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AWS Just Made Blockchain a Helluva Lot Easier (and Cheaper) to Implement

With just a few clicks, businesses can now create, manage, and scale blockchain networks, Amazon Web Services announced in a press release Monday. While it revealed the initiative late last year, AWS is now making the service generally available.

“Customers want to use blockchain frameworks like Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum to create blockchain networks so they can conduct business quickly, with an immutable record of transactions, but without the need for a centralized authority,” said Rahul Pathak, Amazon Managed Blockchain's general manager at AWS. “However, they find these frameworks difficult to install, configure, and manage.”

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How to Deal With Developers Who Appear to Be Relaxing (Part 2)

Back in December, we published a piece that clearly hit a nerve with many of you. Entitled "How to Deal With Developers Who Appear to Be Relaxing," this article is a thoughtful defense of those developers out there whose bosses clearly have no idea what it is they do all day. And based upon y'all's reaction to it, this seems to be a fairly common phenomenon. 

But while the article also presents some useful strategies for managers who could use some help dealing with their engineers, I have a simpler and guaranteed effective piece of advice: 

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Area Man Very Concerned ‘Black Mirror’ Is Real

Kansas City, MO – Perusing his Facebook feed early Wednesday as he got ready to leave for work, area man Steven Cummings, 34, reportedly came across a video that shook him to his core. In it, shown above, 10 robotic dogs can be seen dragging a semi truck to what Cummings apparently believed was its imminent demise.

“Didn’t these same robots do this exact thing to some poor woman on the show Black Mirror?” said Cummings, a look of confused horror replacing his generally stoic demeaner. “I’m pretty sure it’s just a popular series on Netflix, but then I see things like this, and I just don’t know anymore.”

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Blockchain in Dire Need of Daily Affirmation Following 51 Percent Attack

Back in January, hackers pulled off the once unthinkable: They gained control of more than 50 percent of Ethereum Classic’s blockchain network, proving that with enough computing power, blockchain can (and decidedly will) get hacked.

Sadly, Blockchain has been struggling with this realization ever since. He was supposed to be invincible, after all. The next big thing in finance, the Internet, contracts, cloud storage, social networking, encrypted messaging, proof of ownership, voting, real estate, and even food safety.  

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6 Pro Tips for Getting Your Boss to Let You Work From Home

Isn't working from home the best? You can get so much done in the comfort of your own surroundings, not to mention without all the distractions that typically come with your run-of-the-mill office. 

But if you have a boss who doesn't likewise see the merits of this perfect working scenario (which a lot of us unfortunately do), here are some things you can do to (hopefully) change his mind.

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An ‘Anger Room’ Is the Office Perk We All Need

According to psychotherapist Lucy Beresford, 83 percent of workers have seen a colleague lose it to ‘office rage’ on the job. And 63 percent have done the same themselves.

Whether it’s an inconsiderate colleague (you know that string cheese was not meant for you Jan) or technology that just won’t cooperate (all printers deserve to die), the result is often the same: swift, unadulterated anger.

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Most Bitcoin Trades Are Fake, Study Concludes

While the price of Bitcoin has rallied quite a bit over the past month (up 36 percent to $5,243.72 as of April 8, noon EST), another recent headline is much less jubilant. According to a new study, almost 95 percent of all Bitcoin trades are actually fraudulent.

In their study, which looked at trading data across the top 81 exchanges (by volume) over four days in March, Bitwise Asset Management concluded that of the $6 billion in average daily Bitcoin trading they observed, only $273 million of this is real.

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To C, or Not To C: How Can We Best Teach the Coders of the Future?

Photo credit by Unsplash/Good Free Photos

HackerRank is known for its invaluable research into the lives of those who make the tech world go round, and this year’s Women in Tech Report is no exception. Filled with numerous important insights into the skills and motivations of the youngest female developers entering the workforce, it is an absolute must-read for any hiring manager looking to bring on the best and brightest of this uniquely savvy generation.

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When Poor UX Design and Glitchy Software Puts Lives at Risk

Photo credit by US Air Force/Steve Pivnick

As software becomes increasingly ubiquitous in all of our lives, the consequences of their inevitable failures grow as well. To the point: When the United States rushed to digitize medical patient records back in 2009, blinded by the glow of a $36 billion government carrot, it inadvertently set off a chain of events that has now, and in some cases forever, impaired countless lives.