刷手机(因为没椅子)。

这时候一个机械般的声音反复重播着关于这店铺的广告，比如什么“快来光顾大优惠八折”之类的。我以为是播放器，却原来是一个女员工用自己的声音，加上对着楼下的行人手动反复摇摆着广告牌。

整整半个小时，可以说我坐在那里多久她就这样干了多久。貌似这就是她的工作内容，也习以为常了。

心里说实话是很悲凉的，这应该是我在发达国家遇到过最毫无意义的工作了吧。重复性，机械化的工作却还要一个活生生的人来进行，是我的话真的接收不到。背后的故事没人知道，可能雇主需要人干活，这员工也需要一份工作？各取所需吧。

反正坐在楼上的这半个小时，我心里是悲凉的。

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