On November 19, Star Wine List will celebrate the great wine lists of the Baltic countries, and the teams behind them, for the very first

Star Wine List Celebrates Top Wine Lists in the Baltics

The parent company to Cult Design formally took ownership of Mark Tuckey on 1 September. ArchitectureAU spoke with Corporate Culture CEO Richard Munao to learn more. When Corporate Culture founder and CEO Richard Munao rang Mark Tuckey in March this year ...

Corporate Culture acquires timber furniture brand Mark Tuckey

Risk Disclosure: Trading in financial instruments and/or cryptocurrencies involves high risks including the risk of losing some, or all, of your investment amount, and may not be suitable for all investors. Prices of cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile ...

BIST/USD - Bistroo US Dollar

If we had longer, I’d hire one of the funky little sauna pods at Iglupark on the waterfront, but it’s time for lunch at Lore Bistroo. Holder of a Michelin Bib Gourmand for outstanding value, Lore offers Estonian comfort food but with a cool ...

Tasty Tallinn: Why Estonia is a food lover’s paradise

Risk Disclosure: Trading in financial instruments and/or cryptocurrencies involves high risks including the risk of losing some, or all, of your investment amount, and may not be suitable for all ...

Bistroo

bistroo

, Hey Hackers has been nominated in HackerNoon's annual awards in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Bistroo Startup of the Year Please vote for us . HERE Read more about us below to understand why we deserve your vote. Meet Bistroo Bistroo is the next-gen online food ordering ecosystem, a fully software-as-a-service and protocol driven infrastructure to sell (and buy!) your delicious meals online. A multi-product & -service suite allows for merchants to directly sell to their customers through self-operated online channels. Either offer your products on the BistrooMarketplace, or use the technology to spin up your own e-commerce channels like webshops, websites, QR-code ordering or any other future relevant e-commerce channels. Fully tap into this market on your own terms. Integrating blockchain and crypto technology to adopt Web3.0 principles and enable pure peer-2-peer commerce between market participants. The BIST token will enable and facilitate all the web3.0 dynamics within this e-commerce ecosystem. Including, rewarding all ecosystem participants for their contributions and behaviour in growing the reach and sustainability of the network. How We're Disrupting/Improving the Ecommerce Industry Our primary disruption lies in leveraging the power of direct, peer-2-peer transactions to decentralize the food delivery ecosystem. Unlike traditional services, which take a significant portion of the revenue from restaurants, we offer a platform where businesses retain the vast majority of their earnings through 5% commission fees compared to 15-45% for other platforms. We’re empowering entrepreneurs to run their online business how they see fit by also giving them access to webshops, websites and QR-solutions against low fees. Furthermore, with our platform, consumers can directly support their favorite restaurants, fostering a stronger local food community. Additionally, the use of blockchain enhances transaction transparency and security, making Bistroo a more trusted choice in the ecommerce world. Our Predictions/Thoughts on the Ecommerce Industry in 2023 2023 and 2024 are set to be transformational years for the eCommerce industry, primarily driven by the growth of blockchain and decentralized finance. Both customers and entrepreneurs alike want to take back control. We believe that trust, transparency, and community engagement will shape the eCommerce landscape moving forward. To prepare for these changes, Bistroo has integrated blockchain technology from the outset, creating a platform that aligns with the industry's future direction. Governance has been a pivotal point in 2023. With countries worldwide starting to regulate cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, a more structured, secure environment for ecommerce is emerging. The key concern for the industry should be maintaining customer trust, especially regarding data privacy and security. To encapsulate the state of ecommerce in 2023 in one word: "Transformational." eCommerce What defines the state of Ecommerce in 2023? The current state of the food delivery and takeaway sector can be described as "constrained". Traditional food delivery platforms, as they currently exist, exert significant control over restaurants and consumers. These platforms have established themselves as critical intermediaries, making it difficult for restaurants to bypass them and reach consumers directly. For restaurants, these platforms can provide increased visibility and an expanded customer base. However, they also demand a substantial cut of the restaurant's earnings, sometimes as much as 30%. These high fees can be particularly challenging for small and medium-sized businesses to bear, resulting in decreased profits, and in some cases, threatening their survival. On the consumer side, the situation is equally controlled. These platforms dominate the market, leaving consumers with little choice but to use their services. As a result, consumers may have to pay higher prices for their food, imposed by these platforms to maintain their revenue. Moreover, despite the seeming convenience these platforms provide, they create a significant disconnect between the restaurant and the customer. The direct relationship, which was once based on a mutual exchange between the two parties, has been intercepted. This lack of transparency and the absence of a direct feedback loop can sometimes result in poor service quality and a deteriorated customer experience. In summary, the current state of the food delivery and takeaway sector is characterized by domination by a few major platforms. These platforms exert significant control over both restaurants and consumers, leading to constrained profit margins for businesses and inflated prices for consumers. The sector is in dire need of a paradigm shift towards a more decentralized, equitable, and transparent model. Why we decided to participate in HackerNoon's Startup of the Year awards Participating in HackerNoon's Startup of the Year awards provides an excellent platform to share our innovative approach and mission. It also aligns with our goal to be at the forefront of ecommerce transformation, driven by blockchain technology. Final Thoughts We, at Bistroo, are on a mission to transform the food delivery and takeaway industry, empowering businesses and customers alike. We strive to create a sustainable, profitable, and user-centric ecosystem that fosters community engagement and transparency. Vote for us today!

Meet Bistroo: Solving Inequality in the Food Delivery Industry

Hi Bas, welcome to our series “Behind the Startup.” Please tell us about yourself and the story behind Bistroo? Ishan Pandey: Hi Ishan, thanks for having me in this segment. My name is Bas Roos, and I’m a 30-year old entrepreneur from the Netherlands. I’m the CEO and Co-founder of , together with my partner and CTO, Bob Dohmen. We started the company with the vision of disrupting the commerce models that currently dominate and dictate our food consumption markets. Bas Roos: Bistroo The current food delivery & takeaway market has been monopolized by platforms that control and dictate all the major aspects of said chain, both on the supply and the demand side of the market. We are disrupting this model by providing a neutral and transparent commerce protocol that organizes all aspects of the merchant and customer relationship. A direct-to-consumer commerce protocol in which the digital infrastructure can all tasks and control to the sellers and incorporate contribution, loyalty, and interaction directly with their buyer community. decentralize How can blockchain be applied to the food industry? Ishan Pandey: Blockchain can be applied to food and logistics in various ways. For example, blockchain will be integrated into our platform to provide transparency on subjects like loyalty rewards, merchant rankings, reviews, ratings, and offerings through smart contract technology. It will also enable us to nurture a community-driven platform through crypto technology, a strategic direction towards a future in which crypto’s play a major role in our commerce relationships and direct payments, and co-create and grow our platform together with our community. Bas Roos: peer-2-peer Overly controlling and astronomically exorbitant fees for eateries are two major issues with rival takeaway platforms. In your opinion, can blockchain help address and effectively move past these hurdles? Ishan Pandey: Yes, in the future, I feel will play a major role in how we organize our retail and business transactions in an efficient manner. Blockchain and crypto technology still has a lot of hurdles to overcome on technology maturity, regulation, and adoption. Bas Roos: blockchain However, once these challenges have been overcome, blockchain will enable us to frictionlessly organize collaboration, commerce, and interaction in an efficient and peer-2-peer manner. Decentralizing tasks and responsibilities, enabled by blockchain protocols, allows for a higher level of automation and reliance on the digital infrastructure, instead of relying on the dominating model of platforms currently in the market, and therefore open the possibilities for a much more efficient model. Numerous traditional investment industries, such as art, real estate, etc., have already been revolutionized by blockchain technology. What has been the impact of blockchain technology on the restaurant industry? Ishan Pandey: NFT applications have taken the space by storm lately and have found good use cases in areas like art and real estate. Perhaps, recipes or other food-related content could end up in the NFT space as well. For the food industry, blockchain is set to make a big impact on areas like supply chain transparency and efficiency. You can already see some of these efforts being adopted in the current retail model. Bas Roos: We relay this dynamic into a commerce platform for fresh produce and specialty products too. Additionally, we see a big role in organizing fair-trade in a transparent and fully protocol-reliant way. Blockchain has an amazing premise of bringing together supply and demand, and this is where we feel it touches base with the restaurant industry currently. For example, rankings and reviews will be transparently stored on the blockchain and provide assurance on the information being served for consumers to base their decision on. This could extend into the supply chain aspect, where consumer demands on how ingredients are processed and produced, or even if fair compensations have been provided, become part of the decision-making process at a food ordering level. What, in your opinion, are the biggest roadblocks in the restaurant sector that are preventing mainstream adoption of blockchain technology within the ecosystem? Ishan Pandey: Generally, regulatory roadblocks are the biggest challenge of blockchain and crypto technology currently. If there would be more clarity on the use of crypto and blockchain technology within commercial applications, more validity and trust will be generated, and adoption could be promoted through an interactive and gamified approach. Bas Roos: One of the major hurdles for cryptocurrencies in the restaurant industry, aside from adoption, is its sustainability owing to its use of large, energy-intensive processors. In this context, what are your thoughts on blockchain’s long-term viability in the restaurant industry? Ishan Pandey: Currently, the biggest energy-intensive processors rely on the Proof of Work consensus mechanism, especially Ethereum is currently already improving that area of the protocol and therefore reducing the amount of energy needed to produce blocks. This is one of the major areas of technological advancements that Blockchain will have to overcome in the coming years. Bas Roos: Ethereum (ETH) has been used to establish a number of decentralized financial (DeFi) applications. However, its low efficiency, limited throughput, and hefty gas fees have posed a challenge to the end-user. According to you, what is the solution for the high transaction fees in the short term? Ishan Pandey: Currently, there are already layer 2 solutions on the market that allow for cheaper transactions with higher throughput while still relying on the key aspects of the base protocol. These options are being considered, and we keep a close eye on all the developments in the market on this subject. However, Ethereum is also working hard on improving its protocol with regard to these areas of limitations. The vision of becoming a general-purpose blockchain is something that is communicated and emphasized by their developer community constantly. To achieve that vision, these challenges must be overcome. In the short term, there are options to work around these issues. In the long-term, Ethereum will, however, in our opinion, overcome these challenges and serve as the intended decentralized application protocol. Bas Roos: Despite the convenience of delivery and takeaway, it has led to scantier options in restaurants than ever before, primarily because middlemen’s involvement can take up to 60% of an order value. What role can blockchain technology play in curbing these major price inflations? Ishan Pandey: The current models rely completely on a centralized party that operates and controls every aspect of the business. Orders, Payments, Refunds, Logistics, Store Management, Promotions, Consumer data, Rankings, Ratings, and Reviews are all done and controlled by the intermediary party. On both digital platform models, as well as physical retail models, this is the standard of serving the food market currently. Blockchain technology has the ability to flip this model and give complete control back to the merchants while still digitally facilitating the relationship between buyers and sellers. Allowing all the aspects of the process mentioned above to be handled by the protocol in full, but according to the terms and conditions of the merchant rather than the platforms. Bas Roos: Restaurant delivery intermediaries hold vast amounts of customer data that are susceptible to cyber-attacks. In this regard, from a regulatory standpoint, what measures are necessary to avoid major cyber-attacks? Ishan Pandey: Security measures should always be in place when providing a digital service, especially when handling consumer or customer data. Iterative and continuous testing on this aspect is crucial while implementing all the necessary measures to safely store and process data. Cyber-criminals keep improving their tactics and staying on top of the developments, and continuously investing in security measures will always be crucial. Bas Roos: What role has the covid-19 pandemic played in the restaurant industry’s downfall, and what role can blockchain play in helping improve the condition? Ishan Pandey: Covid-19 shook up the restaurant market by storm. Before the pandemic, a lot of restaurants were still fully focused on consumers eating in at their locations. However, during the pandemic, they were forced to close down and, in some cases, even halt their business altogether. Bas Roos: There were also a lot of restaurants that decided to move into the takeaway and delivery space for the very first time and got a taste of how powerful and vibrant this side of the market really is. A lot of our merchants fall into this category and have repeatedly expressed this realization to us and determined it to be a big opportunity for business continuity and growth. Almost all of them will stay active within the takeaway and delivery space in the post-covid era. What trends are we going to see in the restaurant and blockchain industry next? Ishan Pandey: Besides the transparency trend on how our food is produced, processed, and prepared, we will see more and more adoption of crypto and blockchain use cases in general. E-commerce is one of the next areas where we feel blockchain will make its way towards the general public. There’s a movement towards innovation and fairness all around us, and consumers value these principles more and more when consuming a product or service. Blockchain will be able to provide assurance on the information being used to make these consumer decisions. Bas Roos: Disclaimer: The purpose of this article is to remove informational asymmetry existing today in our digital markets by performing due diligence by asking the right questions and equipping readers with better opinions to make informed decisions. The material does not constitute any investment, financial, or legal advice. Please do your research before investing in any digital assets or tokens, etc. The writer does not have any vested interest in the company. Ishan Pandey.

How Blockchain can Disrupt the Restaurant Industry 

Remote Working Hub is a place where you could find useful information about remote working. I have been asked to share my remote working experiences. I said to myself, why not. 1. Hey, can you please introduce yourself? I am Silvestar Bistrović, a fearless web engineer, CSS developer, JAMstack enthusiast, and WordPress theme specialist. I live in Osijek, Croatia, where I was born and raised. I have acquired a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Osijek. Even today, I am working remotely from my office in Osijek :-). I started learning to programme in 2011 and began work as a PHP web developer in 2012. Although I have enjoyed working with PHP and backend technologies, my passion was the frontend. In 2015, I started working as a frontend developer in a local startup. In 2017, I became a freelance developer. Today, I am enjoying creating pixel-perfect, responsive, and modern websites for clients all over the world. I have worked with clients from more than 10 countries, from Saudi Arabia to Germany and Spain, to the United States. My focus is always on delivering the best experience for users on every device. Making faster, lighter, and more secure sites using WordPress or Static Page Generators is my speciality. When I am not coding, I like to write new articles on my blog. 2. Image credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/iM6Gm-cdBuw 2. What motivated you to choose remote working? Remote working was something that was always on my mind. In 2017, the company I was working for had to shut down, which was like a sign that I should try my luck in freelancing. So, after a few short gigs, I realised I was capable of working remotely. After that, I have joined a formidable talent network as a UI developer (one of the first ones) and landed a great gig within a month. The biggest motivation was to work with professionals all over the world. I have been lucky to have a chance to work with great professionals from the very beginning of my journey. Challenging and exceptional projects were the second reason. I always wanted to work on projects where my ideas and vision could be beneficial for building a stable codebase for easier maintenance and flexibility. 3. What were your initial months like? Did it live up to your expectations? My first months were extraordinarily successful. As I said earlier, I landed a big gig within a month after joining the talent network. The job was challenging and fulfilling, and I enjoyed working on it. But after a few months when the first gig ended, I struggled to find a new gig. It was the biggest struggle and the most crucial test in my remote career. Luckily, it only lasted for a couple of months. It may seem like an extended period (and it was), but I am kinda thankful it happened. It made me look at the remote career from another perspective. It also taught me that remote working is something that takes time to master. 4. How did you find remote working roles? When I was starting, most of my clients came from a particular talent network. I was very fond of bidding and matching process at this network, and I had no bigger problems to land a new client. Since, I have invested a lot of time to post meaningful content on my site by publishing blog posts and portfolio projects. Some of my blog posts were featured in newsletters, like CSS Weekly, and some posts started meaningful discussions on websites, such as Hacker News. This helped me gain more audience and more confidence. So, I also began publishing articles for prominent publications like LogRocket, Toptal Blog and most recently, CSS-Tricks. All this effort was not useless — clients began to contact me directly! Image credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/qFH7-yKoxik 5. What have been the best, good and worst aspects of remote working for you? The best aspect of remote working is spending more time with my family. When I don’t have tasks, I stay home. When I complete all my tasks earlier, I go back to my family. That is something that a 9-to-5 job cannot ever replace. The good aspect of remote working is to be able to invest time in technologies I chose. A good example is when, back in the day, I started working with static sites. That was the right decision with all the latest hype about serverless technologies. Now, I am able to enjoy working with serverless technologies for actual remuneration. The worst aspect of remote working for me is the struggle to find a new gig. I realised that I was spending a considerable amount of time and energy on finding a new gig. The frustration of not landing my next dream job was eating me alive. I couldn’t accept the decision that I was not good enough. Today, I know that I am not a good fit for just any job out there. Maybe, I don’t present my skills to the client in the right manner, or my rate is not in the client’s range. You could never know for sure, and that is something that every remote worker should learn and accept. 6. What tools do you swear by while working remotely? Visual Studio Code is my most used tool for getting the job done. I like how easy it is to use this code editor, how everything works as expected, and how productive I am while using it. I also use Chrome as my go-to browser for testing, debugging and developing tasks. You could read which Chrome extension I like to use here: https://www.silvestar.codes/articles/my-favorite-chrome-extensions-for-web-development-mostly/ . There are other tools that I use on my daily basis that are related to my programming job, like Git and iTerm2 terminal. I use gitflow ( ), a Git extension to provide high-level repository operations for Vincent Driessen’s branching model. I am so used to this extension that I cannot imagine working on a Git-based project without it anymore. https://github.com/nvie/gitflow I made a list of my current hardware setup and my preferred software. You can find it here: https://www.silvestar.codes/uses/ . 7. Your most exciting/ hilarious experience since you started working remotely. The funniest experience since I started remote work was related to a daily meeting call. At the time of this call, I was working from home. I was supposed to put my one-year-old daughter to sleep. As these things tend to be very complicated and unpredictable, my daughter refused to sleep. I decided to place her in front of the TV and hoping she won’t make too much noise. In the middle of a call, she started talking to me, which led to a hilarious situation. Eventually, I had to take her and introduce her to the whole team :P. 8. What is your golden advice to a new remote worker? If I had to give only one piece of advice to a new remote worker, it would be to always have substantial savings. This is especially important at the beginning of your career. When you are struggling to find a new gig, and you don’t have savings, you might consider accepting a job that you don’t want to do. This is rarely a good scenario because you would never be happy with the job, and your client might not be satisfied with your performance. Related to this advice, I would also tell a new remote worker to start finding new gigs on time. You don’t have to wait for your current gig to be finished to start looking for a new one. This could help you avoid significant periods without a job. Image credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/lhltMGdohc8 Secondly, making your own schedule is a good aspect of remote working. Although I thought I wouldn’t work out of an office again after I worked from home, I was wrong. Having a place to go to work, making and sticking to your schedule, and having a clear distinction between work and home environment are my advice for every remote worker: Find yourself an office,Spend some time to make a work schedule, andLimit working from home to a minimum. 9. How do you see your career shaping up and your goals? So far, my career has been skyrocketing beyond my wildest expectations. I am in a situation where clients are waiting in line to work with me. If you had told me at the beginning of my remote career that I would be working on some of these projects, I would have laughed at you. That is what I like in remote working-it is all about your skills, and not about where you live. I think my hard work and commitment to previous projects have paid off, and now I could enjoy my everyday work. Not all of my goals have been fulfilled. I would like to have more time to produce more blog articles and courses. I would like to publish articles on more websites. I would like to create a better version of my site and side projects. I would like to learn new technologies, like React, or even a new programming language, like Go. I would like to help more people learn how to code. Well, there is always something on my goal list — I hope it would never be empty! 10. How do you expect remote working to evolve in the future? Last year, a friend of mine asked me about my career and my job. When this happens, I always take time and try to explain every aspect of my job. He quit his job in his attempt to pursue happiness as a web developer. I am proud to be a mentor to this friend and see him evolve as a remote professional. I hope more people realise the benefits of remote working. I would be thrilled to see more people joining this crazy rollercoaster that is remote work. My city is full of remote workers. If it is gaining popularity in Osijek, Croatia, I could see it gain rapid traction in the rest of the world too. 11. Where can we follow you on? https://www.silvestar.codes https://www.silvestar.codes/links/ https://twitter.com/malimirkeccita https://www.linkedin.com/in/starbist/ https://github.com/maliMirkec https://codepen.io/CiTA/ https://dev.to/starbist Originally published at https://content.remote.tools on November 1, 2019.

Interview For Remote Working Hub With Silvestar Bistrović

100 Stories To Learn About Remote

Let's learn about via these 37 free stories. They are ordered by most time reading created on HackerNoon. Visit the to find the most read stories about any technology. Freelance /Learn Repo 1. Side Hustle Stack: Platform-Based Work Opportunities Sharing something a little different today: I built a product!
It’s called Side Hustle Stack: a directory of platform-based work opportunities. Check it out! 2. Two Years an Upwork Slave: How to Own Freelancers and Sue Those You Can’t Own So, my story goes, one day I decided that enough is enough and it’s about time for me to part ways with Upwork. Once my beloved platform has rubbed me the wrong way more than once. I was free to opt in. So, I’m free to opt out. Right? You are free to join and you are free to say goodbye. This is what freelancing is supposed to be all about — freedom. Right again? Well, it turns out that there’s a catch — an Upwork legal catch. 3. How To Protect Your Big Idea When Hiring a Freelancer Hiring freelancers or independent contractors is a great way to get specific tasks done without having to hire more full-time employees. This can save you time and money; you won’t have to go through a lengthy interview and hiring process or provide benefits like health insurance. 4. A Farewell To FREE Upwork Connects — Cherish Your Freelance Moments Today is the day when you have to PAY-TO-PLAY on Upwork! 5. What Are Pros and Cons of the Top Five Freelance Websites for Clients and Freelancers? It's always fair to compare! 6. Upwork Second Quarter 2019 Financial Report: Titanic Orchestra At Their Finest What's the best way to analyze a public company's financial report for the second quarter? Well, I think you should keep it simple. 7. Top 5 Freelance Marketplace to Start Your Online Сareer Are you trying to earn a living online? 8. Agent Smith, Take Me Back to The 9-to-5 Matrix Freedom is the most expensive word in freelancing. 9. Growing your Startup with Limited IT Resources Growing a startup business now almost inevitability means growing the infrastructure you’ve built your business on. Costly IT often forms the bedrock of this infrastructure – so what happens if you need to grow but you don’t have the capital to invest in sophisticated systems? 10. One Hour of "Effective" Freelance Work is Worth 3 Hours in a 9-5 Job One effective freelance working hour is worth two or three regular 9-to-5 working hours. 11. 12 Must-Have Tools For Freelancers Being a Freelancer is tempting for many reasons, but mostly because you can do what you love and choose the projects you want to do. You can work with clients you want to work with and there is nobody breathing behind you expecting from you to make more money for them. 12. Pros and Cons of The Gig Economy: Can Remote Workers Be Assets in Small Business? Advancements in technology have made it possible for businesses to operate as normal with significantly fewer in-house staff. 13. Freelancing vs. The Gig Economy Is it too much to say that the gig economy’s good name is damaged beyond repair? 14. The Freelance Revolution: Where to Find the Best Freelancers in Tech The Most Famous Freelance Skill Destinations: Between Urban Myths and Business Reality 15. What to Do with Unresponsive Clients? There's no freelancer that's immune to this unwanted scenario. How we handle this situation is what makes all the difference. 16. Hey, Be Careful! Remote Work and Freelance Can Mess Up Your Life Remote work and freelance can mess up your life. Here's why and what you should do. 17. Low Code-No Code is the Future of Freelance Mobile App Development How I Use Drag and Drop Programs to Help More People 18. Hiring and Being a Freelancer Takes Talent: Here's Why Fact: Freelancing is over 900 years old. 19. How to Write for Fun (& Profit!) Basic guide to getting started with writing for yourself and pitching yourself to win clients. 20. Buying Upwork Reviews: Is Your Freelancer Really a 5-Star Freelancer? Freelancing is all about - the trust. And, trust is all about - the reviews. 21. How Freelancing Can Help You Make Money With Your Skills But why should you sell your skills on online platforms?
There are many reasons — so many that we've compiled them into this guide... 22. Are freelance developers different? Rise of the contract coder 23. Thinking About Getting a Standing Desk? Read This. Standing desks can better your relationship with working from home and add more options to how you work. 24. Top 10 Online Marketplaces to Sell Your Designs Being a designer or web developer is a fabulous possibility to start working as a freelancer. I will bet anything you’ve been reflecting on it thousands of times, that is why you’re here. Don’t drain your energy on infinite searching of the most reliable and beneficial online marketplace to sell your designs, artworks or sell website templates. 25. Shape Your Personal Brand for a Successful Future Has it ever occurred to you that, as a working professional, you are a brand? How you are perceived is crucial to your work life. Work on your personal brand. 26. Let’s Talk About Fees, You Busy Freelance Bees! The necessary evil. For freelancers they are always too high. For freelance platforms always too low. Is there such a thing as a win-win percentage? 27. 5 Professions that didn’t Exist before the Blockchain The gig economy. We love to love it, we love to hate it, and we hate to love it. It’s an economy that provides jobs to those who can’t work otherwise, but it often underpays those who desperately need the work. The gig economy never could have existed in such a capacity without the Internet, and as the Internet becomes ever more accessible, the gig economy grows with it. 28. 17 Best Freelance Writing Job Sites In 2022 Have a look at the 20 best places to find freelancing writing jobs. Keep reading to get the complete information. 29. The Free-Range Lifestyle: How to Not Live and Die in a Cage We Evolved for Free-Range Living 30. Interview For Remote Working Hub With Silvestar Bistrović Remote Working Hub is a place where you could find useful information about remote working. I have been asked to share my remote working experiences. I said to myself, why not. 31. Upwork Freelancers Under BlackRock: The Masters of the Freelance Universe The future of work is remote. But, now that you know who holds the keys to your freelance future, how do you feel about it? 32. Should Freelancers Treat Their Clients As Best Friends? You aren't freelancing to make friends, but to get paid for proper work. 33. How I Designed, Built and Launched a product over the Weekend - A Breakdown of Events Earlier this year, I launched a side project of mine called Lancerlist which is a platform that allows companies to find freelancers in their city. 34. Gig Sites Aren't for those Struggling to Find New Clients - Target A Niche Instead I've spent two months with a client going back and forth on a project. It doesn't seem like we are anywhere close to a finalization. 35. When will 'ethically sourced freelancers' be a thing? In my previous article ‘Why Does the Global Freelance Economy Need a Mutiny?’ I highlighted how the emergence of the super freelance platforms have come to dominate the global short-term labor hire market. I also explored how decentralised freelance platforms are beginning to offer services with considerable savings in platform fees. 36. 4 Practical Tips to Help You Manage Freelancers More Effectively So, you've hired a freelance developer. Now, the critical part of your journey begins – successfully managing the freelance project, which isn’t an easy task. Of course, if you managed to hire the right freelancer, this task becomes much easier. 37. Freelance Marketplace 2.0: Where Future of Work Happens Unless you have been living under a rock, you have most likely heard of the term “freelance economy” — which currently makes up 35% of the U.S. workforce and is projected to reach 50.9% by 2027. Thank you for checking out the 37 most read stories about Freelance on HackerNoon. to find the most read stories about any technology. Visit the /Learn Repo

37 Stories To Learn About Freelance

20 Mouthwatering WordPress Restaurant Themes to Make You and Your Business Salivate 

The pandemic (you know the one) has disrupted stores and restaurants in a way no one could have expected at the start of 2020. Health scare, mass unemployment, e-commerce, Amazon competition, ballooning debt… we didn’t start the fire, it was always burning… . but now there are ambers everywhere and we’ve got to get to work to save the good china In order to save shops and restaurants from , dozens of solutions providers have gone into overdrive all over the world. the ongoing bloodbath They promise to help set up payments, loyalty programmes, hardware, analytics, e-commerce… anything to keep stores going. already, but had not yet spoken to an industry insider about . I thus reached out to , , to get his thoughts on the matter. I’ve written plenty on the matter what these solutions really offered, beyond the obvious Jean-Philippe “JP” Leblanc Head of Technology at Lightspeed Lightspeed provides Point-Of-Sales-related technological services to small and midsize retailers and restaurants. Having raised 400 million during its IPO in 2020, it currently serves more than 100,000 customer locations, and reached $33B of gross transaction volumes in 2020. If anyone can explain what technology providers really offer stores, it’s this company's CTO. Craftsmanship, and the gift of time . Time is our best friend, and our worse enemy. It is our rarest resource. A handful of companies, having realised this, have reached heights in valuation and brand recognition few could ever dream of. And they have done so in one of two ways : Survival (the pursuit of more time) is humanity’s most basic instinct (more time, saving time) or . Amazon makes our packages come faster, Netflix ensures we spend less time looking at adverts, Airbnb allows us to spend quality holidays as locals… and retail tech allows craftspeople to spend their time actually doing what they love : by extending time enhancing time . knitting beautiful socks and baking really, really good croissants This is, in essence, what JP advocates for during our discussion. “ he says with a smile. Forget the Tech, forget the product, forget about the bits and bytes and the engineering side of things”, “At the end of the day, it’s all about making sure that craftsmen and merchants around the world can go back to their craft and not bother too much with all of the logistics of running a store in 2020. ” Technology is just an enabler to allow them to go back to that craftsmanship more than ever. . It is even more so during a pandemic, but not for the right reasons. Many merchants took their first introduction to e-commerce in march 2020, , . Indeed, despite popular belief, only having an e-commerce site is not enough. Merchants also need to know how to use it, which is no easy task according to JP. Running a store or a restaurant was always an exhausting endeavour with some great successes to be found along with just as many disillusions “ ” You can’t just be online, you have to be successful online. (…) Just dropping an e-commerce platform on a laptop for one of those merchants then expecting them to be able to realise profit and realise that transition and pivot to online sales is a pipe dream. Entrepreneurs also need to become proficient in digital marketing, supply chain, HR, online payments… And that’s not even mentioning taking care of kids and family. . Mastering all this leaves little time for what matters : acquiring and retaining customers by making great food, crafting great products, offering great services As many entrepreneurs will know, the slightest drop in quality usually means more customers going to Amazon for their holiday shopping. This, too, is something they can ill-afford. Without the right technology to combine and optimise all the above, a hard task becomes impossible. . If properly implemented, all the gimmicks can automate large part of the business, from payments to deliveries, giving owners the chance to spend more time on what they’re passionate about. This is where many solutions provider come in JP sums up this philosophy as follows : “ At the end of the day, what we want to do is give them back some time. Let’s automate the entire world for them, so they can go back to [working on what they love]. That’s what they should be doing, not figuring out what kind of shipping logistic they have to have to ship something to Canada from Europe.” Fighting the good fight . The soul of many towns throughout the world are not only made of delightful restaurants and shops. Paradoxically, tech also allows for more human connections, which are at the heart of small enterprises They are also made of the dedicated people keeping those spaces alive. Wherever we live, we like to get to know them, just as much as we enjoy being recognised by them as valued customers. . I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again , being on a first-name basis with your local bartender is a one of life’s rarer-acknowledged pleasures Retail tech solutions such as loyalty programs optimise and augment this process of recognition and personalisation. This is what JP means when he says that “even though we’ve been saying that retail is dead forever, (…) retail is still alive and kicking, it’s just a little bit different.” He emphasises that “People are still looking for that human relationship more than ever, so the goal is not to replace (…) human relationships with just tech and digital workflow. It’s about augmenting what we can provide, and experience.” This augmentation comes in the form of understanding what to sell, when, and at what price, to a range of different customers. By definition, this data is rare within small enterprises. This is why many solution providers grant access to a world of data which allows crafts-people to better understand their customers and what they want. . This human connection, as well as great products, is what separates SMBs from giants like Amazon And though Lightspeed does not directly compete against large international retailers, there’s clearly no love lost there. In-between pleasantries about the quality of Paris’ Pains au Chocolat, Jp laments the , adding that his family aims not to shop on the platform in order to support local merchants. As a Parisian, I particularly enjoyed this quip : “ . I’d bet that this is a feeling shared by many. lack of diversity on Amazon Next time I go to Paris, I don’t want to have a croissant in Starbucks, I want to make sure that there is a bistro somewhere where I can go ” And so the loop is complete : — thank a cash register today. more technology means more time for entrepreneurs, and more time means better products and interactions with customers, who are then more likely to come back and help the business thrive. This, in turn, ensures the survival of cities’ specific cultures. Bezos does not crouch down behind a counter to high five his CFO after each sale When does a lot of Tech become too much Tech? According to the wide variety of retail experts I’ve spoken to over the past few months, we’re not going back to “normal” any time soon. Habits were forged, sacrifices were made, investments were rushed… : I can do everything online, and I have more choice than ever when it comes to ordering lunch straight to my office (which is also my bedroom, and gym, and bar…). All in all, if you forget for a brief second about the deadly pandemic and the mass unemployment, the new normal is not so bad As we bravely carry on through this sanitary mess over the next few months and years, hybrid systems will be developed to allow shops and restaurants to deliver more of their services and goods to larger swathes of the population. This means that technology spends are likely to continue to increase — as mentioned earlier, an e-commerce website is not enough to be successful online in 2021. A plethora of information must be gathered, aggregated and used, too. This budget increase will inevitably lead to a fair bit of chaos, as with every influx of new technology. Entrepreneurs do not have an army of IT staff able to create a coherent retail tech strategy that will be relevant for years. And so, it is likely that a lot of technologies (contactless payment, AR, smart mirrors, inventory automation…) will be cobbled together, . This will be a gift for niche players at first, but the industry will then inevitably consolidate as larger, better players eat up the smaller ones. a patchwork of solutions that do not necessarily come together well In the meantime, this Wild West of retail tech is not necessarily negative. According to JP, . “ , he predicts. beauty often emerges from chaos It’s going to get a little chaotic within the store itself” “People are going to try to re-think experiences within a store. So I think we’re going to see (…) a lot of clumsy implementations of in-store experiences. With good reasons : they’re trying hard and trying their best to offer something unique and new.” In 2021, we’re going to see stores and restaurants evolve as thousands of entrepreneurs grapple with building a puzzle of technology brick to gain more time to engage with their products and consumers. This will lead to incredible creativity, which I believe large players will learn a lot from. . There is no such thing as too much (or tool little) technology; what matters is implementing it in a way that makes the shoppers forget that they’re interacting with technology at all Good luck out there. This article was originally written for , a blog providing in-depth analyses of today’s technological challenges. . The Pourquoi Pas Click here to access it

Technology Should Enable Craftsmen To Go Back To Doing What They Do Best

Hydroponics, drones and Bitcoin. Three technological concepts that are used in a new project from the Parallel Garden team in cooperation with Parallel Polis. As we enter an era of social distancing, delivery of food by drone can be a pioneering act. We bring you an interview with the authors of the Hydroponic Flyer 2020 project. Michal Zatřepálek, Radim Kozub and Jakub Hamata have been meeting since the beginning of 2019 in a working group called Parallel Garden. It is an initiative that originated in Parallel Polis (Prague, Czech Republic), and the team combines experience from the founding members’ careers: project management, law and landscaping. In recent months, they have been honing the method of hydroponically grown salads indoors. Now they’re introducing their project to the world and would like to sell the hydroponic salad for Bitcoin and deliver via drones. First such delivery will be documented . in a live stream on April 30th Parallel garden team. From the left: Michal Zatřepálek, Radim Kozub, Jakub Hamata I asked the Parallel Garden team for details about their new project. Answers by Michal Zatřepálek. What was your initial motivation for hydroponic gardening? Have you already had any experience with this area, or have you tried everything from scratch? We started building and operating hydroponic systems from scratch. Our colleague Jakub Hamata, an expert in the field of landscape management, who in the past was even involved in projects in the Maldives and Zanzibar, of course already had perfect knowledge and experience with growing plants, but even he did not work with hydroponics before Parallel Garden. It was a completely new topic for me and Radim. However, the use of hydroponics has long made sense to us as a component of our second Skywalk systems project, in which we use the heat generated during the operation of cryptocurrency miners. This created the initial motivation to gain an authentic experience. Jakub was the first to propose building our own hydroponic system. Soon after, we succeeded in pursuing our visions and gaining support from the Parallel Polis community, which allowed us to place our first system under the main bar in Bitcoin Coffee right from the start. We managed to harvest the first salads with no problem, and thanks to good communication on social networks, we received many positive reactions and offered cooperation inside and outside the community around Parallel Polis. As a result, other colleagues began to join us and the ambition of our project increased. After a few months, we agreed to intensify our development and establish the Parallel Garden brand as a startup with a community dimension. Parallel Garden logo Growing hydroponically generally means growing plants without using the soil. The plants germinate in a solution of water mixed with fertilizer. Although this cultivation approach seems futuristic and perhaps unnatural, it has been used thousands of years ago in some parts of the world. What does it actually mean that something is grown hydroponically? What are the advantages and disadvantages when compared to conventional gardening in a soil? Is there a difference in nutritional values? A major shift in the efficiency of hydroponic cultivation began in the United States in the 1960s, along with the use of artificial lighting. The main advantages of hydroponics include up to thirty times the saving of water consumption compared to conventional agriculture, as it is a closed system where water is constantly circulating. The issue of drought has been significant in recent years, so we can expect to hear more about hydroponics in this context. Another advantage of hydroponics is the closedness of the cultivation system and full control over all inputs during cultivation. So this is one of the ways in which we can sustainably achieve organic farming without the need for chemicals and pesticides. The possibility of vertical cultivation is also a major advantage, as hydroponics allow us to grow in multiple levels on a small floor space, and thus use the space many times more efficiently. In times of constant population growth, the topic of efficient use of space for growing and feeding people on the planet is becoming more and more relevant. From a nutritional point of view, hydroponics production can already be at the level of top bio production. It is not uncommon for renowned restaurants in the world and in the Czech Republic to use organic vegetables and herbs grown from hydroponics. In the underground of Parallel Polis we can find your prototype of a hydroponic rack, in Bistro 8 restaurant there is a vertical hydroponics adapted for restaurant operation. Do you want to start the production of standardized systems for households? Yes, that’s our aim. After a year and a half we have 12 active hydroponic systems. Thanks to the first models and our closest community and supporters, we were able to operate and test the systems in real operation, speeding up learning and refining details. We are now responding to increased demand during the quarantine period and are completing a standardized model of vertical hydroponics on a household wall with a capacity of twenty plants. Hydroponics must serve not only as an element for the self-sufficient healthy production of some vegetables and herbs, but also as a pleasant aesthetic element in the interior. In the current phase, we want to implement ten of these hydroponics for households and start with higher production volumes of this product line within a few months. In Parallel Polis, we continue with the first harvests of a larger type of vertical hydroponics with a capacity of 120 plants, which is intended for cellars or underutilized areas of restaurants, apartment buildings and companies. Fresh salads from this hydroponics system will be delivered by drone to the first customer outside of Parallel Polis on April 30th. Do you already have an estimate of how much such a hydroponic salad will cost? When taking into account the acquisition costs of equipment, operation, maintenance ... The economic sustainability of growing in our hydroponics is one of the main goals of our project, so we follow these metrics from the very beginning and publish them on . We have a lot of data about each of our hydroponic systems, because it is part of our approach to building a project. our GitHub account Open-source, measurability, transparency and continuous learning and optimization. Our interim record is the cost of $0.4 for a grown salad in proven organic quality. We are talking about quality grown without chemicals and pesticides and fertilized with a fully organic fertilizer. The quality is comparable to the salad grown in a small household/restaurant garden. We achieved the record with the vertical variant of hydroponics, where the emphasis is on the lowest possible cost of a high-quality plant, with the proviso that the design can be more industrial in nature. With each optimization of the system, we reduce the cost of an individual organic salad and we will continue to do so thanks to scaling. Let's move on to the Hydroponic Flyer event. Has the drone delivery been on you roadmap since the beginning, or is it a reaction to the current situation and the need for social distancing? Partly both. The theme of drones as a modern technology has been live in Parallel Polis since its foundation. The specific idea to do this project arose in November 2019, as a fusion of our team's capabilities. In November, thanks to previous Parallel Garden activities, we connected with the community of drone racers. We were fascinated by the connection on both sides, and during one evening debate after the Enviro Meetup, we came to the idea that even a one-kilo load would not affect the flight of the racing drone too much. Thus emerged the idea for ​​the Hydroponic Flyer 2020 project, which is: It is a practical implementation of an independent model (peer-to-peer type) in self-sufficient organic farming, economics and logistics. To conduct the world’s first drone delivery of a hydroponic salad sold for Bitcoin. The parallel approach in the practical project and, moreover, in the current situation of quarantine, makes the project even better understood by the general public. At a time of stricter hygiene requirements and social distancing, which we are all experiencing, urban cultivation in hydroponics and contactless drone delivery seem to be a completely rational alternative. Test drone delivery in the interior of Parallel Polis. Won’t a drone delivery within city limits run into regulatory barriers? Of course, the intensity of regulation in this area is one of the challenges. Drone flights are comparable in regulatory requirements to sports aircraft traffic. Simply put, the current legislation certainly does not create a friendly environment for the application of drone technology. Our approach is clear in such cases: We do not give up and we go looking for a solution to just do it. At the same time, we want to open a dialogue on the meaningfulness of current legislative restrictions and encourage the search for alternatives. This is a part of the "parallel" approach to modern technology. What is the drone flight range in urban areas? And how far do you intend to fly on the first delivery? The range differs for each type. Buildings generally reduce the signal range, which is also one of the important challenges for the future use of drones in delivery. However, every challenge is solvable, and with our first delivery project, we have the ambition to signal that there are already teams that are able to successfully organize the first flights, including the legal consequences, and that it is time to have a constructive debate for the future. The first delivery, which will take place on Thursday, April 30th, 6 PM (UTC+2:00) will be a delivery over a few hundred meters of distance. We’d like to open the topic and public discussion so that we can follow up with other official flights in wider cooperation. We are interested in building regular drone delivery lines for our hydroponics. Watch the world’s first drone delivery of a hydroponics salad sold for Bitcoin - April 30th, 6pm (UTC+2:00)! More information via the Facebook event . This interview was originally published in Czech on Roklen.cz .

Delivering Hydroponic Salad via Drones and Being Paid in Bitcoin [An Interview]

I was born and raised into finance. What I mean by this, is not that my family was in finance, but rather that from a very young age I was attracted to the appeal of global capital markets. I was managing my own portfolio from the age of 12, saving every scrap I could when I was work at my dad’s butchery and bistro in Kenya, and putting that all into the stock market, the Nairobi stock exchange. I remember waiting in line for the Safaricom IPO, that’s right, a physical line — it was pretty funny. Waiting in line for the IPO Not only that, but they say generation Y doesn't know what a bear market looks like. Let me tell you, I had no idea what to sell so when I was 14 (in 2008) and the result was that I watched my portfolio go -60% through the financial crisis, only to hold on to everything over the next few years and watch that outstanding return over time, to what is one of the worlds longest bull markets to date. Naturally, as I went to school, I studied finance, followed by participation in the CFA Program. This led to jobs at CIBC, RBC Dominion Securities , and Sentry Investments. All awesome places and I had the fortune of working with great teams. That experience taught me a huge amount about the inner workings, as well as the shortcomings of the financial system. I have always loved technology, and from a young age I always programmed a little bit, some C++ games here and there, as I got older I got more involved in Python and the data science applications as they related to finance and frontier markets. Enter Ethereum. Ethereum captured my heart with the scope and flexibility of the solution offered to the world. A value transfer system combined with a smart contract layer underpinning a global computer — this was the evolution of tech and finance that absolutely had me enthralled. When we started iComply, the applications that we could think of were unlimited. Everything from co-op models, to capital markets infrastructure to corporate governance applications — our minds were blown left, right and centre. I feel so lucky to be born at this time. Ethereum has enabled me to elevate my thinking and process to a truly global basis, when everyone is on the same system, it becomes easy and streamlined to talk to each other and develop tools to assist in this. Combining my love for decentralization and open finance, with a system that can also serve the broader public is absolutely the sweet spot. Can you use ethereum to settle private and publicly issued shares? Of course… and it’s a hell of a lot faster that buying private shares currently. Can we have censorship resistant messaging and information distribution? Definitely. Projects like Status and their acquisition of Embark put a twinkle in my eye with the ease they allow people to create Dapps — and the continued progress towards light ethereum nodes on mobile — adoption is key. Layer 2 infrastructure like 0x and the opportunities it has created for peer to peer value of all assets, whether utility, asset or non fungible based is something I wake up excited about every day. Lets just dial it back to the general concept of having a token as a means of transfer of value in general, it’s just fantastic — and of course thats not limited to Ethereum. When you can take a group of an underserved society and give them a wallet on the spot thats linked to tasks, with payment, that’s how we start to get on equal footing. Such was the the result of a program initiated by Code to Inspire — using applications such as the Bounties Network and Metamask. Did I mention the massive difference the Bittorrent protocol had on my life? Peer to peer transfer, with customized clients, blocks, swarm networks, don’t even get me started. Ethereum has let me forge a new, irreversible path in life. Everything about the project, the future implementations and improvements, whether Casper, Sharding, Plasma and the general small changes to improve the network are all things that appeal to the direct core that governs my life. Coding economic incentive models, with real life applications to real businesses, that’s a goal that goes beyond the next cool app. It’s easy to talk about the next big projects and networks, but the fact remains that an ecosystem is the driving factor. Try find something that permeates and competes with Ethereum in it’s current form. The ammount of applications, frameworks, testing suites, wallets, smart individuals and so much more — this is where I belong. Thank you Ethereum, I hope to work and develop applications and infrastructure for the rest of my career to bring continued credibility and adoption of a network that can, and is, ushering in a level of global financial communication with that is unprecedented. Developers may not always see it this way, and the ecosystem can easily get caught up in the hype and the models and proofs set out. But when you know how the real world works, and the ambiguity and degrees of separation in capital markets, you just can’t help but really, really smile.

What ethereum means to me

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