Things I'm thinkinghttps://pitchandrolls.com/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/vibe-coding-erc-4337/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/vibe-coding-erc-4337/AI development has been all over my timeline the last weeks. ERC-4337 has always interested me from a distance but I've never dived in to the code or details. Seemed like a good...Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/eip-7702-smart-account-power-for-eoas-if-your-wallet-lets-you/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/eip-7702-smart-account-power-for-eoas-if-your-wallet-lets-you/TLDR: EIP-7702 allows externally owned accounts to temporarily behave like smart contract wallets during a transaction, enabling them to use smart contract features like batchin...Fri, 01 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/inside-a-balancer-v3-swap-a-step-by-step-walkthrough-with-the-mev-hook/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/inside-a-balancer-v3-swap-a-step-by-step-walkthrough-with-the-mev-hook/In this post, we’ll walk through the lifecycle of a swap in Balancer V3, using the recently released MEV hook as our lens. We’ll trace how a swap flows through the system — from...Fri, 01 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/stablesurge-idea-to-product/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/stablesurge-idea-to-product/Balancer recently launched StableSurge, the first production hook on V3 — an innovative directional fee mechanism that dynamically adjusts swap fees to help protect stable-asset...Mon, 24 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/unlocking-the-power-of-balancer-v3-hook-development-made-simple/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/unlocking-the-power-of-balancer-v3-hook-development-made-simple/Using Balancer V3 peripheral contracts to simplify the development and testing of custom Hooks In my previous post, I discussed the basics of Balancer Hooks and demonstrated how...Tue, 10 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/unlocking-the-power-of-balancer-v3-exploring-hooks-and-custom-routers/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/unlocking-the-power-of-balancer-v3-exploring-hooks-and-custom-routers/Intro Balancers latest V3 design offers lots of exciting features such as transient accounting, native support for yield bearing tokens and boosted pools (see intro and docs for...Fri, 30 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-14/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-14/Nice blog about stacking Sats ₿ 🧘‍♂️ "If you’re on a great journey at work, doing something meaningful, and the team appreciates you — maybe lean in there" - thought this post...Mon, 03 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/axiom-testing-with-custom-foundry-cheat-codes/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/axiom-testing-with-custom-foundry-cheat-codes/Intro Axiom is a really exciting new protocol that harnesses ZK technology to allow smart contracts to trustlessly compute over the history of Ethereum. I believe its a novel ne...Thu, 01 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/2023-review/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/2023-review/Overall feeling - life is good but tiring 😂! Reading 15! More than double of last year, really felt on a role later part of the year, possibly because some of the books were so...Tue, 02 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/a-little-life-by-hanya-yanagihara/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/a-little-life-by-hanya-yanagihara/🤯 another one that hits hard! Long but well worth it. Did feel a bit draining. On Wikipedia someone was quoted saying Jude was - "one of the most accursed characters to ever da...Sat, 23 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/maddaddam-by-margaret-atwood/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/maddaddam-by-margaret-atwood/Enjoyed this. Was a nice change of pace after the last one too. I think it was the best out of trilogy.Sat, 23 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-13/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-13/🚕 An educational side project - this was inspiring. The dedication is probably the number 1 take away! 🏃 Pretty nice visualisation of the NYC marathon - brings back painful me...Fri, 17 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/demon-copperhead-barbara-kingsolver/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/demon-copperhead-barbara-kingsolver/This was good. Amazing characters, but so frustrating following them as they make terrible choices. And so so terrible what the pharma industry have done. Felt like an American...Sun, 03 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/islands-of-abandonment-cal-flyn/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/islands-of-abandonment-cal-flyn/A departure from my usual but really enjoyed it.Sun, 03 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/skunk-works-a-personal-memoir-of-my-years-at-lockheedby-leo-janos-ben-r-rich/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/skunk-works-a-personal-memoir-of-my-years-at-lockheedby-leo-janos-ben-r-rich/Pretty interesting. A bit, Go America! but understandable. Amazing what can be achieved with (unlimited) budget and human ingenuity. Imagine if we applied it to something that w...Sun, 03 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-book-of-jhereg-vlad-taltos-collections-1-steven-brust/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-book-of-jhereg-vlad-taltos-collections-1-steven-brust/Saw a lot of recommendations for this series on Twitter. Was OK. Will probably try another in the series when I need an easy fantasy read.Sun, 03 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-legend-of-colton-h-bryant-alexandra-fuller/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-legend-of-colton-h-bryant-alexandra-fuller/This one hit hard! So sad but full of life too. Loved the characters. Didn't want it to end and felt drained when it did.Sun, 03 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/young-mungo-douglas-stuart/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/young-mungo-douglas-stuart/Yeah, this guy can write! I wasn't as absorbed in the characters as I was with Shuggie Bain, but that was exceptional. What a rollercoaster and heartbreaking this kind of thing...Sun, 03 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/luckenbooth-jenni-fagan/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/luckenbooth-jenni-fagan/This one was up and down for me. Not sure I would have stuck with it if it wasn't for the Edinburgh connection but it turned out quite ok at the end.Fri, 26 May 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/made-in-america-sam-walton/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/made-in-america-sam-walton/Yeah, this was good as all the reviews said it was although maybe a little dry. Impressive.Fri, 26 May 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-12/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-12/(Some Interesting Thing I Read) 🖥️ Thread explaining single-use address that can broadcast a transaction without the need for a private key Keep It Going - Pretty pertinent in...Fri, 26 May 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/snow-falling-on-cedars-david-guterson/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/snow-falling-on-cedars-david-guterson/It was ok. Bit to literary (if that's a way to say it!). Saw one review that summed up the best part - Snow Falling on Cedars helps me remember what it meant to be young, and in...Fri, 26 May 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-magicians-lev-grossman/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-magicians-lev-grossman/This was a weird one for me - felt like 2 (or maybe more) different books and some of them weren't that enjoyable. Then the action part just seemed to come about all of a sudden...Fri, 26 May 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/a-muddy-defi-world/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/a-muddy-defi-world/Introduction This is a write up for my entry to the EthGlobal Autonomous Worlds hackathon, the imaginatively titled: MUD Powered Balancer Swaps. (Github) Unfortunately I have no...Mon, 22 May 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/building-an-sdk-v1-0-1-beta-13-typechain/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/building-an-sdk-v1-0-1-beta-13-typechain/Intro The TypeChain project provides developers a tool to generate TypeScript typings for smart contracts they are interacting with. This gives all the usual benefits of Typing...Fri, 17 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/piranesi-susanna-clarke/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/piranesi-susanna-clarke/Original and enjoyable!Wed, 15 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/2022-review/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/2022-review/Overall feeling - life is good! Reading 6 books this year. Sounds like a small amount but some were big! The ones that were large were also really good so doesn't feel like a wa...Sun, 12 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/shuggy-bain-douglas-stewart/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/shuggy-bain-douglas-stewart/Wow, wow, wow. This was brilliant! Just can't believe how it made me feel.Sun, 12 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/when-i-stop-talking-youll-know-im-dead/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/when-i-stop-talking-youll-know-im-dead/This was decent. I don't really like the guy and I'm really glad I don't work in an environment where you have to operate like that but some interesting stories.Sun, 12 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/centennial-a-novel-james-a-michener/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/centennial-a-novel-james-a-michener/- A new fav! This was really good. Sprawling and really liked the intermingled characters throughout the ages. One of the quotes on the covers i - "If you’re a Michener fan, thi...Wed, 21 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-art-of-possibility-rosamund-stone-zander-benjamin-zander/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-art-of-possibility-rosamund-stone-zander-benjamin-zander/I liked it but it wasn't amazing. Don't think I gained anything too profound from it.Wed, 21 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-magician-raymond-e-feist/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-magician-raymond-e-feist/One from my past. Still enjoyable and an easy read.Wed, 21 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/building-an-sdk-v0-1-30-swaps-with-pool-joins-exits/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/building-an-sdk-v0-1-30-swaps-with-pool-joins-exits/In the Balancer Smart Order Router (SOR) we try to find the best "path" to trade from one token to another. Until recently we only considered paths that consisted of swaps but t...Tue, 20 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/building-an-sdk-v0-1-24-balancer-relayers-and-pool-migrations/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/building-an-sdk-v0-1-24-balancer-relayers-and-pool-migrations/What Is A Relayer? A relayer is a contract that is authorized by the protocol and users to make calls to the Vault on behalf of the users. It can use the sender’s ERC20 vault al...Fri, 14 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/building-an-sdk-0-1-14-adding-a-contracts-module/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/building-an-sdk-0-1-14-adding-a-contracts-module/Intro The idea of adding this was to make accessing Balancer contracts easier for users. Normally you need to find and import ABIs and deal with deployment addresses, if we want...Mon, 27 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/a-town-called-discovery-r-r-haywood/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/a-town-called-discovery-r-r-haywood/Didn't have high hopes for this but it was surprisingly good and original.Fri, 10 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-confusion-neal-stephenson/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-confusion-neal-stephenson/Really good. Such a huge scope that I'm sure I haven't even taken half of it in. One of my fav authors now.Fri, 10 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-keepers-of-the-house-shirley-ann-grau/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-keepers-of-the-house-shirley-ann-grau/A Prime Reading freebie. Some of the reviews made me a bit worried but it was a really decent book and I raced through it. Something about the American South always gets me.Fri, 10 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-11/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-11/Market-Protocol Fit - describes some of how Balancer ⚖️ are approaching things. It's a whole new world! 👨‍🏫 Etsy’s Journey to TypeScript - trying to improve my Typescript as m...Thu, 09 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/node-performance-measurement/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/node-performance-measurement/I was working on optimising a javascript maths function and wanted to compare the performance of different versions of the code. Initially I had some difficulty because I was ap...Sat, 05 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/2021-review/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/2021-review/Bit late with this but life is busy right now! I pretty much enjoyed 2021, life is good :) Reading Managed to get through 12 books - pretty happy with that even though some were...Sun, 30 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/30-days-of-night-steve-niles-ben-templesmith/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/30-days-of-night-steve-niles-ben-templesmith/One of my best horror movies. This Graphic Novel was pretty decent and looks good with the Kindle App.Sun, 30 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/cage-of-souls-adrian-tchaikovsky/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/cage-of-souls-adrian-tchaikovsky/Enjoyable, especially the first half when they were in the jungle prison - felt like I was there!Sun, 30 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/cilkas-journey-heather-morris/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/cilkas-journey-heather-morris/Brutal and horrendous of course and a good reminder to be thankful we're born in better times.Sun, 30 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/dark-eden-chris-beckett/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/dark-eden-chris-beckett/Was a page turner and pretty original too. Enjoyed it and will probably dive into the next one some time I need an easy read.Sun, 30 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/dogs-of-war-adrian-tchaikovsky/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/dogs-of-war-adrian-tchaikovsky/Really enjoyed this and found it very original. Many cool concepts. Didn't realise it was by same author as Cage Of Souls which was also good.Sun, 30 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/richer-wiser-happier-william-green/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/richer-wiser-happier-william-green/Enjoyed this and feels like one I could revisit multiple times and keep learning from.Sun, 30 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-beekeeper-of-aleppo-christy-lefteri/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-beekeeper-of-aleppo-christy-lefteri/Another one that makes me thankful of who/where I am. Some really haunting parts about kids. Sad.Sun, 30 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-hard-thing-about-hard-things-ben-horowitz/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-hard-thing-about-hard-things-ben-horowitz/Was dissapointed by this, don't really know what I was hoping for but I ended up skimming most of it because it wasn't that good.Sun, 30 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/wakenhyrst-michelle-paver/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/wakenhyrst-michelle-paver/Was an ok ghosty type story. Didn't find it particularly scary but quite enjoyed it anyway.Sun, 30 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/wolf-of-wessex-matthew-harffy/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/wolf-of-wessex-matthew-harffy/Felt like a trashy, guilty pleasure but I enjoyed it. Funny how my reading has progressed but still like a David Gemmell type story!Sun, 30 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/forking-brilliant/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/forking-brilliant/Houston We Have A Problem I want to check that a transaction will work on mainnet for an account I don't control. In this case it's for a large LP in the Balancer staBal3 pool a...Fri, 28 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/building-an-sdk-0-1-0-improving-sor-data-sourcing/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/building-an-sdk-0-1-0-improving-sor-data-sourcing/Intro A big focus for Balancer Labs this year is to make it really easy to build on top of the protocol. To aid in that we're putting together the \@balancer-labs/sdk npm packag...Fri, 14 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-10/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-10/₿ A from-scratch tour of Bitcoin in Python - create, digitally sign, and broadcast a Bitcoin transaction in pure Python, from scratch, and with zero dependencies. Computer scien...Sat, 23 Oct 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/you-can-do-it/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/you-can-do-it/At Balancer we recently finished a pretty major release and it was probably the most stressful release I’ve been involved in with there so far. I wanted to write this as a kind...Tue, 07 Sep 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/how-to-get-rich-felix-dennis/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/how-to-get-rich-felix-dennis/This was pretty meh for me. I have read a fair amount of this kind of thing so maybe that's why. Also didn't particularly enjoy the tone. I read The Psychology Of Money again to...Tue, 29 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/quicksilver-neal-stephenson/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/quicksilver-neal-stephenson/I'd say this isn't for the fainthearted - not an easy read - but it was really good. Loved Cryptonomicon but found The Diamond Age pretty unenjoyable so I'm glad this has restor...Tue, 29 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-snow-child-eowyn-ivey/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-snow-child-eowyn-ivey/This was really good. I love books based in the wild (White Fang was a fav back in the day) and I felt like I was there. Felt really emotional too which I think is related to no...Tue, 29 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/utopia-avenue-david-mitchell/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/utopia-avenue-david-mitchell/Argh he is just SO good! Feel like I could just read David Mitchell books on a loop!Tue, 29 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-9/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-9/😽 Example of a Flashbot bundle to rescure a cryptokitty from a compromised wallet. 💡 Another UMA post - they keep posting interesting use cases that I'm always interested to d...Thu, 27 May 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-8/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-8/⛓️ Interesting Tweet from a project dev about writing his own code rather than use TheGraph. Covalent was mentioned as alternative - get events by topic hash or get events by co...Tue, 16 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/2020-review/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/2020-review/Strange year! Many, many people can't wait to see the back of it but I had a lot of positives and it won't be a year I'll ever want to forget. I'll always look at it with pleasu...Sun, 10 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/a-gentleman-in-moscow-amor-towles/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/a-gentleman-in-moscow-amor-towles/I saw this mentioned lots as a good read but for some reason never got around to it. I'm glad I finally did as it was really enjoyable. Would be a good recommendation for anyone.Thu, 31 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-psychology-of-money-morgan-housel/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-psychology-of-money-morgan-housel/This was really good and I would say worth revisiting frequently. Also really enjoyed his episode on the Pomp podcast. Tick.Thu, 31 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-ride-of-a-lifetime-robert-iger/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-ride-of-a-lifetime-robert-iger/I'm cheating a little bit with this as I haven't actually finished it yet - but that's because I was enjoying it so much I stopped! Really good story and a very impressive leader.Thu, 31 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-7/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-7/⛽ GasTokens are pretty interesting and this was a good article. 🆒 Pretty cool (but expensive) screen project here. Have a plan! Some good advice in this tweet. Particularly lik...Mon, 28 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/etherscan-api/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/etherscan-api/Etherscan is a really useful website but fairly recently I discovered they also have a pretty handy Developer API. I used it to analyse gas a contract was using over a period of...Tue, 17 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-6/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-6/🤝 Eth Network Discord Community - I liked the idea about this from DeFi Dudes tweet. 🥧 I've used RaspberryPi a lot and the new Pi 400 seems cool. 🎧 Uncommon Core seems like a...Sun, 08 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-5/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-5/👷 Hardhat & Tenderly are two super useful smart contract dev tools and this guide shows how to get them setup together. 🧘 James Clear 3-2-1 Newsletter is probably the most con...Fri, 30 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-4/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-4/👾 Dark Forest was a pretty fun game to play on the Ethereum network that used xkSNARKs and they did a pretty interesting intro to zk proofs. No Edinburgh Festival this year 😥...Sat, 24 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/a-time-of-dread-of-blood-and-bone-john-gwynne/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/a-time-of-dread-of-blood-and-bone-john-gwynne/I was looking for an easy to read fantasy and this was that but was better than the usual so I'll probably look at the second in the series too.Fri, 11 Sep 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/against-the-gods-the-remarkable-story-of-risk-peter-l-bernstein/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/against-the-gods-the-remarkable-story-of-risk-peter-l-bernstein/This was heavy going on places but was really interesting, especially to see the parallels to what's going on in the DeFi space right now. I think many people there think they'r...Fri, 11 Sep 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-3/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-3/🏈 The Athlete That Gave Up Millions To Build A Sports Media Empire 💰 - Been enjoying the Huddle Up newsletter and this was an awesome story (the YouTube at the end was cool)....Fri, 21 Aug 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/buidler-waffle-ethers/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/buidler-waffle-ethers/Lately at Balancer we've moved from the Truffle development environment to using Buidler, Waffle and Ethers. The main benefit is being able to use console.log in Solidity during...Thu, 23 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/permanent-record-edward-snowden/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/permanent-record-edward-snowden/Easy read and interesting to see the IT experience similarities. Surprising how easy it was for him. What he revealed is unfortunately not surprising. I'm conflicted about the t...Thu, 18 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-2/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-2/Some interesting things I read lately that I don’t really know what to do with but might be interesting to look back on. 68 bits of advice from Kevin Kelly - some good ones in t...Sun, 10 May 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-1/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sitir-1/Some interesting things I read lately that I don't really know what to do with but might be interesting to look back on. Lendf.me $25million hack. ERC-777 tokens, explanations o...Sun, 26 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/saint-jack-paul-theroux/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/saint-jack-paul-theroux/I enjoyed this although it took a bit of time to get through the last few pages after our new arrival 😃 Got it from a really cool/random book shop in Inverness. I really enjoye...Fri, 17 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/4-3-2-1-paul-auster/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/4-3-2-1-paul-auster/Another one I'd never normally pick. I really, really enjoyed it which is a surprise as even after finishing it if I think about what it was actually about I'd say it's totally...Tue, 31 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-penguin-lessons-tom-michell/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-penguin-lessons-tom-michell/This was a really fun and heart warming book - especially if it genuinely is a true story. Was a Christmas present and it was nice to read something I wouldn't normally pick up.Tue, 31 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/making-the-draft/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/making-the-draft/There was a nice piece of advice from one of the pro basketball players in the movie High Flying Bird, something along the lines of: The worst thing a rookie can do when he make...Mon, 30 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/setting-up-testing-typescript-with-mocha-chai/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/setting-up-testing-typescript-with-mocha-chai/This is more a reminder post incase I ever have to do something like this again so its kind of boring! For pure Javascript testing with Mocha/Chai: $ yarn add mocha $ yarn add c...Mon, 16 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/should-i-stay-or-should-i-go/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/should-i-stay-or-should-i-go/He who jumps into the void owes no explanation to those who stand and watch. Jean-Luc Godard Money vs satisfaction. The known vs the unknown. Safe(ish) vs safe. These are the ki...Thu, 30 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/uniswap/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/uniswap/Uniswap is a simple smart contract interface for swapping ERC20 tokens and in general it's pretty awesome. The story behind it is really inspirational to me and just recently Ha...Sat, 18 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/solidity-how-to-estimate-gas-costs/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/solidity-how-to-estimate-gas-costs/I've been working on optimizing the gas cost for deploying a smart contract. Turns out truffle has some pretty useful ways of estimating gas used. Good Old Migrate The most obvi...Mon, 13 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/migrating-sai-to-dai/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/migrating-sai-to-dai/I was using Dharma.io to earn interest on my SAI (formerly DAI). I found Dharma really nice to use and originally offered a good interest rate. Recently the rate had become less...Sun, 05 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/2019-review/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/2019-review/Reading Managed to get through 11 books in the year - 2 less than last year. I feel like it wasn't very many but again, I did read a LOT of blog/technical articles. I also start...Thu, 02 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/wool-hugh-howey/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/wool-hugh-howey/<figure <figcaption Meh! </figcaption </figure One last one! Finished on the last day of 2019. Felt like a looooonggg slog but for some reason I stuck with it. Weird I didn't re...Thu, 02 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sacred-hunger-barry-unsworth/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/sacred-hunger-barry-unsworth/This was a lot of book. At one point I considered giving it up but glad I stuck with it as I mostly enjoyed it. I liked the interweaving of the characters and the way their live...Wed, 27 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/typescript-1-getting-going-migrating/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/typescript-1-getting-going-migrating/I'm currently working on the Burner Signal project. So far I've created the React app that will hopefully be used as the proof of concept. One problem - so far I've done everyth...Thu, 21 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/-winner-winner-/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/-winner-winner-/Well this is cool - I won the Gitcoin x Aave Hackathon! My entry was a bot that does arbitrage between two Uniswap exchanges using an Aave Flashloan as the capital for initial t...Wed, 20 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/note-deploying-a-contract-via-a-delegate-with-truffle-set-up/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/note-deploying-a-contract-via-a-delegate-with-truffle-set-up/This is quite random but I had to learn a few things so worth taking note. I was recently working on a Truffle Dapp. I had to deploy one of my contracts in a roundabout way - ba...Sun, 03 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/oryx-and-crake-margaret-atwood/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/oryx-and-crake-margaret-atwood/This was enjoyable. Not amazing but definitely my style. Just found out it's a trilogy too and will definitely continue.Mon, 28 Oct 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/confessions-of-a-crypto-millionaire-my-unlikely-escape-from-corporate-america-dan-conway/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/confessions-of-a-crypto-millionaire-my-unlikely-escape-from-corporate-america-dan-conway/<figure <figcaption </figcaption </figure What a journey! What a crazy guy. Of course I enjoyed it!Thu, 17 Oct 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-plotters-un-sukm/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-plotters-un-sukm/Another really enjoyable one. Haven't really read anything like it that I can remember.Thu, 17 Oct 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/bitcoin-billionaires-ben-mezrich/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/bitcoin-billionaires-ben-mezrich/<figure <figcaption </figcaption </figure For some reason it felt like a guilty pleasure but I really, really enjoyed it. Will definitely give his others a read.Mon, 08 Jul 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/breakfast-of-champions-kurt-vonnegut/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/breakfast-of-champions-kurt-vonnegut/<figure <figcaption Look at the location! </figcaption </figure Read in a day on the beach in Turkey - great times! Was actually pretty good. Pretty weird and random and kind of...Sat, 08 Jun 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/nucypher-proxy-re-encryption/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/nucypher-proxy-re-encryption/<figure <figcaption Photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash </figcaption </figure In April I entered (and won!) the NuCypher+CoinList hackathon. I didn’t actually know much about th...Sat, 08 Jun 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-testament-of-gideon-mack-james-robertson/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-testament-of-gideon-mack-james-robertson/<figure <figcaption The Testament Of Gideon Mack - James Robertson </figcaption </figure Dissapointing :( I had high hopes for this one, James Robertson is one of my top authors...Sat, 08 Jun 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/to-be-continued-james-robertson/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/to-be-continued-james-robertson/One of my favourite authors now and another book of his I really enjoyed. Pretty different from his others I've read. Was good fun and a bit mad.Thu, 02 May 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/we-are-called-to-rise-laura-mcbride/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/we-are-called-to-rise-laura-mcbride/<figure <figcaption We Are Called To Rise </figcaption </figure Really enjoyed this one - wouldn't be my normal choice but shows it pays to broaden the horizons.Thu, 02 May 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/fateless-imre-kertesz/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/fateless-imre-kertesz/<figure <figcaption Fateles </figcaption </figure I've definitely found other Holocaust books more enthralling. Maybe that's an interesting observation in itself - I'm becoming...Thu, 07 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/thought-timeline/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/thought-timeline/\[caption id="attachment\377" align="aligncenter" width="5472"\] Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash\[/caption\] I can't believe it's March already - it's been a fast start to 201...Thu, 07 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/2018-review/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/2018-review/Reading Managed to get through 13 books in the year. One was a graphic novel and at least one was a continuation from the year before but on the other hand I did start a few tha...Sat, 29 Dec 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/cool-crypto-sending-value-with-a-link/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/cool-crypto-sending-value-with-a-link/Lately I’ve been helping out on the open source burner-wallet app created by Austin Thomas Griffith. The idea behind it was to try and create an app that could exchange value us...Sat, 29 Dec 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/ethereum-scaling-is-not-the-problem/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/ethereum-scaling-is-not-the-problem/<figure <figcaption Warp Speed! Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash </figcaption </figure The reality is that State Channels are here now, and work great, today. We can ship commer...Sat, 29 Dec 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-book-of-lost-things-john-connolly/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-book-of-lost-things-john-connolly/<figure <figcaption </figcaption </figure Bit disappointing. Sometimes felt it was a 'young adult' level and other times it was really brutal! Wasn't even one of those fantasy b...Wed, 26 Dec 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-butcher-boy-patrick-mccabe/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-butcher-boy-patrick-mccabe/Definitely a brutal rollercoast ride. Felt like the style might have influenced Irvine Welsh. Overall enjoyable.Wed, 26 Dec 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/ethereum-vyper-development-using-truffle/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/ethereum-vyper-development-using-truffle/Why Vyper? Vyper is a contract-oriented, pythonic programming language that targets the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) Vyper is a relatively new language that has been written w...Mon, 12 Nov 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/my-devcon-iv/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/my-devcon-iv/The Quick & Not So Nasty Summary It’s going to happen. Ethereum is going to scale, PoS is going to come, UI/UX is going to improve and more people will use DApps. Amazing minds...Mon, 12 Nov 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/shoe-dog-phil-knight/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/shoe-dog-phil-knight/\[caption id="attachment\361" align="alignnone" width="218"\] Shoe Dog\[/caption\] This was enjoyable and inspiring. Also feels familiar, especially the way he doggedly pushes h...Tue, 06 Nov 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/progress/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/progress/Well that’s been a fun and productive couple of months! ConsenSys Academy 2018 I’m now officially a ConsenSys certified dApp Developer 👊! (Certificate apparently on its way) Th...Mon, 10 Sep 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/his-bloody-project-graeme-macrae-burnet/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/his-bloody-project-graeme-macrae-burnet/\[caption id="attachment\357" align="alignnone" width="189"\] His Bloody Project\[/caption\] Was meant to be one of my holiday reads but ended up being one of those books that o...Tue, 21 Aug 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/a-race-too-far-chris-eakin/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/a-race-too-far-chris-eakin/\[caption id="attachment\350" align="alignnone" width="319"\] A Race Too Far\[/caption\] This was good! Exciting, inspirational, educational and even had some crazy twists I did...Tue, 07 Aug 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-fifth-season-n-k-jemisin/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-fifth-season-n-k-jemisin/\[caption id="attachment\347" align="alignnone" width="317"\] Fifth Season\[/caption\] Easy going fantasy for me. Nothing special to be honest but at least it had something a bi...Tue, 07 Aug 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-kills-richard-house/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-kills-richard-house/\[caption id="attachment\353" align="alignnone" width="330"\] The Kills\[/caption\] Described as an epic but this was more like my nemesis! Think I've been reading it for over a...Tue, 07 Aug 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-other-david-guterson/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-other-david-guterson/\[caption id="attachment\344" align="alignnone" width="325"\] The Other\[/caption\] This wasn't my usual type of book and it was tough going at times but it has something that m...Tue, 07 Aug 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/blockchain-the-adjacent-infrastructure/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/blockchain-the-adjacent-infrastructure/The Adjacent Infrastructure Movement Chris Robisons Ethreal summary post really reinforces the feeling I get about Blockchain. He mentions how Joseph Lubin described the tech as...Mon, 28 May 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/moon-over-soho-the-second-rivers-of-london-novel-2/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/moon-over-soho-the-second-rivers-of-london-novel-2/Thought this was better than the first, the ideas seemed to be more thought through. Started reading it as a break from another book I've been slogging through for ages and I re...Sun, 22 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/rivers-of-london-1-ben-aaronovitch/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/rivers-of-london-1-ben-aaronovitch/Easy read. I kind of wasn't that impressed and thought it was rambling a bit near the end of the middle section but I've already read the next one so I probably enjoyed it more...Sun, 22 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/shtum-jem-lester/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/shtum-jem-lester/This was another easy read. Initially I thought I didn't like it but that was because I didn't like the main character which was actually how I think you were meant to feel and...Sun, 22 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/django-custom-migrations/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/django-custom-migrations/The Problem I have a Django app running on Heroku. Recently I had to change one of the models to add a new ForeignKey. The app in production has data stored in the database that...Fri, 02 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/arthur-george-julian-barnes/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/arthur-george-julian-barnes/\[caption id="attachment\330" align="alignnone" width="329"\] Arthur & George\[/caption\] This was a long read, not my typical book but the fact I stuck with it kind of shows I...Thu, 01 Feb 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/django-and-heroku-postgres-databases/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/django-and-heroku-postgres-databases/I'm using Heroku to run one of my Django applications. The application has a Heroku Postgres Add-on for storing data. I'd like to use this 'live' data when I'm working on the ap...Wed, 31 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/wytches-scott-snyder/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/wytches-scott-snyder/This was recommended on Reddit as one of the scariest graphic novels out there. I enjoyed it but didn't find it particularly scary, maybe having an actual picture of something i...Wed, 17 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/hillbilly-elegy-j-d-vance/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/hillbilly-elegy-j-d-vance/\[caption id="attachment\316" align="alignnone" width="323"\] Hillbilly Elegy\[/caption\] This was mentioned a lot on various American tech/VC blogs after Trump was elected. It...Sun, 31 Dec 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/my-absolute-darling-gabriel-tallent-last-of-2017/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/my-absolute-darling-gabriel-tallent-last-of-2017/A last minute addition! My mum recommended this book when I went home for Christmas on 21st and I managed to finish it today. Definitely a page turner and a good read. Brings th...Sun, 31 Dec 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-accidental-superpower-peter-zeihan/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-accidental-superpower-peter-zeihan/Ooft this was my book nemesis of the year! Such a slog and even though I kind of skim read it it still took me a long time to get through. I want to enjoy books like this, or at...Sun, 31 Dec 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/rivers-of-london-ben-aaronovitch/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/rivers-of-london-ben-aaronovitch/Recommended by a friend. Enjoyed it so it was easy reading. Felt Gaimanesque to me with similar themes to his Neverwhere which is one of my favourites. Looks like this is part o...Tue, 19 Dec 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/a-place-called-winter-patrick-gale/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/a-place-called-winter-patrick-gale/Really enjoyed this one. The pioneer stuff has always interested me but I also enjoyed the character side of the tale. Got some more of his to read now but will be a hard act to...Mon, 13 Nov 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/dapp-learnings-storing-iterating-a-collection/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/dapp-learnings-storing-iterating-a-collection/I’ve been working on a rock, paper, scissors Ethereum DApp using Solidity, Web3 and the Truffle framework. I hit a few difficulties trying to replicate functionality that would...Mon, 13 Nov 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-left-hand-of-god-paul-hoffman/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-left-hand-of-god-paul-hoffman/This was a quick and easy read. Not the greatest to be honest and definitely one of those set-up to sell all the 'series' which I doubt I'll be reading as a priority.Mon, 13 Nov 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/token-models-storm/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/token-models-storm/Storm Storm are another interesting crypto company that are planning to do an ICO for their Storm Token in the near future so it's worth investigating how their token model work...Thu, 02 Nov 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/token-models-grid/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/token-models-grid/Grid+ In my previous post I stated I would try to learn more about token models and the associated technology by investigating crypto companies. First up a company called Grid+....Thu, 12 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/analysing-token-models/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/analysing-token-models/ICO's An ICO or Initial Coin Offering allows a company to sell its own cryptocurrency token to investors. As William Mougayar (a true Blockchain expert) states: A \[cryptocurren...Wed, 04 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/reading-the-yellow-wallpaper-by-charlotte-perkins-gilman/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/reading-the-yellow-wallpaper-by-charlotte-perkins-gilman/\[caption id="attachment\228" align="alignnone" width="200"\] The Yellow Wallpaper\[/caption\] This was a short story I saw someone mention as one of the scariest books they'd w...Fri, 29 Sep 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/reading-the-thousand-autumns-of-jacob-de-zoet-by-david-mitchell/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/reading-the-thousand-autumns-of-jacob-de-zoet-by-david-mitchell/\[caption id="attachment\220" align="alignnone" width="326"\] The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet\[/caption\] This wasn't a holiday read, I actually read it earlier in the yea...Tue, 19 Sep 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/holiday-reading-the-end-of-the-world-running-club-by-adrian-j-walker/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/holiday-reading-the-end-of-the-world-running-club-by-adrian-j-walker/\[caption id="attachment\216" align="alignnone" width="318"\] The End of the World Running Club\[/caption\] Holiday book number 2. An apocalyptic thriller so this was right up m...Mon, 11 Sep 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/holiday-reading-beware-of-the-dog-by-brian-moore/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/holiday-reading-beware-of-the-dog-by-brian-moore/\[caption id="attachment\213" align="alignnone" width="192"\] Beware Of The Dog\[/caption\] I had a blissful 13 days off work recently, 8 days of which were spent in the Spanish...Wed, 06 Sep 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/python-redis-pubsub/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/python-redis-pubsub/I recently had an issue where I have three Python scripts that need to be started on my RaspberryPI when it boots. Script 1 is identifying what serial devices are attached to th...Thu, 20 Jul 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/python-map-plotting-using-cartopy/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/python-map-plotting-using-cartopy/<figure \[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="406"\] Cartopy Plot of Scotland\[/caption\] </figure Recently I’ve been using Python and Cartopy to plot some Latitude/Longitu...Mon, 17 Jul 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/scotcoin/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/scotcoin/Earlier this week I attended the Scotcoin & the blockchain meetup at Napier University. It was a Q&A session, there must have been around 25 people there and it was an informati...Fri, 07 Jul 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/dapp-my-first-solidity-contract/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/dapp-my-first-solidity-contract/As explained in my previous post my first smart contract is based on the “Withdrawal from Contracts” example from the Solidity Common Patterns documentation. In this post I revi...Thu, 22 Jun 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/reading-the-underground-railroad-colson-whitehead/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/reading-the-underground-railroad-colson-whitehead/I made quick work of this one! I'm not very good at the whole review/description thing, its all been said better than I can say it on Amazon. I'm mainly logging what I read. Thi...Wed, 14 Jun 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/ethereum-work-beginners-sending-receiving-eth/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/ethereum-work-beginners-sending-receiving-eth/Intro I've been following the Status project for some time and recently they announced their virtual hackathon. I'd been planning on diving into the Ethereum/Decentralised App d...Tue, 06 Jun 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/reading-the-three-body-problem-cixin-liu/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/reading-the-three-body-problem-cixin-liu/Interesting to read something from a Chinese author and have to say I mostly enjoyed it. That maybe shouldn't be surprising because it's won multiple awards. Starting to think i...Fri, 02 Jun 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/reading-slade-house-david-mitchell/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/reading-slade-house-david-mitchell/Fantastic! David Mitchell has possibly moved into poll position as my favourite author. I've read four or five of his books so far and I've really enjoyed all of them. I couldn'...Sat, 08 Apr 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/reading-seveneves-neal-stephenson/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/reading-seveneves-neal-stephenson/I loved Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, it's probably one of my favourite books. I tried to read The Diamond Age but couldn't get into it and eventually gave up. So I was a bi...Fri, 31 Mar 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/antenna-arrays-and-python-the-array-finally/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/antenna-arrays-and-python-the-array-finally/As mentioned in my intro post an array antenna is a set of individual antennas connected to work as a single antenna. So far we’ve covered the individual antennas, i.e. the squa...Thu, 23 Mar 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/antenna-arrays-and-python-patch-efficiency-gain/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/antenna-arrays-and-python-patch-efficiency-gain/Last post I dealt with antenna directivity, this post discusses antenna gain which is closely related. Gain combines an antennas directivity and efficiency to describe how good...Wed, 15 Mar 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/antenna-arrays-and-python-calculating-directivity/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/antenna-arrays-and-python-calculating-directivity/Directivity is a measure of how directional an antenna’s radiation pattern is. For example an antenna that radiates strongly in one direction has a high directivity while an ant...Thu, 09 Mar 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/antenna-arrays-and-python-plotting-with-pyplot/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/antenna-arrays-and-python-plotting-with-pyplot/One of the most useful things to see when investigating an antenna design is the radiation pattern - a plot showing where the antenna transmits or receives power. In the previou...Fri, 03 Mar 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/127/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/127/Another book I finished in February - Blood Meridian. This was a tough one! Described as an "epic" I almost gave up a few times but I stuck with it. I did like the way it portra...Thu, 02 Mar 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/antenna-arrays-and-python-square-patch-element/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/antenna-arrays-and-python-square-patch-element/As mentioned in my intro post, the individual antennas in an array are often known as “elements”. To compute the arrays performance each individual elements field contribution n...Mon, 27 Feb 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/antenna-arrays-and-python-arraycalc-coordinate-systems/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/antenna-arrays-and-python-arraycalc-coordinate-systems/I want to start by acknowledging that the basis for most of the Python scripts came from Neill Tucker’s Antennas and Microwave page and more specifically his Phased Array Design...Fri, 24 Feb 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/antenna-arrays-and-python-introduction/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/antenna-arrays-and-python-introduction/I’ve been delving into the world of antenna arrays recently. The thing that really helped me understand the background theory was writing some Python scripts covering some desig...Thu, 23 Feb 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/reading-printers-devil-stona-fitch/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/reading-printers-devil-stona-fitch/I'm going to try and keep track of my reading on this blog. Printer's Devil by Stona Fitch was a book I picked up at a charity shop. It wasn't amazing but it was an easy read. I...Mon, 20 Feb 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/deploying-a-django-app-to-heroku/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/deploying-a-django-app-to-heroku/Note to self — before deploying a local Django app to Heroku I should do the following: Install the wsgi HTTP server, gunicorn: pip install gunicorn Install package to help work...Thu, 02 Feb 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/updating-distributed-raspberrypis-with-automatic-code-updates/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/updating-distributed-raspberrypis-with-automatic-code-updates/I’m working on a project that has multiple RaspberryPI’s, distributed in multiple locations, but all running the same code (Django Channels with Python background worker scripts...Fri, 27 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-rule-of-3/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/the-rule-of-3/Since the start of the year I've been trying out "The Rule Of 3" to try and prioritise tasks in a better way. I'm kind of using it in a dumbed down way - at the end of the day I...Thu, 19 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/exercise-is-goooooood/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/exercise-is-goooooood/So today was meant to be the "blueist" day of the year and to be honest when I woke up this morning I didn't feel keen to get out of bed, let alone get working. Even after our e...Mon, 16 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/zcash/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/zcash/Zcash (ZEC) is another form of crytocurrency with its main differentiation being that it provides methods to make private transactions. Personally I can't really think of when I...Sat, 14 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/blockchains-digital-currency/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/blockchains-digital-currency/Warning, this is a bit of a brain spew! Digital currency such as Bitcoin and Ethereum and the blockchains they are built on are exciting and interesting technologies. I've been...Mon, 09 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://pitchandrolls.com/blog/git-calls-on-another-directory/https://pitchandrolls.com/blog/git-calls-on-another-directory/Today I learned that it's possible to call git commands on a directory/repository other than the one you are currently in. For example to call git status on a repo in /var/app j...Wed, 04 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT