Monday, September 11, 2023

5-Year-Old Sextortion Scam Still Works!

I recently received an email with familiar content once again:

I did some online research and discovered that the initial reports of this scam date back to 2018. To my surprise, I found it lurking in my inbox again. Intrigued, I decided to investigate the Bitcoin address the scammer had provided. Much to my amazement, over the past few days, five unsuspecting individuals had already deposited $950 USD each into the scammer's account! You can view this development in the screenshot below.:

I've concealed the scammer's Bitcoin address, including all transaction details, to ensure that they cannot be linked back to this post. Why, you might wonder? Well, I've embarked on a small experiment to determine whether I can trace these transactions back to the scammer—a real-life person. If the scammer suspects that their address is under surveillance, they might refrain from moving their money. It's essential to remember that every transaction is permanently recorded on the blockchain and can potentially be traced, even if the scammer attempts to hide their tracks using Bitcoin mixers, which undoubtedly complicates back-tracing. So, let's patiently await the scammer's next move with the funds! I.e. let's hunt some orc!


Saturday, September 9, 2023

Usporedba maksimalnog životnog vijeka sa prosječnim životnim vijekom

 Nedavno pročitani znanstveno popularni članak o produženju životnog vijeka, točnije o "genu dugovječnosti", me je inspirirao da potražim jedan graf kojeg sam vidio prije skoro pola godine. I evo ga - usporedba najdužeg životnog vijeka sa prosječnim životnim vijekom, za period od 1955. do 2023 godine.

Premda je u tom razdoblju globalni prosječni životni vijek produžen sa 47 [!!!] na 73 godine, maksimalni životni vijek od cca 120 godina teško se probija. Ali, može se reći da postoji blagi uzlazni trend. Uz napredak znanosti ostaje nam za vidjeti kako će se situacija u skorijoj budućnosti promijeniti. 😉
 
Komentar OP-a:
 
Nadopuna 2023.10.05:

U knjizi Obrisi budućnosti - ideje koje će promijeniti sve (This Will Change Everything - Ideas That Will Shape the Future), 2009, jedan od autora je napisao sljedeće: "oni koji požive sljedećih 30 godina, mogli bi živjeti sljedećih 300". 
 
Knjiga je izdana 2009. godine, dakle imamo još 15-ak godina do 300-godišnjeg vijeka. 😉 Argument je de će medicina tih 30 godina toliko napredovati da će biti moguće produžiti životni vijek za nekih 10 - 15 godina, tijekom tog 'produžetka' daljnji napredak medicine će nam dati još nekih 15 - 20 godina, itd. Osobno nisam toliko optimističan.
 
Točno to je sažeo Korado Korlević u Explori emitiranoj 2023.09.26:
https://youtu.be/srb_opt6rtk?si=pYFNDfWpP5rulz9B&t=2742

Značajan dio i Explore emitirane 2023.10.03. govori o temi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfkNyyy-bWc

The Economist je obradio temu dugovječnosti u zadnjem 'Technology Quarterly' prilogu:
https://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2023-09-30

Nadopuna 2024.03.12:
 
Mali, ali ne i beznačajni update nakon šest mjeseci. Već treću godinu za redom, očekivani životni vijek u par najrazvijenijih zemalja svijeta (SAD [1], Velika Britanija [2], Kanada [3]) je u opadanju. Tako se primjerice Velika Britanija vratila 10 godina u nazad. Kao glavni krivac navodi se korona.
 
BTW, prije točno 50 godina, u knjizi "Granice rasta", jedan od 12 predstavljenih modela, onaj kojeg smo do sada i najbliže pratili, tzv. "Business as usual", predviđao je vrhunac populacije 2028. godine sa 7.65B ljudi. Krajem prošle godine par znanstvenika je napravilo 'rekalibraciju' modela sa novim podacima. Prema novom izračunu, vrhunac bi trebao biti 2033. godine sa 8.16B ljudi. [4]
 
 

Saturday, August 26, 2023

User experience (UX) communities

 
Updated: 2023.09.01
 

User Experience on Stack Exchange

User Experience Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for user experience researchers and experts.

Reddit

UXDesign: For experienced and veteran UX practitioners

120k members

r/UXDesign is aimed at practicing UX professionals. Junior career questions will be removed from the feed. Post flair is required. User flair is recommended and can be customized. Please review sub rules before posting or commenting.

 

User Experience

110k members

A community where professionals, enthusiasts, and individuals interested in the field of user experience can share knowledge, ask questions, and engage in discussions about various UX-related topics.

 

A community for sharing and discussing UX research

36.3k members

A community for sharing and discussing UX research. The goal is to think about UX research broadly and consider studies from related/overlapping disciplines (e.g., market research, medical anthropology, public health, design research). Open to both academic and applied research. 

 

UX/IA/ID design resources

17.0k members

Thoughts and resources about User Experience (UX), Information Architecture (IA) or Interaction Design (ID).

 

UX_Design: A community for everything UX!

11.7k members

A gathering of UX designers and UX researchers talking about everything User experience. Start now by posting interesting tools, case studies, and resources! Do you have any questions about UX design? Ask away!

Sunday, July 9, 2023

UX/UI Resources

Last update: 2026.07.31

Here is the list of useful UX/UI resources. Idiotic Google bots like to flag this post as spam, so it might disappear from time to time. 

See my post A list of UX/UI courses and specializations.

General Resources and Tools

  • Rytr - AI content generator [tool]
     

Showcases/Inspiration

Cloud models

Misc

Hrvatski linkovi

Books

Introduction to UX Design

User Research and Testing

General Resources and Tools

Surveys

Focus Groups

User Interviews

Customer Personas

Customer Journey Maps

Affinity Maps

Information Architecture

Tree Testing 

Wireframing

Usability Testing

 A/B Testing

Mood Boards

Paper prototyping

Rapid prototyping

User Interface

Design Elements

Colors

Tools:

Articles:

Colors in culture:

  • Colors in Cultures [1] [2] [3]

Fonts

UX Storytelling

UX Copy

User Interface Design

Icons

Responsive Design

Mobile Design

Apps

Dashboards

Conversational Interfaces

Wearables

Designing for children

Gamification

Game UX/UI

Mailing lists

Formats

Website performance/health

Saturday, July 8, 2023

Integrating Climate Scenario Analysis into Investment Management: An April 2023 Update

Original PDF. Archived PDF.

GIC is a global long-term investor established in 1981 to manage Singapore’s foreign reserves. It is invested in more than 40 countries worldwide and its mandate is to preserve and enhance Singapore’s international purchasing power over the long term. Explore topics of long-term importance that shape their perspectives.

ClimateMAPS is a tool that was used for financial modeling of climate change. It has been jointly developed by Ortec Finance and Cambridge Econometrics.

Relevant snippets from their full report:

The impact of climate change on broad market beta is expected to be negative, although there might be a potential upside for certain markets, sectors, companies, and business models. Opportunities span emerging markets with currently low exposure to low-carbon utilities, or decarbonisation and adaptation technologies that are currently nascent but could scale with more policy support and capital flows. Risk assets such as equities and real estate are more sensitive to climate change compared to bonds and cash.

Based on a hypothetical global 60% equities and 40% bonds portfolio, returns may still be positive in the long run with climate change, but projected returns are meaningfully lower across all four scenarios versus a climate-uninformed baseline. Hence, long-term investors may be surprised by the underperformance of the portfolio relative to their expectations.

Climate change is projected to have a long-term negative impact on a global 60/40 portfolio in the order of minus 10-40% [...]
The annualised nominal returns over a 40-year period for the 60/40 portfolio ranges from 3.4 to 4.3% in the four scenarios, versus 4.6% in a climate-uninformed baseline.

[...] potential increase in market volatility from climate-related shocks.

[...] global warming leads to decreasing crop yields for most crop types, due to volatile precipitation and stronger summer heat waves. This increases the prices of agricultural products, food, and the general price level of the economy, placing an upward pressure on inflation.

Some of limitations to their top-down scenario approach:

Climate science models have not fully incorporated feedback loops and tipping points from warmer temperatures accelerating the melting of ice sheets, which would increase the sensitivity of average temperatures to greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate impact models do not account for the implications of climate change-related migration on economies and markets.



Wednesday, July 5, 2023

Mastering SEO: Elevate Your Rankings with Link Building

Boost your SEO rankings with this technique: 

  1. Find higher-ranking webpages for your target keywords 
  2. Create superior content providing more value and relevancy
  3. Find websites that are linking to your competitors from step 1 
  4. Reach out to and direct them to your webpage.

 

Friday, June 16, 2023

Jednostavan način praćenja oglasa i natječaja u Splitu

Ažurirano 2023.08.20.
 
Ovaj post je za sve one koji prate oglase i natječaje grada Splita. Dakle, ako vas zanimaju natječaji za gradske prostore, financiranja za udruge, potpore za male poduzetnike, stipendije za učenike i studente, itd, itd. Post se također odnosi i na aktivne građane koji prate javna savjetovanja.
 
U svakom slučaju ... primjerice meni interesantni natječaji trajali bi dva tjedna i za prijavu bi zahtijevali N različitih službenih papira i potvrda sakupljenih iz N različitih izvora. U nekim slučajevima, za određene dokumente, prvo bi se trebao podnijeti zahtjev nekom tamo uredu da bi se dokument preuzeo tek za par dana, kad bi bio "gotov".
 
Ako za natječaj ne bi saznali praktički netom nakon što je objavljen, bilo bi upitno da li ćete uspjeti koordinirati svoje svakodnevne aktivnosti sa obilascima institucija i skupiti svu potrebnu papirologiju na vrijeme. 
 
Ako nemate 'nekoga' u gradu, jedini način da saznate za natječaj na vrijeme bio je da redovito posjećujete službene stranice grada. Ono, baš redovito. Sebi sam odlučio olakšati život i eliminirati tu ponavljajuću radnju. I tako sada nove obavijesti dolaze meni umjesto da ja provjeravam da li na stranicama ima čega novog. A kako smatram da bi i drugi mogli imati koristi, odlučio sam podijeliti svoje rješenje sa ostalima. 
 
Novi oglasi/natječaji/savjetovanja vam mogu biti dostavljeni preko RSS kanala (ako ne znate što su - provjerite, jako korisna stvar), twitter profila i facebook stranice bez ikakve naknade, te mailom uz minimalnu godišnju pretplatu.
 
Svi linkovi za praćenje su na adresi:
 
Eto, podijelite sa onima za koje smatrate da bi mogli imati koristi od ove usluge.