title
stringlengths 1
200
⌀ | text
stringlengths 10
100k
| url
stringlengths 32
829
| authors
stringlengths 2
392
| timestamp
stringlengths 19
32
| tags
stringlengths 6
263
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
How the Morphology of Our Jaws and Skulls have Changed Over Time | Bibliography
1. Nestor, James. Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art. Riverhead Books, an Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2020.
2. Wilford, John Noble. “Human Teeth, Small Already, Keep On Shrinking.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 30 Aug. 1988, www.nytimes.com/1988/08/30/science/human-teeth-small-already-keep-on-shrinking.html.
3. Ungar, Peter S. “Why We Have So Many Problems with Our Teeth.” Scientific American, Scientific American, 1 Apr. 2020, www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-we-have-so-many-problems-with-our-teeth/.
4. Gibbons, Ann, and Photographs by Matthieu Paley. “The Evolution of Diet.” National Geographic, www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/evolution-of-diet/.
5. Cramon-Taubadel, Noreen Von. “Measuring the Effects of Farming on Human Skull Morphology.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 114, no. 34, 2017, pp. 8917–8919., doi:10.1073/pnas.1711475114.
6. University, Stanford. “The Toll of Shrinking Jaws on Human Health.” Stanford News, 22 July 2020, news.stanford.edu/2020/07/21/toll-shrinking-jaws-human-health/.
7. Sample, Ian. “Oldest Homo Sapiens Bones Ever Found Shake Foundations of the Human Story.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 7 June 2017, www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/07/oldest-homo-sapiens-bones-ever-found-shake-foundations-of-the-human-story. | https://medium.com/anth-p380-prehistoric-diet-and-nutrition/how-the-morphology-of-our-jaws-and-skulls-have-changed-over-time-168ebafee8ad | ['Keitlyn Alcantara'] | 2020-12-18 22:41:09.490000+00:00 | ['Anthropology', 'Food', 'Evolution', 'Prehistory'] |
Estar solo no es malo, es necesario. | Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more
Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore | https://medium.com/shizenmen/estar-solo-no-es-malo-es-necesario-bf95aeb85c59 | ['Iñaki Zurdo Mantas'] | 2020-12-10 11:06:26.830000+00:00 | ['Cuidado Personal', 'Español', 'Tiempo', 'Desarrollo Personal', 'Estilo De Vida'] |
Bernoulli and Binomial Random Variables with Python | Bernoulli and Binomial Random Variables with Python
Introduction
In a series of weekly articles, I will be covering some important topics of statistics with a twist.
The goal is to use Python to help us get intuition on complex concepts, empirically test theoretical proofs, or build algorithms from scratch. In this series, you will find articles covering topics such as random variables, sampling distributions, confidence intervals, significance tests, and more.
At the end of each article, you can find exercises to test your knowledge. The solutions will be shared in the article of the following week.
Articles published so far:
As usual the code is available on my GitHub.
Random Variables
We are going to start by defining what exactly is a Random Variable (RV). The first important aspect to consider is that it is not a traditional variable. A random variable can take many different values with different probabilities, so we cannot solve for them, for instance, like we would do in the equation y = x + 1. Instead, it makes more sense to talk about the probability of an RV being less than or greater than some value. In short, an RV maps outcomes of random processes to numbers.
The simplest example for us to think about an RV is a coin flip.
Figure 1: Coin flips help us understand the concept of an RV; source
The possible outcomes are “heads” and “tails”, which we have quantified to 1 and 0, respectively.
Bernoulli Random Variable
Random Variables can be either discrete or continuous. We will start by focusing on discrete RVs. By definition, discrete variables can only take distinct values, such as in the example above of the flip of a coin. For these variables, you can count the number of different values it can take on.
Our RV X defined above is actually a Bernoulli RV. It can take the value 1 with probability p (in the case of a fair coin, p is equal to 0.5 or 50%) and the value 0 with probability q = 1-p. Its Probability Mass Function can then be defined as:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
from scipy.stats import bernoulli, binom
import seaborn as sns
Let’s start by defining a Bernoulli RV X with a success probability of p=0.3.
p = 0.3
X = bernoulli(p)
We can print the values for its Probability Mass Function on 0 and 1.
print(np.round(X.pmf(1),2))
print(np.round(X.pmf(0), 2)) 0.3
0.7
To help visualize, let’s empirically arrive at the same values by drawing 10,000 samples from our variable.
X_samples = X.rvs(100000) sns.histplot(X_samples, stat="density", discrete=True, shrink=0.2);
Figure 2: Sampling distribution of our RV X
It looks as expected; we have a 0.3 probability of success and a 0.7 probability of failure.
Let’s define the mean and variance of our RV. The mean is calculated by summing the product of the value of each outcome by the corresponding probability. The variance is the squared deviation of the value of each outcome from the mean, weighted by the respective probability. More formally:
We can compare our empirically calculated mean with the theoretical mean that we just derived. They are indeed very close, and they would become closer as the sample size increases.
print('Empirically calculated mean: {}'.format(X_samples.mean()))
print('Theoretical mean: {}'.format(p)) print('Empirically calculated standard deviation: {}'.format(X_samples.std()))
print('Theoretical standard deviation: {}'.format((p*(1-p))**(1/2))) Empirically calculated mean: 0.30059
Theoretical mean: 0.3
Empirically calculated standard deviation: 0.45851461470709964
Theoretical standard deviation: 0.458257569495584
Binomial Random Variable
We can look at a Binomial RV as a set of Bernoulli experiments or trials. This way, our understanding of how the properties of the distribution are derived becomes significantly simpler.
Before diving into definitions, let’s start with the main conditions that need to be fulfilled to define our RV as Binomial:
The trials are independent;
Each trial can be classified as either success or failure;
There is a fixed number of trials;
The probability of success on each trial is constant.
Let’s define the RV Z as the number of successes after n trials where P(success) for each trial is p.
Let’s also define Y, a Bernoulli RV with P(Y=1)=p and P(Y=0)=1-p.
Y represents each independent trial that composes Z. We already derived both the variance and expected value of Y above.
Using the following property E(X+Y)=E(X)+E(Y), we can derive the expected value of our Binomial RV Z:
Recall that we have n independent trials or n RV Y being summed.
When deriving the VAR(Y), the process is the same because VAR(X+Y)=VAR(X)+VAR(Y) is also true. Then we have:
Let’s now test our theoretical understanding with an experiment.
n=6
p = 0.3
Y = bernoulli(p)
We defined our Y variable. We can construct our X variable from this Y variable as defined above; these are the Bernoulli independent trials. Let’s assume that we have 6 independent trials.
Y_samples = [Y.rvs(1000000) for i in range(6)]
Y_samples [array([0, 0, 0, ..., 0, 1, 1]),
array([1, 0, 1, ..., 0, 0, 0]),
array([0, 0, 1, ..., 1, 1, 0]),
array([1, 0, 0, ..., 0, 0, 0]),
array([0, 0, 0, ..., 0, 1, 0]),
array([0, 0, 0, ..., 0, 0, 0])] Z_samples = sum(Y_samples) print('Empirically calculated expected value: {}'.format(Z_samples.mean()))
print('Theoretical expected value: {}'.format(n*p)) Empirically calculated expected value: 1.800219
Theoretical expected value: 1.7999999999999998 print('Empirically calculated variance: {}'.format(Z_samples.var()))
print('Theoretical variance: {}'.format(n*p*(1-p))) Empirically calculated variance: 1.2612705520390002
Theoretical variance: 1.2599999999999998
We feel better about our theoretical derivations as our experiment shows that we are indeed on the right path.
We can also plot our Binomial distribution. Remember that it is a discrete distribution.
sns.histplot(Z_samples, stat="density", discrete=True, shrink=0.3);
Figure 3: Sampling distribution of our RV Z, which is a Binomial RV.
Binomial PMF and CDF
The Binomial Probability Mass Function (PMF) can be written in the following way:
It seems a bit daunting at first; let’s try to break it down into smaller interpretable pieces.
The first term is just the binomial coefficient or the number of different ways we can choose k items from n possible ones when the order does not matter, i.e., the set ABC is the same as CBA.
Recall that n!/(n-k)! is the number of permutations or the number of different ways we can choose k items from n possible ones when the order matters, i.e., ABC and CBA counts as two different results. k! is just the number of ways to arrange k items. For example, in the case of 3 items and 3 positions, we have the following possibilities:
Recall that 3!=3 * 2 *1= 6.
Let’s start building small functions to handle our different components, starting with a function to compute the factorial of an input argument.
def fact(n):
x = 1
for i in range(1, n+1):
x *= i
return x
fact(3) 6
Now, we can use our function fact() inside of another function that computes the binomial coefficient.
def comb(n, k):
x = 1
return fact(n)/(fact(k)*fact(n-k))
comb(6, 3) 20.0
And finally, putting everything together:
def binompmf(prob, n, k):
return comb(n,k)*prob**k*(1-prob)**(n-k)
A useful function that you often find in statistical packages together with the PMF of a distribution is the Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF). It is nothing more than the probability that our RV takes values up to a z:
def binomcdf(prob, n, x):
result = 0
for x_ in range(0, x+1):
result += binompmf(prob, n, x_)
return result
Let’s try it out.
Figure 4: Cristiano Ronaldo’s free-kick execution can be modeled using a Binomial distribution, source
We want to assess the probability distribution that models Cristiano Ronaldo’s ability to score free-kicks. We will be using the table below, which shows Ronaldo’s free-kick record in La Liga and the Champions League:
Table 1: Ronaldo’s free-kick record, source
Ronaldo has a 0.094 probability of successfully convert a free-kick in the Champions League. Based on that, what is Ronaldo’s probability of scoring 1 out of 7 free-kicks in the Champions League?
binompmf(0.094, 7, 1) 0.3639109131870316
What is the probability of scoring less than 2?
binomcdf(0.094, 7, 1) 0.8649797389430357
Exercises:
You will get the solutions in next week’s article.
1.A company produces bottles of water. In its main factory, the number of defective bottles is 5%. A quality check consists of randomly selecting and testing 1000 bottles. What are the mean and standard deviation of the number of defective bottles in these samples?
2. A wine company is running a promotion that says 1-in-4 boxes of the wine contain a surprise. Suppose that you will buy 5 boxes of this wine, and let X represent the number of surprises you can win in these boxes. Assume that these boxes represent a random sample and assume that surprises are independent between boxes. What is the probability that you win at most 1 surprise in the 5 boxes?
(Can you solve this problem in 3 different ways? Tip: by sampling, summing individual probabilities, and using the CDF)
3. A math teacher is doing an activity with her students where she gives them a 20-question multiple-choice test, and they know none of the answers. Students need to guess on every question, and each question has 5 possible choices, 1 of which is correct. What are the mean and standard deviation of the number of questions that each student gets correct?
(Can you solve this problem in 2 different ways? Tip: by sampling and using the theoretical derivation that we did above) | https://towardsdatascience.com/bernoulli-and-binomial-random-variables-d0698288dd36 | ['Luís Roque'] | 2021-08-03 13:27:04.750000+00:00 | ['Statistics', 'Random Variables', 'Python', 'Probability', 'Machine Learning'] |
Use technology to stop procrastinating | Notion (FREE)
I discovered Notion via work. It was a tool we used to co-work together. However, it works for anyone whether a student or a project manager. With Notion’s Kanban-style template, you are able to break your workload into smaller pieces and put them under the headings “ Not started, In progress and Completed”. It’s very visual, and you can clearly see what needs to be done. There is also nothing more satisfying than marking a task as completed.
2. Google Calendar ( FREE)
Not just for people who have “important meetings”. When you have written down all that needs to be completed, you actually need to set the time to do them. I use google calendar to schedule times for each task and estimate how long it’s going to take me. Again, it’s very visual, and you get a reminder of when the tasks are about to begin. Added bonus, you might get the opportunity to say “ let me check my calendar.”
3. Forest (FREE)
Forest is an app that plants a tree for the duration of the task you have set out to complete, over time you grow a forest. If you leave the app during your session, your tree dies, and you start over again. It also allows you to lock specific apps on your phone, and the best part is, there is an opportunity to plant a real tree.
4. Whatsapp (FREE)
I know you are thinking WTF, but hear me out. I think having an accountability partner can often make getting things done easier. I have recently dedicated 30 minutes a day to learning something new a long with my friend. Every day at 20:30 latest, we Whatsapp each other to see if we’ve done it. We both anticipate this message and not doing it often feels like you are letting the other person down.
5. Tupear (shameless plug)
The wonderful people at Tupear and myself understand that a lack of accountability often leads to procrastination, especially for students and those completing online courses. It can be hard to get your friends to hold you accountable as they too are procrastinating and you both bond over how you will most likely fail together. For those studying online, it’s often a lonely journey and motivation can be hard. In short, we are working on a product that will hopefully eliminate these issues. I can’t say more at this moment, but we are so excited, and we will be keeping you updated on this mysterious thing that might just revolutionise your life (not promising you will be the next Steve Jobs).
If you REALLY want to find more about it, you can shoot us an email at [email protected]
Last words of wisdom, we all procrastinate, some more than others. What works for one person might not work for you. As long as you manage to get the work done, that is all that matters. I have a friend that treats herself to a snack when she completes a task. Personally, I would eat the whole bag of Doritos before I even begin.
A wise guru in the Himalayan mountains once said: “JUST DO IT.” ✔️ | https://medium.com/@mohamoudasma/using-technology-to-stop-procrastinating-3ab4ebb6847a | ['Asma Mohamoud'] | 2020-05-06 10:01:07.658000+00:00 | ['Educational Technology', 'Productivity', 'Students', 'Startup', 'Procrastination'] |
Top DOT NET Development company in New York Metro Area | List of the Top .Net Developers
Rank #1 DabApps has maintained its position in the race and turns out to be a trusted .Net development company.
Rank #2 Ezapp Solution has successfully moved positions up and excel growth double times now
Rank #3 TwentySix has successfully moved two positions up and excel growth double times now
Rank #4 Ballard Chalmers does have an effective global presence when it comes to leading .Net developers worldwide.
Rank #5 TatvaSoft is a reputable .Net development service provider keeping dedication, transparency, expertise paramount.
Rank #6 PicNet has shifted to one position down as compared with the previous data but still has its claws intact in
Rank #7 The Provato Group is the leading .Net development company establishing partnerships with people on a long-term agreement.
Rank #8 Catalyst has immense experience in developing amazing software products & web solutions for their valued clientele.
Rank #9 QAT Global has been ranked well among the top .Net development companies across the globe serving numerous industry verticals including retail, healthcare domain, telecom field.
Rank #10 Trancis excels at providing robust and well-established IT infra with the latest technologies like full-stack web development services. | https://medium.com/@ezappsolution1/top-dot-net-development-company-in-new-york-metro-area-fb586adda01f | ['Ezapp Solution'] | 2021-09-11 17:18:15.355000+00:00 | ['Dot Net Development', 'Metro Area', 'Company', 'New York'] |
Predict Employee Churn with Machine Learning | 4. Evaluation
4.1 Performance scores
We’ll start by printing the cross-validation scores. This is the average performance across the 10 hold-out folds and is a way to get a reliable estimate of the model performance using only your training data.
for name, model in fitted_models.items():
print(name, model.best_score_) Output:
l1 0.9088324151412831
l2 0.9088324151412831
rf 0.9793851075173272
gb 0.975475386529234
Moving onto the test data, we’ll:
calculate accuracy ;
; print the confusion matrix and calculate precision, recall and F1-score ;
and calculate and ; display the ROC and calculate the AUROC score.
Accuracy measures the proportion of correctly labelled predictions, however it is an inappropriate metric for imbalanced datasets, e.g. email spam filtration (spam vs. not spam) and medical testing (sick vs. not sick). For instance, if our dataset only had 1% of employees satisfying target=Left, then a model that always predicts the employee is still working at the company would instantly score 99% accuracy. In these situations, precision or recall is more appropriate. Whichever you use often depends on whether you want to minimise Type 1 errors (False Positives) or Type 2 errors (False Negatives). For spam emails, Type 1 errors are worse (some spam is OK as long as you don’t accidentally filter out an important email!) while Type 2 errors are unacceptable for medical testing (telling someone they didn’t have cancer when they did is a disaster!). The F1-score gets you the best of both worlds by taking the weighted average of precision and recall.
The area under the ROC, known as the AUROC is another standard metric for classification problems. It’s an effective measurement of a classifier’s ability to distinguish between classes and separate signal from noise. This metric is also robust against imbalanced datasets.
Here is the code to generate these scores and plots:
for name, model in fitted_models.items():
print('Results for:', name)
# obtain predictions
pred = fitted_models[name].predict(X_test) # confusion matrix
cm = confusion_matrix(y_test, pred)
print(cm) # accuracy score
print('Accuracy:', accuracy_score(y_test, pred))
# precision
precision = cm[1][1]/(cm[0][1]+cm[1][1])
print('Precision:', precision)
# recall
recall = cm[1][1]/(cm[1][0]+cm[1][1])
print('Recall:', recall)
# F1_score
print('F1:', f1_score(y_test, pred))
# obtain prediction probabilities
pred = fitted_models[name].predict_proba(X_test)
pred = [p[1] for p in pred] # plot ROC
fpr, tpr, thresholds = roc_curve(y_test, pred)
plt.title('Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC)')
plt.plot(fpr, tpr, label=name)
plt.legend(loc='lower right')
plt.plot([0,1],[0,1],'k--')
plt.xlim([-0.1,1.1])
plt.ylim([-0.1,1.1])
plt.ylabel('True Positive Rate (TPR) i.e. Recall')
plt.xlabel('False Positive Rate (FPR)')
plt.show()
# AUROC score
print('AUROC:', roc_auc_score(y_test, pred))
Logistic regression (L1-regularised):
Output:
[[2015 126]
[ 111 562]]
Accuracy: 0.9157782515991472
Precision: 0.8168604651162791
Recall: 0.8350668647845468
F1: 0.8258633357825129
AUROC: 0.9423905869485105
Logistic regression (L2-regularised):
Output:
[[2014 127]
[ 110 563]]
Accuracy: 0.9157782515991472
Precision: 0.8159420289855073
Recall: 0.836552748885587
F1: 0.8261188554658841
AUROC: 0.9423246556128734
Gradient-boosted tree:
Output:
[[2120 21]
[ 48 625]]
Accuracy: 0.9754797441364605
Precision: 0.9674922600619195
Recall: 0.9286775631500743
F1: 0.9476876421531464
AUROC: 0.9883547910913578
Random forest:
Output:
[[2129 12]
[ 45 628]] Accuracy: 0.9797441364605544
Precision: 0.98125
Recall: 0.9331352154531947
F1: 0.9565879664889566
AUROC: 0.9916117990718256
The winning algorithm is the random forest with an AUROC of 99% and a F1-score of 96%. This algorithm has a 99% chance of distinguishing between a Left and Employed worker… pretty good!
Out of 2814 employees in the test set, the algorithm:
correctly classified 628 Left workers (True Positives) while getting 12 wrong (Type I errors), and
correctly classified 2129 Employed workers (True Negatives) while getting 45 wrong (Type II errors).
FYI, here are the hyperparameters of the winning random forest, tuned using GridSearchCV. | https://towardsdatascience.com/will-your-employee-leave-a-machine-learning-model-8484c2a6663e | ['Col Jung'] | 2020-12-01 07:39:47.521000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Classification', 'Data Science', 'Employee Retention', 'Churn Prediction'] |
Create Pipeline with Terraform & Setup Container Image Scans with Snyk in AWS CodeBuild | Containerising applications offers numerous benefits. However, you want to make sure that your containers are based on secure images and that you can be aware of any vulnerabilities in your applications and their dependencies. A security platform like Snyk offers this kind of in-depth container image scanning and security.
In this post, I’ll be demonstrating how you can setup a two stage pipeline in AWS with GitHub as the source along with the CI/CD tools CodeBuild and CodePipeline using Terraform. In addition, we will create an application that we will create a Docker image from to scan, test and configure continuous monitoring in Snyk. This is a good technique to ensure that you secure container images and test them before pushing them into your image repository.
I would recommend that you following along with the source code for this post which is available here.
If you enjoy the post, feel free to buy me a coffee here ☕️ 😃 .
Create Application & Docker Files
Let’s get started by creating the application that we’ll be containerising. If you’ve read some of my previous posts then you can probably guess what kind of application we’ll be working with 😃. That’s right, a React application. As usual, we’re going to keep things very simple because the focus of this post isn’t application development. All we’ll be doing is ensuring that our production grade Docker image is a React build that serves its static content through an Nginx web server. We will also have a second Docker image that will be used to run application tests, as well as check for any existing vulnerabilities in our image using Snyk.
Inside my project folder, I create a directory called docker-application. Inside this docker application folder, I run the following command:
npx create-react-app . --use-npm
This will create a basic React application with npm as the package manager. I want to make two updates to the React application. The first is in the App.test.js file. I update the default test to the following that checks if the main App component successfully renders when mounted onto the DOM.
import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from "react-dom";
import App from './App'; test('renders without crashing', () => {
const div = document.createElement("div");
ReactDOM.render(<App />, div);
ReactDOM.unmountComponentAtNode(div);
});
The second update is to create an nginx directory in the root of the docker-application folder with a default.conf file. The default.conf file will container the configuration to setup a web server that serves static content from the React build and listens for traffic on port 3000. When our Docker image is being created, this configuration file will be copied over from our local project into the image snapshot.
server {
listen 3000; location / {
root /usr/share/nginx/html;
index index.html index.htm;
}
}
Alright, let’s move on to the Dockerfiles. Whilst in the same directory, we can create both Dockerfiles using the terminal:
touch Dockerfile Dockerfile.dev
The Dockerfile.dev file will be used to run a container that executes our tests.
Dockerfile.dev
FROM node:13.14-buster-slim AS alpine
WORKDIR /app
COPY package.json .
RUN npm install
COPY . . CMD ["npm", "run", "test"]
The second Dockerfile will be used to create our production grade image.
Dockerfile
FROM node:13.14-buster-slim as build
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm install
COPY . .
RUN npm run build FROM nginx
EXPOSE 3000
COPY ./nginx/default.conf /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf
COPY --from=build /app/build /usr/share/nginx/html
You can then proceed to create a Docker image and create a container to ensure that your React application’s test is passing successfully.
docker build -t yourname/react-debug -f Dockerfile.dev .
docker run -e CI=true yourname/react-debug
Once you’ve done that, you should see a result similar to the following:
> [email protected] test /app
> react-scripts test PASS src/App.test.js
✓ renders without crashing (26ms) Test Suites: 1 passed, 1 total
Tests: 1 passed, 1 total
Snapshots: 0 total
Time: 1.912s
Ran all test suites.
Create Snyk Account & Store API Token in AWS Secrets Manager
Signing up for a Snyk account is pretty straightforward. Once you’re signed up and logged into your account. Hover over your username in the top right corner and click on the General Settings option from the dropdown menu that appears. Once you’re on the Account Settings page on the General tab, fetch your API Token. We’re going to be storing this token in AWS Secrets Manager. You can do this using the AWS Console. If you haven’t done this before, not to worry. The process of filling in the relevant fields in Secrets Manager is very intuitive, but in case of any issues you can refer to the documentation here.
Testing Snyk Locally
As much as we’ll be using the Snyk CLI in the CI build stage of our pipeline, it would still be a good idea to test our application locally for before pushing our changes to a repository. To do this, you can install the Snyk CLI using one of the methods outlined here. Once you have that installed, you can check the version with the following command:
snyk --version
Next, we’ll want to authenticate with the CLI tool so that we can track any vulnerabilities that are detected in our Docker image and keep track of them continuously in our Snyk account. To do this, you run the following command in the CLI:
snyk config set api=XXXXXXXX
Once that is done, you can run a test on the Docker image you created earlier, as well as setup continuous monitoring with the following commands:
snyk test --docker yourname/react-debug:latest --file=Dockerfile.dev
snyk monitor --docker yourname/react-debug:latest --file=Dockerfile.dev
The first command execution should produce a list of vulnerabilities detected in the image. To monitor these issues, you can head over to your Snyk Dashboard and you’ll be able to get details of security issues with your image along with the categorised severity of each.
Configure BuildSpec File for CodeBuild
If you’re new to AWS CodeBuild, it’s essentially a CI (Continuous Integration) service or tool that compiles source code, runs tests, and produces software packages or artifcats that are ready to be deployed. We are going to be configuring the build stage of the pipeline using a configuration file saved as buildspec.yml. This file will specify the phases which represent the commands CodeBuild runs during each phase of the build. You can read more details on the buildspec file here.
install: install dependencies you may need for your build
pre_build: final commands to execute before build
build: actual build commands
post_build: finishing touches
You can create this file in the root directory of your project (outside of the docker-application folder). Here’s what we want to achieve in the CI stage of our pipeline:
Install Snyk CLI
Authenticate with Snyk authentication token
Build Docker image for testing
Create container and run application tests
Scan container image and setup monitoring
Build production Docker image
Login to Docker CLI
Push production grade Docker image to Docker Hub
buildspec.yml
phases:
install:
runtime-versions:
docker: 18
pre_build:
commands:
# Install Snyk
- echo Install Snyk
- curl -Lo ./snyk "
- chmod -R +x ./snyk
# Snyk auth
- ./snyk config set api="$SNYK_AUTH_TOKEN"
# Build Docker image for testing
- echo Building the Docker image for testing...
- docker build -t yourname/dkr-scanned-react-container-image-test -f ./docker-application/Dockerfile.dev ./docker-application
build:
commands:
- echo Build started on `date`
# Run tests with built Docker image
- echo Run react tests...
- docker run -e CI=true yourname/dkr-scanned-react-container-image-test
# Scan Docker image with Snyk
- ./snyk test --severity-threshold=medium --docker yourname/dkr-scanned-react-container-image-test:latest --file=./docker-application/Dockerfile.dev
- ./snyk monitor --docker yourname/dkr-scanned-react-container-image-test:latest --file=./docker-application/Dockerfile.dev
# Build the production Docker image
- echo Building the production Docker image...
- docker build -t yourname/dkr-scanned-react-container-image ./docker-application/
# Log in to the Docker CLI
- echo "$DOCKER_PW" | docker login -u "$DOCKER_ID" --password-stdin
post_build:
commands:
# Take these images and push them to Docker hub
- echo Pushing the Docker images...
- docker push yourname/dkr-scanned-react-container-image version: 0.2phases:runtime-versions:docker: 18commands:# Install Snyk- echo Install Snyk- curl -Lo ./snyk " https://github.com/snyk/snyk/releases/download/v1.210.0/snyk-linux - chmod -R +x ./snyk# Snyk auth- ./snyk config set api="$SNYK_AUTH_TOKEN"# Build Docker image for testing- echo Building the Docker image for testing...- docker build -t yourname/dkr-scanned-react-container-image-test -f ./docker-application/Dockerfile.dev ./docker-applicationcommands:- echo Build started on `date`# Run tests with built Docker image- echo Run react tests...- docker run -e CI=true yourname/dkr-scanned-react-container-image-test# Scan Docker image with Snyk- ./snyk test --severity-threshold=medium --docker yourname/dkr-scanned-react-container-image-test:latest --file=./docker-application/Dockerfile.dev- ./snyk monitor --docker yourname/dkr-scanned-react-container-image-test:latest --file=./docker-application/Dockerfile.dev# Build the production Docker image- echo Building the production Docker image...- docker build -t yourname/dkr-scanned-react-container-image ./docker-application/# Log in to the Docker CLI- echo "$DOCKER_PW" | docker login -u "$DOCKER_ID" --password-stdincommands:# Take these images and push them to Docker hub- echo Pushing the Docker images...- docker push yourname/dkr-scanned-react-container-image
You may notice the following environment variables in the above configuration file:
SNYK_AUTH_TOKEN, DOCKER_ID, DOCKER_PW
The values for each of these are obtained from Secrets Manager and are configured as environment variables for use by CodeBuild. This is provisioned in our Terraform code which we will be moving on to next.
Lastly, make sure to push your existing code changes to a GitHub repository that will be used in the source stage of your pipeline.
Using Terraform for AWS Infrastructure
We’ll start by creating a bucket for the backend remote state of our infrastructure and a DynamoDB table for state locking in the case that you’re working within a team. Terraform must store state about your managed infrastructure and configuration, and the backends are responsible for storing the state and providing an API for state locking to prevent multiple runs for multiple Terraform components. Also, I’ll be making use of Terragrunt which is a wrapper for Terraform to keep our IaC (Infrastructure as Code) DRY.
Prerequisites:
AWS CLI tool
Configured AWS profile with CLI
Terraform and Terragrunt
Setting Up The Backend Remote State
Create S3 bucket for backend remote state using the AWS CLI tool:
aws s3api create-bucket --bucket <your-bucket-name> --region eu-west-1 --create-bucket-configuration LocationConstraint=eu-west-1
Create DynamoDB table for state locking with a single attribute LockID which will also be the Hash key:
aws dynamodb create-table --table-name <your-table-name> --attribute-definitions AttributeName=LockID,AttributeType=S --key-schema AttributeName=LockID,KeyType=HASH --provisioned-throughput ReadCapacityUnits=1,WriteCapacityUnits=1
Folder Structure & Configuration
As you can imagine, there are different ways of structuring your IaC. I’ll be keeping my Terraform modules and the code for the environments to be deployed in the same repository but in separate folders. At the root of the project directory, I’ll have the parent Terragrunt configuration file and a file consisting of sensitive variables. Here’s what it will look like:
├── docker-application/
├── infra-live/prod/terragrunt.hcl
├── infra-modules/cicd
├── buildspec.yml
├── sensitive.tfvars
└── terragrunt.hcl
In our parent terragrunt.hcl file, we set up the remote backend configuration and the table to be used for state locking:
terragrunt.hcl
remote_state {
backend = "s3"
generate = {
path = "backend.tf"
if_exists = "overwrite_terragrunt"
}
config = {
bucket = "<s3-bucket-name>" key = "${path_relative_to_include()}/terraform.tfstate"
region = "eu-west-1"
encrypt = true
dynamodb_table = "<dynamo-db-table-name>"
}
}
We’re going to have the following some files and variable values that we don’t want committed as part of our source code, so we’ll include them in the .gitignore file. In the senstive.tfvars file you can set the following variables that will be added to the CLI by Terragrunt:
sensitive.tfvars
profile = xxx
region = xxx
github_secret_name = xxx
docker_secret_name = xxx
snyk_secret_name = xxx
profile — add a profile name for an AWS account configured in the CLI on your machine
region — the selected region you want to deploy your infrastructure in
github_secret_name — the name of the secret store containing your GitHub personal access token
docker_secret_name — the name of the secret store container your Docker ID and Docker password
snyk_secret_name — the name of the secret store with you Snyk authentication token
Lastly, in this subsection, here’s the .gitignore to make sure we omit the relevant files and folders from our git history:
.gitignore
.DS_Store
.idea
*.iml
**/.terragrunt-cache/* # Local .terraform directories
**/.terraform/* # .tfstate files
*.tfstate
*.tfstate.*
.idea/* # .tfvars files
sensitive.tfvars # Crash log files
crash.log # Ignore override files as they are usually used to override resources locally and so
# are not checked in
override.tf
override.tf.json
*_override.tf
*_override.tf.json # Include override files you do wish to add to version control using negated pattern
#
# !example_override.tf # Include tfplan files to ignore the plan output of command: terraform plan -out=tfplan
# example: *tfplan*
AWS Infrastructure Modules
Inside our infra-modules folder, we’ll add a sub folder called cicd for the infrastructure related to the pipeline we’ll be setting up.
├── cloudwatch/
├── codebuild/
├── codepipeline/
├── lambda/
├── main.tf
├── provider.tf
└── variables.tf
CloudWatch — setup event tracking for changes in the status of the pipeline and send state changes to Lambda
CodeBuild — setup CI for building and testing of our Docker images, as well as configure scans and continuous monitoring with Snyk
CodePipeline — setup two stage pipeline with GitHub source and a CodeBuild project for the build stage
Lambda — deploy a function that will receive CloudWatch events and push notifications to Slack
Main Resource Files
In this section, I’ll only demonstrate the main files, but all the source code is available in a public repository here.
cloudwatch.tf
resource "aws_cloudwatch_event_rule" "main" {
name = "${var.name}-${var.environment}"
description = var.description event_pattern = <<PATTERN
{
"source": [
"aws.codepipeline"
],
"detail-type": [
"CodePipeline Pipeline Execution State Change"
],
"resources": [
"${var.codepipeline_arn}"
],
"detail": {
"pipeline": [
"${var.codepipeline_name}"
],
"state": [
"RESUMED",
"FAILED",
"CANCELED",
"SUCCEEDED",
"SUPERSEDED",
"STARTED"
]
}
}
PATTERN
} resource "aws_cloudwatch_event_target" "main" {
rule = aws_cloudwatch_event_rule.main.name
target_id = var.targetId
arn = var.resource_arn
input_transformer {
input_template = <<DOC
{
"pipeline": <pipeline>,
"state": <state>
}
DOC
input_paths = {
pipeline: "$.detail.pipeline",
state: "$.detail.state"
}
}
}
codebuild.tf
resource "aws_codebuild_project" "main" {
name = "${var.name}-${var.environment}"
service_role = aws_iam_role.main.arn
build_timeout = "10" artifacts {
type = "CODEPIPELINE"
} environment {
compute_type = "BUILD_GENERAL1_SMALL"
image = var.image
type = "LINUX_CONTAINER"
privileged_mode = true environment_variable {
name = "STAGE_NAME"
value = var.environment
} environment_variable {
name = "DOCKER_ID"
value = var.docker_id
} environment_variable {
name = "DOCKER_PW"
value = var.docker_pw
} environment_variable {
name = "SNYK_AUTH_TOKEN"
value = var.snyk_auth_token
}
} source {
type = "CODEPIPELINE"
buildspec = "buildspec.yml"
}
}
codepipeline.tf
resource "aws_codepipeline" "main" {
name = "${var.name}-${var.environment}"
role_arn = aws_iam_role.main.arn artifact_store {
location = "${aws_s3_bucket.main.bucket}"
type = "S3"
} stage {
name = "Source"
action {
name = "Source"
category = "Source"
owner = "ThirdParty"
provider = "GitHub"
version = "1"
output_artifacts = ["SourceArtifact"] configuration = {
Owner = var.github_org
Repo = var.repository_name
PollForSourceChanges = "true"
Branch = var.branch_name
OAuthToken = var.github_token
}
}
} stage {
name = "Build" action {
name = "Build"
category = "Build"
owner = "AWS"
provider = "CodeBuild"
input_artifacts = ["SourceArtifact"]
output_artifacts = ["BuildArtifact"]
version = "1" configuration = {
ProjectName = var.project_name
PrimarySource = "SourceArtifact"
}
run_order = 2
}
}
}
lambda.tf
data "archive_file" "lambda_zip" {
type = "zip"
source_file = "lambda/function_src/index.js"
output_path = "lambda/function_src/index.zip"
} resource "aws_lambda_function" "main" {
filename = data.archive_file.lambda_zip.output_path
function_name = "${var.function_name}-${var.environment}"
role = aws_iam_role.iam_for_lambda.arn
handler = var.handler
source_code_hash = data.archive_file.lambda_zip.output_base64sha256
runtime = var.runtime
} resource "aws_lambda_permission" "cloudwatch_trigger_lambda" {
statement_id = "cloudwatch-codepipeline-trigger-lambda"
action = "lambda:InvokeFunction"
function_name = aws_lambda_function.main.function_name
principal = "events.amazonaws.com"
source_arn = var.source_arn
}
function_src/index.js
main.tf
AWS Infrastructure Environment
Inside our infra-live folder, we’ll add a sub folder called prod for the environment we’ll be setting up. Inside prod, we add a child terragrunt.hcl file which specifies from where to download the Terraform code (the modules folder), as well as the environment-specific values for the input variables in that Terraform code.
terragrunt.hcl
inputs = {
environment = "prod"
branch_name = "master"
} include {
# The find_in_parent_folders() helper will
# automatically search up the directory tree to find the root terragrunt.hcl and inherit
# the remote_state configuration from it.
path = find_in_parent_folders()
} terraform {
source = "../../infra-modules/cicd" extra_arguments "conditional_vars" {
# built-in function to automatically get the list of
# all commands that accept -var-file and -var arguments
commands = get_terraform_commands_that_need_vars() arguments = [
"-lock-timeout=10m",
"-var", "module=${path_relative_to_include()}"
] required_var_files = [
"${get_parent_terragrunt_dir()}/sensitive.tfvars"
]
}
}
Deploy Infrastructure to AWS
Inside the infra-live/prod folder, run the following commands on the terragrunt.hcl file to initialise, configure the backend, and deploy the infrastructure: | https://medium.com/swlh/create-pipeline-with-terraform-setup-container-image-scans-with-snyk-in-aws-codebuild-a289df9e5baf | ['Lukonde Mwila'] | 2020-09-03 16:42:04.190000+00:00 | ['Software Development', 'Software Engineering', 'Programming', 'Docker', 'DevOps'] |
How to Export Data from Google Analytics 4 to Google BigQuery | How to Export Data from Google Analytics 4 to Google BigQuery
In this article, we tell you how to link Google Analytics 4 to Google BigQuery, export data from GA4 to BigQuery, and get the most value out of your collected data. Marie Sharapa Feb 23·7 min read
Google Analytics 4 makes analyzing data in Google BigQuery easier than ever. Now almost everyone can collect data in BigQuery for free. Let'’ figure out how to properly export data to BigQuery from Google Analytics 4 and what else you should take into account to get the most value out of your collected information.
Why you need to gather raw unsampled data
Raw (unprocessed) data allows you to precisely analyze your business processes. By collecting raw data, you can:
Objectively assess your business processes
Perform deep analysis of metrics
Track the entire user journey
Build any reports without limits
Segment your audience and set up targeted advertising
Sampling means extrapolating the results of analysis for a given segment, when the amount of information is too big to process quickly (for example, if you use multiple custom dimensions in your reports). Sampling can significantly distort your reporting and cause you to misevaluate your results since you analyze not all data but only at portion. By doing this, you risk investing in inefficient ad campaigns or turning off revenue-generating advertising channels. As you can see, avoiding sampling is definitely a good idea. And thankfully, it’s achievable.
Where to store collected data
Let’s get to the practical side of the question: Which analytics platform is convenient, affordable, and allows you to work with raw unsampled data? The solution we recommend — Google BigQuery — is probably the most popular among marketers around the world, and there are a bunch of solid reasons for that. We recommend you collect, store, and process raw data using BigQuery cloud storage, and below we’ll explain why.
What is Google BigQuery?
Google BigQuery is a multi-cloud data warehouse with a built-in query service and a high level of security and scalability. According to Gartner, “by 2022, 75% of all databases will be deployed or migrated to a cloud platform, with only 5% ever considered for repatriation to on-premises.” And thanks to the fact that BigQuery is part of the Google ecosystem and the Google Cloud Platform in particular, it natively integrates with other Google products and helps you develop your business at a competitive speed.
Why Google BigQuery?
There are multiple low-level aspects that make BigQuery almost irreplaceable for marketers. Let’s take a closer look at some of its most valuable benefits:
Export schema
Let’s examine the format and schema of the GA 4 property data that’s exported to BigQuery. One important thing to keep in mind when working with GA 4 is that its structure differs from the structure of Universal Analytics, which is familiar to marketers all over the world.
This is how Google Analytics 4 schema differs from Universal Analytics schema:
Datasets. GA sample datasets are named analytics_, where property ID is your Analytics Property ID.
GA sample datasets are named analytics_, where property ID is your Analytics Property ID. Tables. A separate Google Analytics table is imported into the dataset for each day. The format of such tables is events_YYYYMMDD, unlike in Universal Analytics where it’s ga_sessions_YYYYMMDD.
A separate Google Analytics table is imported into the dataset for each day. The format of such tables is events_YYYYMMDD, unlike in Universal Analytics where it’s ga_sessions_YYYYMMDD. Rows. Each row corresponds to an uploaded event, in contrast to Universal Analytics where each row corresponds to a Google Analytics 360 session.
Each row corresponds to an uploaded event, in contrast to Universal Analytics where each row corresponds to a Google Analytics 360 session. Columns. The field names largely differ between GA 4 and Universal Analytics. You can compare them by following these links:
Google Analytics 4 BigQuery Export Schema
Universal Analytics BigQuery Export Schema
Now let’s get to the main purpose of this article: providing step-by-step instructions on how to export your data from Google Analytics 4 to BigQuery.
How to export raw data from Google Analytics 4 to Google BigQuery
If the information you need is already in Google Analytics 4, you can get down to exportingit. You can export it to a free instance of BigQuery sandbox (sandbox limitations apply).
1. Create a Google-APIs-Console project
To create an APIs-Console project:
Log in to the Google APIs Console. Create a new project or select an existing project.
Image courtesy of the author
2. Enable BigQuery
Go to the APIs table. Go to the Navigation menu and click APIs & Services, then select Library.
Image courtesy of the author
In the Google Cloud APIs section, select BigQuery API. On the page that opens, click Enable. Add a service account to your Cloud project. Make sure that firebase-measurement@system. gserviceaccount.com is a project member and has the editorrole assigned.
3. Link BigQuery to a Google Analytics 4 property
Log in to your Google Analytics account. The account should have Owner access to your BigQuery project and Edit access to the Google Analytics 4 property you’re working with. Go to the Admin tab and find the Analytics property you need to link to BigQuery. In the Property column, click BigQuery Linking.
Image courtesy of the author
Click Link.
Image courtesy of the author
Click Choose a BigQuery project to see projects you have access to. To create a new BigQuery project, click Learn more.
Image courtesy of the author
Select your project and click Confirm.
Image courtesy of the author
Select a location. (If your project already has a dataset for the Analytics property, you can’t configure this option.)
Image courtesy of the author
Click Next. Select the data streams whose information you want to export.
Image courtesy of the author
If you need to include advertising identifiers, check Include advertising identifiers for mobile app streams.
Set the Frequency: Daily or Streaming (continuous) export (you can also select both options).
Image courtesy of the author
Finally, click Submit.
Image courtesy of the author
Congrats! You’ll see your Google Analytics 4 information in your BigQuery project within 24 hours.
What’s next?
Now you have all raw data on user behavior in BigQuery. However, to perform marketing analysis, find your growth zones and weak points, you need to add cost data from advertising services, data from CRM systems, call tracking services, and mobile apps (if you use any) to GBQ. Next, merge all this data into one dataset and make data business-ready, so that marketers can easily create reports based on BigQuery data.
One of the most optimal solutions for gathering and processing all your marketing data is OWOX BI Pipeline. It includes data from ad services, CRMs, call tracking services, and offline stores to BigQuery to complete your data puzzle.
Image courtesy of the author
Once you have all the necessary data in place, it’s time to make it work for you. Usually, that’s a task for an analyst, but with OWOX BI Smart Data, anyone can easily work with BigQuery data.
BigQuery frequently scares marketers and seems to be complex, but there’s no need to worry about that: there’s a solution that can help you easily discover all potential of your marketing data. OWOX BI can arrange it in a model adjusted to your business, so that you can easily build reports even if you don’t know any SQL at all. Just use a simple report builder or select a ready-made template and visualize the results in your favorite visualization tool.
Image courtesy of the author
Conclusion
You can easily export your GA 4 information to BigQuery. If the new structure works well for you, you can take advantage of this progressive service and add it to your marketing analytics toolbox. With OWOX BI Pipeline, you can collect data from your website, ad services, CRM, offline stores, and call tracking services in BigQuery to complete your data. And with OWOX BI Smart Data, you can make that data work for you by building reports, transforming multiple rows and tables into actionable insights, and improving your decision-making. | https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-export-data-from-google-analytics-4-to-google-bigquery-5694a71fcb25 | ['Marie Sharapa'] | 2021-02-23 13:15:34.713000+00:00 | ['Export Data', 'Owox Bi', 'Google Big Query', 'Google Analytics', 'Analytics'] |
Dad Subtly Taught Me the Subtle Art of Business When I Was 9 | Family Is God, but Customers Are God’s Chair
At our shop,
Dad: “Shajedul, sit here and I’ll be back in two minutes.”
Me: “Twwwwo minutessss. I can just give you one minute, dad.”
Dad: “Okay, sit down.”
That one minute never came. It changes every time. Sometimes one hour, sometimes two and a half. Sometimes the worst: four hours. Dad starts working and forgets I am even there.
One day, it was four hours and I was sitting there. After four hours, he turns on his mobile. His eyebrows raised, “68 missed calls! Woah!” It was my mom. She was tensed about me and the turned-off mobile amplified her worry. Dad forgot I was even there. I was blowing with anger.
When I went to the home, I got happy. I got a back pain by tripping off in the room with mom’s tears. One week bed rest. Yahoo!
Why the wait at the shop? Dad had to walk/drive me to the barbershop three minutes away.
Just three minutes away.
I have to cut my hairs at the 1st of every month. No excuse. No nothing. It’s a strict order by mom. Once, we woke a barber up from sleep just to cut my hairs before 11.59 p.m. on the first of October.
But, when mom sent me with dad, in 12 months, at least five of the times I had to cut my hair the next day. Dad forgets me when I’m at our shop.
Takeaway:
Family might be God but customers are God’s chair. Without the chair, God has to stand. Without customers, you have to starve. Customers are the top priority. | https://medium.com/@shajedulkarim/dad-subtly-taught-me-the-subtle-art-of-business-when-i-was-9-bc160d31bade | ['Shajedul Karim'] | 2020-12-26 21:12:16.295000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Entrepreneur', 'Business Strategy', 'Business'] |
The Dawn of Gold Rebasing Money | This gold-pegged cryptocurrency is a tad Bitcoinesque in the sense that the team/person behind it has a penchant for anonymity and that the supply is limited. Furthermore, it seems to be created out of thin air. Looks can be deceiving though.
The token is actually being mined (yield farming explained). Supply is issued to those staking certain select cryptocurrencies. For now the thing to know is that this fledgling cryptocurrency is supposed to track the price of 10 milligrams of gold and that the supply is only 30 million.
The Fundamentals
Given that the quantifiable supply of gold on the planet is around 1.98e+14 milligrams, a 30 million token issuance seems arbitrary. Who knows how the 30 million figure was derived but, thanks to the pioneering of Ampleforth and the engineers behind the YAMv3 code, there is a new synthetic commodity money in town.
A synthetic commodity money is artificially constructed to track the price of a commodity. The commodity is known as the underlying asset and in this case it is 10 mg of gold.
The Token
The token is an ERC-20 token on top of the Ethereum Network that uses the ticker AUSCM [pronounced ˈôsəm or “awesome”]. Auric Finance (an unknown team) is behind the token launch. Using gold prices as the base, they adapted the Ampleforth approach of changing the supply of tokens whenever the price deviates 5% away from the target price.
Adjusting the supply of tokens in this manner is called rebasing. The token launched over 24 hours ago and the first rebase is supposed to happen very shortly.
The token is presently traded on Uniswap against Ether (or ETH) and it appears that the folks at Auric Finance tied up 300 ETH in the pool through Unicrypt. Unicrypt offers a facility that enables token developers the ability to prove liquidity for future investors. These days the Ethereum Network boasts a service for every need and this one was used to lock up the 600 ETH for 6 months.
The Appeal
600 ETH is presently 248K USD. This is just big enough to scare away whales (larger investors). That means it AUSCM is a fun token for smaller investors to mess with. Especially now that the price is only 4 cents according to DEX Tools.
The theory behind rebasing insists on supply adjusting to demand. The present price indicates that the synthetic is way off its mark and that the supply issued needs to decrease to reflect that.
There are impermanent loss implications for those staking in the AUSCM-ETH Uniswap pool, but this farm is up and running. Wealth is being created. | https://medium.com/usefulcoin/the-dawn-of-gold-rebasing-money-ddeb14f0cd5e | [] | 2020-11-02 20:34:25.417000+00:00 | ['Derivatives', 'Commodity Money', 'Yield Farming', 'Decentralized Finance', 'Commodities'] |
The Secret Society of Seltzer | I am now the sort of person who knows about things like limited-edition coffee seltzer, because I have become a member of a somewhat-secret seltzer society called “Now Fizzing.” (My entry is granted after I track down members on Twitter and share my seltzer-loving truth.) It’s a closed Facebook group that’s been around since November 21, 2014, and it’s composed of more than 3,100 members from around the world. Within the group, its members offer and ask for tips on where to find sought-after flavors and brands (the Polar Seltzer’s seasonal flavors are always a huge hit — right now, everyone is on the hunt for its Blood Orange Lemonade, Starfruit Lemonade, and Strawberry Lemonade Seltzer’ade flavors), share selfies and videos of themselves trying new kinds of seltzer for the first time (called “seltzies” and “fizzeos,” respectively), and discuss other aspects of their lives through the lens of the drink that has brought them all together. There’s a two-year-old “star” of Now Fizzing, the daughter of a member who is being filmed doing a March Madness–style seltzer taste test. The group even has its own lexicon: Seltzer is “fizz,” unflavored varieties are “ghosts,” and other clear sweetened beverages that are simply masquerading as seltzer are called “snakes.”
Now Fizzing was launched about a year before seltzer became the “it” drink that it is today. There has already been much ink spilled over the beverage’s meteoric rise, but to this day, even the makers of seltzer find themselves stunned and confused by the sudden trendiness of their product. Lisbeth Crowley, senior brand manager at Polar, tells me that the brand considers itself “[an] overnight success 136 years in the making” but can’t seem to figure out why this has happened. (Polar’s website states: “It’s not unusual for us to hear about people traveling hours to get their hands on some or hoard them once they learn we’ve stopped production [on a limited-edition flavor]. We even get passionate emails, tweets, and posts about how certain flavors are life-changing (yeah, seltzer drinkers have a knack for hyperbole.)”)
Chris Taylor, senior vice president of Boylan Bottling Co. and a member of Now Fizzing, chalks up seltzer’s trendiness to all the innovation going on within the space, paired with the drink’s positioning as a healthy alternative to juice or soda. Say what you will about the seltzer craze that has swept the nation, tweet your vitriolic La Croix memes, or lambast the millennials for their obsession with something you see as (literally) devoid of substance, people love this drink. But few people love it as much as the Fizz Fam does.
“On paper, [Now Fizzing] sounds crazy,” admits Jon Solomon, the New Jersey–based record label head and radio show host who created the group with his friends four years ago. “But I think when you’re part of it, you realize that it’s this unexpectedly wonderful, special thing.” | https://medium.com/s/darkish-web/the-secret-society-of-seltzer-a00423639aad | ['Allee Manning'] | 2018-05-08 17:05:22.497000+00:00 | ['Social Media', 'Beverage', 'Seltzer', 'Facebook', 'Community'] |
Learning the Palestinian Revolution & The Zoomification Of Higher Education | On YouTube, Professor Rabab’s open class on Gender, Justice and Resistance lasted only 20 minutes before it was stopped by trolls.
On social media today, a roller-coaster drama exposing and discrediting Zionist/corporate hypocrisy unfolded. At its center are the indomitable spirits of two Palestinian heroines — a professor at the College of Ethnic Studies, San Francisco State University (SFSU) and the poster girl, now woman, of Palestinian militancy.
Professor Rabab Abdulhadi posted an event on Facebook that was to take place today — an open classroom led by herself (AMED Studies) and Professor Tomomi Kinukawa (Women and Gender Studies) “for a historic roundtable conversation with Palestinian feminist, militant, and leader Leila Khaled, followed by Q&A discussion with students, activists, and scholars at 12:30–2:30 pm PST (3:30–5:30 pm New York, and 10:30pm-12:30 am in Palestine and Jordan).”
“We disavow the discourse of ‘terrorism’ and the reactionary, imperialist, and colonial worldview underpinning it. Free Palestine!”
Leila Khaled’s “public image has been almost entirely dictated by her defining hijackings of 1969 and 1970 [and membership in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which the U.S. put on its list of “terror” organizations]. Since then she has become a mother, teacher, campaigner, a member of the Palestinian National Council and a leader in the General Union of Palestinian Women. Like other militants and those labeled ‘terrorists’ — from Northern Ireland to Nicaragua — she has moved from the armed struggle to the political arena. The two hijackings gained her an icon status.”
In Leila Khaled: The Poster Girl of Palestinian Militancy, Sarah Irving, who has also written a biography of Khaled, says:
… to many Leila Khaled is still a figure of admiration, fascination, and inspiration. In the world of reality TV, X Factor, and American Idol, this presents a certain challenge. How to celebrate the charismatic and extraordinary individual whilst avoiding the cult of celebrity, and emphasizing the context that makes political “heroes” what they are? And in a world of horrific violence, where civilians are increasingly on the receiving end of conflict and struggle, it’s a fine line to tread acknowledging courage and commitment to a political cause without glorifying and glamourizing tactics used out of necessity and desperation. Is it politically acceptable to focus on individual “heroes”? I think it is, in the sense that there are individuals whose lives and examples might have things — good or bad — to teach us about personal paths through political struggle. And I think it is acceptable for individuals engaged in political activity to be inspired by well-known (or more obscure) figures, as long as they also acknowledge that these are not saints or gods but people of their specific time and place. This book, and the series of which it is one of the first, will seek to tread that fine line.
One of many iconic images of Leila Khaled on Israel’s separation/annexation wall in the West Bank
In reaction to Professor Abdulhadi’s open-class announcement, the Lawfare Project threatened Zoom with criminal liabilty (under 18 U.S.C. § 2339) if “it knowingly permitted Leila Khaled to use its platform to communicate directly to U.S. college students.” They argued that because Leila Khaled has been publicly affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group that the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization, professors at San Francisco State were not allowed to host her as a speaker.
“If it starts here, where will it stop? This should concern university legal offices that don’t even care about Palestine, due to the massive implications.”
Professor Abdulhadi consulted Attorney Dan Siegel and posted that he had communicated with SFSU Provost Jennifer Summit to the effect that it is “neither ‘criminal’ nor illegal to host Leila Khaled as a guest speaker in our open classroom.” She also wrote:
“Zoom has threatened to cancel this webinar and silence Palestinian narratives. We expect SFSU/CSU to uphold our freedom of speech and academic freedom by providing an alternative venue to this open classroom. We will see you tomorrow at 12:30 pm (PST) at the Zoom webinar. For updates please refer to AMED studies and GUPS social media sites.” — Rabab Ibrahim Abdulhadi
What ended up happening was that both Zoom and Facebook blocked the event. SFSU failed to provide Professor Abdulhadi with an alternative platform and the twenty minutes of the class which were carried on YouTube were abruptly cut off, with hackers boasting on chat that they had “taken it down,” presumably by orchestrating a troll campaign of protest.
“Suppression of Palestinian speech comes with the weight of a Zionist state and the U.S. government behind it.”
San Diego Jewish World (“There is a Jewish story everywhere!”) trumpeted: “The Zoom and Facebook Live both cancelled use of their platforms Wednesday for the airing of a San Francisco State University sponsored webinar featuring airline hijacker Leila Khaled of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, with Zoom citing its obligation to obey U.S. law.”
“The Palestinian Revolution is a bilingual Arabic/English online learning resource that explores Palestinian revolutionary practice and thought from the Nakba of 1948, to the siege of Beirut in 1982.” http://learnpalestine.politics.ox.ac.uk/learn
Like so many academics who don’t tow the Zionist line, Professor Rabab Abdulhadi is no stranger to attempts to silence her and her students. In a political environment adopted by many academic institutions, Palestinian history and the Palestinian revolution have long had to fight to be heard over the accepted paradigm known as the “Israeli narrative.”
This narrative is weaponized by many Jews and non-Jews as a narrative of Judaism on a par with Bible stories. Unfortunately, efforts to reclaim Judaism from Zionism have not yet gained critical mass.
But this time, the Lawfare Project (a far-right pro-Israel legal advocacy organization) and Shurat Ha Din (a front for Mossad claiming to be a civil rights organization) are not relying on the usual arguments of intimidation and repression such as that Jewish students would feel uncomfortable in such classes or even that of spurious claims of anti-Semitism. They are claiming that the company (Zoom) will be open to civil lawsuits and potentially criminal penalties under US anti-terror laws and US OFAC sanctions.
“Like other militants and those labeled ‘terrorists’ — from Northern Ireland to Nicaragua — she has moved from the armed struggle to the political arena. The two hijackings gained her an icon status.”
Their action underlines once again the dangers of these laws and rulings, because even though the claims are dubious at best, the legal issues are more complicated and could drag on for a long time. Even Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) got on the bandwagon of Professor Abdulhadi’s Zoom event at SFSU by requesting a cutoff of federal funds and an investigation by the Treasury Department.
Commenting on the underlying issues, a friend wrote: “SFSU and the entire CSU system has a huge contract with Zoom. That is a contract for the use of software. Does it allow Zoom to undermine universities’ academic freedom? If so, if it starts here, where will it stop? This should concern university legal offices that don’t even care about Palestine, due to the massive implications. Does SFSU/CSU’s contract with Zoom even allow the company to interfere in such a way? Note that the registration page is still up. It is much more complicated than the report by J., an extremely Zionst source.”
Leila Khaled, The Poster Girl of Palestinian Militancy
Academe Blog published a piece by John K. Wilson in which he says: “For those on the left who demand that tech companies censor speech they think are wrong or offensive, this is a chilling reminder that censorship is a dangerous weapon that can be turned against progressives. It’s also a reminder of how vulnerable online learning is under corporate control. All colleges that use Zoom ought to demand that Zoom commit to protecting free expression of academic classes and events on its platform.”
However, Wilson goes on to erroneously fold the suppression of Palestinian views into ‘conservative cancel culture’: “It is an example of the growing power of conservative cancel culture, and this censorship reveals the threat to academic freedom posed by tech companies who are under intense pressure from the right to ban controversial ideas.”
Though it has been amplified in recent years, in fact exceptionalism regarding views on Palestine is of much longer standing than “cancel culture,” as Palestine Legal has reported. It is generally known in pro-Palestine activist circles that “the only thing that U.S. university presidents all agree on is the need to punish Palestinian speech.”
Interview: Zionism, Labor, Privatization, AMED and Public Education With SFSU Professor Rabab Abdulhadi https://youtu.be/nl8Q1QIppME
The same Right-wing Israel proxy groups at play in this incident cost Steven Salaita a position at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 2014 and a career in academia.
Regarding “cancel culture,” Salaita recently posted on Facebook: “If you have any doubt that the panic over ‘cancel culture,’ as presented by corporate media, is in aggregate a reactionary phenomenon (with a distinctly Zionist subtext), then consider that for a full six decades, professors who affirm Palestinian life have been harassed, maligned, fired, and imprisoned and at no point during this period has the mainstream pundit class treated it as a moral crisis. Absolute silence from people who otherwise never shut up.”
Consider the following recent headline: “University of Toronto rescinds job offer to academic over Israel criticis — University denies Valentina Azarova had ever been officially hired; it did not address concerns that a judge and donor had reportedly objected to her hiring.”
Suppression of Palestinian speech comes with the weight of a Zionist state and the U.S. government behind it. Inside Higher Ed, for example, has yet to pick up this story.
A few weeks ago, writer and activist Khaled Barakat wrote on this issue in The Electronic Intifada: “Association with the Palestinian armed resistance and its political parties is not a cause for shame or a justification for repression. The legitimacy of armed struggle to liberate a people from colonial and foreign domination is legally recognized.”
The Leila Khaled drama is not by any means over even though The Lawfare Project is blaring victory.
The United States Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) campaign has this to say:
USACBI stands with Prof. Abdulhadi, Leila Khaled, and Palestinians everywhere in their sumud (steadfastness) and determination not simply to remain, but also to resist their own erasure and annihilation. We disavow the discourse of “terrorism” and the reactionary, imperialist, and colonial worldview underpinning it. Free Palestine!
__________________
Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem and whose mother’s side of the family is from Ijzim, south of Haifa. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank. | https://medium.com/@rimanajjar/learning-the-palestinian-revolution-the-zoomification-of-higher-education-6c020399bd36 | ['Rima Najjar'] | 2020-09-24 19:16:19.829000+00:00 | ['Zoom', 'Leila Khaled', 'Sfsu', 'Palestine', 'Rabab Abdulhadi'] |
How Psychology helps to increase Sales in Marketing? | Advertisers have covered a long way to leverage psychological strategies to make consumers understand their products. From television to social media platforms and from bus stops to multiplexes, people encounter nearly 5,000 advertisements every day.
Yes, you got it right! This is the number of advertising messages that people see in a day. Now you are perhaps thinking about the competition in the field of advertising. Yes, there is a huge competition in this field. The question is “How can you make people notice your advertisement?”
The answer lies in advertising strategies. Advertisers have examined that they can harness psychology and have gone a long way to find out what attracts people and how they can make them buy their products.
If you are unaware of these factors, let me tell you how you can make people buy your products, through psychology.
As a marketer, you may have expertise in marketing only, not in psychology.
You might be thinking that psychology and advertising are two different areas then how can they relate with each other?
Well, psychology and advertising are converging areas. I will tell you how.
Psychology refers to understanding human behaviour on a certain thing such as how they behave or react in a particular situation and why they behave so.
While advertising refers to influencing consumer behaviour to make purchase decisions.
No matter what type of advertising you are doing, be it traditional or digital advertising, you should target thinking or feeling or both approaches in your advertisement.
Before going for the psychology of advertising, understand how consumers process, understand and respond to the information.
These are the two approaches or models to monitor consumer behaviour — the Consumer Processing Model and the Hedonic, Experiential Model.
CPM helps in analysing the thinking process while HEM targets feelings. You will probably pick a model that is appropriate for your products and audience. Consider these models as the scales to measure the thinking ability and feelings of a consumer. You can choose any of the approaches in your advertising.
In the thinking approach of advertisement, a consumer can use logic and the valid reasons to buy the products by evaluating the benefits and characteristics of the products. You can utilize the thinking approach in your advertisement only if
I. You want to showcase the features, benefits and other information related to the product.
Ii. Your product is portrayed as a solution to a serious problem such as health-related products.
Iii. This approach lines up with your brand and target audience.
For example, when the operating system of your phone asks for an update to a new version, you receive a list of specific features, benefits and information related to the newer version. There is not any other fluff in that list. Similarly, the thinking approach or CPM approach works.
The feeling or HEM approach uses emotions to analyse consumer behaviour. Feelings or emotions such as sadness, humour, fear, fantasy, fun etc, are the primary factors in feeling approaches to win new consumers.
As per the report of Neilson in 2016, the advertisements that had an emotional approach got a 23% hike in their sales. You should utilize the feeling approach if
I. Your advertising needs some type of emotion in it.
Ii. It matches your brand voice and target consumers.
Iii. You need to create a focus on a situation.
For instance, companies or big brands generally create specific advertisements when they celebrate the anniversaries of their brands. These sorts of ads don’t focus on any products but they celebrate it by giving some items to consumers in the form of gifts. It leverages the brand voice and consumers feel happy by getting gifts.
If you are ready to target the feeling approach for your product advertisement, you should have the knowledge and understanding of the emotions to be used in the ad, that leaves a good impression on your target audience.
I would like to share some of the emotions that advertisers use in their advertisements to attract consumers.
Every brand nowadays is trying to be funny and make advertisements that are full of humour. For me, humour is how brands having ordinary products can make their consumers feel like their products are the best ones.
If you utilize humour in your ads, it will become memorable for the people out there. Humour makes people remember your product and brand. Not only you will entertain people but also increase your brand awareness and visibility.
You can engage your consumers and they will remember your brand and product through your ads.
The company that is embodying humour in marketing effectively is “Dollar Shave Club”.
Fear is an emotion that can create trouble for you if not used effectively. It is a tricky emotion that should be used wisely in an ad. In this approach, the advertisers use fear as the persuasion technique and show the problem-solving nature of the product to change consumer behaviour.
The usage of excitement feeling in the advertisement is suitable if you are launching something or offering something exciting to your audience. For example, your brand is offering discounts or a sale. This can lead consumers to make a purchase decision and buy your products.
Sadness evokes empathy or compassion in a human. Making people sad can bring their attention to your products. It sounds unpleasant but it can be effective in creating awareness of social matters.
Different emotions persuade consumers in different ways. It is important to use the emotion that is suitable as per your brand, product and leads to your goal.
Consumer information process involves different steps that happen before the customers make the purchase decision. It is important to understand how the audience is processing the information you are offering.
Below are the important steps that occur prior to customer purchases.
The first thing that happens when people see your ad is the exposure to information.
This step is derived from the brand awareness concept. When a viewer is seeing your ad for the first time, he may not remember it. That is the reason you should add a repetitive factor so that your advertisement is visible and exposed to your audience.
The basic concept of exposure is to expose your product or brand in front of the viewers.
The next step in consumer information processing is getting attention from your viewers. After being exposed, the main target is to grab attention. Although you cannot control your viewers and there are fewer chances that they will see your ad but you have to lure attention from the individuals.
There are different methods of enhancing customer attention. For instance, you can use colour psychology principles to attract people. You can use motion or movement in your ad to capture the individuals’ attention.
When you grab a person’s attention, he/she will definitely like to know more about your products, brand and services.
Comprehension is the third and quite important step in consumer information processing. Consumers should be able to understand or comprehend what you are selling.
Because on the basis of the comprehension, consumers will make the purchase decision. So, ensure that your underlying message is comprehensible and is not over-shining your product.
If you are lucky enough to grab the attention of the consumers, proceed to the step of the agreement. Put a credible message that lines up with your consumers’ needs and the agreement will be done. To know more about it, you can read this article.
Making your ad stand out in the competition is the primary target in this step. For this, consider the ad that you saw that was outstanding. Try to learn the reason why it was outstanding.
After learning the reason, create an ad that helps your product to stand out in the crowd so that consumers don’t have to think about your competition on the purchase time.
You can check out the work that your competitors are doing and ensure your ad is better from theirs.
In this step, consumers make decisions based on the previous steps. Consumers will make decisions by considering various factors such as competition, pricing, need, benefits, etc.
To make the process easier, you can add a call to action to push your customer towards the purchase.
Remember the consumer evaluates multiple factors before buying any product. Ensure that you stay ahead from your competitors in those factors. Put yourself in the shoes of the consumers and try to understand their concerns.
This is the last step in the consumer information process. It consists of the goal, that is, to make customers buy your product.
If your consumers are completing the goal that means your ads are working. You are providing the information according to your consumers’ needs.
For any reasons, if your ads are not working, you need to focus and analyse the problems deeply.
These are the steps that can help you understand your consumers’ behaviour. I have shared the basics with you and hopefully, you have understood it.
Utilizing psychology in your business advertising will be fruitful if done correctly. It will not only make people remember your brand but also help you to capture a high audience.
Work on it and see the magic yourself! | https://medium.com/@digitalkeshav343/how-psychology-helps-to-increase-sales-in-marketing-d7004bc841f | ['Digital Keshav', 'Digital Marketing Consultant'] | 2020-05-08 07:37:44.264000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Sales', 'Consumer', 'Business Strategy', 'Psychology'] |
We Are All Essential: A View From the Starbucks Drive-Thru | Social distancing is my thing. At least it was up until a year ago. Now social distancing is everyone’s thing. Except mine. Now, I am essential.
Before COVID-19, when people at social gatherings asked me what I did, I often responded with a question, “My chosen profession, or the one that makes me money?” For the answer to one, I explained that I am an artist; in a band; and mother to two teenage boys. For the other, I explained that I manage the bookings for our vacation rental in Mexico and am the administrator for our design and build company. Either answer was a mouthful. Neither told the whole story.
The part I rarely told people at those gatherings was that I also work as a barista at Starbucks. If it happened to come up, I apologetically detailed the great healthcare benefits and further explained that it was only part-time. Then, still apologetic, I’d explain that I had worked from home for the past two decades and I needed a way to socialize. Clearly, I was having a very hard time squaring my affiliation with an American coffee conglomerate and my progressive left-wing identity. In my world, we shop local.
Since COVID-19, the closest thing I get to a social gathering is my job at Starbucks. The galleries that represent my art are closed to the public; my son is old enough to home-school himself; my band cannot practice; and all our bookings on our place in Mexico were refunded. At this point, nobody knows what the future holds for our society or our economy. I do know one thing for certain: I am one of the lucky few who still has guaranteed healthcare and who has been issued a letter from my employer that states that I am essential. Defining what is essential has become the zeitgeist of our time.
As a studio artist, I have made it my mission to explore the big issues ravaging our natural world — plastics in the ocean; species extinction; migration. I even did a series on viruses that originate in animals and transfer to humans. The series was called Viral. But as many artists do, I often doubted the legitimacy of my profession. My work did little in the way of providing financially for my family, and although I had representation in one of Denver’s top galleries, I still questioned my value. I believe with every fiber of my being that great art is vital to civilization, but ever since Trump came along, nothing felt like enough. My art seemed anything but great. I was losing faith in myself. I needed to feel like I was contributing more.
This was not always the case. In the first decade of my art career, when my children were young and our design and build business was booming, I made no apology for my art. But when the recession of 2008 came along, it nearly crippled us financially. By pure luck, we were able to sell the two houses my husband was building on spec, buy a tiny one to renovate in Mexico, and wait it out for two years with our young boys. When we returned to the States in 2010, we thought we were in the clear. But a year later, a predatory lawsuit knocked us to the ground. We sold the house our kids had grown up in to avoid bankruptcy. We were still dusting ourselves off when I noticed the Starbucks half a mile from our new home.
I knew very little about Starbucks. I had followed their recent handling of the wrongful arrest of two black men in one of their stores. Other than that, I didn’t know much beyond my boys’ manic desires for frappuccinos. I had no idea which size was the grande and which was the venti. I was that lady that walked into the store to get her decaf espresso beans because she could never locate the speaker box at the drive-thru. Naturally, I submitted an application.
I forgot that I had applied when the call came for an interview several months later. By then we were well on our way to recovery. We no longer needed the income. I was free to make art with abandon.
I loved working from home. Driving my son to school. Hiking in the mornings. Spending hours mining our world for inspiration and tossing around creative ideas over coffee with artist friends. But far too often, I also found myself hiding from the demon of depression. That sepia tone that overtakes the mind and pulls you underwater. Holds you there. Shames you. Robs you of the light and makes you wonder if you even matter. I spent far too much time fending off loneliness. I knew deep down that I couldn’t continue the way I had.
So I went for the interview. I hadn’t been to a job interview since before my oldest boy was born. He was about to graduate from high school. I was nervous, but not for long. The store manager interviewed me and blindsided me with her enthusiasm. She had only been at the store for a few months. When she arrived, sales were down and complaints were soaring. She was there to turn things around. Her passion and drive to build community in the neighborhood- in my newly adopted neighborhood- inspired me. I wanted to be a part of it.
When she offered me the job, I accepted. Suddenly, I was jettisoned out of my bubble and into the real world that is my corner of Northwest Denver. Within a week, I knew many of my new neighbors. I met our regular customers and embraced the angst of my teenage and twenty-something coworkers. While my fellow baristas remembered our customers’ drinks, I remembered their names. It was fast-paced and gave me just the right dose of daily human interaction. About nine months went by. Nine months without loneliness. Nine months depression-free.
And then one day our manager announced that she was implementing a new policy. She called it “torso out the window.” When we worked the drive-thru window, which I often did, she wanted us leaning out, singularly focused on the customer. She ceremoniously turned the screen that helped us monitor the orders we were handing out the window, away and out of my view. She explained again that from now on we would have only one job: to connect with the customer. No more turning around to look for the next drink to hand out. To me, that meant about forty-five seconds of dedicated awkward conversation.
I was one of my manager’s favorite victims and I didn’t like it one bit. I was comfortable with the quick one-liner and slow-cooked intimacy, but more than that just felt wrong. I am from New Jersey where staying out of other people’s business is a form of courtesy. The best I could do the first day was to ask vaguely where each customer was headed and whether they had a long commute. I was appalled at the thought of asking anything more personal than that. It offended my culture. I felt like a petulant teenager. I wanted to rebel. I even considered quitting.
The next day, my manager stuck her torso out the window. She asked customers all kinds of personal questions as I watched covertly from the espresso bar. She laughed the whole time and made it seem easy: like a party without the social anxiety. So the next day, I took the plunge. I asked people what they did for a living and I was shocked to see people’s faces light up as they told me. It was the beginning of a new level of exchange that I was unprepared for. Each new day was another chance to continue the conversation. To learn a little more. To grow a little closer.
I never could have predicted that it suddenly would be cut short or that it was preparing me for our current shared situation: this togetherness we are all facing from afar.
Sinead is a doctor with an office nearby. Before the virus hit, she often brought her kids through the drive-thru before school. They were planning a family trip to Mexico. As the days passed we wondered if they would be able to go. Now we don’t bother to mention it anymore.
Shelly is a corporate interior designer. She was the first customer to introduce me to the practice of paying for the car behind you. Recently, I told her so.
Alexandra is a therapist. When I told her I appreciated how she helped people, she said we all do in our own way. She couldn’t go to the office anymore when this hit, so now she is taking care of her nieces while they are out of school.
Lydia used to gram weed. She has stopped working even though her job is still considered essential. She has to stay home and care for her elderly father with dementia. She still comes for her frappucino every morning.
Brooke always responded to “How are you?” with a big smile. One day she looked away and said, “I’m okay,” so I gave her a free drink. She came in to the café the next week to tell me how much it had meant to her. Months later I noticed her arms were covered in henna. She explained that the henna was left over from when she hennaed her grandmother’s bald head while she was in chemo. Last I heard, her grandmother was traveling around South America on her survival trip.
I miss the new friends I made just weeks before all this change. So many of them were on their way to work. Now they either work from home, or no longer have work. Others came in to café, but now the café is closed. There was the elderly couple that stopped by on their way to physical therapy; the shy engineer who designs explosive devices; the single dad and his young daughter who was going to bring more of her drawings to show me; the grandmother and grandson who came by after music class. The list goes on and on. I don’t know what any of them are doing now.
When Rossann Williams, the executive vice president of Starbucks announced at the start of the COVID-19 crisis that we would remain open as an essential business, she wrote, “Let’s face it, lattes aren’t essential.” We were to remain open primarily to serve the first responders at the front lines of this crisis.
And we do. But we also serve people who drive through just so they can talk to a real, live human being.
Every day, as the days wear on, I ask myself if my job really is essential and if I really should be working while so many people are staying home to keep others safe. But then Kate shows up at the window. Last week I remembered that she was a nurse and told her about our free coffee. She looked like she might just shatter. When I offered to give her a carrier with four other cups for her co-workers, her eyes filled up with tears. She returned the next morning, as she always does. She did not ask, but I offered her another carrier. She didn’t want to take it, but I insisted. This time we both almost cried. When I asked her name and I told her mine, she said, “Oh, good, now I know your name. When my co-workers asked me who gave them the coffee yesterday, all I could say was, ‘I don’t know her name. She has blond hair and she is my friend at Starbucks.’”
With every day that passes, we see fewer of our regulars and more nurses and doctors. Without fail, they don’t want to take their coffee for free. I tell them they are the reason we are working. But that is only part of the truth for me. I am there because I need to be — without daily human connection, I was drowning.
Recently Starbucks announced that all partners would be required to wear masks at the workplace, effective immediately. I pulled my dusty sewing machine off my closet shelf, only to realize that the needle was broken and that I couldn’t find my supplies. Just then, I got a text from our store manager. She and her mother were sewing masks for everyone scheduled to work the next day. That morning she handed the masks out. Then she told us we were all going to need to work harder at smiling with our eyes. | https://medium.com/swlh/we-are-all-essential-a-view-from-the-starbucks-drive-thru-48d182781f24 | ['Meagen Svendsen'] | 2020-09-07 21:03:17.315000+00:00 | ['Essential Worker', 'Artist', 'Depression', 'Covid-19', 'Starbucks'] |
I’m Now Respecting My Own Space for a Unique Growth Pace | I am starting to accept that it’s always okay to not be at my best when I am not yet done healing.
I am no longer forcing myself to be strong nor to give my best when I am hitting rock bottom. I am no longer scared of my own woundedness because the healing processes from all these wounds are the ones that weave my authenticity. The truth is, all of us are in need of healing. We have allowed certain parts of us to be left wounded and scarred. I am now allowing my wounds to show because all along, I have been using my idea of strength just to hold myself together when I am internally breaking.
I am learning that the strength of my character is not determined by my ability to give unearned love and is rather based on my ability to love in a way that respects my own limits.
I have already outgrown the people who are invalidating my pain and I would no longer allow their words and actions to get the best of me and my authenticity. From now on, I would never ever take for granted the people who helped me face the pain head-on and allowed the tears to flow during the times I’ve been struggling a lot to hold them back. It’s about time to do myself the favor of validating my pain and welcoming the normalcy of it.
It’s about time to stop forcing myself into the lives of the wrong people who have never seen me worthy of letting in — to give myself space to fully heal and to build on true strength. I am now walking a path with the bricks laid down by my unique experiences that tell so many healing stories about how I became who I am now. I am done trying to prove myself to everyone who always told me that I am weak because everything I have survived is already enough to tell that I am not.
It’s about time for me to acknowledge the growth that I’ve reached and that has prepared me for the journey ahead of me, so I would no longer be haunted by who I used to be — the one who allowed people to steal the life out of me.
It may have taken me a lot of mistakes before I realized all of this, but I don’t feel sorry for myself that I had to experience the worst and be at my worst, as those were the ways for me to understand that I am indeed capable of knowing better. | https://medium.com/monica-villanueva/im-now-respecting-my-own-space-for-a-unique-growth-pace-db2d50d0e462 | ['Monica Villanueva'] | 2020-12-23 02:11:05.950000+00:00 | ['Growth', 'Healing', 'Life Lessons', 'Strength', 'Vulnerability'] |
Image-laundering, shrinking spaces, and words that escape prison walls | November in Middle East and North Africa: A free expression roundup produced by IFEX’s Regional Editor Naseem Tarawnah, based on IFEX member reports and news from the region.
19 November 2020, Paris, France. A projection on the Louvre Museum by Amnesty International depicts jailed Saudi human rights activists including Loujain Al-Athloul © and reads “Mr Macron, demand their release”, ahead of the G20 summit. THOMAS COEX/AFP via Getty Images
A decade has passed since an impoverished street vendor in Tunisia named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in response to constant harassment and humiliation at the hands of authorities. His death ignited a series of widespread popular protests across the Arab region as people sought to carve out a future free from repression, inequality, and lack of accountability.
Ten years later, and the region’s prisons are filled with tortured dissidents, journalists are systematically targeted, citizens are regularly tried for their online free expression, and amongst the governing class, impunity reigns. Even in Tunisia, where significant progress has been made since the Arab Spring, citizens still face severe repercussions for their free expression.
Events over the past few weeks alone have served as a stark reminder of the devastating status quo of human rights and civil society in the region.
Elusive justice in Egypt’s shrinking civic space
In Egypt, the month began with a glimmer of optimism when dissident Mohamed Soltan’s family members were released, after being held for several weeks in an effort to put pressure on the US-based activist. The news came in the wake of the US election result and the perceived threat a Biden presidency poses to countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia whose human rights record has deteriorated rapidly, and with total impunity, during the Trump era.
Just days later, authorities arrested three members of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), after the group hosted a meeting with Western diplomats to discuss the country’s human rights situation
Considered one of the few remaining Egyptian rights organizations left operating in the country’s eroded civic space, rights groups say the arrest of EIPR staff marks an escalation in the regime’s targeting of human rights defenders.
EIPR executive director and veteran human rights defender Gasser Abdel Razek, as well as his colleagues Mohamed Basheer, Karim Ennarah, and Patrick George Zaki — who has been in detention since last February — have seen a predictable array of unfounded charges leveled against them, including “joining a terrorist organization” and “spreading false news”. Facing a degrading situation in detention, Abdel Razek was reportedly placed in solitary confinement and denied access to a mattress and basic necessities. Rights groups, including 33 IFEX members, have called for their immediate release.
Within the walls of Egypt’s overcrowded prisons, thousands of political prisoners face unsanitary and demeaning conditions, which local activists and rights groups have repeatedly called attention to. Many are denied access to warm clothes, beds, and hygiene supplies, creating a health crisis that has already claimed lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. Veteran journalist Mohamed Monir and filmmaker Shady Habash died of medical negligence. Others are kept in solitary confinement, where they are denied access to sunlight and communication with their families.
In a region where words struggle to escape prison walls, a recent song by Egyptian artist and activist Ramy Essam called ‘El Amiis El Karoo’ (The Flannel Shirt) shines a spotlight on prison conditions and feelings of isolation. The song’s verses are from a poem written by imprisoned poet Galal El-Behairy, who has been in Tora prison since 2018 for writing a poetry book the army deemed provocative.
Meanwhile, hope that EIPR’s staff and other prisoners of conscience may receive fair trials is undermined by a judiciary system that has increasingly served as a repressive tool of the state. Many of the country’s imprisoned dissidents are in pre-trial detention and have seen court dates regularly postponed, and new charges filed against them in an effort to retain their silence by keeping them indefinitely behind bars.
Last month an Egyptian court placed 28 people on a state terror list, including former presidential candidate Abdelmoneim Aboul Fotouh and human rights activist Alaa Abdel Al-Fattah. The terror list has been another repressive tool under the Sisi government, with the notorious designation used to impose severe restrictions, including travel bans, passport confiscations, and the freezing of financial assets, on mostly peaceful activists.
Justice remains elusive in the case of Giulio Regeni, an Italian student brutally killed in Cairo four years ago, as Egypt’s public prosecutor has temporarily closed the file. However, prosecutors in Rome say they have sufficient evidence to move forward with their case, indicting five members of Egypt’s National Security Agency in the researcher’s murder, in a move likely to impact the relationship between the two countries.
Image-laundering and a tale of two Saudi Arabias
As human rights abuses have proliferated throughout the region over the past decade, countries like Saudi Arabia have spent billions to whitewash their abysmal rights record. From hosting high-profile sporting events like the Dakar Rally, to professional wrestling and concerts featuring international pop stars, Saudi Arabia has sought to present a progressive image of itself to the world that sits in ugly juxtaposition to the glaring reality.
In recent weeks alone, the ‘kingdom of silence’ hosted a series of international events, including the G20 summit and a European women’s golf tournament — whose promotional hashtag #LadiesFirst only served to highlight the tragic irony of a country that continues to jail women’s rights activists like Loujain Al-Hathloul, Samar Badawi, Nassima al-Sada, Nouf Abdulaziz and Maya’a al-Zahrani. Rights organizations, including IFEX members the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) and Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) launched a #FreedomFirst campaign to provide a counter-narrative to Saudi propaganda on women’s rights, and raise awareness about those detained.
Meanwhile, the G20 summit was also met with aggressive campaigning from rights groups. PEN America hosted a live counter-summit highlighting Saudi’s egregious rights record, while Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called on the public to hijack the official #G20SaudiArabia hashtag with messages in support of the country’s 34 unjustly jailed journalists.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) also called on G20 leaders to not let their host get away with jailing critics “Instead of signaling its concern for Saudi Arabia’s serious abuses, the G20 is bolstering the Saudi government’s well-funded publicity efforts to portray the country as ‘reforming’ despite a significant increase in repression since 2017,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at HRW.
In perhaps further demonstration of the country’s irreconcilable duality, Saudi’s UK ambassador dangled the possibility of clemency for activists like Al-Hathloul during a Guardian interview ahead of the summit. Three days after the summit ended, Al-Hathloul — whose health has deteriorated after a recent hunger strike protesting her ill-treatment — appeared in court for the first time in months, only to see her case moved to a terrorism court notorious for unfair trials.
Rights groups have also noted Saudi Arabia’s recent appointment of Amal Al-Moallimi as ambassador to Norway — only the second Saudi woman to become ambassador — as further illustration of its duplicitous efforts to portray itself as a state furthering women’s empowerment. Al-Moallimi has been criticized for having visited Al-Hathloul in prison, where she was told by the rights defender of her torture, and having ignored her pleas to intervene.
‘Sportswashing’ and mass trials in Bahrain
Neighbouring Bahrain has also actively engaged in efforts to launder its image, promoting its achievements in women’s rights, while continuing to imprison women human rights defenders for their free expression.
Last month saw the country host the Formula One (F1) race amidst heightened concern over its disastrous human rights record. In a letter sent to the organization, 16 rights groups emphasized the role F1 plays in ‘sportswashing’ human rights abuses, saying that by “increasing F1’s presence in the country at this volatile time” they are “performing invaluable PR for Bahrain’s government and risk further normalizing the violation of human rights in the country”.
Recent weeks have seen 51 people convicted in absentia during a mass trial marred by due process violations, including confessions obtained through torture. The trial came amidst a recent escalation in an ongoing crackdown by authorities that rights groups say has targeted dissidents, activists, as well as religious and cultural figures. Several people, including children, were also arrested for their online expression following last month’s death of the country’s long-serving prime minister, Khalifa bin Salman Al-Khalifa.
Lebanon: Military trials and protecting LGBTQI+ speech
While demands for accountability over the deadly Beirut blast and the shooting of protesters in the days that followed remain unmet, anti-government protesters continue to face arrests and court summons. According to Muhal — an observatory for freedom of expression — political figures and parties have filed dozens of complaints, mostly against journalists and activists, over the past year of anti-government protests. At least 90 civilians have also been referred to military courts where they face secondary charges, primarily for their critical social media posts.
Lebanon’s refusal to sign a recent statement by the Global Media Freedom Coalition was a blow to both freedom of expression and association. The statement from the partnership of countries advocating for media freedom expressed the need for members to defend free expression and protect journalists, especially those from marginalized groups like the LGBTQI+ community who are facing unprecedented risks and threats exacerbated by the global health pandemic.
In a recent Universal Periodic Review submission to the United Nations, rights groups expressed their deep concern over the “legal and extra-legal restrictions on freedom of association and, in particular, the systematic targeting of associations and activities by the LGBTQI+ community.”
In brief
Algeria: The European Parliament issued its second urgent resolution on Algeria in a year, calling attention to the rapid deterioration of civic space and freedoms in the country. This comes amidst an ongoing crackdown on free expression and a growing list of those imprisoned for exercising it, including Hirak activists, and journalists like Khaled Drareni and Anis Rahmani.
Libya: Prominent lawyer and rights activist Hanan Al-Barassi was assassinated in Benghazi last month in a brazen act that sent chills throughout the activist community. According to rights groups, her killing follows “a disturbing pattern in recent years of violent attacks against prominent women activists who are critical of the authorities and affiliated militias.”
Iraq: Bloggers and journalists are facing defamation cases against them for their criticism of the government’s COVID-19 response. As defamation cases rise, HRW says ongoing efforts to introduce a cybercrime law would give authorities yet another tool to suppress dissent in an already shrinking civic space. | https://medium.com/@ifex/image-laundering-shrinking-spaces-and-words-that-escape-prison-walls-d28d08cf48c3 | [] | 2020-12-02 22:53:43.192000+00:00 | ['Censorship', 'Freedom Of Speech', 'Middle East', 'Human Rights', 'Protest'] |
What Does Coronavirus Do to the Body? | This Is How Your Immune System Reacts to the Coronavirus
And what it means for treatment
Photo: Bertrand Blay/iStock/Getty Images Plus
People infected with the novel coronavirus can have markedly different experiences. Some report having nothing more than symptoms of a mild cold; others are hospitalized and even die as their lungs become inflamed and fill up with fluid. How can the same virus result in such different outcomes?
Scientists are still perplexed by the novel coronavirus. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that the immune system plays a critical role in whether you recover from the virus or you die from it. In fact, most coronavirus-related deaths are due to the immune system going haywire in its response, not damage caused by the virus itself. So what exactly is happening in your body when you get the virus, and who is at risk for a more severe infection?
In fact, most coronavirus-related deaths are due to the immune system going haywire in its response, not damage caused by the virus itself.
When you first become infected, your body launches its standard innate immune defense like it would for any virus. This involves the release of proteins called interferons that interfere with the virus’s ability to replicate inside the body’s cells. Interferons also recruit other immune cells to come and attack the virus in order to stop it from spreading. Ideally, this initial response enables the body to gain control over the infection quickly, although the virus has its own defenses to blunt or escape the interferon effect.
The innate immune response is behind many of the symptoms you experience when you’re sick. These symptoms typically serve two purposes: One is to alert the body that an attack has occurred — this is thought to be one of the roles of fever, for example. The other purpose is to try and get rid of the virus, such as expelling the microscopic particles through cough or diarrhea.
“What typically happens is that there is a period where the virus establishes itself, and the body starts to respond to it, and that’s what we refer to as mild symptoms,” says Mandeep Mehra, MD, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and chair in advanced cardiovascular medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “A fever occurs. If the virus establishes itself in the respiratory tract, you develop a cough. If the virus establishes itself in the gastrointestinal mucosal tract, you’ll develop diarrhea.”
These very different symptoms emerge depending on where in the body the virus takes hold. The novel coronavirus gains entry into a cell by latching onto a specific protein called the ACE2 receptor that sits on the cell’s surface. These receptors are most abundant in the lungs, which is why Covid-19 is considered a respiratory illness. However, the second-highest number of ACE2 receptors are in the intestines, which could explain why many people with the coronavirus experience diarrhea.
“Because the virus is acquired through droplets, if it comes into your mouth and enters your oropharynx, it has two places where it can go from there. It can transition into the lung from the oropharynx when you breathe in, or if you have a swallow reflex, it’ll go down to your stomach,” Mehra says. “That’s how it can affect both sites.”
The goal of the innate immune defense is to contain the virus and prevent it from replicating too widely so that the second wave of the immune system — the adaptive, or virus-specific response — has enough time to kick in before things get out of hand. The adaptive immune response consists of virus-specific antibodies and T cells that the body develops that can recognize and more quickly destroy the virus. These antibodies are also what provide immunity and protect people from becoming reinfected with the virus after they’ve already had it. | https://elemental.medium.com/this-is-how-your-immune-system-reacts-to-coronavirus-cbf5271e530e | ['Dana G Smith'] | 2020-11-13 19:44:30.797000+00:00 | ['Body', 'Covid 19', 'Coronavirus', 'Immune System', 'Health'] |
After the Gold Rush, What Is Over the Third Horizon? | Andrew Crosby & Hugo Araujo
There is broad recognition that ecological and economic upheaval are driving humanity toward an inflection point. Depending on who you ask, we are variously on the road to destruction, the road to redemption, or the road to regenerative revolution, and points in between.
We are in a continuous transition comprised in differing measures, and progressing in parallel, of yesterday’s sustainability agenda, tomorrow’s stakeholder capitalism, and a future of synergistic human and ecological development. How these horizons of change can contribute to a future in which economy and ecology are developed in synergy is the existential question of the 21st Century.
Essential context today: there is nearly global unanimity on the dire and accelerating consequences of climate change. Natural systems on which humans fundamentally depend, and which have intrinsic and spiritual value, are degrading at a breath-taking rate. For example, 11,000 square kilometers of Brazilian Amazon rain forest were destroyed from August 2019 to July 2020.[1] Look no further than the IPBES report of 2019 to get a sobering, unanimous view of humanity cutting the branch on which it is resting.[2]
Similarly, there is a revolution in production and consumption that is disrupting labor markets and social contracts between people and governments across the world. The World Economic Forum estimates that 85 million jobs will be lost in the next five years, while the “robot revolution” will create 97 million new ones. The report notes that “communities most at risk from disruption will need support from businesses and governments.”[3] Such support, will require an unprecedented effort and changed social policies, if not wholesale changes in the logic that underlies modern economies.
For those committed to a better future in which humanity thrives in the context of synergistic social and environmental relations, understanding the paths and logic in pursuing future-fit opportunities is essential. Developing greater situational awareness can help us to understand the most impactful opportunities and actions we must take as individuals, communities, and nations to cultivate and align our efforts locally and globally.
Our greatest hopes will not be blocked by lack of means, but rather by our ability to correctly perceive our situation and its trajectory, its dangers and potential, and our resolve in marshaling the individual and collective will to rise to the occasion.
Situational awareness is essential in developing and choosing appropriate tools for the job ahead, which is both non-linear and complex. As in earlier epochs, innovators are bringing new tools, understanding, and methodologies to bear in solving challenges and pursuing opportunities. Unlike earlier times, however, the tools we now have at hand are accelerating faster than human intelligence is evolving. As such, we will have greater capacity to address the challenges before us, but we also risk intensifying existing patterns of development. Emerging tools — high tech, old tech, and no tech — will be the subject of a future article, but here it will suffice to say that our greatest hopes will not be blocked by lack of means, but rather by our ability to correctly perceive our situation and its trajectory, its dangers and potential, and our resolve in marshaling the individual and collective will to rise to the occasion.
To describe the various futures available to us, in this article we have used the Three Horizons model, which is familiar to those in business and in the emerging regenerative development movement. Introduced in the seminal 1999 book “The Alchemy of Growth: Practical Insights for Building the Enduring Enterprise,” the Three Horizons model has been widely adapted, including notably in our domain of concern, in the pioneering work of the International Futures Forum.[4][5] It is useful here for illustrating, not the virtues of growth, but as a tool to think about and pursue sometimes radically different approaches to our evolution. The First Horizon represents existing undertakings, the Second Horizon represents emergent ones in which “a concept is taking root”, and the Third Horizon “contains the seeds of tomorrow’s businesses.”
Small steps in thousands of native Third Horizon experiments are happening across the world, and these need to become a movement.
We believe that the Third Horizon (H3) as indicated in the illustration below and identified with principles of bio-mimicry, regeneration, metabolic earth, and ultimately, nature represents a radically different (and already viable) organizing principle that can outperform and out-innovate those offered in H1 and H2. A high priority for those who want to generate systemic change will be to find ways to cultivate today’s native H3 organizations by building ecosystems of practice, propagation of innovation, access to finance, and enabling regulatory and operational environments. Small steps in thousands of native Third Horizon experiments are happening across the world, and these need to become a movement.
This is not to say that we should abandon all H1 and H2 undertakings: they will form an important part of the innovation that will contribute to the emergence of H3 organizations. We argue instead, for cultivating the field for native H3 undertakings with all the intensity possible, even during its early stage of evolution. Doing so will help to accelerate the transition and leapfrog to a new equilibrium that must arrive sooner rather than later if we are to deflect the catastrophic consequences that are already clearly visible.
The H3 road best traveled is one that we can barely see today in which humans live in positive and mutually nourishing synergy with natural systems. This is not a utopian vision, but one which already exists around us in the experiments of innovators across the world dedicated to creating such systems.
Where are we, where do we want to go, and how do we get there? Terra incognita, here we come.
Figure 2: The Three Horizons of the Regenerative Journey (Interactive version here)
Today’s Terra Firma
Today we are gripped in the next generation of innovation for sustainable development. True believers are staking claims everywhere in a rush of Earth-friendly, social-good investments sold under the banner of ESG. These strategies promote good environmental, social, and governance behaviors while screening out bad ones. An ESG bubble is forming as each new claim begets a market that only seems to move up. A recent estimate cites some $30 Trillion invested under the ESG banner in five major markets.[6] There is gold to be found in this new space.
No doubt this rush is better than doing nothing, and it will continue to grow for some time, but is it future fit? Will it take us over the horizon to deliver the systemic change that is needed in the long-run to solve challenges driven by human behavior including environmental degradation, economic upheaval, and practices harmful to society and citizens? As constructed today, these outcomes are difficult to imagine since they essentially depart from the same logic and systems that caused the problems in the first place.
Promoting such a shift requires informed and intelligent investment strategies directed to the right targets that build the health of our social and environmental ecosystems and reinforced by market rules that reward such behavior.
The bigger prize of healthy, synchronous human and natural systems — and ultimately abundance — does not yet seem to have factored into the equations driving ESG. Promoting such a shift requires informed and intelligent investment strategies directed to the right targets that build the health of our social and environmental ecosystems and reinforced by market rules that reward such behavior. So far, there is a massive gap in the kind of investment that would enable us to make such a transition. How can we step outside the continuity of existing systems to promote such changes?
Managing What We Measure
Deeply embedded are the metaphors and markets with which entrepreneurs and financiers are approaching this unfolding tragi-opportunity. The gold rush metaphor is apt at first glance. But, the extractive (and destructive) metaphor of gold mining is not the best one to address the situation in which global citizens now find themselves. An alternate metaphor, suited to the times and more future-fit, may be that of cultivating the place we now inhabit — employing our knowledge of ecosystems and new tools that sustain flourishing life and greater societal well being — with a long view to staying, rather than pulling up stakes and moving on.
Some of our metaphors and ways of doing business are so deeply embedded we can barely see them. For example, we are firmly in the era of “you can’t manage what you cannot measure.” Who would argue against this logic? It is axiomatic, and yet, it risks glossing over a fundamental aspect of life on Earth today: we manifestly cannot manage ourselves and our natural systems in harmony in spite of our best measurements. The world’s great problems are accelerating and our existing institutions of collaboration are degrading just as we need them the most.
Figure 3: The Three Horizons model from 1830s. Different objectives same challenges. Achieving the extraordinary requires doing the unusual. G.S. Peters, Harrisburg, PA, USA.
The simplicity with which we have viewed our world has served us well in times of simple economies and lower human impact, but simple approaches to solving our complex systemic challenges will simply fall short of the mark. We can no more solve our challenges by redirecting investment through ESG screens than we can solve social dysfunction through minimum wages. Both are better than nothing, but ultimately they only tilt the edges of systems and solutions that are highly interdependent.
Techno-optimism pervades our public discourse. For decades we have seemingly grown out of some of our greatest challenges. Technological leaps in energy, computing, and life-sciences makes an abundance scenario a tantalizing possibility. But our technical prowess, as compelling as it is, will not achieve desired social ends and environmental equilibrium either, unless supported and managed in transformed human systems. The evidence is in the continued increasing material intensity of our economies even as our production and consumption are “de-materializing.”[7]
Today’s challenges are particularly vexing because of their existential nature. They obligate us to re-examine our most fundamental assumptions. Our economics have left us with unmanageable externalities. We have come to a much better technical understanding of our world, but in the process have let wither the spiritual and holistic aspects of our existence. This is a drawback because the navigational tools in this emerging domain must also grow out of the individual and social self-awareness that lies beyond consumption and markets without values, toward mutually flourishing social, economic, and ecological systems.
How sad if it turned out that we placed our bets on the certainty of metrics and measurements that were not grounded in the reality of the complex, emergent solutions that must arise to meet the challenges before us.
Complexity is increasingly recognized as a feature of human endeavor and we have devised new ways of understanding it, for example machine learning and computational modelling. Yet, we have barely taken on the concept of complexity in our policy making and business decisions. How sad if it turned out that we placed our bets on the certainty of metrics and measurements that were not grounded in the reality of the complex, emergent solutions that must arise to meet the challenges before us.
So far, our tools are blunt, our lack of situational awareness beguiles us, and we abide by a mindset that is generally two-dimensional and simple. This is not the tool kit that will help us navigate over the horizon.
The Next Horizon
Beyond today’s catch-up game with sustainable development, a breakout group of innovators is trying to accelerate the game with new partnerships and instruments. These Second Horizon innovators are breaking new ground in response to changed social expectations and the availability of new approaches in responding to them.
Emerging, Second Horizon firms are swimming through a sea of partial maps and methods still anchored in measuring and managing.
Many of these Second Horizon innovators are building on the practical and agreed consensus frameworks such as United Nations’ Agenda 2030. They are helping to broaden thinking and awareness while tilting the edges. At the same time, however, many are prolonging the behaviors and systems that have led to current societal and environmental challenges, resulting in the continued degradation of global ecosystems upon which humans depend. For example, it is common belief in many countries that adoption of electric vehicles is a solution to climate change when these vehicles may be just as damaging or more so than existing alternatives.[8] Our immediate objective should be to clear the barriers that are preventing us from leapfrogging over this horizon to business and societal behaviors that reflect, rather than subjugate, the rules of nature.
Emerging, Second Horizon firms are swimming through a sea of partial maps and methods still anchored in measuring and managing. A key challenge for organizations operating in this horizon is agreeing on consistent metrics. They face an array of signposts from sustainability standards and eco-labels to ESG screens. The range of outcomes are often expressed as baskets of metrics (which also are not consistent within or across industries for the most part) and that if in balance will lead positive outcomes. Rarely do these systems count the “bads” along with the “goods.”[9]
A host of privately and collaboratively managed frameworks have been developed to help society to navigate, safely operating within agreed consensus views of the terrain we are on and the way it should be traversed. As such these organizations have better access to sustained financing and investment, and developed capital and consumer markets that can sustain growth. In addition, the enabling regulatory and cultural environment in which these undertakings exist provide more stable and predictable — and hence less risky — operational conditions.
Numerous public-private partnerships have been created to advance responses to some of these challenges and opportunities. The concept of “stakeholder capitalism” launched by the Business Roundtable (a group of major corporations) in 2019 was well received and has been bolstered through a partnership with industry, financial leaders, and the World Economic Forum in 2020 for a new set of metrics to match.[10] B-Corps are another trend that shifts business footing to purpose. As major players get more serious about these issues, they promise to have impact, but also extend existing corporate approaches another decade.[11]
Initiatives such as these live largely within the constructs of our existing economic systems — with their virtues and drawbacks. There is little room to account for systemic health (both positive and negative factors) or the complexity expressed in our economies or ecologies. This matters because we are measuring and managing our economies and Earth systems as we have always done — even though we know that they work differently.
It’s Complex
Increasingly we are getting used to complexity, its implications, and its tools. The recognition of complexity in human development and Earth systems has followed a steady, if low impact, trajectory. Starting in the 1970s with works like the Limits to Growth and international events such as Stockholm Conference which brought these issues to the fore.[12] The most recent expression of this trend is the 2015 United Nations, Agenda 2030 which further illustrates the importance and recognition of systemic health, interdependence, and complexity. The countries of the world through their UN participation characterized Agenda 2030 as reflecting an “integrated approach” that takes into account the “deep interconnections and many cross-cutting elements”.
A similar shift has occurred in business, not by virtue of concern for health or the environment, but rather through a revolution in production and consumption. The emergence of distributed manufacturing, global value chains, and the servicification of goods pushed many businesses into the world of managing great complexity in coordinating inputs, suppliers, production processes, distribution, and marketing. In addition, what was originally thought of as a minor aspect of production and trade has become its most important part: a large and growing proportion of all economic value produced and consumed are attributable to intangible and knowledge-driven aspects of digitization, services, know-how, and intellectual property.
The fluidity of these factors of performance have led to a reassessment about the conditions for competitiveness, particularly among economists (but rarely among politicians). In essence, the new model posits that rather than national champions, it is overall national competitiveness (as indicated by educated work-forces, equitable distribution of incomes, ease of doing business and concentration of knowledge and technology) that contribute most to societal well-being. Most national governments have not yet recognized this shift or been able to respond to it adequately.
This more integrated view of competitiveness has also led to a shift in thinking about the nature of work and competitiveness at a more micro scale. This has been fueled by the displacement of the 20th century economy and whole classes of jobs that go with it, and on re-examination of what makes for engaging and socially productive work in modern economies.
The complexity effects of nature are also making themselves known as humans continue to pummel ecosystems without regard to their long-term consequences.
And what of our natural systems? The complexity effects of nature are also making themselves known as humans continue to pummel ecosystems without regard to their long-term consequences. The warning signs that have been buried or just leaked through our daily news cycles should give everyone on Earth renewed resolve to address the uncharted territory into which these cascading impacts are taking us. One such leakage is the 2015 UN IPBES report which sternly warns leaders that fundamental changes in our economies are needed to avert environmental and human disaster.
Managing Ourselves?
An evolving environment in which complexity plays a role has provided traction — after almost fifty years of advocacy — to a new wave of advocates who have been pushing for more holistic development. The concepts of regenerative development and circular economies are gaining currency. So too are approaches seeking to deepen the capacity of organizations to learn and adapt.
Performing
Emerging out of a “corporate performance” stream anchored in work by thinkers like Milton Friedman, and extending beyond today’s “stakeholder governance” concept, efforts such as the Regenerative Business Practices Assessment, the Seven Laws of Regenerative Business, the Twelve Intelligences, and the Eight Capitals, and more, are vying to build a bridge from today’s metrics to tomorrow’s business characteristics. Too many to review here, these frameworks of behavior and performance for modern organizations run the gamut from purpose, to essence, to right relationship, to relationship with place. There are many of them and they represent good concepts with nearly impossible-to-imagine metrics that might not be reconciled between each other, and within and across organizations. But they clearly capture the essence of systemic thinking and complex dynamics.
Sensing
Emerging out of an “organizational learning” stream, the evolution of thought that is anchored in thinkers such as Senge and Goleman, another trend toward creating organizations with more interactive and responsive forms has advanced. On the corporate side, efforts undertaken by organizations such World Economic Forum and World Business Council for Sustainable Development to promote responsive development and dialogue are gaining in prominence. Parallel and independent efforts to achieve social and corporate alignment are undertaken by innovative incubators such as the Hatch CoLab or the Founder Institute, both focusing significantly on combined business and social impacts.
Further from the mainstream, efforts that emphasize collaboration and coordination through new organizational forms and behavior are emerging as responses to creating more agile and capable organizations. This includes new governance approaches such as Holocracy and Sociocracy, for example.
A growing community of entrepreneurs are designing their businesses as native H3 undertakings
A step further in the dialogue track is elaborated in the three principles for Regenerative Brands proposed by Raphael Bemporad and Briana Quindazzi of BBMG in urging companies to focus on being aware, additive, and alive.[13] The beauty of these principles is that they adopt a complex living systems perspective that seems applicable to today’s businesses but adapted to the needs of future organizational behavior.
Figure 4: A logical map with intellectual anchors in the relational world of Peter Senge and the market world of Milton Friedman. The two streams have influenced each other and should converge.
These Second Horizon transformations, in spite of their imperfections, must be given as much space in the present as possible. Net-positive effects in reducing poverty and slowing ecological destruction are likely to emerge. But they also bear the risk of baking in patterns of the past through their inability to generate the economic and social systemic changes that will lead to the transformed economies that we need.
Terra Incognita
The seemingly utopian, and still fringe ideas, of our up-and-coming modern-day Leonardos, Gallileos, and Harrisons are more speculative and less charted. And they are different in nature. Rather than “maximizing”, Third Horizon innovation is about “optimizing.” Rather than vectors of impact, they are about evolving patterns of synergy. The different logic and skills in these modalities are at least a magnitude of difference apart from those in the Second Horizon.
A growing community of entrepreneurs are designing their businesses as native H3 undertakings (including 7Vortex.com and VirtualGaia.com, a business launched by Hugo and his partners in 2017 and 2020, respectively). Designed for a future with unfamiliar form, shifting contours, and complex relationships, the outlines of this world obligate innovators to move from measuring familiar indicators to identifying healthy synchronous patterns of adaptation in complex, interdependent systems.
As if this were not enough of a challenge, many of the organizations that are trying to design themselves as native Third Horizon undertakings is that they are seeking to incorporate and reflect a holistic, complex theory of change without recognized vocabulary or tools to do so. And, they are attempting this in an investment / impact environment that does not yet recognize their efforts. In this sense, they are navigating terra incognita.
This Third Horizon world is highly relational, and pattern focused.
With a need to understand complex interactions, it is no wonder that the concept of biomimicry has gained ground. Focused on learning from biological systems in the design and adaptation of human systems, H3 entrepreneurs seek to model their actions on patterns of life and their nested progression from smaller structures into organic, natural systems. This Third Horizon world is highly relational and pattern focused. As humans figure out the patterns and design systems to cultivate them, they will become increasingly replicable. Look at the Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming initiative, for example, to get an idea of the power of such ideas.[14] Or, look at the innovative approach combining measuring, science, sensing, and cultural context conceived in the Indigenous Health Indicators Tool being undertaken by the indigenous people of the Coast Salish in what is now the US / Canada coastal northwest. It is a lot more than the simple title suggests. These and many others are generating resilience, abundance, and systemic vitality in the face of daunting odds and with the barest of financial support.[15]
The concept of biomimicry is not only attractive for human design because of the tangible connection to our physical existence, but also for its focus on component part design that can be independent and scalable into systems. This thinking is consistent with emerging ideas on social change that is local and adaptive to communities and environmental conditions.
The biomimicry approach comes with potential pitfalls. The harmony of nature, applied to human undertakings, may well run counter to human nature and behavior. Think of the impact of human needs for personal security or the more mundane concerns of having a new gadget. Just as we are not rational actors in the neoliberal world, we are not natural actors in the biomimicry world.
We know that machine learning and AI can have immense potential, but also can go terribly wrong depending on the patterning instructions that sets these tools in motion. The contrast between these human-made patterns and those observed in nature provides a stark contrast that illustrates how far we have to develop to achieve the kind of synergy we find in nature.
But in the 21st Century we have access to new tools that employ old concepts in new ways. Markets do not need to be either free or rigged according to Posner and Weyl in their ground-breaking book Radical Markets. The authors propose market variations that retain key features of existing markets in allocating priority while incorporating concepts of distributive justice. We have not even scratched the surface of market economies that are much fairer and more efficient than their predecessors.
Reason will continue to play a large part in our trajectory, but as performance demands become more complex, our ability to sense and interact will be important. Apart from politics, ethics and philosophy need to regain ground.
Designing for, and finding, patterns of complex development will be working its way into our consciousness. Navigators in this space will displace the metrics developed in the Second Horizon by finding their way with dynamic maps interpreted through new models and tools to match.
Our Brains on Third Horizon
As disruptive and challenging as it may be to our 21st Century systems and sensibilities, getting the right navigational gear that empowers us to understand our own development in relationship to Earth, its systems, and to other beings in a new way may be an essential piece of kit in crossing the sea to the Third Horizon future that we cannot yet see.
One of the challenges of this new territory is the demand that we move out of the most comfortable spaces in modern existence: that of dispassionate rational actor. Reason will continue to play a large part in our trajectory, but as performance demands become more complex, our ability to sense and interact will be important. Apart from politics, ethics and philosophy need to regain ground.
Where and how will our better spirits be able to intervene? Although it seems that our Second Horizon organizations will be able to push us along to the next horizon, their operations are mostly not predisposed to do so. Similarly, with few exceptions, government action will be a lagging indicator.
The promise of this new horizon, however, is not a new set of metrics, but rather a changed logic of human pattern. We are called to redefine our purpose, collectively and individually, not blindly, but with the knowledge of understanding and new tools we have developed. Such a choice requires us to go beyond customer relations to human relations.
In theory the barriers to this path will diminish as our historic scarcity drivers also fall to technology. Food, and even meat, synthesized and produced, may put global hunger goals within reach (these systems need greening too, by the way). Advanced medicine to enable longer, healthier lives is proving itself daily. Zero, or close to it, cost energy is radically transforming the most fundamental calculations of manufacturing and climate emissions. These revolutions are not yet realized but they are on their way and need to be managed with care so that we do not simply repeat the mistakes of the past.
In the evolution to the Third Horizon, the usual change agents on whom society regularly depends will likely remain fully invested in the First and Second Horizons until a compelling alternative becomes visible. Most businesses and governments will remain structured for incremental progress on the existing metrics until a tipping point is reached. But external events related to climate change and economic transformation are likely to hasten this transition.
A future-fit response requires a qualitative shift from power projection and meeting the thresholds of performance vectors to learning, dialogue, questioning, and sensing.
Meanwhile, those displaced in the process — a growing number of individuals — will be looking for something else in the context of communities in need and workplaces where there is less and less use for “labor.” They can create another wedge for the Third Horizon transition. This includes an upswelling of entrepreneurial regenerative activity that is gaining ground comprised of Makers, Gig Workers, Out of Workers, Redundant Workers, Unfulfilled Workers, and of course, optimistic leaders, thinkers, philosophers and some forward-looking investors and communities.
A future-fit response requires a qualitative shift from power projection and meeting the thresholds of performance vectors to learning, dialogue, questioning, and sensing. In his seminal book, Building Regenerative Cultures, Daniel Christian Wahl urges readers to ask questions rather than focus on defining the right answers to building regenerative cultures. This ethic is at the heart of breaking out of the patterns of our current economies. But this imperative must be matched with the new tools available to us. They include new understandings of what makes thriving societies, how to make markets work better, how to read and manage complexity, and how to design for it — all the while recognizing that we remain novices, or perhaps just human.
The investment in the lives, potential, and businesses of Third Horizon natives is a long shot from today’s investment perspective, but an imperative from the perspective of the future of human well-being on Earth. Many undertakings that advance this future exist today. If you set your sights higher you may join them. There you will encounter the Third Horizon.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-55130304
[2] https://ipbes.net/global-assessment
[3] https://www.weforum.org/press/2020/10/recession-and-automation-changes-our-future-of-work-but-there-are-jobs-coming-report-says-52c5162fce
[4] https://www.amazon.com/Alchemy-Growth-Practical-Insights-Enterprise/dp/0738203092
[5] https://www.internationalfuturesforum.com/three-horizons
[6] http://www.gsi-alliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/GSIR_Review2018.3.28.pdf A
[7] This widely recognized trend in which intangible products and services have become the fastest growing aspect of value addition. For example, see Capitalism Without Capital: The Rise Of The Intangible Economy Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake, 2018, Princeton University Press.
[8] Life cycle emissions for electric vehicles may well be higher than for diesel autos. https://autovistagroup.com/news-and-insights/conflicting-reports-carbon-footprint-evs
[9] There are some exceptions such as the accounting offered by GIST https://www.gistimpact.com/ and more are likely to move in this direction.
[10] https://www.weforum.org/reports/measuring-stakeholder-capitalism-towards-common-metrics-and-consistent-reporting-of-sustainable-value-creation
[11] https://bcorporation.net/
[12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth; and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Conference_on_the_Human_Environment
[13] https://www.fastcompany.com/90547057/how-to-build-a-regenerative-brand
[14] http://apzbnf.in/ and https://www.facebook.com/APZBNF/
[15] https://toolkit.climate.gov/tool/indigenous-health-indicators-tool | https://medium.com/@andrewncrosby/after-the-gold-rush-what-is-over-the-third-horizon-1004d50d6cc3 | ['Andrew Crosby'] | 2021-01-05 14:53:38.135000+00:00 | ['Regeneration', 'Future Of Work', 'Biomimicry', 'Sustainability', 'Economics'] |
Epic Games is set to offer 15 free Christmas games from next week | The Epic Games website is already offering free games every week and you will be able to get free games every day from next Thursday.
To celebrate the holidays, the Epic free games program is reportedly set to offer 15 free games in 15 days, with Epic Games releasing 12 free games last year as a similar promotion.
All you need to do to participate in this Epic free games program is to create a free Epic Games account.
However, no information has been reported yet about the games to be provided through the Epic free games program and it is reported that this promotion will be active for 15 days from Thursday 17th December.
In addition to offering free games, Epic Games is set to launch a holiday sales event from next week, with hundreds of great discounts on games.
Also, you can see what games will be available from Thursday by visiting the website below. | https://medium.com/@allfree/epic-games-is-set-to-offer-15-free-christmas-games-from-next-week-7163538f4f9e | ['Mark Stefan'] | 2020-12-15 18:44:24.062000+00:00 | ['Free', 'Tech', 'Technews', 'Technology', 'Epic Games'] |
How Knowing Your Market Pays Off. Dick’s Sporting Goods knows golfers and… | How Knowing Your Market Pays Off
Dick’s Sporting Goods gets golfers and it shows
Photo by Jopwell from Pexels
Thwack!
After another rough day at the driving range, I was ready to send my clubs flying. I had decided that it was no longer the user, but the starter golf set that was at fault.
So I rushed to Dick’s Sporting Goods the very next day with every intention of buying an expensive driver. Just as the manager was ready to close the sale, he recommended that I visit another store down the road for a better selection of used clubs. Was he trying to get fired?
What happened next demonstrates the power of knowing your customers.
I walked into ‘Golf Galaxy’
Still somewhat jarred from the experience, I took his advice and entered with caution. An older gentleman greeted me, listened to my story, and pointed me towards a golf simulator.
You could tell that he had done this before, and met plenty of others like me. To summarize: A young guy with a pipe dream of being good at golf after a few trips to the course with his old college buddies.
Photo by DreamsTime. “Rapid customer profile” I made of a frat bro turned golf newbie.
After slicing a few balls, I finally sent one in the right direction. It was enough to convince him that I had played the game before.
He gave me a few pointers on my form, and then began rotating me through a series of clubs to test. It quickly escalated from a fitting exercise to an impromptu lesson.
15 minutes passed. 30 minutes passed. 45 minutes passed.
We came to the conclusion that I wasn’t ready for a new club. Instead, I was better off investing in a few lessons. Point taken.
I made a transaction and found a guide
By then I felt a moral obligation to spend some money there. So I purchased a 64-degree wedge for fun, bought some golf balls, and grabbed a few markers.
I happily gave out my actual email address at the register to get a “membership” and picked up a flier to sign up for classes on my way out.
That’s when curiosity got the best of me. When the friendly old man circled back, I asked him about my peculiar time with the manager across the street. He smirked and answered.
Oh yeah, Manny is awesome. I’ll make sure to record the referral. Dick’s acquired us back in 2006!
Both of the stores sent each other “leads” all the time. If I had to guess, it has a lot to do with capturing different types of golfers and connecting them with personalized products and services. A few months later…
I literally told everyone I could about it
Created by me for illustrative purposes.
By applying a journey framework, I reconstructed the customer flow.
Stage: phase of the journey through the lens of a brand or product, from initial awareness to engendered advocacy
phase of the journey through the lens of a brand or product, from initial awareness to engendered advocacy Insight: a summary of key attitudes or behaviors written in the voice of the customer
a summary of key attitudes or behaviors written in the voice of the customer Message: the brand or company’s main point or feeling to convey
the brand or company’s main point or feeling to convey Tactic: a “catch-all” for specific touchpoints or interactions
This helped cast a bright light on the most important piece of the puzzle. Knowledgeable staff and “no pressure” shopping.
And it truly was a puzzle pieced together, from the categorical need to consumer advocacy. The retailer sparked my interest, won my trust, and brought me into their ecosystem.
By knowing the customer. The culture. The sport. The market.
With that insight and awareness, they knew they didn’t have to make a sale that day. Instead, they were better off winning a customer for life. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/how-customer-awareness-pays-off-in-the-real-world-234e7ec31557 | ['Sid Khaitan'] | 2020-12-28 17:44:32.937000+00:00 | ['Customer Service', 'Sales', 'Golf', 'Design Thinking', 'Customer Experience'] |
MasterCard Pressured to Monitor “Far-Right” Payments in Opportunity for Cryptocurrency | MasterCard has fallen under pressure to monitor payments to “far-right” political groups, increasing the attractiveness of decentralized cryptocurrency for payments.
According to Yahoo Finance, activist group SumOfUs has succeeded in pressuring MasterCard to hold a vote at the annual shareholders meeting on June 25th on whether or not to implement a special “human rights committee” to investigate if the company was supporting customers to groups and individuals on the political right in an effort to disassociate with and ostracize those deemed to be extremists. According to SumOfUs Communications Director Jamila Brown, allowing paying customers to belong to certain groups can have the effect of legitimizing their voices due to the significance of the MasterCard brand:
“What MasterCard is doing, without them realizing it, is they’re legitimizing these right-wing extremist and white supremacists by having that there. They’re a reputable brand.”
While still a dominant form of payments, credit cards have a mounting list of potential drawbacks, particularly risk of censorship for fringe groups as well as citizens of countries with complex political situations, as in the case of the US government considering sanctions on Visa and MasterCard for supporting payments to Venezuela. Additionally, credit cards have experienced a high degree of data breaches recently, with 500 million Marriott hotel customer accounts compromised last year, millions more card numbers compromised this year from a popular chain of restaurants, and the discovery of man-in-the-middle attack vectors for compromising mobile point-of-sale card readers last year. Card companies have also shown a proclivity to compromise user privacy, as was the case in MasterCard’s deal with Google to track customer spending habits. Finally, card companies recently announced plans to raise fees across the board, further complicating their value proposition.
Cryptocurrency’s success in two of three key censorship resistance areas
Complications facing credit card customers provide a potential industry entryway for peer-to-peer digital currencies to join the payments industry due to their relative advantages. Overstock in particular claims that accepting cryptocurrencies for payments is much cheaper than credit cards due to the lack of a need for a 40-person fraud department. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin offer advantages over fiat currencies by providing censorship resistance in two of three key areas: inflation control/store of value, and confiscation resistance, where coin supplies and properties have a fixed course not alterable arbitrarily by single parties, and funds cannot be confiscated without possession of the owner’s private keys.
In the third aspect, that of censorship resistant payments, however, Bitcoin has not yet proven to be competitive due to low transaction capacity, high fees, and long and inconsistent confirmation times. Bitcoin Core developer Jimmy Song encouraged users to use credit cards for everyday payments and sell off enough Bitcoin to pay the bill. Former Blockstream CTO and Bitcoin Core developer Greg Maxwell famously advocated for the use of cards for payments:
“Bonus: The credit card can give you a 2% (e.g. citi double cash) to 3% (e.g. alliant visa) cash back, super consumer friendly anti-fraud (virtually no questions asked fraud reversals, plus things like prices rollback)… and you don’t get forced to do business with crappy “bitcoin payment processors” that pump altcoins, work like junk, instantly convert most payments to fiat anyways, and charge a hefty fee/spread for the privilege.”
Additionally, former Bitcoin Core developer Peter Todd recently pointed out areas in which Bitcoin does not remain competitive as a payments method, stating that “Visa and Mastercard already won in many respects.” At time of writing, the average Bitcoin fee is nearly $1 per transaction, and the current mempool of backlogged transactions is about 15MB, representing several hours worth of queued transactions.
Dash’s focus on uncenorable payments
Dash, meanwhile, delivers on the same essential technology as that behind Bitcoin, while promising several important advantages in the area of payments. The current median transaction fee is a small fraction of a cent, with a stress test proving similar fees at a level of three million transactions per day, with scaling research from Arizona State University indicating Dash could easily reach several times that. Additionally, Dash recently activated InstantSend by default, instantly locking nearly every single transaction by default, adding value for Dash to a growing list of exchanges and services that will now accept Dash transactions instantly as confirmed. | https://medium.com/@DashNews/mastercard-pressured-to-monitor-far-right-payments-in-opportunity-for-cryptocurrency-4956ecee854e | ['Dash News'] | 2019-05-06 18:53:30.701000+00:00 | ['Bitcoin', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Fintech', 'Dash', 'Blockchain'] |
No ‘Moore’ Mess- Chapter Fifteen (Serial Version) | Chapter Fifteen- Mary Moore Meets The Future Mrs. Jackie Neeley
There was good reason for Jackie to not return Mary’s repeated messages. After Mary rushed off to the hospital to find Helen, someone from Jackie’s past found her on the street corner. This time it was a most unwelcome reunion.
“Dave, is that you?”
“If it isn’t Little Jackie.”
It was Jackie’s estranged older brother, Dave Neeley. Dave had been out drinking and skirt-chasing with some former high school friends. He was searching for a little night time companionship when he stumbled upon Jackie. He saw Mary as she raced to her taxi.
“I noticed you still have a way of making the women run away from you.”
Jackie wished he would have gone with Mary to the hospital. There before Jackie stood her sibling, Dave. The two had never gotten along. Dave teased Jackie constantly while they were growing up. She hated it and him.
“Been a long time.”
“Not long enough.”
The late movie at the local theater was letting out. There was little chance that Dave would be dumb enough to physically attack Jackie in front of witnesses.
“I saw that woman kissing and loving on you. Boy, she looked kinda familiar. I can’t quite place her, but I’m sure I will.”
Jackie shifted and squirmed. She let out a deep sigh. Dave caught her, but she figured Dave knew nothing about her engagement. Jackie played it off as no big deal. That was her first mistake.
“So what?”
“Funny, she certainly didn’t look like that pretty little fiancée of yours.”
“How did you know about that?”
“I saw it in the newspaper a couple of weeks ago, the society page. Popular, aren’t we, Little Jackie?”
“Something like that.”
When Lauren’s father found out about the pregnancy, he made a beeline to the press to make sure Jackie was right by his daughter even if the baby was via a clinic. Jackie’s wealth made her an easy target for the local media.
It was the whole reason Jackie had gone to Mary’s ring shop. People wondered how they could be engaged “without a ring,” but that problem would have to wait. Jackie had to deal with her least favorite person.
Jackie spent his entire childhood trading insults with Dave. He often got the best of his younger sister. This time Jackie was ready to fire back. That was her second mistake.
“You can read? I had no idea. It’s a miracle. Dumb Old Dave can read.”
“Watch your mouth, Little Jackie.”
“I wonder what she would think about your friend?”
Dave’s life was tough. He had been married four times. He was on and off unemployment and welfare on multiple occasions. Times were always tough for him.
“And what’s that supposed to mean? Is that a threat?”
“You take it as you like. You’re the one sitting in the hot seat.”
Jackie slumped, and she shook her head. She knew what transpired with Mary was wrong. There was going to be a price to pay for her indiscretions. That was Jackie’s third mistake.
“I see.”
“I hope so. It would be a shame for that fiancée of yours to get a phone call.”
“A phone call?”
“Yes. She might be interested to know what you are up to with your new friend.”
“You A-hole.”
“A-hole?”
“Sorry, Dave.”
“That’s better. How much do you have on you?”
“Money?”
“Duh! Life ain’t free and neither is my silence.”
Jackie took out her wallet, and she flipped through it. Jackie knew it was never going to be enough for her money-grubbing brother. Dave put a finger and shook his potato-shaped head.
“A couple hundred?”
“That’s not going to be nearly enough to keep this big mouth shut.”
“How much do you want?”
“$10,000.”
“Done. Not a word to anyone about what you saw here tonight. Got it?”
“Got it. And now for the cash Little Jackie.”
The pair went to a nearby ATM and Jackie withdrew the money. They walked back to the open street. Jackie shoved the stack of bills into Dave’s outstretched hand.
“Take it. And let this be the last time.”
“Thanks, Little Jackie. A pleasure doing business with you, dear sister.”
Dave gestured to some trashy-looking hookers standing on the street corner. They came quickly to him. Dave flashed his cash and the three of them caught a taxi to parts unknown.
Jackie knew once Dave’s misbegotten windfall ran out, he would be back for more. Her dear older brother would never keep his mouth shut about what he saw. She had to tell Lauren the truth.
Jackie hoped she would forgive her, but Jackie’s absolution would have to wait. It was late, and she went home. The next day Jackie went over to Lauren’s house. She was busy leafing through a bridal magazine. Lauren was surprised to see Jackie.
“You usually call first. What’s up?”
“Sorry about that. My cellphone’s dead or broken.”
That was a lie. The truth was Jackie didn’t want to chicken out telling Lauren the truth about last night with her ex-wife. Lauren was oblivious to his crisis of conscience.
“There’s an outlet over there if you want to try and charge it, sweetheart.”
“Thanks. Maybe later.”
“Okay. But what do you think about this color for your tuxedo?”
Lauren opened the magazine and pointed to a dark olive green, double breasted suit. Jackie’s mind wandered. Lauren saw she was not paying attention to her would-be-bride.
“Are you listening to me?”
“That’s a nice one. Whatever you want, honey.”
Lauren had not known Jackie as long as Mary had, but she realized something was tormenting her future wife. She closed the magazine and looked at Jackie. Lauren offered her lover a fresh strawberry doughnut.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Jackie’s shoulders sank, and she let out a long sigh. She closed her eyes, and Jackie swallowed hard. She put her uneaten pastry down, and Jackie sat in the chair next to her future bride.
“Not really. But I suppose.”
“You suppose what?”
“There’s no choice.”
Lauren’s cheerful expression turned dower. Jackie knew there was no turning back now. It was time to clear her conscience. Jackie let it all out for Lauren to hear.
“I bumped into an old friend yesterday.”
“That’s all?”
“Not exactly. It was a woman.”
Lauren laughed. She knew Jackie had many girls over the years. Jackie annoyed her numerous times during the early days of their relationship recounting her past mistakes in relationships. She assumed this was one more bitter old flame.
“Did one of your old jilted lovers give you some trouble, you bad girl?”
Jackie could no longer beat around the bush. She blurted out the truth without even thinking. Lauren was not amused.
“It was Mary.”
“Your ex-wife Mary?”
“Yes.”
Jackie blubbered for several minutes to Lauren how she ran into Mary at the jewelry store by accident. For old times’ sake, she met her for coffee after work. Mary had suggested they go to karaoke, and liquor got the better of them.
“But I swear. Nothing happened beyond some innocent flirting.”
“Is that the truth?”
Lauren was no fool. She knew more took place between Jackie and Mary for her to be coming to her with this. But Lauren let that pass.
“Yes.”
“And you don’t still carry a torch for your ex-wife, right?”
Jackie looked Lauren square in the eyes, and with all her heart, Jackie told her how she truly felt. It was the most honest Jackie had ever been with a woman in her life. It felt good to be so straightforward.
“No, I did for years think of Mary. That affected my relationships with other women. But I have learned from my mistakes. I will not return to the miserable excuse for a partner I used to be.”
Lauren stood. She stared into Jackie’s eyes. She yearned for a glimpse into her soul. And after a minute, Lauren spoke.
“I believe you.”
“Thank you, Lauren.”
“But if you ever see or contact Mary again, we are done and I will end you. You get me?”
“Yes, my love.”
“No, I am your wife.”
The pair shared a deep kiss. It was followed by some passionate lovemaking between the two. Lauren was a kind and gentle soul. She loved Jackie, but it didn’t stop her from getting one more lighthearted jab at Jackie.
“That was great.”
“Thanks.”
“You weren’t too bad yourself, Jackie.”
“Wow!”
“Kidding. Where’s this fantastic ring that caused all this drama? It must be something special.”
“It is. I almost forgot.”
Jackie jumped out of bed. She ran buck naked into the living room. She opened her briefcase to get the ring out. But the ring was gone.
She frantically searched her briefcase and pockets. It was not there. She was screwed. Jackie had no idea what she was going to tell Lauren.
“Are you making that ring in there?”
“Sorry, I’m coming.”
Lauren got bored of waiting and came out of the bedroom. She saw Jackie on her hands and knees. Lauren put her hands on her hips.
“What are you doing down there?”
“Nothing. Just forget it. I must have left the ring at my apartment.”
“No problem. Let’s go get it. Just let me throw some clothes on.”
Jackie panicked. She thought fast. Jackie told a little white lie. She hoped Lauren would forgive her later.
“I want this to be a memorable event. Why don’t you give me a few days to plan a special evening for us?”
“Really, it is okay. Let’s go now.”
“I insist. It will give me the chance to make up for all the trouble I caused.”
It took a little haggling and another round of passionate lovemaking, but Lauren finally conceded. Jackie solved one problem, but there was another. Her ex-wife was a jewel thief.
Jackie thought about calling Mary straight away, but he remembered Lauren’s warning. She was pissed to lose the ring more than the money. It was a beautiful ring. Lauren would love it. That is if Jackie got it from Mary.
She figured her ex-wife thought she deserved something extra after what Jackie had done to her years ago. Jackie could not blame her, but she could not understand why Mary carried on with her at the coffee-house and karaoke bar. Mary was more than willing to sleep with Jackie. It was a lot to do to steal a ring.
Several days passed. Jackie was getting up for the day when there was a knock at his door. She was in no mood for visitors.
“I don’t need no fruit loop religious nut today. Okay?”
The local church was notorious for early morning visits to “the houses of unbelievers and heathens.” Jackie shooed them away many times over the years. The knock at the door was incessant. Jackie gave up, and she opened the door. But Jackie wished she had not.
“I said, I don’t need — ”
“It’s you.”
“How’s it going?”
“Mary, I’m fine. But you shouldn’t be here. You have to go.”
Mary was confused. The last time they were together they were all over each other. And now, Jackie wanted her to leave.
“What’s up with your crappy attitude, babe?”
“Nothing. But you have to go.”
“Not until you tell me what happened.”
“I told Lauren. Everything.”
Mary paced as she stared at her pink and white tennis shoes. She looked at her ex-wife. Jackie knew Mary was disheartened to hear the truth.
“But what about us?”
“I’m sorry. But there is no us, Mary. There is only Lauren and me. That’s it.”
The ‘Moore’ anger smoldered and swelled inside of Mary. She smacked Jackie across the face. Jackie stumbled, but Mary was not done.
“You were going to screw me and leave me? Again. Nice.”
Jackie got quiet. That was not her intention at the time. She was confused by her feelings that night while drunk. In the light of sobriety, Jackie realized she was in love with Lauren.
“That night was a mistake, almost a big mistake.”
“A mistake?”
“You know, like the mistake you made in swiping my ring. You’re a thief.”
Mary turned several shades of red. She punched Jackie in the chest. Jackie fell backward from the impact.
“I have made missteps in my life. You are among them. But I’m not a thief.”
“You are! There is no ring in the box. You played me Mary. Shame on you.”
Mary pushed Jackie again. Her body convulsed with a rage Jackie never saw before in her life. Jackie took a step back from Mary to be safe.
“I didn’t steal your ring.”
“Look, it’s fine. But if you needed money, you could have asked me. If I could have it back, that would be great.”
“For the last time, I didn’t take your ring. Damnit!”
“You did.”
Jackie and Mary were consumed by their quarrel. They didn’t notice someone running up the stairs. The man stopped at the top of the staircase.
“What do we have here?”
The voice startled the angry pair. Jackie and Mary stopped arguing. They turned toward the figure. And they froze.
“Dave, what do you want? I sure don’t have time for your crap today.”
Dave rubbed his fingers together as he gave Jackie a glance. Dave let out a loud snort, and he shook his head. He raised a finger and pointed it at Jackie and Mary. And Dave mocked the pair.
“You’re screwing a woman again behind your future wife’s back. You’re a cold-hearted cheater Little Jackie. For shame.”
“You would know all about that, wouldn’t you Dave?”
Jackie had not forgotten what Dave did with her second wife. Dave held out his palm for his cash, but Jackie gave him the bad news. There would be no more money for Dave today.
“Lauren knows.”
“You’re lying. The Little Jackie I know would never have the backbone to tell the truth, especially to your future wife.”
“Trust me the wife knows.”
Everyone froze. Dave’s jaw dropped, and Mary put her fist down. Lauren stepped forward between Jackie and Mary. Things got tense.
“Whoa! What a reunion we have going on here.”
“This is not what it looks like. Honey, I — ”
“Lauren, Jackie and I, there’s nothing going on here.”
“This keeps getting better and better. You, your fiancé, and your one night stand together at your apartment no less.”
“I’m not a one night stand.”
Dave stopped. Until now, he had not had a good look at the woman. It dawned on him who the woman was standing before him. He could not believe it.
“Oh my God! Mary?”
“Yes, Dave, it’s me.”
“Wow! I know what she can do to a man. I’m outta here.”
Dave knew the pain Mary’s ‘Moore’ anger could inflict on a body. Years ago, Dave made one too many fat jokes at a Fourth of July party. Mary knocked out his two front teeth. He wanted no part of a rematch with his former sister-in-law.
Dave made a beeline down the stairs and drove away his old beat up grey truck. The present and former lovers stood face to face with each other for the first time.
“Hello. My name is Mary.”
“I am aware of who you are Mary Moore. Jackie, what is she doing here?”
Jackie paced and shuffled. She looked at her brown penny loafers, and she let out a slow sigh. She was resigned to her fate when Mary jumped in to save her.
“I came to meet Jackie. She had no idea I was coming. Honest, this is all one big misunderstanding. Really it is.”
“Is that true, Jackie?”
Jackie nodded. Lauren turned to confront a would-be homewrecker. She pulled no punches where Mary was concerned
“And what do you want with my wife?”
“I thought — ”
“Whatever you thought you had better think again. Honey, that’s my woman.”
“I know.”
“Let’s hope so. Because, just so you know, you are not the only female who can get angry. All right?”
“Okay, Lauren. And just so you know, I didn’t steal your ring.”
“I know. That’s why I’m here.”
Lauren came to Jackie’s apartment to tell him the police had found her ring. Jackie could not believe it.
“They found it?”
“The police were called to Mary’s jewelry store to investigate a theft. When they reviewed the surveillance footage the detectives discovered an employee swiping merchandise from unsuspecting customers, including you.”
It turned out the new employee Dee had a wonderful sense of fashion and sticky fingers. The young girl was arrested later the next day at a pawn shop as she tried to sell the stolen items. When the police confronted her, Dee admitted everything.
“Mary, I’m so sorry.”
“Save it. I told you I am not a thief.”
“And Lauren, I’m sorry for all of this mess. Truly, I am.”
“Me too, Lauren. Best of luck to you and Jackie and your baby.”
“Thank you. You have a good life, Mary. And you’ll forgive me if I say I hope we never meet again.”
There was nothing left to say. Jackie was a changed woman for the better, and Mary was tired of being angry. It was time to move on from the past. And she did.
“You take care, Jackie.”
“You too, Mary.”
Lauren and Jackie celebrated the birth of their baby later in the year. They had a long and successful marriage. Truly Mary was happy for Jackie if not a little envious of her luck. | https://medium.com/@greygrizzledandgaijin/no-moore-mess-chapter-fifteen-serial-version-78043a9d9a87 | ['Craig Hoffman'] | 2020-11-03 02:41:34.389000+00:00 | ['Fiction Friday', 'Metoo', 'Serial Novel', 'Serial Fiction'] |
How Sobriety Becomes Easier Than Addiction | Addiction is hard
In the midst of my addiction, it felt like I was taking the easy path by continuing to drink.
In retrospect, I can see that my heavy drinking was making every aspect of my life more difficult than it needed to be.
Drinking was ruining my finances. Day by day, it seemed like I was only spending a few dollars on alcohol. Month by month, those few dollars added up to hundreds. Year by year, the hundreds became thousands.
It’s no exaggeration to say that over the course of my lifetime, I spent tens of thousands of dollars on booze. How much easier could those years have been if I hadn’t been putting that insane strain on my wallet?
Drinking was also getting in the way of my friendships and relationships. Alcohol is often called a “social lubricant,” but for me, it mostly got in the way. I couldn’t make real connections because I only learned how to talk to people when I had been drinking. I often avoided going out because I was embarrassed by my own drunkenness.
By the final years of my active addiction, alcohol had invaded every facet of my life. I was scheduling my time around drinking, and even when I was sober I could feel alcohol’s lingering effects in the form of hangovers and fatigue.
Perhaps worst of all: my addiction got harder and harder to live with as time went on. | https://medium.com/exploring-sobriety/how-sobriety-becomes-easier-than-addiction-22a19642071 | ['Benya Clark'] | 2019-02-01 03:40:19.562000+00:00 | ['Sobriety', 'Mental Health', 'Recovery', 'Self Improvement', 'Addiction'] |
How to Play the Lottery Effectively and for the Right Reasons | “Purpose spurs passion, which fans the sparks that light the fires that fuel change.” — Sir Richard Branson, Founder of The Virgin Group
Imagine for a moment you are standing in the cafeteria at your child’s elementary school. The PTA treasurer walks up to the microphone and announces that at the end of the night, after parent-teacher conferences, the PTA is going to hold a raffle, and if you buy a ticket you will have a chance at winning a $100 gift card to Starbucks! Tickets cost $2 or you can get 3 tickets for $5. The treasurer explains that the money raised will help pay for new books, computers, science kits, and art supplies at the school. You reach into your wallet or purse, and your decision-making begins. You might ask yourself a number of questions. How much am I willing to donate to this cause? How likely am I to win? How much do I really like Starbucks? How much longer is my kid going to be in this school? Is this tax deductible? How much are the other parents giving? There are at least a hundred parents there that night. How much could they actually raise? Does the school really need those things?
The mechanics of state lotteries in the United States are not so different from a PTA raffle. The difference is really just the scale of the operation. In the PTA raffle, the treasurer has done some calculations and knows that he or she needs to convince at least 50 parents to buy at least one ticket to pay for the gift card she picked up at Starbucks before the meeting. In advance of the meeting, he or she assesses the likelihood of people contributing, and decides that one prize worth $100 is enough to entice people to donate to their child’s school. In state lotteries, scratch-off games are designed in a similar way, and for similar causes. Before we talk about how to play the lottery effectively, it is imperative that we talk about why to play the lottery.
First of all, if you are looking for a gambling opportunity, don’t play the lottery. The purpose of the lottery is not gambling. The true purpose of the lottery in most states is to raise money for public education. If you are dealing with a gambling addiction, there are resources available at this link.
Simon Sinek | TEDxPugetSound | September 2009
As Simon Sinek says in his highly viewed TED Talk, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” We need to focus on why state lotteries exist and continue to improve them for public benefit. Lotteries have been around in America since the Colonial Era. Early on, they were used to finance public works projects. They were also used to pay for the construction of some of the first buildings at Harvard and Yale. Today, 45 state lotteries raise billions of dollars for education across the country. It is currently the largest non-tax source of funds for public education in the United States, far exceeding the aggregate funds from large philanthropic foundations and local community foundations. It is time for state lotteries to be viewed as social enterprises.
What is a social enterprise? The British Columbia Centre for Social Enterprise provides this definition — “Social enterprises are revenue-generating businesses with a twist. Whether operated by a nonprofit organization or by a for-profit company, a social enterprise has two goals: to achieve social, cultural, community economic, and/or environmental outcomes; and, to earn revenue.” If we frame the lottery as a social enterprise designed to benefit the public, then the reasons individuals play will shift to focus on their community and their state rather than themselves. We need to develop the lottery’s identity as a mechanism for improving educational outcomes. To do that, lottery players need to rethink and reframe why they are playing. This will also inform how individuals play.
Just like the PTA raffle, when you are considering playing a lottery game you should consider things like the mechanics of the game, the impact, the odds, and your budget. Playing the lottery effectively is entirely about understanding the game you are playing. For the purposes of this article, we’ll consider typical scratch-off lottery games as they are the most common. At the end of the article, we’ll talk more about how lottery players can challenge their state lotteries to be better social enterprises and do more for the benefit of their state and the communities in their state.
Understanding Scratch-off Lottery Games
The best place to start to understand a scratch-off lottery game is to think about a deck of cards. In a typical 52-card deck you have four suits — clubs, spades, diamonds, and hearts, and you have 13 cards of each suit, which are numbered 2 through 10 and then jack, queen, king, and ace. So, if you were to count all of the high cards (jack, queen, king, and ace), there would be 16 out of 52. This is the equivalent of 30.77% of the 52-card deck. Another way to think about it is to say that 1 out of every 3.25 cards will be a high card. It is important to understand a deck of cards, because scratch-off games are designed around the predictability of a deck of cards.
When you buy a scratch off lottery ticket, you will see some identifiers on the ticket in the form of number sequences and number-letter sequences. These are used to make sure no one can create counterfeit tickets. One of the number sequences will be on the bottom of the ticket and refer to the game you are playing and the pack your ticket came from. This number helps the lottery with traceability. Scratch-off tickets come in packs that have a set number of tickets in each pack. For example, in Virginia, $10 scratch-off tickets come in packs of 40. So, when you look on the bottom of your ticket you will see a number between 0 and 39 (not 1 to 40). This is useful information for a lot of reasons.
Example of typical scratch-off ticket with the ticket number in bottom left corner.
Within each pack of scratch-off tickets there are a predictable number of winning tickets. All state lotteries are required to publish the odds of getting a winning ticket for every game they produce. This information is usually available on the ticket, on the lottery ticket dispensing machine, and/or on the state lottery website. For example, the ticket might say your odds of winning a prize are 1 in 3.25 (30.77%). So, you can calculate exactly how many winning tickets are in each pack. If you have 40 tickets in a pack and the odds of winning a prize are 30.77%, then you can expect 12.3 tickets to be winners. If you have discretionary income and want to test this, go right ahead. The packs are remarkably consistent, which is a good sign, because that means the state lottery knows what they are doing.
The next thing that lottery players need to understand is the economics of scratch-off games. Many state lotteries publish the percent of ticket revenue that goes to scratch-off lottery players by game. For example, there might be a game that has a 60% payout. What that means is that if there are $100 million worth of tickets in the game, then $60 million will go to the people playing the game. The other $40 million will mostly go to education with a small amount going to the lottery retailers, which are the gas stations, grocery stores, and the like that sell lottery tickets. It is important to note that if a game has a published payout of 60%, that does not mean that every pack will have a 60% payout. There are usually a handful of very high value prizes, which are the hook for playing that drive the payout percentage up. Most packs will have payouts on the order of 10% lower than the whole game, which makes sense.
The next step to understanding scratch-off lottery games is to understand the phrase “the house always wins”. “The house always wins” is a phrase used in Las Vegas to describe how casinos will always make sure they are profitable. Unfortunately, this phrase has a negative connotation. This sentiment is that if the game is rigged for “the house”, then I, as the player, will never win. In the context of state lotteries, “the house” is the state government, and we want the state government to “win” in the context of the lottery games. This means that each lottery game must always be profitable, or the aggregate of all of the lottery games must be profitable. For good reason, the lottery game designers cannot leave this up to chance. Lottery games have to make more than they pay out to lottery winners, otherwise it would not make sense for the lottery to exist as it would not be raising money for education.
There are assumptions that we can make about scratch-off lottery game design based on the understanding that “the house always wins”. These assumptions can help inform lottery players’ decisions on which games to play and when. The most important assumption is that from the start of the game to the end of the game, the state must be profiting. In other words, if ticket sales stagnate at any time for any particular game, the state lottery has to be able to close the game with a net profit. What this tells us is that the large prizes are probably intentionally spread throughout the game so that payouts never exceed revenue from ticket sales. When we say “spread throughout the game”, we mean that if all of the millions of tickets were in a stack, the top prizes would be intentionally spread through the stack so that some are bought later after enough losing tickets have been sold to cover the cost of the payouts. The worst case scenario for a state lottery scratch-off game would be for all the large prizes to be claimed before 10% of tickets are sold. That would indicate a massive loss and ticket sales would likely stagnate for that game shortly after leaving about 90% of the tickets unsold.
If we are assuming that large prizes are spread throughout the game, then we can make secondary assumptions about what games are best to play and when. It is important to note that most states are required to disclose how many winning tickets have been claimed. Using that information that is usually on the state lottery website, players can determine when they are more likely to win large prizes. For example, if only 25% of all tickets in a scratch-off game are available, and there are 3 of 4 top prizes still unclaimed, then players have a higher than normal chance of winning a top prize. If there are 25% of all tickets remaining, then a safe assumption is that 1 of 4 top prizes should still be available. So, if there are more than 1 of 4 top prizes available when only 25% of tickets are available, a player has a higher chance. When scratch-off lottery games have fewer than 10% of all tickets remaining, but they have multiple top prizes still available, that is a good time for lottery players to take note, and simply check lottery retailers from time to time for those rare tickets.
This is a table from an example scratch-off ticket on the Virginia Lottery website. You can see the overall odds of the game at the top, as well as, the odds of winning a top prize. In the table, you can see the number of prizes at each level that are available. For this example, lottery players can assume there are roughly 7.6% of the total number of tickets remaining by dividing the lowest prize’s remaining number by the lowest prize’s total number (25,993/342,025). And given that there are 2 out of 4 top prizes remaining, this particular game currently has better than normal odds to get one of the top prizes.
Another assumption that can be made is that the number of top prizes must be spread throughout the state. You can imagine that if one part of the state were to get a disproportionate amount of top prizes, then lottery players in other parts of the state would be less and less likely to play over time. Many states publish the locations of top prize winners as they are claimed. This is useful information as a lottery player can then make secondary assumptions about what areas of the state are “due” for a top prize winner. Particularly in scratch-off games that have higher quantities of top prizes, it is useful to check state lottery websites to see where prizes have already been claimed. This is not to say that lottery players should drive all over the state to try to find a winner, but the information is useful when deciding what game to play at your local lottery retailer.
It is also useful to know the number of lottery retailers in your state. The state of Virginia has about 5,000 lottery retailers. This information is particularly useful for games with smaller numbers of total tickets and higher numbers of top prizes. Sometimes promotional games are “Loaded with $1,000 Prizes”, and they might have a third or a quarter of the number of tickets compared to a typical game. Knowing the number of lottery retailers in your state can help you calculate the average number of winning tickets per retailer for a given game.
Using all of these understandings and assumptions can help a lottery player triangulate better odds. Perhaps the most important exercise for a lottery player though is budgeting. If our purpose is to raise money for education, then each lottery player has to make a decision specific to their own personal finances that determines what they are willing and able to give to the cause of education. Based on that budgeting, individuals will also be able to determine what games make the most sense for them to play, and what to expect in terms of prizes.
Let’s say an individual is willing to put $200 a month toward playing the lottery to help raise money for education. Most $10 scratch-off games will consistently return at least 50% in the form of prizes. So, the individual putting $200 a month toward playing the lottery can expect to win about $100 in prizes per month. At the end of the year, that individual will have put $2,400 in and won $1,200. So, the individual will have raised about $1,200 for education (less the small percentage for the lottery retailers in their community). This is the functional equivalent of giving about $1,200 to a school in your community and a little bit of extra business to a local grocery store or gas station. If you are not interested in the small chance at winning a large sum of money, then perhaps it makes more sense just to donate directly to the school of your choice.
The appeal of the lottery versus a simple and direct donation is obviously the gamification and the small possibility of a large prize. On the other hand, the appeal of the simple and direct donation is seeing your impact closer to real time. As state lotteries continue to evolve, they will benefit from highlighting the impact of their games. Here are some ideas for what the future of state lotteries might look like.
1. Games directly associated with the type of education they are supporting. Imagine getting to decide between playing a lottery game that supports arts supplies or science labs or literacy programs. State lotteries could also design tickets to be creatively associated with those subjects.
2. More environmentally sustainable scratch-off tickets and more online games. Current scratch-off tickets use a ton of paper and latex or latex-like material, which is obviously not good for the environment. Shifting to more recycled paper and lower-waste games (smaller tickets) will help state lotteries develop their identities as social enterprises. Encouraging players to shift to online lottery games, and developing trust that they will have similar chances to win, will also help reduce the environmental impacts of lottery games.
3. Higher payouts. As more people play the lottery, and as state lotteries mature, the revenue will become more and more reliable which will enable higher payouts to lottery players which will then encourage more play. This would be a virtuous cycle for many states.
4. More transparency. There is of course a balance between making sure lottery tickets cannot be counterfeited and making sure there is reasonable and high levels of transparency in the game. As technology improves and games mature, state lotteries should be able to increase the amount of transparency associated with their operations.
To date, lottery players have really not shown any kind of value signaling associated with why they are playing the lottery. The assumption state governments and lottery game designers are likely making is that it is entirely about lottery players simply trying to get lucky. If even a small portion of lottery players were to signal that they are playing the lottery at least partly to support education in their state, then perhaps the state lotteries would take on more of a social enterprise identity. If you are a lottery player reading this article, consider reaching out to your state lottery or elected officials to encourage them to think about the lottery as a social enterprise. If you are a state lottery employee or an elected official reading this article, then perhaps consider deploying your creativity in a way that could increase the impact of your state’s lottery. Public education budgets will undoubtedly be strained for years to come, and it will become increasingly important to diversify education funding sources. State lotteries can help with the heavy lift of funding a high quality education for every child in America. | https://medium.com/predict/how-to-play-the-lottery-effectively-and-for-the-right-reasons-41eafa00c7ae | ['Carbon Radio'] | 2020-06-08 02:11:31.965000+00:00 | ['Fundraising', 'Business', 'Society', 'Education', 'Nonprofit'] |
Indeed if make dessert is one unique way to have fun. | Indeed if make dessert is one unique way to have fun.
My dessert not always perfect, but it made me smile when see people enjoyed it :) thank you for sharing this, Darrin. Don’t forget to have fun today! ;) | https://medium.com/@listyaa28/indeed-if-make-dessert-is-one-unique-way-to-have-fun-af888ce60eeb | ['Hapsari Listya'] | 2020-12-23 15:39:37.168000+00:00 | ['Fun', 'Family', 'Activities For Kids', 'Games', 'Life'] |
Fix for Docker Inside Docker Networking issue on Kubernetes | I would like to share my experience on the issue that I was facing from few days. We have a Continuous Integration server and we have build farm of 200+ agents/slaves.
Recently we moved the agents/slave to kubernetes cluster and we started experiencing a network issue.
Problem
While running Docker Inside Docker(DIND) We are experiencing some network related issue.
The Problem was, the docker inside docker was unable to process any URL’s and fails with timeout issues.
The architecture is complex when running docker build inside kubernetes. From running a host machine we have a pod running docker daemon which will help us to run docker builds from CI server.
We started getting failed command for docker build or docker run commands.
[root@c04pesbalXX abhi]# kubectl exec -it bamboo-agent-7bdcc66f49-dhqjq -n bamboo-agent-docker -- /bin/sh
sh-4.3# sh-4.3# docker run -it hashicorp/terraform init 0.12.24: Pulling from hashicorp/terraform
c9b1b535fdd9: Pulling fs layer
011000b168e5: Pulling fs layer
4c096b23c4a8: Pulling fs layer
c9b1b535fdd9: Verifying Checksum
c9b1b535fdd9: Download complete
011000b168e5: Verifying Checksum
011000b168e5: Download complete
c9b1b535fdd9: Pull complete
4c096b23c4a8: Verifying Checksum
4c096b23c4a8: Download complete
011000b168e5: Pull complete
4c096b23c4a8: Pull complete
Digest: sha256:53fb1c0a78c8bb91c4a855c1b352ea7928f6fa65f8080dc7a845e240dd2a9bee Status: Downloaded newer image for hashicorp/terraform:0.12.24 Initializing the backend... Successfully configured the backend "s3"! Terraform will automatically use this backend unless the backend configuration changes. Initializing provider plugins... - Checking for available provider plugins... Registry service unreachable. This may indicate a network issue, or an issue with the requested Terraform Registry. Error verifying checksum for provider "template" The checksum for provider distribution from the Terraform Registry did not match the source. This may mean that the distributed files were changed after this version was released to the Registry. Error: registry service is unreachable, check https://status.hashicorp.com/ for status updates Error: unable to verify checksum
After checking this issue is not related to hashicorp/terraform:0.12.24 image nor with any other docker image or any URL’s getting triggered on Docker build command as well.
Solution
After doing lot of research regarding this issue, I came to know that its some network related issue. Thanks to https://mlohr.com/docker-mtu/ for writing a blog on the issue and explained in detail.
The issue is with the network MTU’s. MTU stands for Maximum Transmission Unit is the largest protocol data unit that can be communicated in a single network layer transaction.
So, I have host which has eth0 and docker0 and MTU’s defined as 1500.
[root@c04pesbal472 kamblea]# ifconfig
datapath: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1376
ether ee:3c:60:db:dd:a1 txqueuelen 1000 (Ethernet)
RX packets 12930 bytes 1349718 (1.2 MiB)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 0 bytes 0 (0.0 B)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0 docker0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet 172.17.0.1 netmask 255.255.0.0 broadcast 172.17.255.255
ether 02:42:a8:a0:41:7e txqueuelen 0 (Ethernet)
RX packets 554487 bytes 91672085 (87.4 MiB)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 851473 bytes 1801995025 (1.6 GiB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0 eth0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet 100.81.21.120 netmask 255.255.252.0 broadcast 100.81.23.255
ether 00:50:56:97:38:5b txqueuelen 1000 (Ethernet)
RX packets 67531210 bytes 18015889819 (16.7 GiB)
RX errors 0 dropped 230695 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 59070841 bytes 10659101883 (9.9 GiB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0 eth1: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet 100.80.45.166 netmask 255.255.248.0 broadcast 100.80.47.255
ether 00:50:56:97:e8:f7 txqueuelen 1000 (Ethernet)
RX packets 4913461 bytes 384821835 (366.9 MiB)
RX errors 0 dropped 347293 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 2228 bytes 93704 (91.5 KiB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0 lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING> mtu 65536
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.0.0.0
loop txqueuelen 1000 (Local Loopback)
RX packets 146992447 bytes 27673873348 (25.7 GiB)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 146992447 bytes 27673873348 (25.7 GiB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0
On top of this host we have a pod running, if we exec into the pod and see the network configuration.
[root@c04pesbal332 abhi]# docker exec -it ab2b259e54b4 /bin/sh
sh-4.3# ip addr
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: docker0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state DOWN group default
link/ether 02:42:53:b3:ef:42 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
inet 192.168.255.129/25 brd 192.168.255.255 scope global docker0
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
108: eth0@if109: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1376 qdisc noqueue state UP group default
link/ether 9a:7d:7f:60:13:4c brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff link-netnsid 0
inet 10.39.0.3/12 brd 10.47.255.255 scope global eth0
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
sh-4.3#
though the docker config is showing MTU of 1500, its using the bridge network created by docker(which is the default network)
sh-4.3# docker network inspect bridge
[
{
"Name": "bridge",
"Id": "abaa249b95dec904d5dd71523a2202a6b4ab4ec54a28f0a1ec59678969e63917",
"Created": "2020-12-10T11:56:33.411365327Z",
"Scope": "local",
"Driver": "bridge",
"EnableIPv6": false,
"IPAM": {
"Driver": "default",
"Options": null,
"Config": [
{
"Subnet": "192.168.255.129/25",
"Gateway": "192.168.255.129"
}
]
},
"Internal": false,
"Attachable": false,
"Ingress": false,
"ConfigFrom": {
"Network": ""
},
"ConfigOnly": false,
"Containers": {},
"Options": {
"com.docker.network.bridge.default_bridge": "true",
"com.docker.network.bridge.enable_icc": "true",
"com.docker.network.bridge.enable_ip_masquerade": "true",
"com.docker.network.bridge.host_binding_ipv4": "0.0.0.0",
"com.docker.network.bridge.name": "docker0",
"com.docker.network.driver.mtu": "1360"
},
"Labels": {}
}
]
sh-4.3#
So, If we see the bridge configuration we have setup the MTU for docker as 1360. To do so, you have to add this to /etc/docker/daemon.json file.
{
"mtu": 1360
}
So to understand,
On Host Machine
eth0 -- 1500 MTU
docker0 -- 1500 MTU On Pod
eth0 -- 1360 MTU
docker0 -- 1500 MTU
Here if you notice, both docker network has MTU of 1500 which is causing the issue. We need to keep it less than 1500 MTU of the host.
Once done it will solve the network issue.
Thanks for Reading. | https://medium.com/@abhijeet-kamble619/fix-for-docker-inside-docker-networking-issue-on-kubernetes-5de64b2c42d4 | ['Abhijeet Kamble'] | 2020-12-15 06:44:05.248000+00:00 | ['Kubernetes', 'Kubernetes Cluster', 'Docker', 'Continuous Integration'] |
Real Estate Properties as Rentals | Real Estate Properties as Rentals
Residential real estate properties are more than just primary homes. With the right execution of strategies, you can become rich when your rent out your house or condo while pursuing other activities.
Photo by Brandon Griggs on Unsplash
Here are 2 basic real estate properties that you can rent or lease out:
House
There are different types of houses such as townhouses, bungalows, and single detached homes that you can buy either at a pre-selling price or in a ready-for-occupany condition.
When you buy a pre-selling house, it means the house isn’t built yet. You keep paying the monthly downpayment, and the construction of your house continues. Usually, prices are cheaper and payments methods are more flexible during the pre-selling stage. It takes around 1–2 years for you to move in. So this is a great investment if you’re not in hurry and want to save money. Just make sure you team up with a great real estate professional that can give sound advice and quality properties.
On the other hand, when you buy a read-for-occupancy house, you easily and readily move-in within a few months. The upside is you get to see the actual house and can immediately feel how the home is going to be. These are the most sought-after houses in the real etsate market.
Renting out a house requires regular maintenance because of the amount of space it takes up. Many small families, especially those starting out, are often unable to purchase their own home within their first few years of marriage. This comes as a good opportunity for real estate investors who have the financial capacity to buy houses with the intention of renting this out to another family. Doing so will not only give you a passive income through home rental, but it will allow you to maintain the title to the property, thereby reaping the value appreciation of the property over time.
Condo
Just like houses, condominium properties are available at a pre-selling stage or as ready-for-occupancy units. These are great home rentals for independent professionals who want to live close to the city where they work. Since condo properties are located in the city, it’s also great option for a vacation home rental where tourists can stay close to tourist spots and essential offices. When buying a condo unit, consider the nearby establishments and conduct more research on the nearest universities, work establishments, or hospitals in the vicinity. The presence of nearby establishments will allow you to eventually rent out your unit faster or even resell your unit to another buyer after a few years. | https://medium.com/@jariedmdg/real-estate-properties-as-rentals-757ed7157b8b | ['Jarie Dumadaug'] | 2021-07-02 09:02:53.044000+00:00 | ['Philippines', 'Real Estate Investment', 'Condo', 'Real Estate', 'House'] |
Home in “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” (1987) | What does Del Griffith really mean when he claims he doesn’t have one?
Photo by Jimmy Conover on Unsplash
Something that puzzled me as I re-watched the comedy classic Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987, dir. John Hughes) this past Thanksgiving was the final reveal that shower curtain ring salesman Del Griffith (John Candy) didn’t have a home, a detail that didn’t seem entirely consistent with what the picture had established about Del previous. So, I want to talk about the film’s ending and what I think it really means.
The dominant reading appears to be that Del is literally a homeless man and has been one since the death of his wife Marie 8 years prior. In other words, he moves around all the time because he doesn’t actually have a place to live. Presumably, had he possessed such a place, he would’ve gone there before Neal Page (Steve Martin) returned to the train station. He could be classified then as a drifter or vagabond. However, the film is somewhat ambiguous when it comes to the actual details of Del’s living situation.
After all, Del has what appears to be a steady job as a salesman, initially carries around 263 dollars in his wallet (not a small sum in 1987), has relatively little trouble covering most travel expenses and possesses a network of clients around the US. Notably, he also says early on that he hasn’t been home in years, as though he has a home but is in some form of exile. And even if one takes his third act claim at face value, the question remains as to how and why exactly he lost his home following the death of his wife. That is, the film leaves the causal link between these two events unspecified.
I raised these points with my girlfriend, and she was also somewhat confused by the revelation. And after we discussed them further in some detail, I’ve come to believe that Del didn’t mean that he was literally a homeless man. Rather, he meant that he had no home in a metaphorical sense. That is, he indeed actually has a physical home, likely a house he bought when he first got married, but he chooses to perpetually travel and work rather than live there, because of the pain it causes him following his wife’s death. Being homeless, from this perspective, is equivalent to living alone.
Screencap: Del finds a “home” in the film’s ending.
Giving a bit more credence to this reading is the fact the picture’s final shooting script features an entire scene (numbered as 180B) following Neal’s return to the train station that actually explains Del’s past in detail and finally allows one a full look inside his mysterious trunk had been cut from the theatrical release. (For more information on what was lost, I recommend viewing this video.) In this deleted scene, Del explicitly states that he sold his house after his wife died of an illness as he “couldn’t handle the thought of rambling around the place” without her there before gathering some of his belongings and heading out on the road.
Evidently then, the intention of the filmmakers prior to shooting and post-production was that Del indeed didn’t have a physical place to live but only because he actively chooses not to have one. Excising this scene left the meaning of Del’s words and thus his status open to multiple interpretations.
From where I stand, in the final film, while Del technically has a place of residence, he does not view it as a “home” without his wife, without someone that truly cares about him. Taking this interpretation further, one can argue that Del has found a “home” by film’s end in the sense that he has finally come upon a person — Neal — that cares. A “home” then, the film proposes, refers not so much to a place, where you live, but rather to the presence of people that you care about and that care about you in turn. | https://medium.com/@mikhail-skoptsov/home-planes-trains-and-automobiles-bb5b82628938 | ['Mikhail L. Skoptsov'] | 2020-12-06 01:48:28.662000+00:00 | ['Thanksgiving', 'Comedy Movies', 'Homeless', 'Film', 'John Candy'] |
Time management for creatives | It’s winter.
The nights are long in the UK, the days short, cold and dark. We’re in lockdown (again). And this month, one after the other, my coaching clients expressed disappointment that they’re got nothing done.
“I’ve just been lazy,” says a photographer.
“I’ve not moved forward on anything,” says a writer.
“I don’t know where the time went,” says a fashion designer.
Yet when we analyse their to-do lists, and go through what they have been doing, it soon becomes clear that isn’t so.
The ‘lazy’ photographer has moved two personal projects forward, taken care of a sick child, bought and assembled some new furniture for his studio, and done some serious online networking.
He feels he’s got nothing done because none of this work was paid. And he tends to measure his productivity by how much he has earned. Yet he knows from experience that the personal projects will, in time, either turn into a story he’ll get paid for, or open up new work.
The ‘stuck’ writer has sorted got the family car repaired, written two features for a national newspaper, done three in-depth interviews and hosted an event online. What she means is that she hasn’t advanced the book project she’s been working on, concentrating instead on paid work to support her family.
She’s frustrated because this is the kind of work that is never done. There’s always a new deadline, a new interview, a new feature to write. She’s longing for the satisfaction of actually completing a big project: finishing her new book, and getting it out into the world.
The designer who didn’t know where her time had gone was packaging and posting orders herself during lockdown, as well as negotiating deadlines with a factory itself floored by the virus. She had hosted several virtual sales events online, and helped a friend through a major crisis.
This had left her with no time to plan a new business venture she’d been considering. She’s excited by the new thing, keen to get on with it. Which is why she was feeling behind.
Time management can be challenging for creatives.
If there’s one issue that clients bring to me most often, it is this one. They call it poor time management, lack of time/space/discipline, procrastination. But what it usually comes down to is this: they’re not getting on with the work they really want to do.
They’re often trying to do too much at once, or doing an awful lot that they are not counting as work at all. Or they’re constantly busy, but not making time for the things they feel are important.
Sound familiar? If so, here are nine things that can help.
1. Time is limited. But so is energy, and focus.
You need to manage all three, not just focus on time. Very few of us can manage more than four hours of totally focussed creative work in a day. Of course there are magical days when you get into flow, hours fly by like minutes and you’re reluctant to stop to eat or sleep. But those days are rare, and never come when we most need them.
We need regular breaks in our working day, to refocus and to replenish our energy.
Look at the routines of prolific, consistent creators and they’ll often consist of a regular block of time they dedicate to their creative work before attending to other things; or shorter bursts of work followed by recovery time (a walk, a work-out, coffee, time to read or relax).
Most of those people also talk about a magical effect when they finish work with an unresolved problem, and then the next day return somehow knowing the answer. Take more breaks, and your subconscious mind will continue working on it, even if you are not. Research has shown that plenty of sleep, frequent breaks and exercise — especially walking — helps here.
Need convincing? Read Matthew Walker’s book Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams is packed with research and evidence on the power of sleep, and how it enhances creativity. And Alex Soojung-Kim Pang’s entertaining book Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less gives strong arguments for resting more — and for the power of walking.
2. Ring-fence time for the project you most want to do.
And then protect it fiercely. Act as if it’s an interview with a Hollywood A-lister, a crucial business meeting or a plane you have to catch.
If you absolutely have to postpone because a huge money job comes up or some other emergency, move it to the nearest available space and only move it again if someone’s life depends on it. (Because your creative life does depend on it.)
It can be difficult, in the stresses of deadlines and day-to-day life to find this time. Be ruthless. Maybe it means leaving the house a mess, ignoring phone calls, arranging a play date for your kids, turning down a social engagement. That’s OK.
I write well in the mornings, so that’s what I do. Every day, from 8am-9am. Before breakfast, before getting dressed sometimes. And definitely before giving my time to anything or anyone else. Even if I don’t get back to the page later, knowing I’ve done that hour leaves me at peace for the rest of the day.
Only you can do this: no one will clear the space for you. But it will make the difference between moving forward, and feeling like you’re stuck on an endlessly revolving hamster wheel, running but getting nowhere.
Protect your creative time fiercely. Photo by Charl Durand on Unsplash
3. Choose your one thing
As creatives, we tend to have a lot of ideas. and they’re all exciting. We go off on tangents, or get distracted by the latest shiny object we’ve discovered. Or we’re juggling several projects at once, and never bringing any of them to completion. Especially when they’re competing with the day to day demands of work and life, friends and family.
Painful though it is, we need to choose one creative project at a time, and give it our whole focus until it’s finished. Then we can choose another.
You’ll get more done that way. You’ll have the satisfaction — and momentum — of completing.
4. Love vs Money
We all need to earn money somehow. But many of us are also working on creative projects that are more speculative, that might not immediately increase our bank balance. We need those projects, to grow and learn. That’s where your joy is found, and your unique talents and voice find expression.
Obviously, at some point we hope to reach that sweet spot where they combine, and we’re being paid well to make the work we love.
In the meantime, we need to make space for both. It can help to decide which kind of work you’re doing, and when. Money work you do to the best of your ability in the time available. But you always make room for the love projects, too. That balance is crucial.
5. Get clear on how long tasks really take.
Tracking your time is tedious, but it’s also eye-opening. Try keeping a record of what you’ve been doing, in 30-minute increments, for a week or even a month.
Be honest. This is to help you understand where your time actually goes. Record the time you spend procrastinating (and how), staring into space, scrolling on social media. This is telling you when you’ve lost focus, when taking a break might be more helpful than pushing on through. Also watch out for those points in the day when you’re so weary you lose the ability to decide what’s important, and start doing busy work, just to feel productive.
It will help you become more aware of the tasks you dread doing, and put off for days — but which only take a few minutes to actually get done. And the tasks you tell yourself should only take an hour — but which really take half a day.
6. Look for energy hangovers.
It is never simple to move from one task to another. That’s why multi-tasking just doesn’t work. Every time you interrupt your creative work to look at an email, move from creating to an admin task, or interrupt your work to answer the phone, it takes a while to get back into flow.
Some tasks are more demanding than others, and they leave you with energy hangovers. In a busy workplace, there tend to be natural breaks where you can work these off. Walking back to your office after a long meeting, for instance, and maybe stopping off to chat with someone while you make a drink. And of course the commute to and from work is a huge signal to our busy minds that we’re moving from one headspace to another.
But if we work at home or in a studio or workshop alone, we need to make space for recovery. If we don’t, we’ll find a way of doing it anyway — and it won’t be healthy.
After interviews, meetings or long coaching conversations, for instance, I realised I tend to pointlessly scroll on social media, start long replies to emails I’d usually ignore, and engage in all kinds of other time-wasting activities.
It took a while for me to realise that after such periods of intense concentration and social interaction, I need some space to recover. Now I go straight out for a walk to clear my head, I dance or do a short workout. When I come back to work, I’m able to focus agin. And I get on with what’s really important that day, instead of getting caught up in trivia.
7. Don’t forget the admin!
We all have it, in some form or another, and it takes time. Answering emails, invoicing and accounts, coordinating with manufacturers or contributors, setting up meetings, networking and marketing, buying materials.. the list goes on and on. Yet few of us actually allow enough time for it, in our schedules.
I like to get my admin done after my creative work, or it swallows my day whole. But if you’re at your best creatively later in the day, get it out of the way first. Either way, I find a timer helps: I tend to do admin in 30-minute bursts, followed by a short break. It stops me getting distracted.
Admin takes time, like it or not. Photo by Charl Durand on Unsplash
Other things that help:
Turn off your email, and only check it at set times. Don’t let your in-box — which is full of other people’s priorities, not your own - dictate how you use your days.
Keep your phone out of your workspace.
Build systems. If you find yourself doing the same job twice, take a few minutes to consider how you can avoid doing it a third time. Writing the same email? Keep it as a template, and just adapt it each time. Doing a repetitive computer task? Find some code to do it for you.
Delegate. Do you really need to do this task, or could someone else do it? This isn’t just about outsourcing work tasks. Sometimes hiring a cleaner, ordering a takeaway or getting someone else to cook, or getting help with your home or garden can free you up to do more of the creative work only you can do.
If you need to be on social media for work, use a timer, to stop you falling down the rabbit hole.
Assign set times of your day/week/month to deal with your money stuff. You can then put receipts, invoices and bills in a drawer or envelope as they arrive, confident you’ll deal with them in time.
8. Chunk down big tasks
Sometimes, we don’t start a task because it’s overwhelming, and impossible to know where to start. I try to have nothing on my to-do list that will take me longer than an hour. If it’s too big to complete in that time, I’ll break it down into smaller pieces. On a big project, this also gives you a sense of forward motion.
“Finish book” is a task that will linger accusingly on your list for months, even years. But if you’ve ticked off ten research tasks, set up two interviews, written a first draft of a section, edited a chapter, you see you are progressing. And that’s motivating.
It also means that if you don’t have a big chunk of time to devote to your project that day, there are often smaller tasks you can get done.
9. Just say no.
It’s a simple, short word, although a lot of us make it longer by marrying it to the word sorry. And weighing it down with unnecessary emotion. Saying no doesn’t mean you’re rejecting someone, that you’re a bad person. It just means you can’t do this thing, this time.
Stop being sorry. Protect the time you need for your creative work, without apology. It’s important.
Then you’ll really be offering your unique gifts to the world. And who knows what that could change? | https://medium.com/creative-living/time-management-for-creatives-13109ba59d55 | ['Sheryl Garratt'] | 2020-11-24 18:30:16.945000+00:00 | ['Focus', 'Freelancing', 'Creativity', 'Writing', 'Time Management'] |
Warp Introduces Voting and Fee Sharing token, veWarp | In order to revamp the Warp Token model and enhance user benefits, Warp Finance is enabling governance and other new functionalities by releasing veWarp tokens.
Many exciting changes are coming to Warp Finance, as we are launching v2 which introduces custom lending pool generation, Uniswap V3 compatibility, and the acceptance of new receipt tokens as collateral. With this new version, Warp has doubled down on its efforts to provide users with an optimal DeFi lending experience. A major part of this effort includes the decision to revamp the existing Warp Token model, with the veWarp fee sharing and governance token representing the first of many updates to be put into effect.
What is veWarp and how will it work?
Warp Finance has created a functionality for effectively making the existing Warp Token capable of delivering governance functionalities and fee sharing on the Warp Platform. Specifically, users can lock up their Warp Tokens into our vault, and will receive veWarp tokens in return. These veWarp are capable of sharing in profits from the platform, governance over Warp Token emissions to lending pairs, as well as voting on the supported lending pairs themselves. In this manner, highly active Warp users who already have earned Warp Tokens will be able to further participate in the platform and vote on various metrics via veWarp, being additionally rewarded with shared platform fees.
Lockup & Minting:
Under this new Warp Token function, users can lock up Warp Tokens to mint veWarp. Specifically, users can lock Warp tokens in the vault for 1 month to 2 years, and mint veWarp in return. The longer that tokens are locked up for, the higher amount of veWarp will be generated.
Example illustrating Longer lockup, higher multiplier for veWarp
This veWarp is non-transferable and non-tradeable, and can only be used to vote, earn shared profits, or to be redeemed for the locked Warp tokens. There is a 50% penalty on unlocking Warp tokens earlier than the designated periods.
Furthermore, in Warp V2, we are opening up lending pairs for veWarp by giving veWarp holders receipt tokens to use as collateral. Within these pairs, because 50% is given up when the user pulls out of their agreement, then we can have the value of veWarp be 50% of the Warp collateral used, and using a 200% collateralization ratio, we can assume 25% of the total value of the Warp backing the veWarp can be used as collateral. This provides an additional benefit to veWarp in addition to those listed below.
Purpose and Benefits:
As mentioned, the veWarp token will be utilized to enable community governance over Warp token emissions to lending pairs, as well as the lending pairs supported on Warp. The veWarp token’s governance capacities will be structured similarly to that of Curve’s veCRV and SushiSwap’s oSushi. Like oSushi does for SushiSwap’s liquidity pairs, veWarp will act as a means for voting on the emissions to each lending pair, in addition to being used to vote for which lending pairs are supported. veWarp can be minted by locking up Warp tokens in our vault, meaning that those users earning veWarp are existing Warp protocol participants, and those earning a significant amount of veWarp must have a significant amount of Warp, which is only earned through platform participation. Warp team members will be kicking this off by locking up some of their team tokens for veWarp.
Furthermore, veWarp will act as a fee sharing token similar to xSushi. veWarp gives users a share of the fees generated by the platform — meaning, the fees generated will be able to be used to purchase Warp on the open market, giving the ability for veWarp holders to redeem their veWarp for Warp. This is what enables veWarp token holders to share in the fees generated from Warp Tokens.
In this manner, Warp ensures that there is a close alignment between the success of the protocol and the long-term believers. Token holders who lock up their tokens the longest will have the highest voting power, and receive the highest financial incentives, all while having skin in the game and prioritizing long-term growth over short-term fees.
Voting Process:
One veWarp token is proportional to one vote.
Voting on lending pool selection and Warp token emission allocations to lending pools will occur each month. After voting, the vote will remain directed in the same pool, unless modified to select another pool, which can be done once per week. A user’s veWarp can be spread out across various lending pools, so that they are able to support multiple pools in proportions of their choosing.
Gauge weighting is used to determine the amount of veWarp required for a vote to pass (i.e. for a lending pool/emissions to be supported). Gauge weighting is calculated by dividing the total amount of veWarp voting for a particular option divided by the total amount of veWarp. Rewarded Warp tokens per vault is calculated based on this gauge weighting.
Next Steps:
veWarp is launching after the launch of Warp V2, with more details to be announced. The capability of staking Warp for veWarp to be made available directly within the existing Warp Protocol interface.
By enabling users to lock up their Warp tokens for veWarp, the Warp protocol delivers essential governance and profit sharing capabilities in proportion to platform participation. This is just the first phase of remodelling the utility of the existing Warp Token, so keep an eye out for more updates.
To keep up-to-date with the Warp Protocol, make sure to follow our socials:
Twitter | Telegram | Discord | Website| Reddit| Github | https://medium.com/@warpfinance/warp-introduces-voting-and-fee-sharing-token-vewarp-e35aeb17f4b1 | ['Warp Finance'] | 2021-07-02 14:08:42.119000+00:00 | ['Uniswap', 'Token', 'Defi'] |
Jaguar And The Hunt | What came first, the Thought or the Word?
Heart came first,
and the force of Its burning was pumped
out into the world
which returned that force
ten thousand fold,
penetrating the forests of our nerves —
heady jungles —
hearts marched through those forests,
jaguars of force,
gathering images,
gathering strength,
becoming form,
until the crown of Mind sprang forth
and uttered
a Word
from absolute necessity
to describe
the ineffable ecstasy
of the meeting between Hunger
and its cultivation by the Hunt.
c. 1997 Teresa Hawkes | https://teresadlonghawkes.medium.com/jaguar-and-the-hunt-37153b6ca354 | ['Teresa D Hawkes'] | 2020-11-27 03:33:55.091000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Evolution Of Human Mind'] |
The Truth Is, I Suffer From Future-Self Delusion | The Truth Is, I Suffer From Future-Self Delusion
Why Most New Year’s Resolutions Are So Hard To Keep
TLDR: Some of us (like me) tend to be a little deluded about what our future selves are like. Our future selves are not always like we imagine when we make our New Year’s Resolutions. However there are ways to beat the delusion.
1:27am
It’s well past midnight and I’m crawling into bed. I set an alarm so my virtuous future self up can get up early and execute the perfect morning ritual.
My future self would never hit snooze.
My future self is now a “morning person” and will bounce out of bed with zeal! My future self will surely do some morning yoga. She’ll surely pour a glass of water, adds a squeeze of organic lemon, before heading out for a morning jog. She’ll surely come home, have a quick shower and get straight to work.
6:00am
But then, the future arrives. The alarm rings. And something is different…
My future self is nothing like I imagined she was! She hits snooze! Twice!
Then she hits snooze a third time, then it’s coffee, last night’s pizza, and then somehow the TV is mysteriously on.
The Future-Self Delusion (FSD)
If you’re anything like me, you’ve regularly encountered some moments of complete and utter delusion about how virtuous your future self is. I call this the Future-Self Delusion (FSD).
Every time I buy some new running shoes I expect my future self will start running every day and probably be doing a half marathon by Christmas.
Every time the capricciosa pizza arrives and I open a bottle of cabernet sauvignon, I expect that my future self will be different and start grilling fish and steaming broccoli for the rest of the week.
Every time I hit Netflix, I expect this will be the last ever six hour session of watching TV series and my future self will become a productivity machine.
But my future self has not run a marathon, has grilled very few fish, and productivity has remained largely the same.
What causes the delusion?
Am I just another self help hype sucker making ridiculous resolutions?
Have I overdosed on the resolution, affirmation, intention, mantra, vision board, or goal setting kool-aid?
Why does my future self sometimes act against my better judgement?
Akrasia — Acting Against Our Better Judgement
Akrasia. noun. — lacking command (over oneself)
It’s useful to learn a bit about human behavior. One way of dividing behaviors or habits is like this –
Instant Gratification Habits (not so good habits — instant reward/current self) Investment Habits (good habits — delayed reward/future self)
It’s easy to create instant gratification habits! These are the things your future self would NOT thank you for. If you want to eat a donut every afternoon, most of us can make that a habit all too quickly. The brain very quickly links the cue or trigger and reward and then suddenly the behavior is automatic — a habit! There you are with a donut.
Most of our resolutions tend to require investment habits. Things that your future self would thank you for. If you want to floss your teeth every day, most of us found that a harder habit to set. The brain is not getting that big quick reward, so many people end up with a full spool of floss at the end of the year.
When the resolution relates to any activity where the benefits are not received immediately — any activity that is an investment for future-you it is generally going to be more challenging to perform. There is no immediate pleasure hit (dopamine/serotonin/oxytocin etc).
Studies have shown humans can have a tendency to overestimate their future self capacity for impulse control (a Restraint Bias). Future-Self Delusion occurs when the Restraint Bias kicks in and we overestimate our capacity for impulse control. When the future comes around sometimes “Akrasia” (“lacking command (over oneself)”) arises — and we perform a behavior that gives us some instant gratification instead.
We also have a tendency to have an optimism bias about future time, psychologists call this The Planning Fallacy. We can run out of time or energy to do the resolution which can also add to FSD.
Beat Future-Self Delusion
Forget, resolutions, instead build realistic habits
If you think you might have some signs of FSD try using these steps to turn your resolution into something your future self is much more likely to do. This is based on ideas from the latest behavior design science (more details in the further reading section below).
Define what you what. Frame it in the positive — make it an approach goal. (E.g. flip it from “lose weight” to “be more lean and strong”. Determine the habit that supports the goal. (E.g. exercise every day for 30 minutes). Determine the smaller version of the habit. (E.g. put on running shoes.) Find the anchor that you will attach the habit to. (E.g. after I finish my morning coffee, I will put on my running shoes.) Design your environment for success. (E.g. put running shoes near where you drink your coffee.) Reward yourself — use positive reinforcement.
Yes it is true, after going through the all these steps your resolution to “buy broccoli when you go to the store” might not seem as sexy as your “lose 20 pounds” resolution. However, you’ll slay the Future-Self Delusion and build some good success momentum. Good luck.
Further Reading
Thinking Fast and Slow
The Power of Habit
Designing for Behavior Change: Applying Psychology and Behavioral Economics | https://medium.com/better-humans/the-future-self-delusion-ec9b723e6f | ['Julia Clavien'] | 2019-10-25 19:02:13.122000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Motivation', 'Fitness', 'Habit Building', 'Self-awareness'] |
A Christmas Tale | My Love for Christmas:
I loved Christmas when I was a kid, but I never once celebrated it. Sounds kind of funny, right? I stayed in a small town in India, where the festival didn’t garner much attention outside of being a school holiday. If you went around, It would be impossible to see a Christmas tree and decorations.
Yet, I was in love with the idea of Christmas. The shows, movies, and cartoons I watched had made me fall in love with the festival.
One of my cherished memories was watching “How Grinch stoled The Christmas!” It taught me that the festival was more than decors, trees, and gifts. It was more about the feeling of coming together with your loved ones and friends. The sense of giving and that made the movie so special for me.
Apart from that, I would binge the entire day watching “Home Alone,” “It’s a Wonderful Life,” etc., at home. Despite never celebrating the festival, I would be in my holiday spirit during that time.
Losing the Magic:
Christmas didn’t have the same impact on me as I grew with time. I saw its commercial nature, especially when I moved out of my small town for university. I could see how brands and businesses used the festival to market new things to spend more.
At that time, I became more and more cynical about it. To me, it had become like countless other festivals that we have in a year — a chance to take time off from work but nothing more.
Even though now I could fulfill my childhood dream of getting a Christmas tree and decorating it, I didn’t want to do it. Why should I give money to all these establishments?
So I started forgetting about the festival altogether. It became another holiday on the calendar and a reminder that the year was about to complete.
Rediscovering The Magic Again:
That’s why this year was all more special to me. Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to get a Christmas tree, decorate it and watch movies that highlighted the Christmas spirit again.
Yet, after getting disillusioned, I kept putting it off. Even though I could make my dream come true, I never felt the urge to do it.
Part of the reason was that I didn’t want to celebrate Christmas alone.
This year though, I wasn’t alone, and my partner decided to fulfill my childhood dream. We bought a Christmas tree, decorated it to our heart’s content, bought some gingerbread cookies and a cake, and planned to watch some Christmas shows and movies to relive our yesteryears.
When the tree was decorated and lit up this week, I could feel the magic again. It seemed like I had a turn into a 10-year-old who loved Christmas and had a special place in my heart.
Sometimes life can make you cynical, but those close to you can always turn that around if you let them.
With that, I wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year. | https://byrslf.co/a-christmas-tale-6826af83b5a9 | ['Smit Shah'] | 2021-12-23 13:47:17.895000+00:00 | ['Christmas', 'Beyourself', 'Happiness', 'Festivals', 'Life Lessons'] |
Lockdown Wedding Checklist | Even in normal conditions, one of the most arduous chores for the bride and groom before their happily ever after is organizing a wedding. Sadly, a lockdown wedding could look more like a Bad dream with the Covid-19 crisis.
But don’t worry! You can do that. The final wedding checklist has been curated to help make your celebration a rustling achievement.
The Venue
The venue, whether it’s the caterer, the best wedding photographer, make-up artist, or decorator, is the lynchpin that pulls most of the other components together. Securing the location, on the other hand, is no longer the only item on a wedding planner’s to-do list.
Unless you’re planning a modest wedding in your own house, most venues have a set of rules to follow, such as a maximum number of guests, a list of all the guests you want to invite, and make it compulsory to use masks and sanitization. As a result, check that COVID safety rules are followed at the venue before deciding on a location.
Keep in mind to book a venue with Good ventilation, Booking an outdoor venue for the wedding would be the best option to go for, as it maximizes safety by reducing the spread of possible coronavirus.
The Special Guestlist
Because of the lockdown, the government has limited the number of people who can attend each event, different states have different rules for the number of guests to be allowed at a wedding.
Venues ask for a list of attendees and their evidence of identity, in advance, this is to make sure if something goes wrong, they can get in touch with the attendees and track their health or ask them to quarantine.
In the course of pleasing everyone, weddings frequently evolve into huge affairs, and the budget quickly balloons. A restricted guest list will not only ensure that your visitors are people you want, but it will also allow you to fulfill your other wedding goals.
Make sure your wedding guests follow all the social distancing norms, and avoid inviting the ones who are not keeping well.
Sanitation and safety
While the lockdown and current restrictions may seems to be irritating and a block! Do not forget the reasons why it is enforced. Ensure that all of your vendors and guests are aware of the importance of social distance and sanitization. To maintain hygiene, you must offer masks for all participants or choose for pre-packaged meals.
Many providers offer a ‘lockdown package,’ which you should use to ensure your safety. You could also hire a safety coordinator to make sure everyone follows the rules.
Make sure you place sanitizers in all possible places like, on every table, corners of the venue, and everywhere possible.
Ask your guests to wear masks and take all precautions themselves.
Hire The best wedding photographer, who can record the moments of your wedding hassle-free, following all the social distancing norms.
If you are planning a destination wedding, make sure you hire the best destination wedding photographer and see how magically he/she can bring your wedding pictures & videos, with keeping safety in mind.
Keeping last-minute modifications to a minimum:
It takes a long time to plan a wedding amid a lockdown. Everyone in the supply chain is working with a small team, limited hours, and rigorous government regulations. Take a few months to plan everything out in detail so you can relax and enjoy your wedding day.
Hire the best wedding photographer beforehand, to ensure smooth functioning of both, your wedding plans and the wedding photographer team.
Keep in touch with the other vendors & venue people.
Opt for a private, At-home wedding:
Consider how many functionalities you’d like to have and how you’d like to space them out. Keep in mind the cuisine you’d like catered for each event, as well as the necessary design adjustments. Alternatively, designate different locations for each function. A sangeet or mehendi in your yard, a main wedding at home, and a reception on the terrace, for example.
With a home wedding, you may have limited room, but making good use of it can make the process go more smoothly. Create zones such as the entrance, the food and beverage portion, and the wedding area. These will aid guests in navigating without taking up too much room. If your entire home is where the activity is taking place, dress it up to create a festive mood; think of places to take picture-perfect wedding photos. And trust us! the wedding pictures have nothing to do with the venue but the happy faces. Team of Professional wedding photographers in Delhi NCR like Wedding Twinkles can make your wedding at an ‘ordinary’ venue, stand out like an extraordinary wedding in pictures and videos, all you gotta do is hire the best wedding photographers, and smile, keep it all light mood and focus on celebrations rather than worrying about the wedding preparations and the pictures.
Ask your guests to participate online and shower their blessings virtually
Use the digital technology to your advantage and hire a virtual wedding officiant. Choose an e-vite instead of a traditional wedding card (digital invitation).
You can also perform the majority of your wedding planning online, including hiring a cosmetic artist and qualifying for marriage financing. Set up a virtual platform for guests who are unable to attend so that they can enjoy and participate in your wedding celebrations. Even hiring the best wedding photographer online, and checking his work through the internet, and then finalizing him/her for your wedding.
Host your wedding on Google Meet, Zoom, or any other meet apps and ask your guests to join in! | https://medium.com/@weddingtwinklesdelhi/lockdown-wedding-checklist-9d622a480582 | ['Wedding Twinkles'] | 2021-06-17 07:54:16.675000+00:00 | ['Wedding Photographer', 'Weddings', 'Wedding Planning', 'Wedding Photography', 'Best Wedding Photographer'] |
Cryptocurrency Taxation in the UK: A Guide For Business | In December 2018, HMRC released a manual intended to help individuals and businesses in the UK better understand the accounting and tax implications of cryptocurrency trading and investment. In today’s post, we would like to highlight some of the most pertinent points discussed in this document and respond to a series of questions that are frequently posed by our business clients.
The HMRC guide, freely available on a UK government website, remains somewhat incomplete but has been regularly amended over the last three years. As we learn of new additions to the guidelines, we will do our best to keep this post updated as well.
Please be aware that we aim only to provide a surface-level look at the UK’s approach to crypto taxation. Nothing included in this post should be interpreted as advice.
Part 1: Basics
What are “cryptoassets” according to HMRC?
Also referred to as ‘tokens’ or ‘cryptocurrencies,’ HMRC defines cryptoassets as secured digital representations of value or contractual rights that make use of some form of distributed ledger (blockchain) technology.
What kinds of cryptoassets exist?
Cryptoassets are categorized by HMRC as follows:
Exchange Tokens: assets that are intended to be used as a means of payment. These are the tokens that would be more widely thought of as ‘cryptocurrencies,’ such as Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), and Ripple (XRP). Ethereum may also be considered an exchange token, although it may fit better in the next category. Utility Tokens: assets that are issued by a company that has committed to accepting the assets as payment for goods or services in the future. These tokens are frequently issued as a form of fundraising in initial coin offerings (ICOs) and can be traded on exchanges or peer-to-peer. Security Tokens: assets which entitle the owner to particular rights or interests in a business, such as a share in ownership, in profits, or in the future repayment of a sum of money. HMRC intends to address the tax treatment of security tokens in future guidance. We will update this post when that occurs. Stablecoins: Tokens that function in much the same way as exchange tokens while being ‘pegged’ to another asset that is thought to have a stable value. Tether (USDT) is perhaps the most well-known example of a stablecoin, with a value more or less equal to the United States dollar. Despite the separate categorization, it seems HMRC largely treats stablecoins as exchange tokens. Non-Fungible Tokens: HMRC recognizes NFTs as cryptoassets that are separately identifiable.
Importantly, HMRC’s tax treatment of these types of tokens is dependent on how the token is used, not on the definition of the token. An exchange token that is used as a security will be treated as a security. Furthermore, none of these token types are considered to be money equivalents.
Which taxes apply to businesses that deal with crypto?
Depending on how the company uses its cryptoassets, it may be liable to pay one or more of the following: capital gains tax, corporation tax on chargeable gains, income tax, national insurance contributions, stamp duties, and VAT.
How are capital gains taxes on cryptocurrency calculated?
Capital gains taxes are paid on the difference between the buying and selling price of assets.
Oftentimes, the purchase cost of a single asset varies drastically. For example, token A may have been purchased for 100 pounds in 2014. Later, the same investor may have increased their portfolio by two tokens in 2019, paying 1000 pounds. In 2020 they may have purchased another five tokens for 3000 pounds.
In situations like this one, HMRC makes use of a share pooling method that defines the buying price at the time of withdrawal for the asset as its average acquisition cost. Since eight token A were purchased for 4100 pounds, the acquisition cost for tax purposes would be 512.5 GBP.
Each cryptocurrency owned is grouped into its own pool. To illustrate, in a portfolio that includes Bitcoin, Ripple, and Litecoin, there would be three pools. It does not matter that these are all “exchange tokens.” Following a hard fork, new tokens need to be grouped into their own pools. So, if Bitcoin were to fork, the original token and the ‘new’ token on the main chain should each be considered separate assets.
In short-term trades, “same-day” and “bed-and-breakfast” rules are applied. As NFTs are separately identifiable, they do not need to be — and indeed cannot be — pooled.
In what currency are taxes calculated?
All tax calculations are carried out in pounds sterling. If an exchange token transaction is undertaken on an exchange that does not display a value in pounds, an appropriate exchange rate must be established in accordance with the Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (GAAP).
For the purposes of filling out a tax return, the value of profits, gains, and losses must be converted to pound sterling following GAAP. While companies may choose to designate another national currency (i.e. USD/EUR) as its functional currency, tax returns must be still completed in pounds at the end of the accounting period.
Do foreign currency rules apply to crypto transactions?
No. Since HMRC does not consider cryptoassets to be money or currency, these rules do not apply.
Part 2: Business transactions and deductions
Will we be taxed for buying cryptocurrency?
The purchase of cryptocurrency is not considered a taxable event in the UK. Held cryptocurrency will also not be taxed.
How about selling for fiat?
Yes. Any trade of cryptocurrency for fiat is subject to capital gains tax.
Are crypto-for-crypto trades taxable?
Yes. Exchanging one cryptoasset for another is considered a taxable event. Taxes must be paid at the market value in pounds sterling of the token received.
Does this apply to stablecoins, too?
Yes. As far as we can tell, the HMRC treats stablecoins basically the same as exchange tokens.
Will I be taxed if I move assets between my wallets?
Moving cryptoassets between wallets does not constitute a taxable event. Records should be kept of these transfers in case of an audit.
How is business income, received in crypto, treated?
If a company or business accepts payments in exchange tokens or uses these tokens to pay suppliers, the tokens paid out or received will need to be accounted for as a part of the taxable trading profits. Corporation and income tax will be applied to all withdrawals.
Can our employees receive salaries in crypto?
Yes. These withdrawals will be subject to income tax and national insurance contributions, just the same as if they were in pounds sterling.
Are exchange fees deductible costs?
Some exchange fees are deductible, but not all. A comprehensive list of these fees and their deductibility can be found here.
Can we deduct charitable contributions made in cryptocurrency?
Yes. Cryptocurrency donations made to charitable organizations are not subject to capital gains taxes.
What if our cryptoassets are worthless?
It is possible to claim these assets as losses.
How does VAT work with crypto?
Value-added tax works the same as with fiat currency: VAT is due on any goods or services sold in exchange for cryptoassets. The sales price will be the pound sterling value of the exchange tokens at the time of the transaction.
Are we required to pay Stamp Duty on cryptocurrency transfers?
No. Exchange token transfers generally do not meet the definition of “stock or marketable securities.”
Part 3: Decentralized finance
How are ICOs (and IEOs) taxed?
Initial coin offerings are treated as crypto-to-crypto transfers (discussed earlier). Since it is often difficult to determine the value of ICO tokens, the market value of the cryptoasset used to make a purchase during the token sale can be used to calculate capital gains.
Can I declare profits or losses from lending cryptocurrency?
No. HMRC does not consider exchange tokens to be “money.” As a result, lending out such tokens does not constitute a “loan relationship” and any gains or losses, even if described in pounds sterling, cannot be declared as such.
What if we use our cryptocurrency as collateral to borrow fiat?
Fiat loans backed by exchange tokens qualify as loan relationships. Profits and losses should therefore be reported.
At Altercap, we specialize in getting companies of all sizes started with cryptocurrency. Of course, understanding how taxation works for digital assets is an essential part of this process. We would be happy to discuss this and any other concerns you might have. Contact us here. | https://medium.com/@altercap/cryptocurrency-taxation-in-the-uk-a-guide-for-business-972980cf7d0d | [] | 2021-11-23 09:31:14.052000+00:00 | ['Crypto Taxation', 'Accounting', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Taxation', 'Business'] |
The evolution: a simple illustration | In the last paragraphs of Tools vs. Assistants: Part II, I’ve talked about the evolution of the society as the technology develops, in order to explain how we should apply software agents into our applications.
Here I come up with some graphs to illustrate my model of machine intelligence in the process of society evolution:
Firstly, consider the industrialization of the way people finish a certain task, say, writing a thank-you letter. (Let’s assume that this task is well defined, though I’m not going to define it.) When it came into being, only a few of the smartest people could complete this task. A minimal level of intelligence is required for this.
The techniques and methodologies for writing thank-you letters developed very slowly, until one day tools were introduced. Dictionaries and phrase-books greatly helped people with this task and more and more people learned how to write thank-you letters.
Once the most intelligent people all learned this, it was considered very cool if someone understood how to write beautiful thank-you letters and this soon became one of the trending topics among people. Better techniques were developed and more effective tools were invented, like electronic dictionaries and dictionary software. This field began to flourish.
Soon, it became so easy to write thank-you letters that everyone with a right mind could complete the task with the help of certain tools. However, the most amazing thank-you letters are always written by intelligent human beings who put their mind to it.
One day, an automatic thank-you letter software (ATULS) was developed. This buggy but yet usable tool was a great breakthrough because machines started to complete the task by themselves. On the basis of ATULS, more and better software tools were developed. Professional thank-you letter writers are gradually replaced by the machines, as more and more people thought the letters written by machines were better than theirs.
The software tools pushed the quality bar higher and higher. Only the most excellent and experienced writers could done better than machines. But who cares? The majority of people no longer paid attention to how the letters were written. They just took it for granted.
From here, we came to the end of the industrialization process of the task. It’s almost completely automated and machine intelligence has greatly improved the productivity. Very few people will remain doing this task.
An extra note: Some may argue that the level of intelligence is lowered by tools and machines because they make the task easier. It is not the case because tools and machines are part of this intelligence requirement. Only by making use of the intelligence from the tools or the machines, human could complete the task with less intelligence. Thus the level of intelligence required for the task is not reduced.
Let’s see the broader picture. This one is fairly easy to understand. The society becomes more and more sophisticated. Since the invention of machine intelligence, tasks with low level of sophistication are gradually done by machines. But more sophisticated tasks are being created, human beings are working on the most sophisticated tasks which the machines couldn’t do.
So what our society looks like now? This shape looks strange as it shows the relationship between the other two axes: intelligence and sophistication.
Basically, more intelligence are required to solve more sophisticated problems. But tasks could be done in many ways, that’s why it actually shows a colored band instead of a single curve.
As we can see, the most difficult problems, i.e., the most sophisticated tasks are still being done by most intelligent human beings, because they’re new and machine performance are usually not acceptable.
While time goes on, machine intelligence will take up more portion in the lower parts and human work will be “pushed” farther and higher like a sword cutting through the surface. (That’s a pretty reasonable illustration of the word “break-through”.)
I have to emphasize that, as the title says, this is a very very simple model. There’re quite a few assumptions for these graphs, so you might find them naïve and inaccurate:
The society is always going forward smoothly. No anarchy, no crisis and no conflicts. There were no distinction of development levels among countries. All production activity could be divided into well-defined tasks. Though there is an infinite number of tasks, all tasks could be ranked by its sophistication. There would always be professionals or hobbyist who would never give up doing better work than machines in the tasks. That is to say, no task disappeared. There were always space for development and improvement. People could always find new jobs as the society become more and more sophisticated. There were no limitation for intelligence and sophistication. Machine intelligence would never surpass human intelligence. Machines could not generate more intelligent machines by themselves. As tasks became more sophisticated, even higher intelligence level were required to complete the task. That’s why the “curve” shape in the 3rd figure is concave, not convex. (But this does not really matters.)
The top five assumptions are very strong and not necessarily true. In fact, I personally doubt some of them because I don’t really agree with technocentrism. However, I do believe that, from the viewpoint of a technocentrist, this model could provide some insight on how technology works and develops.
P.S. I hope I could make a 3D model out of the three views from different axes but it seems very difficult to make it both accurate and illustrative. Perhaps I’ll make a video once I know how to do it. | https://medium.com/leethree/the-evolution-a-simple-illustration-203a1bba83b0 | ['Sirui Li'] | 2017-08-02 15:39:14.743000+00:00 | ['Industrialization', 'Technocentrism', 'AI', 'Illustration'] |
Stop Dreaming About Someone Else’s Creative Life | Photo by Josh Hild on Unsplash
Hello, career? Are you out there?
One of my favorite pastimes is researching the lives of writers and comedy people I admire. Tracing the paths of someone else’s journey can be so inspirational and oddly comforting.
Because I want to see how they did it. I want the How-To steps for a successful career. I’m one of those weirdos who loves putting together IKEA furniture because you have to follow instructions.
Give. Me. The. Steps.
Guy Raz’s podcast How I Built This explores this idea of what makes a successful career (spoiler: resilience and some luck). Each episode he does a deep dive interview with the founders of famous companies into their histories, successes, and failures.
But while it is helpful to look to others to see how they did it, ultimately it’s up to you to figure out your way.
Musician Jonathan Coulton sums it up perfectly in this interview:
“…And that’s another trap for creative people, is to say, “I want to be that guy. I want to have that guy’s creative life.” You never will. You’re always just going to have your creative life, and the trick is learning what that is, and allowing yourself to be that person.
All to often I’ll find myself trying to emulate exactly how someone I admired did it.
If they wrote a heightened spec, I’ll write a heightened spec. If they draw on certain influences, I’ll make them my influences. Made their name posting silly songs on YouTube? Now I gotta do it. Big on Twitter? Maybe I’ll try and be big on Twitter too.
I’ve written before about my first steps toward shaping my identity as a writer. Part of that has been figuring out where I “slot-in.”
Hollywood loves types. My Canadian friend says it best: “Americans can only handle you being three things, so pick three and stick to them.”
But in searching for those types, I look for types to emulate. And that becomes restrictive. And unrealistic. And it doesn’t serve me as an artist.
Because the truth is when we subsume others’ identities it is often because we lack our own.
The process for figuring out who I am as an artist and writer has been a daunting task for me. I don’t like thinking about myself like that. It feels pretentious. Self-serving. Fake.
But it has been necessary to suss out who I am and what my creative life is all about. For business and creative reasons, sure, but most importantly just for me.
It’s great if someone else’s story and career path resonates. It’s still their story.
You need to cultivate your own creative life. It will be far more valuable to you than someone else’s. | https://medium.com/@andrewbarbot/stop-dreaming-about-someone-elses-creative-life-153b221340c5 | ['Andrew Barbot'] | 2020-12-10 05:14:53.374000+00:00 | ['Career Advice', 'Writing Tips', 'Productivity', 'Screenwriting', 'Creativity'] |
TDD : Mock and Stub, explanation at the day of 22nd May 2019 | Well, maybe this is the last time I share things about our project since it has ended last week.
Stubs and Mock are the common thing used in testing. It is not a real data, just a pretend object only for testing purposes, or as we call it, Test Double.
According to Martin Fowler in his article at https://martinfowler.com/articles/mocksArentStubs.html,
Stubs provide canned answers to calls made during the test, usually not responding at all to anything outside what’s programmed in for the test. Stubs may also record information about calls, such as an email gateway stub that remembers the messages it ‘sent’, or maybe only how many messages it ‘sent’. Mocks are what we are talking about here: objects pre-programmed with expectations which form a specification of the calls they are expected to receive.
The data cleaning method used in our project needed a dataframe from a csv file which was uploaded by the user. So how do we test it? we make a mock data that represents the real data. I personally do it like this
And the test for the data cleaning
AANDD, it actually passed
When we do the unit testing, we don’t have to use the actual data from the user’s uploads. The purpose of testing is to test whether our codes can perform correctly as we expect it to be, as long as the mock represent the actual data, it’s good. | https://medium.com/macro-tech/tdd-mock-and-stub-explanation-at-the-day-of-22nd-may-2019-97647825c1e0 | ['Juan Pakpahan'] | 2019-05-23 08:12:17.173000+00:00 | ['Android'] |
Autonomous Vehicle as a Social Factor: History, Benefits, Forces, Problems, and Opportunities | Abstract
“Technology” is a term that will pale if it is abstracted from its social context. From culture to culture, technology’s triumph is never its own triumph, because marketing interests, political decisions, social alternation, economic condition all lead to it. Massive technology itself is never an “isolated genius”. In this paper, Autonomous Vehicle is articulated through the history and evolution of Self-Driving Cars and related human involvement. The evolvement of autopilot vehicles through social relations will also be discussed with the following social problems and future opportunities.
Introduction: What is Autonomous Vehicle
Autonomous vehicle (AV) is also called Self-Driving car. It describes a vehicle that is capable of sensing its environment and moving safely with little human interference. (Taeihagh, 2019, p.39) Because of inconsistent terminology, classification, and levels proposed by different organizations, the standard for “automatic” used in the industry are varied. To be more specific, a Self-Driving Car can also be called a Connected and Autonomous Vehicle (CAV), Driverless Car, Robo-car, or Robotic car. Combined with a variety of sensors and software, the autopilot system allows a car to operate and stay in control safely by itself.
The History and Evolution of Self-Driving Cars and Human Involvement
“The social and cultural context in which a work was created is an integral part of it, one that cannot and should not be slighted in apprehending the work at a later time.” (Csikszentmihalyi & Robinson, 1990, p.51) Most of the time, social and historical context should be considered a significant contributor to innovation. Although modern technology does not support us to communicate across the boundaries of time from era to era, looking back to history can give us systematic background information.
In Fabian Kröger’s Automated Driving in Its Social, Historical, and Cultural Contexts, it traces central elements in the pictorial and technological history of driverless cars. (Kröger, 2016) Here are some of the turning points I capture:
In the 1500s, the first blueprint for a self-propelled cart is sketched by Leonardo De Vinci, while the concept still sounds impossibly futuristic.
In the 1920s, the dream begins, and experiments have been conducted, although the idea back to 100 years ago sounded abstruse or even illusory at that time.
In the 1970s, the first semi-automated car was developed by Japan’s Tsukuba Mechanical Engineering Laboratory. However, special assistant including an especially marked environment, analog computer, and cameras is still required.
In the 1980s, CMU had pioneered to steer control autonomous vehicles. Although the speed and brake had to be controlled, the vehicles can travel 2,797 miles.
In the 2000s, self-parking systems began to emerge. During the meantime, the U.S. Department of Defense’s research arm sponsored a series of challenges that pushed the technologies forward.
In the 2010s, Tesla’s semi-autonomous “Autopilot” with hands-free control feature was introduced in 2015. Automobile manufactories are all racing to build autonomous vehicles.
Benefits and forces for the technology revolution
Albert Borgmann (2010) mentions in his article “Reality and Technology” that although technology is economically precise, its cultural and moral force needs explication. Technology is a massive and seductive force. According to him, the technology revolution is propelled by two major forces: (1). the change from the provision of relief and (2). the pursuit of pleasure. (Borgmann, 2010, p33) Two forces for Automotive vehicle technology will be discussed are (1). safety consideration and (2). more pleasurable comfortable travel experiences. The innovation facilitation is not just because of the technology breakthrough and hardware improvement. The combination of economic facilitation, political decision, insurance push, traffic condition also matters. In this way, the social contexts that those artifacts are situated are also mentioned.
Improved Driving Safety
It is commonly believed that autonomous vehicles reduce traffic accidents and fatalities. The developers of Google states that Automotive vehicle technology will reduce casualties of traffic accidents to half compared with nowadays. (Thurn, 2010) The reasons include:
(1). The reaction speed of Computers is far faster than human brains.
(2). Digital algorithms are not temperamental, emotional psychological effects
(3). The operating system cannot interfere with drugs or alcohol products and it never gets sleepy.
However, if the self-driving services become publicly available, the economic aspects can be seen as the highest priority to both individuals, insurances, and manufactories. Then will it create safety concern, and will the standard still meet our safety expectations? If autonomous vehicles are as safe as expected, the accidents by human factors would decrease and insurance companies might rethink traditional business models that work for the novel circumstances. In the meantime, new systemic solutions to guarantee safety in organizations including regulations, authorities, and safety culture will also be altered. A new transformation of automatization markets and business models will occur.
More Convenient and Pleasurable Travel Experience
It is not hard to imagine that improved and more comfortable driving experience will be brought by Automotive Vehicle Technology. The boring driving process can become a relaxing trip, and the passengers are welcomed to multitask both work and leisure-related activities while in the vehicles. In other words, people inside the self-driving cars can use time doing other things and spend this time to do pleasurable and productive activities.
A new socio-technological system for autonomous vehicles will be another outcome due to the new transportation plans. Although current studies show ambiguity and low predictability of long-term impact, it can assist with achieving a radical improvement in future transportation. (Aleksey & Maria, 2020) Efficient travel and ease of commuting make people care less about leaving far away from the working spaces. It can also lead to decreased urbanization and a new organization of urban space. What’s more, ownership may not be necessary. If sharing services developed and it evenly spreads out the population, the urban environment can be improved.
Other potential Social Problems
Intentionally or unintentionally, any groundbreaking change brings social issues and the self-driving vehicle will not be an exception. However, automotive vehicle technology should not be the ones to be blamed for. Attribute the tragedies to the hardware itself is like attributing crimes to the victims. “When designing interactive systems, it is critical to understand the social and collaborative aspects of interaction and experience.” (Forlizzi & Battarbee, 2004, p.266) When it comes to the social determinants of technology, what matters is the social and economic system it is in. Only if we stop victim-blaming and start to look at the social context of these man-made systems, the analyzation can be subjective and valuable. The following paragraphs will discuss: (1). Social Structure Changes and Unemployment, (2). Intensification of Social Inequality, and (3). Cyber-security Issue.
Social Structure Changes and Unemployment
Industry structure transformation comes with the evolution of self-driving cars. It is hard to tell whether it is more beneficial or harmful to our society, but to adapt to industrial innovation, factories and organizations will develop advanced routines and rules. “Success rests on the combination of people, skill sets, artifacts modes of organization.” (Matthewman, 2011, p.22) When a new industry just generates and a supply chain just launched, traditional skills and modes can no longer be used. Although new career fields will be created, people who earn their living from driving will suddenly be out of their traditional jobs. Since driving is their main skill in society, it will be difficult for such unemployed workers to quickly find new work, and the cost of giving unemployment benefits and training those low-skilled workers could be high. The domestic job loss also causes other social problems including homelessness, social isolation, increasing crime rates.
Intensification of Social Inequality
Technologies of transit are not neutral. “The technological deck has been stacked in advance to favor certain social interests and that some people were bound to receive a better hand than others.” (Winner, 1986). The increasing use of self-driving vehicles is also possible to lead to new forms of social difference. In other words, the new industries and products can globally cause unevenly distributed across classed and racial lines. In Autonomous automobilities: The social impacts of driverless vehicles. Current Sociology, the authors question how autonomous technology might reflect the values and preferences. (Bissell et al. 2018) Women may be marginalized in the evolution of autonomous systems, as same as what has been observed in other male-dominated fields including Robotics Engineering and Software Development.
“Technologies can be used in ways that enhance the power, authority, and privilege of some over others.” (Winner, L, 1986, p.25). During the 20th century, Robert Moses embodied the social class biases in the design of his low overpasses to Jones Beach that constructed in a way to achieve some sort of social effect. Some designs are intended, and some are not, but artifacts serve a purpose to favor some social/political interests and some groups of people. Sometimes sacrifices occur. It is likely that automobility has similar impacts. What’s more, how old people and people with disabilities can use the driving service stays unknown.
Cyber-security Issue
The increasing scale of hardcore technological innovations also creates cyber-security issues. Matthewman argues, although technology affects history, it is not able to drive it since it cannot be distorted from human desires, needs, and passions. (Matthewman. 2011, p.9) Automotive software involves digital algorithms, while the algorithms are designed by companies, which leaves a possibility for surveillance. Any flaws in the tracking, data-receiving, and the regulating process can be exploited. Especially during the early stage of the application, the driving system might be hacked due to an abundance of digital infrastructure. What’s more, it keeps debatable about who should be accessed to the automotive data and user information under varied conditions. This leaves the self-driving innovations a great social problem about generating, sending, and generated user data more securely.
Conclusion
Besides technological, ethical, regulatory challenges, and legal challenges, a more advanced system and design for social alternation are still necessary. Automotive Vehicle Technology leaves not only a brand-new way to build new social order in the world but also a field for designers and researchers to explore. As designers, we are still not sure the way that self-driving car will transform their driving experience. There are three elements of technological normalization: institutional, contextual, and systemic (Matthewman. 2011, p.25) What will the Automotive vehicles be? Will machines give labor, support human, or take labor? (Automation, Augmentation, or Heteromation) How people will spend their time on the road and how to improve the experience? The emotional perceptional and expressional stage of car travel stays unknown. For the design of future automotive vehicles, first, the safety of both drivers and passengers should be the priority. Secondly, Usefulness, convenience, reliability, accessibility should be considered in order to increase the acceptance of autonomous vehicles. However, what about other aspects? There are also other factors for acceptance and many challenges on the way.
Reference
Aleksey Z., & Maria R. (2020). Impact of Self-driving Cars for Urban Development. Форсайт, 14 (1 (eng)), 70–84. doi: 10.17323/2500–2597.2020.1.70.84
Bissell, David & Birtchnell, Thomas & Elliott, Anthony & Hsu, Eric. (2018). Autonomous automobilities: The social impacts of driverless vehicles. Current Sociology. 001139211881674. 10.1177/0011392118816743.
Borgmann, A., 2010. “Reality and technology,” Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 34(1), pages 27–35, January.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. C., & Robinson, R. R. (1990). The Art of Seeing. In The Major Dimensions of the Aesthetic Experience (pp. 27–72). J. Paul Getty Museum and the Getty Education Institute for the Arts. https://www.punyamishra.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/csikzentmihaly-dimensionsofaesthetics.pdf
Forlizzi, J., & Battarbee, K. (2004, August). Understanding experience in interactive systems. In Proceedings of the 5th conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques (pp. 261–268).
Kröger F. (2016) Automated Driving in Its Social, Historical and Cultural Contexts. In: Maurer M., Gerdes J., Lenz B., Winner H. (eds) Autonomous Driving. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-48847-8_3
Matthewman, S. (2011). Technology and Social Theory. Chapter 1, pp. 8–28
Shubbak, M., Self-Driving Cars: Legal, Social, and Ethical Aspects (December 18, 2013). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2931847 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2931847
Taeihagh, A., Lim, M. (2 January 2019). “Governing autonomous vehicles: emerging responses for safety, liability, privacy, cybersecurity, and industry risks”. Transport Reviews. 39 (1): 103–128.
Thrun, S., 2010. What We’re Driving At [online], OFFICIAL GOOGLE BLOG, available from: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/what-were-driving-at.html [Accessed 12 December 2013]
Winner, L. (1986). Do artifacts have politics? In The whale and the reactor, pp. 19–39. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. | https://medium.com/@seren980224/autonomous-vehicle-as-a-social-factor-77e1264dde7 | ['Qingran Ni'] | 2020-11-15 20:11:03.490000+00:00 | ['Autonomous Vehicles', 'Social', 'Robotics', 'Self Driving Cars', 'Driverless Car Technology'] |
How to solve a conflict when empathy and goodwill fall short | I’ve always had a keen interest in people’s behaviour. How are societies organized? How do we interact with one another? What drives our day to day behaviour? Why do we react to what happens to us the way we do? Subjects like history, literature and sociology were among my favourites, to understand different points of view.
In August 2019, I had the immense opportunity to join more than 20 bright minds on a trip to Israel and the Palestinean territories. The goal: to expose us to diverse perspectives around the conflict. Through gatherings, discussions and reflections, Insight Journeys provided us with the possibility to form an opinion of our own around an intricate discord that combines history, religion, politics, multiple agents and as many interests.
The Old City of Jerusalem. Photo Credit: Fundación IO.
Before this trip, I had a very narrow idea of the available resolutions for a conflict. In my experience, you could either approach a conflict open to reach common-ground or close yourself to it. And, in my very close perspective, that depended upon the intentions of the parties involved. If the parts were open to reaching common-ground, they would probably reach it. And if any of the parties refused to find common ground, then the conflict would become a zero-sum game. However, as soon as our journey began, I realised there is (at least) a third option that had never crossed my mind.
What happens when the parties involved are willing to reach common ground, but they can’t empathise with each other to the level of understanding what a possible (and fair) solution could be?
Each day we would go over a different narrative via debates, listening to speakers or visiting impactful places. And, as the days went by, I grew more and more intrigued by what could be the outcome of this situation. What was happening that made the idea of a peaceful resolution so remote?
The program unfolded, we got exposed to even more perspectives, and I began to struggle with my emotions. All the viewpoints seemed partly right and partly wrong. I could empathise on different points with everyone we met. I didn’t know what was justice anymore.
After discussing my feelings with other participants, I reached a small and simplistic theory of what was going on. Each time we met someone, they analysed the conflict on a different level than the one before. As a result, the discussions were always on multiple layers making it extremely hard to reach common ground.
In other words, even if you believe you are approaching conflict with goodwill and being empathetic, you may be standing on layers so different, that they may never meet.
So, what is empathy? Are there different levels to it? How could you possibly try to understand what others are going through when your frames of reference are so different? What can you proactively do to take this into account and fight your bias?
I still do not have a complete answer, but here’s a list I am working on:
Accept you may not be able to comprehend what others are experiencing and be humble about it.
Accept that in no moment in time, you are aware of all your biases.
Give everyone the benefit of the doubt.
Empathy is a ladder take it step-by-step. You may not be able to understand fully what the other part is experiencing, but you can go through your personal experiences and look for the ones that made you feel (even in a small way) similar to how the other may be feeling.
Thought of another one? Let me know! | https://medium.com/@francodangelo/how-to-solve-a-conflict-when-empathy-and-goodwill-fall-short-44b31af5ac7a | ["Franco D'Angelo"] | 2020-10-20 17:46:28.282000+00:00 | ['Journey', 'Conflict', 'Palestine', 'Peace', 'Israel'] |
Frightening, interactive map shows the confirmed locations of coronavirus cases. | March 6th, 2020. With the outbreak of Coronavirus, and millions of people longing to know more about the dangerous disease, new websites have emerged that can raise awareness about the terrible symptoms and cases of NCOV-2019 (Coronavirus).
With more and more cases it has became increasingly challenging to be aware of the locations of Coronavirus. As a result, a website called Worldwide Coronavirus Case Location Map has released a frightening map for users to view. Within their map, cases are represented my markers and circles depending on the # of cases reported. It is very frightening to view the large intimidating circle over mainland China! Not to mention, being aware of cases within your area can help you be more more prepared to assess the situation of NCOV-2019 in your area. Furthermore, as time goes on we will begin to see a larger presence of the Coronavirus in North America.
As one can see, there is a large red circle over China which represents the presence and likelihood of first human transmission in the area. Another hotspot for the virus is South Korea, as can be seen using the interactive map.
Furthermore, with a quick map swipe over to North America, we are prompted to view some cases in North America and South America. For example:
The screenshot provided above is a snapshot of when someone clicks a marker and its circle. As you can see, the last updated version of the website shows 51 NCOV-2019 cases in Greater Seattle Area. We can be thankful that in this day in age we can be aware of the dangers of certain diseases in our area.
However, even with all the fear-mongering occurring throughout the media we can be sure that leaders and nations are doing all they can to keep this malicious virus under control. The CDC (Center for Disease Control) is now ramping up production of its Coronavirus Test Kits.
Our condolences go to NCOV-2019 victims. | https://medium.com/@programmingbro18/frightening-interactive-map-shows-the-confirmed-locations-of-coronavirus-cases-a3f227888371 | [] | 2020-03-07 05:41:39.886000+00:00 | ['Coronavirus', 'Interactive Map', 'Interesting', 'Map'] |
Our Little Preferences #2 | Midnight Harbour. Sai Kung, Hong Kong
Fragmentation
of our lives.
Every details
speaks volumes.
Same city,
different time zone.
Every good night to me,
is another good morning to you.
180 Meridian
You are a man of science.
Radiochemistry,
Nuclear medicine.
Built-in rationality.
I am a woman of philosophy.
Communication,
art-house cinema.
Sensuality in disguise.
Our identities,
façades of representation,
curated with dedication.
Sentiment,
is our common disadvantage.
A flaw in the system,
a fly in the ointment
The way,
you see through your brown liquid,
is my way I see through my translucent smoke.
Dimensions frozen,
physics no longer effective.
That night at your place,
over jazz music
and delicate cuisine.
I saw you,
looking straight at me,
piercing through my soul.
I knew,
but I never speak of it.
We are pretty much the same,
despite our preferences. | https://medium.com/artmagazine/our-little-preferences-2-e32ab3cc165 | ['Jessica M. Lee'] | 2017-02-26 11:18:26.231000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Sentiments', 'Internal Thoughts', 'Finding Connection', 'Observation'] |
Recursive methods in Scala | Scala
Recursive methods in Scala
There is a lot of debates about functional programming vs object oriented programming. This post we will not discuss such thing. Instead we just go over how to do simple recursive functions in Scala.
In Object Oriented Programming, we usually mutate the value and therefore we often go with for loop or while loop. In functional programming, we will not use loops, instead we use recursive methods.
For example if we want to sum all the integers in the list, we can do like:
Or if we want to find the max value from the list:
Write some test to verify the methods
@Test def `sum of a few numbers (10pts)`: Unit = {
assert(sum(List(1,2,0)) == 3)
}
@Test def `max of a few numbers (10pts)`: Unit = {
assert(max(List(3, 7, 2)) == 7)
}
Alright that’s it.
Happy coding guys.
Thanks for reading my post. | https://medium.com/@ledinhcuong99/recursive-methods-in-scala-672704ec28b2 | ['Donald Le'] | 2020-11-03 03:53:34.158000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Recursive', 'Scala', 'Software', 'Functional Programming'] |
Evil Will Always Disappoint | More from rstevens Follow
I make cartoons and t-shirts at www.dieselsweeties.com & @rstevens. Send me coffee beans. | https://rstevens.medium.com/evil-will-always-disappoint-7bf66ffa2279 | [] | 2019-10-31 03:27:02.547000+00:00 | ['Science Fiction', 'Star Wars', 'Halloween', 'Comics'] |
Implementing search with Django, Elasticsearch, and Vue.js | Implementing search with Django, Elasticsearch, and Vue.js
In this short tutorial, I am going to show an example of how to implement a search feature using Elasticsearch with Django and Vue.js.
In the web application that we will create, users can add new articles by providing a title and the content of the article, and some tags if they want. They can also search for articles from the “Articles list”.
Assuming that you already know what Elasticsearch is and why we need it (since you stumbled upon this article in your searches), I will not go into details of explaining Elasticsearch. In short, Elasticsearch is a database that offers powerful search capabilities such as full-text search, fuzzy text search, etc. We will be using Elasticsearch to power our search feature in this web application. If you’re interested in learning more about Elasticsearch, this would be a good start: https://www.elastic.co/what-is/elasticsearch
The example application would look something like the GIF below. As mentioned above, we can add articles using the “New article” form at the bottom of the page or search for the articles using the search bar.
Search feature using Elasticsearch
The full code for this example web application can be found in this GitHub repo.
We will build our application by following these steps:
1.Create a new virtual environment
Let’s start by creating a new virtual environment. By doing this, we will isolate our Django setup on a per-project basis, thus any change that we make to our project will not affect other projects that we might also be developing.
In your terminal, run the commands shown below to create a new directory and change the current directory to the new project directory that we just created.
mkdir elastico-app cd elastico-app
Once we have created and are inside the new directory, we are ready to create our new virtual environment by running this command:
python3 -m venv env
And finally, we need to activate the new virtual environment like this:
source env/bin/activate
2.Install Django
Now we can install our preferred Django version. In this example, we will install Django 3.1.4.
(env) ~/elastico-app$ pip install Django==3.1.4
3.Create a new Django project and a new Django application
Next, let’s create a new Django project. We will call this project django_elasticsearch, and we will create it by running the following:
(env) ~/elastico-app$ django-admin startproject django_elasticsearch
Next, we will create a new Django application. We will call this application django_formset_vuejs and we will create it like this:
(env) ~/elastico-app$ python manage.py startapp django_elastico_vuejs
After we have successfully created our new application we have to add it to INSTALLED_APPS inside settings.py file.
Note: We also have to add ‘rest_framework’ in the INSTALLED_APPS. So the INSTALLED_APPS list at this point would look like below:
INSTALLED_APPS = [
'django.contrib.admin',
'django.contrib.auth',
'django.contrib.contenttypes',
'django.contrib.sessions',
'django.contrib.messages',
'django.contrib.staticfiles', 'rest_framework',
'django_elastico_vuejs',
]
And our project tree should look like this:
elastico-app
├── django_elastico_vuejs
│ ├── admin.py
│ ├── apps.py
│ ├── migrations
│ │ └── __init__.py
│ ├── models.py
│ ├── tests.py
│ └── views.py
├── manage.py
├── django_elasticsearch
│ ├── __init__.py
│ ├── settings.py
│ ├── urls.py
│ └── wsgi.py
└── env
4. Create API models & Create Elasticsearch model
First, we will need to define REST API models so that we have a clear interface between REST API users and our REST API servers.
Next, we will need to define an Elasticsearch document which we will use to represent the searchable data that we will store in the Elasticsearch.
In this way, both interfaces can evolve separately.
Let’s save the models in a new “models” folder, under django_elastico_vuejs app.
4.1 REST API Models
Model objects:
Article()
ArticleRequest ()
() SearchArticleRequest()
Model serializers:
ArticleSerializer()
ArticleRequestSerializer()
SearchArticleRequestSerializer()
4.2 Elasticsearch document
Define ArticleDocument() as our Elasticsearch document and initiate it using the init() method.
Note: ArticleDocument inherits from Document class of elasticsearch_dsl library.
And the project tree:
elastico-app
├── django_elastico_vuejs
│ ├── migrations
│ ├── models
│ │ └──api
│ │ ├── __init__.py
│ │ └── models.py
│ │ └──es
│ │ ├── __init__.py
│ │ └── models.py
│ │ └── __init__.py
│ ├── __init__.py
│ ├── admin.py
│ ├── apps.py
│ ├── models.py
│ ├── tests.py
│ └── views.py
├── manage.py
├── django_elasticsearch
│ ├── __init__.py
│ ├── settings.py
│ ├── urls.py
│ └── wsgi.py
└── env
5. Set up Elasticsearch & Kibana servers using Docker
We initiate locally the Elasticsearch database using the Docker Compose tool in order to run the Elasticsearch from a docker image.
In addition, we also use Kibana as a data visualization tool for Elasticsearch, thus we have defined a Kibana container in the Docker Compose script as well.
This is how our docker-compose.yml file looks:
To run this Docker Compose file open your terminal and run this command:
(env) ~/elastico-app$ docker-compose up
Note: Make sure that you have installed Docker Desktop and it is running in your machine before trying to run this command, otherwise you’ll encounter issues executing the script docker-compose.
Kibana dashboard can be accessed from the browser using the port that we defined in the docker-compose file, i.e. 5601. For example, when typing http://localhost:5601/app/kibana#/dev_tools/console in the browser’s search bar we see Kibana’s UI similar to the screenshot below. | https://levelup.gitconnected.com/implementing-search-with-django-elasticsearch-and-vue-js-e69a26c27e0e | ['Fatime Selimi'] | 2021-07-06 21:27:44.362000+00:00 | ['Django Rest Framework', 'Vuejs', 'Django', 'Docker', 'Elasticsearch'] |
How to use ngrep to debug HTTP headers | You deploy Django with gunicorn. Your web server communicates with it with proxy_pass (nginx) or with ProxyPass (apache), together with several other directives that pass headers and so on. Your web site doesn’t work properly. Is the web server misconfigured, or is Django misbehaving? Here’s how to find out.
Install ngrep:
apt-get install ngrep
Now try this:
ngrep -W byline '' 'tcp port 80'
ngrep intercepts communications at port 80; that is, between the web server and the web browser, so whenever a request is made, you will be viewing the request and the response. Press Ctrl+C to stop ngrep.
The -W byline part has to do with how ngrep formats its output (try it without it to see the difference). The next argument, the empty string, tells ngrep to output all communication; if it were non-empty it would only show lines that match it (for example, if you try nginx -W byline ': ' 'tcp port 80' , it won’t catch much more than HTTP header lines).
If your web server has traffic, there is going to be much output. You want to intercept only requests from your own browser. In that case, use this:
ngrep -W byline '' 'tcp port 80 and host [your ip address]'
(An easy way to find your ip address is to type who -m --ips at the remote command prompt.)
Now, assuming that gunicorn is listening on port 8000, try this:
ngrep -W byline -d lo '' 'tcp port 8000'
Now you are intercepting the communication between the web server and gunicorn. The -d lo tells ngrep to intercept the local network interface (i.e. a virtual network device that connects the system to itself) instead of the external ethernet interface (i.e. the actual network device), which is what you want if gunicorn has been told --bind 127.0.0.1:8000 (the 127.0.0.1 is the local interface).
Unfortunately, in this case I don’t know any way to filter the output so that only the requests from your browser are allowed. On servers with little traffic I can sometimes start ngrep, make the request in my browser, and stop ngrep; if I repeat that a few times, I can often manage to catch only my request. If the server has much traffic, you need either to use a staging server, or, if you can afford the downtime and the risk of playing with a firewall on a production system, to temporarily filter out all requests but yours with a firewall. | https://medium.com/django-deployment/how-to-use-ngrep-to-debug-http-headers-b62ad78a6099 | ['Antonis Christofides'] | 2020-12-03 08:31:03.321000+00:00 | ['Ngrep', 'Http', 'Nginx', 'Django', 'Apache'] |
Six Top Tools for Live Video on Social Media | Six Top Tools for Live Video on Social Media
People like watching live video on social media because there is a special feeling about watching something as it unfolds. Whether it is for entertainment or educational purposes, you are getting to see the freshest content no one has ever seen before.
Think it’s all hype, with social media companies promoting content formats that no one is interested in? The data says otherwise. About 47% of live streaming video viewers worldwide are streaming more live video today than they did a year ago. And more than half of these viewers are watching live on social platforms.
If you want to build your presence on social media with video, live streaming is the way to go. And it is easier than ever before to excel at it, all you need is the right tools. But with there are so many tools and apps to use it can be hard to choose.
To help you pick the right ones I have created this list of the best live video tools for social media streaming.
Interactive Presentations With ClickMeeting
ClickMeeting lets you live stream your webinar presentations to both Facebook Live and YouTube simultaneously. Using it, you can share both a live video of yourself (through the webcam) or a screen cast. Given that ClickMeeting is primarily a webinar tool, you can also record your video while you stream it to social media.
The platform also offers a built-in clipper tool, which you can use to edit your videos after your events, to remove any hiccups and gaps that are common when going live. You can then download the video and upload it onto other networks like Vimeo and IGTV, or use it as a lead magnet.
You can also experiment with running a live webinar and simultaneously live streaming it onto Facebook and YouTube to see which platform brings in the best engagement. This can be measured by the number of viewers, comments and the percentage of people who stayed on till the end on each platform.
If you share links during the videos, you can also use a link tracking tool to see which platform sent the most traffic and/or sales. A free tool that can help you with this is Bitly. It shows the number of clicks the post got and on which site. You can also use ClickMeeting to embed your webinar experience on a web page hosted on your site and encourage people who discover your content on social media to join you for the full interactive version, with dedicated Q&A chat threads, clickable calls-to-action and in-webinar polls.
Pricing: Starts at $35 per month for a plan that includes live social media streaming.
Collaborate with Cohosts Using BeLive
If you’re on a tighter budget and looking for something more affordable, you should check out BeLive. It works well with Twitch and Facebook Live. With their basic plan, you can share a live video of yourself, but to share your screen you’ll need to upgrade to a bigger plan.
Some other interesting features include the ability to brand your video with custom branded colors and logo and the ability to have up to four presenters on-screen at a time. This is great if you want to run live discussions and debates. There’s also a waiting room where more guests can wait to join your live video.
The only two drawbacks to using this tool is that it doesn’t live stream to YouTube and that you cannot record and edit the video.
But you can always download the recording from Facebook and edit it by using an affordable tool like Screencast O Matic’s Video Editor. It can be used to edit the videos and directly share to networks like YouTube and Vimeo.
Pricing: The price for Belive starts at $20 per month, but you will need to get the $33 per month plan if you want to share your screen with your viewers.
Have Conversations on Facebook Groups With Zoom
Another tool that lets you livestream videos to both Facebook and YouTube is Zoom. On Facebook, you can live stream the video to your timeline or page or group. You can use it to simultaneously run a webinar and live stream to either Facebook or YouTube. But you can’t cast it to both social networks at the same time.
You can also record the webinar while you live stream it. But it doesn’t have a built-in editor that lets you trim down your clips. To shorten the video, you will need to download it and use a separate video editor.
Here too you can display up to four hosts talking at the same time on your screen, with their gallery view feature.
Pricing: Starts at $54.99 per month.
Virtual Summits Using Crowdcast
If you are on the lookout for a tool that lets you stream live videos to more than two social media platforms, you need to check out Crowdcast. It can be used to stream billable classes and virtual summits to Facebook, YouTube and Periscope.
You can engage with viewers via polls and chat. The questions interface is cool, as it allows audience members to record videos of their queries, which other audience members can upvote and downvote. You can even invite attendees onto your screen if they would like to share their opinions and insights.
Crowdcast has several other advanced features and integrations that make it easy to generate leads, followers and sales. It is also good at tracking attendee behavior. The data can be used to increase live video engagement rate and conversions.
Pricing: Starts at $49 per month.
Go Pro and Pick up Livestream
If you are looking for a highly advanced live streaming tool for a bigger budget, you should check out Vimeo’s own Livestream. It lets you broadcast the video to Facebook, YouTube, Periscope, Twitch and, of course, Vimeo. You can even embed the Livestream on your web pages.
Advanced features include the ability to add custom branded graphics for a more professional look and engagement tools (these include chat, live polls and Q&A). You can also monetize your videos by adding over the top (OTT) video subscriptions or by inserting ads. There are also features that let you capture leads.
Livestream also helps you track video performance on all the social media platforms you are streaming your video to. This is a great way to check which network is getting you the best results and if you are generating sufficient ROI.
You can also white label the videos and make sure they are ad free. This is a great tool for anyone who wants to turn live streaming into a core aspect of their business.
Livestream is a part of Vimeo’s premium plan, so you will be getting all the benefits a Vimeo premium plan offers too. This includes 7 TB of storage.
Pricing: It costs $75 per month, but it is billed annually. There is no monthly plan.
Try It Before You Buy It With OBS Studio
If you have a super tight budget and you’re looking to experiment with a free live social streaming tool, you should give OBS Studio a try. It is not as straightforward to use as the above tools since it requires a bit of setup. But it still offers some relatively advanced features.
One of the biggest drawbacks of OBS is that it’s not a web-based app — it’s software that needs to be downloaded and installed. OBS is available in PCs, Macs, and Linux.
OBS can be used for both live streamings to Facebook and YouTube and also for recording. The advanced, high-fidelity sound mixer and scene patching tools are key differentiators as well.
Pricing: Free
Quick Tips for Professional Live Streams
The tools listed above will help your live streams run smoothly. But if you want to get more engagement from viewers during the live stream and keep them coming back for more, you’ll need to create a wonderful experience. So, here are some quick live video tips:
Create a Game Plan: Have a proper plan in place for your live stream. Decide before hand how long it is going to be, what you will be covering, how much time you will spend sharing content and how much time you will spend promoting your products/services. You can make a checklist on a white board or a piece of paper. This will help make sure you cover everything you planned to do.
Use Slides: Make sure you present a series of slides full of pictures, graphs and other content. This will make it easy for people to visualise what you are saying. Many of the above tools let you share your screen, so make use of the feature.
Practice: Practice your presentation several times. This will help you prepare yourself to confidently present the live version. Start the stream at the right time: The timing you choose should depend on your audience. It should be at a time when they will be free and attentive. It might be best to conduct a survey to find out what times your audience prefers for attending live events online.
Host a Giveaway: Create a checklist or an ebook that compliments the live stream. Then inform the attendants (early on) that you will be giving it away for free at the end. This will get more people to watch the whole stream.
Start Promoting Your Video: for at least least two weeks in advance: You should start promoting your live stream at least two weeks in advance. And make sure you begin sending several reminders on the day before and on the day of the live stream to get maximum viewers.
Now pick your favorite and start streaming
These are the six best live video tools for social media streaming. The one you pick should depend on your budget and requirements. All of the above, except Livestream, offer either a free plan or trial. So, you can try all out before settling for one.
Have you tried to do live social media streaming before? What worked best for you? Please leave your comments below.
Originally published in: https://blog.wishpond.com/post/115675437845/live-video-tools | https://medium.com/@nicksteeves/six-top-tools-for-live-video-on-social-media-962c8de831b9 | [] | 2019-07-19 23:02:49.606000+00:00 | ['Live Streaming'] |
7 simple steps to protect yourself and others from COVID-19 | Everyone can follow these recommendations, but they are particularly important if you are in an area where people are known to have COVID-19.
1. Wash your hands frequently
Regularly and thoroughly clean your hands with an alcohol-based hand rub or wash them with soap and water.
Why? We frequently use our hands to touch objects and surfaces that may be contaminated. Without realizing it, we then touch our faces, transferring viruses to our eyes, nose and mouth where they can infect us. Washing your hands with soap and water or using alcohol-based hand rub kills viruses that may be on your hands — including the virus that causes COVID-19.
2. Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth
We often touch our faces without noticing it. Be aware of this, and avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth.
Why? Hands touch many surfaces and can pick up viruses. Once contaminated, hands can transfer the virus to your eyes, nose or mouth and can then enter your body and make you sick.
3. Cover your cough
Make sure that you, and the people around you, follow good respiratory hygiene. This means covering your mouth and nose with the bend of your elbow or with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Dispose of the used tissue immediately into a closed bin and wash your hands.
Why? When someone coughs or sneezes they spray small liquid droplets from their nose or mouth which may contain virus. By covering your cough or sneeze you avoid spreading viruses and other germs to other people. By using the bend of your elbow or a tissue and not your hands to cover your cough or sneeze, you avoid transferring contaminated droplets to your hands. This prevents you from contaminating a person or a surface through touching them with your hands. | https://medium.com/who/seven-simple-steps-to-protect-yourself-and-others-from-covid-19-83898c2eb972 | ['World Health Organization'] | 2020-10-19 13:55:46.328000+00:00 | ['Coronavirus', 'Health', 'World Health Organization', 'Covid 19'] |
Data: The Lever to Promote Innovation in the EU | By Juan Murillo Arias | Reposted from BBVA OpenMind | March 22, 2019
If we do a #10yearchallenge on how stock markets have evolved from 2008 to 2018 it is apparent that in the global ranking of corporations based on market capitalization, oil companies — which led the trading floor rankings for decades — have been replaced by so-called digital natives. Yet another symptom of the wager the new economy is making on companies with the best capabilities to process data as raw materials and transform them into useful and actionable information.
Fuente: Financial Times Global 500, Wikipedia.
THE RACE FOR DATA: A RAW MATERIAL TO DEVELOP DIGITAL SERVICES
We are in a race to materialize the competitive advantage that comes from having the attention of millions of customers and learning from how they use all kinds of services. This makes it possible to respond to demand quickly and provide digital service users useful, customized and distinctive assistance. Income can continue to come from a subscription model, or it could be based on marketing, but one way or another, service development is based on data. In this race, corporations have started by working on the sources of information that were most accessible to them: interactions with their own customers. However, the vision obtained from this analysis is partial and opportunities exist for society as a whole when the barriers separating institutions and the government are broken down. Of course knowledge and consent is needed from those individuals who generate that digital footprint with their everyday activity if the model is based on personal data.
The European Union has been legislating and reflecting on this for some time now. The initiative Building a European Data Economy, together with the regulation on a framework for the free flow of non-personal data in the European Union, and the legislative changes in terms of privacy (GDPR), are a reflection of this concern for fomenting innovation and a free flow of data on the one hand, while also giving citizens the utmost guarantees over their personal information, which must remain under their control.
The initiative Building a European Data Economy aims to develop a European data economy as part of a single digital market. / Image: pixabay
But in order for data to truly become a lever that foments innovation in benefit of society as a whole, we must understand and address the following factors:
1. Disconnected, disperse sources. As users of digital services (transportation, finance, telecommunications, news or entertainment) we leave a different digital footprint for each service that we use. These footprints, which are different facets of the same polyhedron, can even be contradictory on occasion. For this reason, they must be seen as complementary. Analysts should be aware that they must cross data sources from different origins in order to create a reliable picture of our preferences, otherwise we will be basing decisions on partial or biased information. How many times do we receive advertising for items we have already purchased, or tourist destinations where we have already been? And this is just one example of digital marketing. When scoring financial solvency, or monitoring health, the more complete the digital picture is of the person, the more accurate the diagnosis will be.
Furthermore, from the user’s standpoint, proper management of their entire, disperse digital footprint is a challenge. Perhaps centralized consent would be very beneficial. In the financial world, the PSD2 regulations have already forced banks to open this information to other banks if customers so desire. Fostering competition and facilitating portability is the purpose, but this opening up has also enabled the development of new services of information aggregation that are very useful to financial services users. It would be ideal if this step of breaking down barriers and moving toward a more transparent market took place simultaneously in all sectors in order to avoid possible distortions to competition and by extension, consumer harm. Therefore, customer consent would open the door to building a more accurate picture of our preferences.
2. The public and private sectors’ asymmetric capacity to gather data. This is related to citizens using public services less frequently than private services in the new digital channels. However, governments could benefit from the information possessed by private companies. These anonymous, aggregated data can help to ensure a more dynamic public management. Even personal data could open the door to customized education or healthcare on an individual level. In order to analyze all of this, the European Commissionhas created a working group including 23 experts. The purpose is to come up with a series of recommendations regarding the best legal, technical and economic framework to encourage this information transfer across sectors.
3. The lack of incentives for companies and citizens to encourage the reuse of their data.The reality today is that most companies solely use the sources internally. Only a few have decided to explore data sharing through different models(for academic research or for the development of commercial services). As a result of this and other factors, the public sector largely continues using the survey method to gather information instead of reading the digital footprint citizens produce. Multiple studies have demonstrated that this digital footprint would be useful to describe socioeconomic dynamics and monitor the evolution of official statistical indicators. However, these studies have rarely gone on to become pilot projects due to the lack of incentives for a private company to open up to the public sector, or to society in general, making this new activity sustainable.
Digital footprints have real potential to describe socioeconomic dynamics and monitor the evolution of official statistical indicators. / Image: creative commons.
4. Limited commitment to the diversification of services.Another barrier is the fact that information based product development is somewhat removed from the type of services that the main data generators (telecommunications, banks, commerce, electricity, transportation, etc.) traditionally provide. Therefore, these data based initiatives are not part of their main business and are more closely tied to companies’ innovation areas where exploratory proofs of concept are often not consolidated as a new line of business.
5. Bidirectionality. Data should also flow from the public sector to the rest of society. The first regulatory framework was created for this purpose. Although it is still very recent (the PSI Directive on the re-use of public sector data was passed in 2013), it is currently being revised, in attempt to foster the consolidation of an open data ecosystem that emanates from the public sector as well. On the one hand it would enable greater transparency, and on the other, the development of solutions to improve multiple fields in which public actors are key, such as the environment, transportation and mobility, health, education, justice and the planning and execution of public works. Special emphasis will be placed on high value data sets, such as statistical or geospatial data — data with tremendous potential to accelerate the emergence of a wide variety of information based data products and services that add value.The Commission will begin working with the Member States to identify these data sets.
In its report, Creating Data through Open Data, the European open data portal estimates that government agencies making their data accessible will inject an extra €65 billion in the EU economy this year.
6. The commitment to analytical training and financial incentives for innovation.They are the key factors that have given rise to the digital unicorns that have emerged, more so in the U.S. and China than in Europe.
These are six issues to reflect on as our society heads toward a new context in which elements like the IoT and 5G technology will considerably increase the generation of all kinds of data. A foundation brimming with potential to foster innovative ideas that benefit everyone.
*Note: in addition to the author, Álvaro Martín Enríquez, Ana Isabel Segovia Domingo, Elena Alfaro and Tomasa Rodrigo López contributed to the writing of this article with their ideas and comments.
Juan Murillo Aria, Data Strategy & Data Science Innovation Senior Project Manager at BBVA Data & Analytics and Member of the Data Stewards Network | https://medium.com/data-stewards-network/data-the-lever-to-promote-innovation-in-the-eu-a1d13404698d | ['The Govlab'] | 2019-03-28 19:33:18.967000+00:00 | ['Open Data'] |
Load your Data in Minutes with DataStax Bulk Loader | So you’ve read my previous piece on Getting Started with DataStax Astra and now you’re looking to load some bulk data to your new database. Well search no further! By popular demand, I’ve got the exact walkthrough you need for implementing an existing DataStax solution: DataStax Bulk Loader or DSBulk for short.
What is DataStax Bulk Loader?
Well, it’s essentially a file containing some Java commands. These commands allow you to load, unload and count CSV or JSON data to and from the varying database solutions currently available through DataStax in addition to standalone open source Apache Cassandra (versions 2.1 and later). For our purposes, we’ll be using DSBulk to load a CSV or JSON file onto our existing DataStax Astra database (if you don’t have a DataStax Astra cluster set up, feel free to check out my getting started guide linked up above).
Prerequisites
In addition to an existing DataStax Astra cluster and downloading DSBulk from the DataStax website, you’ll need to have Java 8 or later installed on your machine along with the Java JDK. You can find both at the Oracle website available for free download, just be sure to sign up for an account.
Getting Started
With those prerequisites out of the way, let’s take a look at that DSBulk zip file you should already have sitting in your download folder. Feel free to double click and unpack the zip file. From there, open the dsbulk-1.7.0 folder and finally the bin folder. You’ll need to right click the dsbulk file and copy-paste the path into your text editor of choice. I use VSCode, but any text editor will do.
Grab the path for dsbulk. Tip: You can place all of your files into a single folder for easier access.
Next, you’ll want to navigate to your CSV or JSON file, copy the file path and paste that into your text editor as well.
The last file path you’ll need is that of your Secure Connect Bundle zip file. If you did not download the Secure Connect Bundle from my previous article, no worries, simply head back to your DataStax Astra UI and click the green ‘Connect to Database’ button. You’ll see several options on the left hand side beneath the ‘Connect using a driver’ header. You can select any of the provided languages and click the ‘Secure Connect Bundle’ link shown.
Once that bundle is downloaded, go ahead and navigate to your download folder, right click the zip file, copy the file path and paste it into your text editor.
With the paths for your DSBulk file, CSV or JSON file, and the secure connect bundle zip file in place, the last remaining bits of information you’ll need to gather are your keyspace name, table name, database username and password. You can find everything you need in the DataStax Astra UI. Once you’ve got all your information in order, use it to fill in the following command in your text editor:
[DSBulk file path] \ load --connector.csv.url [CSV or JSON file path] \ --schema.keyspace [name of keyspace] --schema.table [name of table] \ --driver.basic.cloud.secure-connect-bundle [secure connect bundle zip file path] \ -u [database username] -p [ database username password]
Please note that the final product should not contain any of the brackets from the example provided.
Once you’ve input all of your information, you can copy and paste that command directly into your Bash terminal and have the contents of your CSV or JSON file uploaded in moments.
You should receive a similar prompt with a brief summary of your transaction.
Wrapping up
If you want to double check that the upload worked, head back to the DataStax Astra UI and click on the CQL Console tab. After verifying your identity, use the SELECT * FROM [your keyspace].[your table]; command to view all of your recently uploaded data.
Congratulations! You have successfully used DataStax Bulk Loader to seed your database. I’m excited to see what you build next and look forward to seeing your work at our next MLH event. Don’t forget to submit your project to the Best Use of DataStax Astra prize category!
If you want to learn more, check out the DataStax Bulk Loader for Apache Cassandra documentation along with the open-source GitHub repository. | https://stories.mlh.io/load-your-data-in-minutes-with-datastax-bulk-loader-e10812f682dc | ['Rosendo Pili'] | 2020-12-03 22:58:20.149000+00:00 | ['Cassandra', 'Major League Hacking', 'Hackathons', 'Database', 'Datastax'] |
MegaFans Blossoms at Launchpool Labs | MegaFans sits on the edge of the up-and-coming GameFi industry, yet they are more than just another blockchain project. The team behind MegaFans has decades of experience in the video game industry with powerhouses like Ubisoft and Draftkings. They fundamentally understand the mobile gaming and eSports arena and have identified a lack of incentivisation for players as a main driver of future growth, and have set out to fix that with a product that is applicable to the entire eSports and gaming industry, not just their own product. Speaking of games — MegaFans was very quick to come to market and already has seven unique titles launched on the Apple app store. In this way, MegaFans is uniquely different from their competition.
When it comes to eSports, MegaFans has identified two key drivers of user behavior: prizes and bragging rights. Financial incentives are of course a powerful way to drive human behavior, but bragging rights are something unique to sports and competitive activities. Most users would prefer to compete against a group of their peers, rather than a computer. This makes sense, of course, since the computer cannot respond to your jeering. Unfortunately, one big thing stands in the way when it comes to incentivizing mobile gaming: transaction fees in the app store. As many are aware, and in light of recent events with Epic Games and Apple, Apple charges a lot for in-app purchases. That is where blockchain comes in for MegaFans.
MegaFans utilizes a “cage model”, where users are able to purchase tokens directly in the app via in-app purchases. These tokens can be used to participate in pay-to-win tournaments to win more tokens. However, instead of having users redeem the tokens in the application, where more fees would be taken out, they are taken to a blockchain-enabled payments portal on the MegaFans site for redemption. MegaFans already has experience helping users redeem their tokens for Bitcoin over the past two months, and has begun to utilize NFTs over the past month. This cage model thus creates an incentivization model that can be applied to any mobile game, and can facilitate an infinite number of players and tournaments, along side the eSports software which is also designed for global scale.
MegaFans isn’t just about incentivizing eSports, though. They want to do something meaningful with their product. That’s why one of their core principles is to help women in tech and STEM fields by breaking down the barriers of a traditionally male-dominated eSports industry by providing the ability to participate in pay-to-earn sports tournaments from a safe environment. In this way, MegaFans wants to make eSports and gaming accessible to all.
As you might imagine, LaunchPool Labs is the perfect fit for MegaFans. As more GameFi and pay-to-play projects come to LaunchPool, MegaFans’ enterprise level system can be quickly integrated into games to allow for incentivization of user behavior. This symbiosis between projects will allow for concurrent growth and strong network effects.
Ready to play some games or read more about MegaFans? Read more below:
MegaFans LinkTree: Mobile Esports Gaming Online | Play Mobile Esports Tournaments — Mega Fans
Launchpool Labs: https://launchpoollabs.xyz/projects/megafans | https://medium.com/@jdonnelleyca/megafans-blossoms-at-launchpool-labs-a2b7276b5d97 | ['Jeff Donnelley'] | 2021-11-18 02:51:46.101000+00:00 | ['Esport', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Mobile Games', 'Launchpad', 'Nft'] |
Reasons why construction projects fail to stick to the budgeted cost. | The construction budget is the amount of money allocated for a specific building or remodeling project. Budgets are used to anticipate all costs and expenses of the building process from start to completion.
Quantity surveyors manage all costs associated with building projects, their primary goal is to minimize expenses and keep them within the limits of a budget. They get to be part of the project from the start preparing comprehensive project estimates, gather tender and contract documentation, conduct feasibility studies, and undertake risk control.
With the use of well-integrated budgeting software, the quantity surveyors will be more efficient, consistent, accurate, integrated, and more professionalized.
Construction managers rely on estimates in budgets to establish the amount of money they will spend on a project, these estimates specify the deliverables of a project including labor and raw materials allowing them to accurately implement the set budget. With the right software, the construction managers are able to track their entire project from start to finish with daily updates of expenditure preventing the accumulation of losses which leads to over budgeting.
If a construction project fails to stick to the assigned budget, chances are high that the client will end up running out of money before the project is completed and abandoning it without completion. Below are the main reasons why construction projects fail to stick to the assigned budget.
Inadequate planning
Poor planning leads to poor budgeting and execution of tasks in a construction project. This usually happens due to the use of old school mode of planning and failure to adapt to more proficient technology that aids in the planning of the construction project. The more technology and effort put into planning, allocation of cost on every stage of construction, the more reliable the budget will be.
By fully reviewing, understanding the plans, specifications, the scope of work, and deciding the right software to utilize during planning, one will be able to have a reliable budget in which if it's well adhered to, the project will be completed without incurring impulsive budgets in the course of the construction.
Inaccuracy in budgeting
A budget is usually based on a set of assumptions that are generally not too far from the actual field situation and operating conditions. With these assumptions, the allocated cost can randomly change and this will equally affect the allocated budget. This usually happens when there is a sudden economic downturn and the prices fluctuate altering the initial costs. Unless the management acts quickly to count for these budget excesses, managers will continue to spend under their original budgetary estimates hence resulting in project excesses. These excesses can be monitored using software technology ensuring monitoring of project budget from start to completion and also having automated cost change updates.
Budgetary slack
This is the intensional under-estimation of budgeted revenue or over-estimation of budgeted expenses. This allows the construction manager to make `their numbers`. The practice usually interferes with the performance of the budget since money gets diverted to personal accounts altering the allocated budget. The practice usually results in extra expenses incurred by the client. This can be prevented by having proficient construction managers and also utilizing technology to plan out the budget and take off estimates.
Failure to communicate
Good communication is crucial to delivering a successful construction project. When communication among stakeholders breaks down or is mishandled, it can lead to delays, costly rework, and incomplete projects. Poor flow of communication automatically affects the flow of the project making them not to be completed on time and within budget. To prevent this all communications should be documented and shared with appropriate stakeholders. This goes along with settling any disputes or disagreements that might arise throughout the course of the project.
This can be solved by having an integrated platform in which all communication happens in one place, all the stakeholders in a project are also informed in real-time and the actions needed will be taken in time.
Project issues and delays
Delays caused by events, such as natural disasters, can’t be controlled by parties involved in a construction project. Each task or job requires a certain number of man-hours to complete and this is used to determine how many workers you will need to complete each one within a given amount of time. When workers don’t show up, get injured at work, the productivity levels are lowered causing delays and altering the budget. Assigning specific roles and responsibilities so that everyone knows what they should be doing each day will help reduce delays and impulsive budgeting.
To prevent this, workers should have a check-in system in which the construction manager will know in time the number of workers that failed to report to work and redistribute the tasks accordingly without delays.
Failure to account for daily offsite costs that are incurred
In many projects, managers fail to account for the little costs that are incurred in the duration of a construction project e.g. payments made to the delivery personnel, costs done to replace/ repair damaged construction resources etc. In the long run, these costs end up being extra costs on the budget that were not accounted for. This will make the project outrun the set budget and can be avoided by simply accounting for each little money and monitoring the costs in a system that monitors the use of the budget, hence fluctuations in the cost plan will be noted and fixed. | https://medium.com/@bidiibuild/reasons-why-construction-projects-fail-to-stick-to-the-budgeted-cost-a0b73aafef5 | ['Bidiibuild Business'] | 2020-12-08 04:27:11.006000+00:00 | ['Project Management', 'Construction', 'Construction Budget'] |
Over-burdening Expectations of Parents | Oh my baby, so cute, so little
my creation, my sweet one
Parents swelled with proud
as they see their girl’s face after 9 months
In kindergarten, oh baby
Speak and write like this
With a little practice, you will be pro
Take one step at a time
Hey girl, watch your tantrum
You are no queen
Learn to behave and throw away all the attitude
We are your parents; we know better
This wretched teenager has made my life hell
Pathetic liar, laughter like a devil
God knows what we have done to deserve her
She will destroy our well-established name
Hey, you evil woman of 30 year
Why don’t you listen and get married
Everybody is looking down upon us
Backbiting how we raised our girl
So self-obsessed this 40-year-old has become
We supported her, educated her
Still, she does not listen to us
I wonder why she lives on her own
I have accepted my defeat
It is as if we and society for her do not exist
At their death bed, Oh my girl
I am so proud of you
you did exactly what you wanted to
Sorry for crushing your spirit for our whole life
I was imprisoned and had a lot of expectations
Now I see what you were telling the entire way along
I’m so sorry to have found this late
Won’t be able to enjoy the freedom which I recognized at last
You are no slave, but I was in chains
You are unique, even if you lesbian
I apologize, I smothered you
Every day, each night
It was not your tantrums, but mine
That well-preserved ego made me blind
The expectations which I burdened you with
have kept me shackled till I got sick
Life is precious, No need to live at the term of others
My baby, fly high and soar,
Always listen to your inner core. | https://medium.com/spiritual-secrets/over-burdening-expectations-of-parents-5c8f7772858 | ['Ruchi Thalwal'] | 2020-09-26 06:03:02.069000+00:00 | ['Expectations', 'Spiritual Secrets', 'Parenting', 'Poetry', 'Freedom'] |
Conversational A.I. Needs Meaning, Not Keywords: Part 1 | Understanding is deeper than just word matching
As a cognitive scientist working on human-level conversational A.I., I often ask people why they use parts-of-speech in their model of language. I mean, it duplicates definitions, is a part of the parsing concept that has never been accurately implemented for any human language, and excludes meaning. But it is relentlessly taught to students instead of the meaning-based model.
Similarly, I ask people why they use word embeddings in their conversational systems when it takes something that we have exquisitely detailed knowledge of, a word, and converts it into a meaningless number in one or more dimensions. Worse, the numbers relate to the word’s properties of collocation with other words, not to anything meaningful. It’s not accurate either, because languages don’t work by collocation alone — phrases are key. And it changes depending on how the statistics are gathered and from where. Do we really need to use out-of-context words in conversation?
In science, when a model doesn’t work, it is often tinkered with if there is no known alternative. In the case of the solar system, circular planetary orbits were improved with planetary orbits moving in epicycles, which were improved further with planets following multiple epicycles orbiting the earth. Sadly, no matter how many were added, the model didn’t accurately predict planetary motion because the model was fundamentally wrong.
In the world of conversational A.I., all platforms today seem enamored with intents. Intents allow a developer to map known strings of text to intents: the so-called “intent classification.”
Why use intents? It comes back to word embeddings. We will see the parallels of the solar-system model behind the use of word embeddings for conversation. It is fundamentally the wrong way to manage a conversation for a number of reasons.
Welcome to the world of chatbots.
And welcome to the revolutionary world of conversational A.I. where it’s claimed that “A.I. and sophisticated natural language processing” is in play (in the Figure 1 article)!
Figure 1. From www.consumersadvocate.org/chatbots. Note how the interactions are now “deeper than ever”, presumably due to deep learning. But today’s chatbots don’t offer human-like interactions because they don’t understand.
This series will explore the science and engineering behind the current, disappointing, conversational A.I. and how working without meaning results in a lack of generalization and a lack of understanding.
Introduction
The media reporting around artificial neural networks continues to back the idea that all manner of human-imitative problems are being solved by the “deep learning” breakthrough. But most of the scientists behind that technology acknowledge the severe limitations of it, such as Turing award winner Yoshua Bengio:
“what is missing from current machine learning are understanding and generalizations beyond the training distribution[i]”
This is a severe limitation because human languages center around communications: discourse encodes words (meaning/semantics) in phrases (syntax) to convey unambiguously (in context).
The best model of semantics, syntax and context comes from Role and Reference Grammar (RRG), a linguistic model that was first to explain the world’s languages in a way that even computers can understand. My company, Pat Inc. (Pat), uses my brain theory (Patom theory) to eliminate the combinatorial explosion caused by the parsing model. Sets and lists alone, with phrase template matching, are sufficient to understand human language. Patom theory resolves the combinatorial explosion from computational linguistics with different methods: converting rules to sets, decomposing everything possible, and resolving meaning separately to consolidating phrases. It all follows from the brain theory.
The combination of linguistics and computer science leads to what has been known as Natural Language Understanding (NLU), but which has been stolen by marketing to mean: “I think you meant this, maybe.” Understanding is radically different to today’s claims of NLU by state-of-the-art systems.
NLU is intended to support NLP (Natural Language Processing) by providing meaning, but sadly the concept of NLU is being used to describe “understanding” without understanding the meaning of words. This splits NLU into two concepts: (a) keyword-NLU which ‘understands’ phrases without determining their word’s meaning and (b) meaning-NLU, which does.
Again, my brain theory expects common experiences to be decomposed, like words, meaning words are typically composed of multiple meanings, each of which is to be validated.
Keyword-NLU (state-of-the-art)
In keyword-NLU, finding relevant keywords or words that are statistically similar is good enough, even when a person would strongly disagree with the classification of the sentence.
Meaning-NLU (Pat’s model)
In meaning-NLU, the meaning of the words must be recognized, including validation from predicates. In meaning-NLU systems (like Pat’s system), “the meanings of a word in a sentence is determined by the meanings of the other words in a sentence.”
Let’s explore the state-of-the-art used in “Conversational A.I.” which uses keyword-NLU and contrast its limitations with meaning-NLU. It’s not that keyword-NLU doesn’t have an application. It does. It’s just that it cannot scale from simple chatbot to conversations, because it asks the developer to determine each and every intent in advance for all possible conversations. It leaves the problem of A.I. to the developer, while depriving the developer of meaning.
The Science — “good enough” isn’t good enough
In science, near-enough usually isn’t good enough. Getting the wrong answers is unacceptable in almost every science. To deal with ineffective theory in NLP, we need to refocus our aim at the real target — conversing with machines with speed and accuracy. It starts with meaning, not keywords and should be our primary interface with all devices, regardless of your source language.
When digital computers were first built, they were expected to get the right answers. If 1+1=3 were produced regularly, we would not have gone to the moon because computers could not have controlled the spacecraft. We would not have iPhones either. By contrast, the frustrations in getting NLP to work has led to an acceptance that errors are acceptable. They aren’t.
The goal of NLP is to produce systems that are 100% accurate, not something else. Granted, noisy environments cause clarifying questions. New or unknown words can cause that too, as can ambiguity. But A.I. benchmarking tests continue to be built that the state-of-the-art technology cannot pass. Worse still, the best tools are considered a success when they cannot be used commercially due to inaccuracy.
The General Language Understanding Evaluation (GLUE)[ii] benchmark consolidates a number of different tests. The related paper explains: “The human ability to understand language is general, flexible, and robust. In contrast, most NLU models above the word level are designed for a specific task and struggle with out-of-domain data.”
But in the words of the organizers: “… the low absolute performance of our best model indicates the need for improved general NLU systems”
For NLU systems to progress, tests like those we propose at Pat are needed, in addition. In a future article, I will explain how Pat provides a range of tests from simple to advanced in which working NLU systems pass the easiest tests with 100% accuracy — keyword-NLU systems can’t. Human children should pass those tests also.
Facebook A.I. Research: bAbI tasks
In our work on the Facebook A.I. Research team’s (bAbI) tasks, our system scored 100% and found errors in the training datasets — a blind spot for the machine learning methodology. It also answered the system in English, not with artificial keywords that allow tests to pass without a English solution (does that make any sense for an NLP test?).
This testing model, ensuring the system is validated on easy examples before testing more complex examples, is the approach we advocate in order to provide human-level NLU in the future across multiple languages.
If companies release tools that can’t get 100% correct on simple tests, like bAbI what does that say about the platform?
Along the same lines, at Stanford near my office in Palo Alto, their SQuAD[iii] tests seem to get results of up to 90%. You’d think that’s OK, but it means the systems are inaccurate. Sure, the tests are complex, but they are tailored for the contestants to be able to pass without understanding.
Simply getting 90% accuracy without understanding is aiming at the wrong target.
What we are seeing is the difference between search technology (that points humans at web pages they may want) and conversation (where the user gets an answer). Conversation is more useful as it stops humans needing to select the correct documents, and it should exclude bias. It requires a very different approach.
To build useful conversational systems, they must pass a large array of tests with perfection. Anything less becomes intelligence augmentation, not human-imitative A.I. Intelligence augmentation should be checked by humans. That’s OK, but the revolution in NLU only comes with understanding like a human, at least some of the time.
Setting the Scene: a brief history
NLP with meaning-NLU has long been considered the Holy Grail in Silicon Valley. It will be the last device interface we ever use because it uses the fastest method people use to communicate. No more keyboards or keywords — not even glowing holograms floating in midair for actors to press in sci-fi movies. Words are more than enough to do the job rapidly and accurately.
But NLP has always been a failure. It started with Noam Chomsky’s linguistic revolution in which he proposed a model based only on syntax. I call that syntax-first. Lack of success with the related rules-based models were replaced by better statistical approach that, in turn, morphed into a connectionist approach with artificial neural networks which is better still. Fundamentally, however, these approaches to parsing trace back to Chomsky’s original 1957 model. Lack of sucess generally has also led to the use of word embeddings — with scientific justification that J.R.Firth advocated it. But he didn’t, if his writings are to be believed.
Aiming at the right target, trying things, failing and iterating to find the myriad of ways not to do NLP is the key to assembling a working NLU solution.
The science of NLP has failed because of Einstein’s observation: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
Syntax-first (like parsing) excludes meaning and context. It is too simple.
Distributional semantics (out-of-context-only?) excludes meaning and syntax. It is also too simple.
Pat’s model based on RRG and Patom theory is just right, like Baby bear’s bed in “Goldilocks.” This system is the minimum needed to realize the goals of voice-first[iv] interaction or its next iteration, voice-only.
The goal is captured clearly in the article: “We’re finally able to communicate with our devices — phones, computers, wearable devices, smart speakers and more — the same way we talk to one another when we need to get things done.” Sadly, the state-of-the-art can’t deliver on this, but the sentiment remains.
Using Meaning instead of keywords
Patom theory models a brain with bidirectional elements. The representation remains in the sensory area while its object form connects back to its sensory pieces. With languages, the sounds of words is therefore auditory recognition, but the thing the word refers to is in its own applicable area — vision (the occipital lobe) for color words, the temporal lobe for objects and the frontal lobe for actions. Connecting different words to the same meaning creates synonyms, recognized independently, with perhaps some additional qualification. Isn’t “whisper” the same as “speak” with a particular manner? It’s bidirectional: words connect to meaning, and meaning connects to words.
Machine-readable Meaning (RRG layers)
RRG provides a language-independent model for a sentence: a layered model. A Semantic Set maps the words in a sentence to such a representation (shortened here) for the example: “The cat ate the rat continuously slowly on the mat today evidently because it was hungry.”
Figure 2. A semantic set showing the layered RRG model — nucleus, core and clause level.
Machine-readable Meaning (RRG juncture)
Perhaps the second most intriguing feature of RRG is its treatment of junctures. How are arguments from the start of a sentence mapped to the other side of the juncture?
In the sentence “John promised the cat to eat the rat” broken down below, it covers two lines (note that the juncture shows that ‘John promised’ covers the second phrase with the shared argument, ‘John’).
Figure 3. A semantic set with an RRG juncture.
By providing the machine-readable meaning of the input, a developer now has the start of the tools needed to perform conversational A.I. In addition to the meaning of the sentence, the tracking of context is also important as languages allow ambiguous sentences that are unambiguous in context. If a brain can easily determine someone’s meaning, there is no need to simplify an element further.
End of Part 1
In the upcoming articles, we will see how today’s conversational A.I. platforms inhibit the use of conversation with their design principles — embracing the meaningless distributional semantics instead of focusing on meaning. We will also go into the detail of the solution: how semantic sets such as those above are arrived at, getting the results of parsing without the uncontrolled combinatorial explosion caused by excluding meaning.
While today’s platforms provide keyword-NLU, the minimum solution for conversation is meaning-NLU. Let’s begin the journey.
[i] https://syncedreview.com/2019/04/16/bengio-and-marcus-at-world-ai-summit-in-montreal/ Synced, April 16, 2019.
[ii] https://gluebenchmark.com/ GLUE benchmark.
[iii] https://rajpurkar.github.io/SQuAD-explorer/ The Stanford Question Answering Dataset, version 2.0.
[iv] https://www.forbes.com/sites/ilkerkoksal/2018/02/01/voice-first-devices-are-the-next-big-thing-heres-why/#56a189de6873 Voice-First, Feb 2018. | https://medium.com/pat-inc/conversational-a-i-needs-meaning-not-keywords-part-1-e3b0d8825564 | ['John Ball'] | 2019-06-28 02:46:05.267000+00:00 | ['Word Embeddings', 'Machine Learning', 'Linguistics', 'Nlu', 'NLP'] |
Save Money to Fit your Life | There are two types of people. People who take advice and use it if it is pertinent to them. And then there are people who know better and won’t use the advice, even if it would benefit them. I was the latter. I had always been told by my accountant father that you need to save money. There was always something else I needed. I had savings accounts that had the minimum balance in them most of the time. I learned the hard way that saving money in case of an emergency is as important as they say it is. Moreso, even.
Plan for Contingencies
You can’t plan for everything, but you can plan for life-changing events. One type of life event you can and should plan for are layoffs. No one is immune to being laid off or even fired.
I had received a degree in English Literature, but found myself working for a while on the factory floor at a reputable Fortune 500 company. I had worked there for about a year and a half and had decided that I would stay due to the good benefits, but the work was wearing me ragged. I had been told there were positions opening, and was going to get my quality assurance certification. I have always been in the habit of improving myself, and it is always good to have job security. I had a cursory knowledge of technology and was planning on acquiring certification in various niches of software and software development. But, the company decided to close the plant in which I worked. It was unexpected and my family had to scrape by for a while due to our diminished savings.
Any amount is helpful
I learned that even though the money you put aside every month might seem to be wasted just sitting there, but that is something you need to get over. Take solace in the fact that the money is sitting there and will help you when you need it. If you can afford 5 dollars, save 5 dollars. It is easy to talk yourself out of making a 5 dollar deposit, but 5 dollars here and there adds up. Also, there are so many apps out there that allow you to save and even invest whatever you can. Heard of cash back, where you get a set amount or change rounded up to the nearest dollar back on purchases? There’s an app that gives you stock back. Instead of saving what is rounded up, they invest it.
Do not play catch up
I was raised to be accountable. When it came to savings, I would convince myself that I had to make up for lost time. If I had intended on saving money for the past year but had fallen behind, I would work out the amount I needed to save to catch up. I would then feel overwhelmed because the amount never fit in our budget and we would fall short on other expenses. I would subsequently quit saving money and even take the money out of savings to help with bills.
If you find yourself in a similar situation, acknowledge that life happens and that, even though you have told yourself you would save money, something came up that you had to use the money for. Even if that is not the case and you still fell short of your savings goals, you should never strap yourself financially to save money. Yes, you can give stuff up, but not food or other necessities.
Life happens and you should be prepared for it. Just remember, when saving for something or in case of emergencies, try to plan for contingencies. Even if the amount you put away seems miniscule, any amount is helpful. If you fall behind on saving, do not sacrifice necessities to play catch up. If you remember those three things, you’ll see your savings grow. | https://medium.com/@oliviapicton/save-money-to-fit-your-life-cb4d45edacbc | ['Olivia Picton'] | 2019-05-13 18:05:09.415000+00:00 | ['Saving Money', 'Savings Plan', 'Money'] |
Design @ Shortcut.com | The next hurdle was actually getting it built. Often, in the past I’ve created similar sites and they were always pushed down the priority list so far that they were never built. This i mainly because it always felt like a nice-to-have project but never really important enough to actually build. That’s where Paolo D’Ettorre stepped in . Other than being a top designer within the design team, Paolo is also a dab hand at Webflow which was the key to this whole project. It meant we could cut out relying on other teams for this to become a reality. Paolo put on his Webflow hat and knocked it out of the park. He created a beautiful, responsive perfect site with all the bells and whistles. What else could you ask for! 🤌
How do we think it went?
Overall we feel the project was a big success, although I am pretty biased, but yea, it was probably the greatest site ever built….EVER.
It gave us a platform for us to be heard, as well as a place for us to house all the important guidelines we want people to find. It also allowed us to show that we could use our initiative and move things forward without being prompted which I feel is so important in the development of a team. Having the desire and determination to push yourself is key to success.
Infact, the project went so well that we actually went one step further and created a similar site for the Engineering team during a recent hackathon, to similar success and enthusiasm.
You can go check it out here: https://engineering.shortcut.com/
Plus we already have more plans for similar projects for other teams across the org, so judging by that it must of been a success!
Whats next for the site?
Well, like everything in life, things grow, and they evolve and we hope that this site will grow too. We may find that this approach is too light for the expectations of a larger team and we’ll need to reassess things, but for now, we’re just going to enjoy having our little fort. A place we can call home.
Be sure to check back regularly to check in with us! | https://medium.com/geekculture/design-shortcut-com-38612d1262cb | ['Al Power'] | 2021-12-14 16:43:34.124000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Website', 'Design Team', 'Design', 'Brand'] |
Understanding Education Issues in Taiwan and Rethinking How Teachers “Learn to Lead” (I) | @University of Turku, Educational leadership, management, and administration.
This article offers a broader understanding of the image of education in Taiwan after the education reform in the 1990s and how teachers learning to understand “teaching as leadership”. First dealing with historical context, political situation, the changing social value toward education, and the complexity of curriculum, education reform is political in the Taiwanese context. In the face of challenges and problems, strategies have been taken in both alternative and mainstream approaches, trying to improve social equity student’s well being and national competitiveness. However, new strategies can always come with new problems and resistance. Hence, understanding education reform in a bottom-up trajectory and structural perspective is essential. We will later discuss how Taiwanese educators respond to the challenges brought by lower birth rate, globalization and digitalization, and the new curriculum in both mainstream and alternative ways. By the end, the article Introduces two alternative teacher training programs in Taiwan endeavouring to offer diverse but equal education. Also mentioned how youth startups/ organizations respond to education issues and raise social awareness of lifelong learning innovatively. In conclusion, a call for a more inclusive and multicultural sensitive teacher leadership training framework is proposed. Keywords: public education; alternative teacher training program; leadership; educational entrepreneurship
01 Preface: Taiwanese education system and society in a nutshell
Located in East Asia, Taiwan is a country boasts a population of 23.78 million people living in 36,193 square kilometres islands. Due to geographical politics, Taiwan has highly complicated historical relations with Japan and China. In the field of education, for instance, the modern education system was first introduced to Taiwan as a six-year primary school during the Japanese colony (1895–1945). After the Republic of China government’s (KMT) takeover in 1945 and retreated from “the Mainland” in 1949 due to the loss of civil war with the Chinese Communist Party, education was once a political tool of nationalism and anti-communism. In 1968, to raise people’s education/ literacy level and offer a high-quality workforce for economic development, the basic compulsory education was extended to nine years.
Educational Reform: from monotonous to diverse
Before the abolition of the Martial Law period (1949–1987), the national curriculum was highly centralized and it delivered anti-communist ideology. Dialects such as Taiwanese, Hakka, and indigenous languages were forbidden to speak in school life, only Mandarin as “national language” was allowed. At that time, other languages and cultures which are different from Chinese Mandarin were oppressed and the relationship between teachers and students was hierarchical.
The abolishment of the Martial Law in 1987 ensures everyone’s basic civil rights such as freedom speech, assembly, and press. It triggered a thriving process of political democratization, protests almost happened every week calling for diverse issues such as indigenous rights, women rights, environmental conservation, and education reform. On the education reform movement in 1995, the school system, curriculum, and high school/ college entrance exam system were all harshly criticized. The public appealed for four requirements including (1) realising smaller schools and classes (2) building high schools and colleges widely (3) push for the modernization of education and (4) establishing the Educational Fundamental Act, requiring the government to put more emphasis on multiculturalism, relieve the burden of students, and reverse the over-competitive school culture.
Social value toward education and its derivative problems
Although education reforms have been implemented for over 20 years, the social value of academic performance and the family’s expectation still play crucial roles when we try to understand education in Taiwan. In 2018, a novel-based TV series On Children which inspired by the poem of Kahlil Gibran uses sci-fi ironic scenario to refer the absurd phenomenon of education and the mindset of Taiwanese parenting- a “good” child should always obey the expectation of his/her parents without “letting them down”. This six-episode series successfully provoked intense public discussion about modern education problems such as students wellbeing and reflect on “diplomaism”. Indeed, with the influence of Confucianism — the ideology that celebrated by the KMT government — and the eager of improving family life, academic performance was (or is) highly emphasized in Taiwanese society. These two factors may explain why the teacher is a highly respected profession (although once decreased due to the first education reform) in Taiwan. Rich families regard education as a tool to strengthen their social status and often interfere with students’ development regardless of their talents; whereas underprivileged families struggle to provide their children’s opportunities for learning yet lacking spared time to accompany children’s development. However, one thing in common is, they both consider education a utilitarianism tool for social mobility yet have narrow imagination of the path of students’ development, and seldom see education as a process of holistic development.
Curriculum: a battlefield of ideologies
Teaching and learning framework in Taiwan is centralized as national curriculum. The curriculum is decided and revised by scholars, teachers, and parents representatives in the Ministry of Education basically every decade. However, due to different perspectives of history, ideologies,and national identities , national curriculum is always a highly debated area of education. For instance, in Chinese (the official language) and History, to what percentage of Mainland China’s knowledge and Taiwan’s local knowledge such as literature and historical events should be represented in textbooks. What can be included and what should be excluded were highly depended on the political atmosphere of the period and curriculum could usually end up with political problems. Nevertheless, students’ opinions and voices were seldom discussed/ considered in the process of creating/ revising the curriculum. In 2015, in order to protest that Ministry of Education’s trying to “slightly revise” the national curriculum -especially in the subjects of Chinese and History- with more knowledge and interpretation which were based on Mainland China (before 1949) experiences, and also a lack of students representative in the curriculum committee, a demonstration held by high school students burst out. In the end, the curriculum was reorganized by the new government in 2016. And the implementation of the new curriculum was forced to postpone a year which was officially on board in September 2019.
02 What strategies have been implemented so far?
With the context of Taiwanese history and education phenomenon, in this chapter, we will further understand what strategies have been taken to improve education and society in both mainstream and alternative paradigms. Moreover, with the challenge the low birth rate, the paradigms started to dialogue. Hence, the interplay between alternative education and mainstream/ public education can be found in recent education policies and school practices.
“Escaping school” — The Development of experimental education in Taiwan
Alternative education, also known as “experimental education” in Taiwan, plays a critical role in the process of education movements and reforms. “If the public school system work like an elephant and couldn’t satisfy our needs, then we build our schools.“ In 1990, the first alternative school based on the holistic philosophy of education was established in Taiwan. However, at that time, alternative schools are not recognized by the government and had been seen as illegal. However, with the dynamic education movement in the 1990s, alternative methods gained more attention by the society and since then has been regarded as an “escaping option” by those parents eager to have their children free from the “harm” of the mainstream school system, which was dominated by exams and grades. During the decade, a variety of alternative pedagogies were introduced and developed in Taiwan, such as Steiner Waldorf schools, Montessori schools, and democratic schools. Meanwhile, homeschooling has been more visible.
In the 2000’s, due to the challenge of low birth rate, public schools are (to some extent) forced to transform to attract students, especially in remote areas. This challenge offered an opportunity for some public schools to embrace the philosophy and practice of alternative/ experimental pedagogies. The year of 2014 is a significant milestone for experimental education in Taiwan. The Three Types of Experimental Education Act were passed in the Legislative Yuan (the parliament) and these bills ensure rights for students and families to choose their ideals suitable education with public resources. Meaning the public/ mainstream system embraces alternative approaches and welcomes more interaction and collaboration. Experimental education has no longer been “extra-governmental education” and is recognized by the government. By 2017, over 57 experimental schools are thriving throughout Taiwan.
New Competence-based Curriculum
In the public education system, in response to the call of more individualized learning, student-oriented learning, authentic learning and the challenge of low birth rate and experimental education, curriculum reforms had been discussed and implemented. The newest curriculum is called “Empower Each Child Curriculum” or “108 curriculum”. The curriculum refers to UNESCO, OECD, EU education hardcore and global education trends including Finnish experience, was designed with the framework of 12 years of basic education.
The “Empower each child” curriculum endeavours to nurture individual potential and facilitating lifelong learning. Emphasizing on learning in authentic life context, the new curriculum expects future citizens equipped with abilities and knowledge to solve real-life problems, hence also known as “competency-based learning curriculum”. The hardcore of the curriculum includes 3 dimensions and 9 core competencies as below and diagram 1.
Self-directed Action: Physical/ mental wellness. Self-Advancement. Logical thinking and Problem-Solving skills. Planning, implementation, and creative responses.
2. Communication and Interaction: Semiotics and Expression. Information & Technology Literacy and Media Literacy. Artistic Appreciation and Aesthetic Literacy.
3. Social Participation: Moral Practice and Citizenship. Interpersonal Relationship and Teamwork/ Collaboration. Cultural and Global Understanding.
Diagram 1. The framework of Competence-based Curriculum (National Academy for Educational Research, 2017) | https://medium.com/@tonyhuang-42865/understanding-education-issues-in-taiwan-and-rethinking-how-teachers-learn-to-lead-i-aeb9af87ce1a | ['Tony Huang'] | 2019-11-16 15:31:02.573000+00:00 | ['Alternative Education', 'Educational Leadership', 'Educational Equity', 'Teacher Training', 'Taiwan'] |
The Harpe Brothers | The Harpe Brothers
Known as the first serial killers, Micajah “Big” Harpe and Wiley “Little” Harpe killed anyone that stood in their way, annoyed them, or were sent after them. They are notorious for the cruel way they slaughtered their victims and how many they killed in a relatively short amount of time.
It is said that the brothers, though actually first cousins, were born around 1760–1762 as Joshua and William Harper, and they traveled around the south (Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Mississippi) during their young life. During the American Revolution (1775–1783), Captain James Wood gives testament to the brothers who had joined a gang taking advantage of wartime, the Mason Gang.
Joshua later kidnapped Captain Woods daughter; however, they eventually were married. William also married Sarah Rice, who was a minister’s daughter, in mid-1797. During that time, where they traveled is unknown, but the murders started in 1797, estimated to be close to that time.
In 1795, the Harpe family cleared some land outside of Knoxville, TN where they built a cabin, obtained horses, and a few acres of the land dedicated to cultivation. However, the brothers were not known for their green thumbs, so it was assumed to be a front. They sold various goods in Knoxville to finance their lives, and when crimes were committed, fingers were pointed to the family although no evidence could link them.
The brothers are accused of murdering their first victim in 1797, where they had a very recognizable M.O. that matched their ruthless personalities. They would disembowel their victims and weigh them down with stones in a nearby water source.
When the brothers were captured on Christmas day in 1798, they confessed to killing a total of 27 people, but the actual number may never be determined. The Jail was in Kentucky, but they were able to escape and fled north with their pregnant wives. They stayed in a hideout on the Ohio River and continued their murderous rampage. “Big” Harpe confessed to killing his daughter because her crying bothered him.
“Big” Harpe was captured in 1799 by being shot in the leg and was decapitated where his head was hung to warn other outlaws. “Little” Harpe was able to escape and would not be found until 1804 in Greenville, Mississippi. He was also decapitated and hung as a warning.
Little is known about what happened to the Harpe’s families, but once the wives were cleared of charges related to “Big” and “Little”, they disappeared and lived on quietly.
Want to learn more? Here are my sources that go further in-depth with the murders, families, and the gang’s activity.
Goldfarb, K. (2020, June 28). The Harpe Brothers Were America’s First and Maybe Most Psychopathic Serial Killers. ATI. https://allthatsinteresting.com/harpe-brothers
Edwards, W. (2019). America’s First Killers: A Biography of the Harpe Brothers. Golgotha Press: Hustonville. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=zPL6DwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA9&dq=The+Harpe+Brothers&ots=j6N1wezUfX&sig=NBuQXVCwHDjk9zU0NBxCYWP9100#v=onepage&q&f=false
Willard, M. (2019, April 29). Knox County: America’s first serial killers The Harpe Brothers. Middle Tennessee Mysteries. https://www.middletennesseemysteries.com/article/482/knox-county-americas-first-serial-killers-the-harpe-brothers | https://medium.com/@schizotude/the-harpe-brothers-4cad833db1c | ['Katarina M.'] | 2020-12-27 22:44:00.409000+00:00 | ['Violence', 'Serial Killers', 'True Crime', 'Murder', 'History'] |
Where to use the INP token | InPoker provides INP tokens as a reward for winning the tournaments. Tokens can be used for staking or purchasing various products on the platform, such as Elite NFT membership cards. With cashier facility is coming to InPoker very soon, users will be able to stake their INP tokens and earn APY, even when not playing.
InPoker also allows users to create new generations of Elite NFT membership cards by staking their existing cards together with the INP-BUSD LP for one month. The new membership cards can be used to access additional tournaments and benefits or users can choose to resell them on the marketplace.
InPoker will buyback and burn half of received profit in INP tokens in order to decrease the total supply and increase demand as the platform becomes more popular. Shortage of tokens in circulation will drive the demand. By keeping the INP token and staking it, users can continue to be rewarded. This will attract more users in the platform while providing a sustainable blockchain economy for the INP token.
The upcoming cashier facility will allow users to withdraw winnings to your wallet at any time. Users will also be able to take advantage of the DeFi protocol, which was the core idea for the project since the beginning. DeFi protocol allows to cut the risks associated with losing all the funds in the game and it is a very unique solution not found on other poker platforms. Users can supply their crypto assets and borrow in-game BUSD tokens up to 60% of the asset value while retaining the balance and earning APY.
Stay tuned for more exciting developments on https://www.inpoker.io
Join our official Telegram Channel here: https://t.me/influencerpoker | https://medium.com/@inpoker/where-to-use-the-inp-token-68cac51d65da | [] | 2021-11-28 05:04:50.416000+00:00 | ['Poker', 'Crypto', 'Inp', 'Inpoker', 'Nft'] |
ML11: Hands-On Line Chart by Python | … that very different Machine Learning algorithms, including fairly simple ones, performed almost identically well on a complex problem of natural language disambiguation once they were given enough data. [1]
There are a couple of main challenges of machine learning as follows: [1]
In a famous paper published in 2001, Microsoft researchers Michele Banko and Eric Brill showed that very different Machine Learning algorithms, including fairly simple ones, performed almost identically well on a complex problem of natural language disambiguation once they were given enough data (as you can see in Figure 1).
As the authors put it: “these results suggest that we may want to reconsider the tradeoff between spending time and money on algorithm development versus spending it on corpus development.”
The idea that data matters more than algorithms for complex problems was further popularized by Peter Norvig et al. in a paper titled “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data” published in 2009.10 It should be noted, however, that small- and mediumsized datasets are still very common, and it is not always easy or cheap to get extra training data, so don’t abandon algorithms just yet.
It should be noted, however, that small- and medium- sized datasets are still very common, and it is not always easy or cheap to get extra training data, so don’t abandon algorithms just yet. [1] | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/ml11-16baa318c73b | ['Morton Kuo'] | 2020-12-23 04:18:56.410000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Matplotlib', 'Data Visualization', 'Python', 'Data Science'] |
What happens when you spend more than your limit? | Jacob is from a middle-income family, and he always wanted to become a star actor. So, he decided to move out from his family to seek acting opportunities in the city. However, he could not get any big acting opportunities in 3 years, and then out of the blue, he got a major role in a movie. The crew liked his performance. So, he got a large sum as a salary.
Jacob has never seen this much money in his hand as he had a hard life in the last 3 years. So, he bought a huge house with all the money he received as the salary. He also bought a luxury car by taking a debt. He thought he could easily pay it back with the salary he gets in the upcoming months. This attitude made him spend lavishly.
Suddenly, a huge financial crisis arrived in his country. Due to this, the economy saw a huge recession. So, the moviemakers decided to stop filming and Jacob lost his job. Now, he had to face a lot of problems. He could not pay off his debt. Also, he could not pay for all the expenses on his huge house, and to make it worse he could not find any new jobs since it was recession time. Therefore, he used all his assets to pay off his debts, and now Jacob is back to where he started. Poverty!
The moral of the story: Always spend within your limits.
H ere are some tips to spend less than you earn,
1. Avoid the unnecessary fixed cost
Think twice before you take a loan or buy some expensive item on credit. This will create a fixed cost for you every month. Do this only if you can handle that fixed cost.
2. Minimize spending on wants
Wants are things that are not necessary for you to live. Entertainment cost, leisure, and travel are some examples of wants. Control your spending on wants to spend within your limit
3. Think about the consequences
This is my personal opinion. Always think if you spend more, you will have to wake up with debt in hand. Trust me!! That is the last thing you want in your life.
4. Automate your savings
Nowadays most banks allow you to transfer a certain percentage of the amount to your savings account automatically as soon as you got the salary. This method allows maximizing savings while minimizing spending.
5. Maintain a budget and review it monthly
Prioritize your expenses and make a monthly budget. Then track your budget to make sure that you spend within your planned limit. This is the classic way to control your spending. | https://medium.com/@khowshi25/what-happens-when-you-spend-more-than-your-limit-d9a12fe6f7b3 | ['Khowshigan Mathiyalagan'] | 2021-08-27 10:51:01.951000+00:00 | ['Financial Planning', 'Financial Freedom', 'Financial Literacy Tips', 'Spending Habits', 'Money Management'] |
A Story about Flash | Flash is now officially history. While many people raised opinions, praise or concerns in the past ten years I stayed mostly shut. I didn’t have Thoughts on Flash worth sharing. And now I don’t want to repeat either what many people have already said.
This is a rather personal blog post¹.
When New Years eve came and people shared some of their memories about Flash and its community I also sent out a tweet. How I started to play with Flash when I was approximately thirteen years of age. Five minutes later I got an email from an old friend that I met online back in 1999. It gave me a great feeling of sweet sorrow.
In ’99 there was this website — crackmaster.de — which offered cracks for all kinds of software. Photoshop back then was known to me as the most expensive software. I had to get my hands on it only for that reason. With all the cracks and warez in place I started playing around with Photoshop and was immediately lost. Crackmaster served not only the latest cracks but also tutorials and the website had incredible detailed designs. The design changed every week. This must have been some kind of magician knowing their way around Photoshop. Thirteen year old me adds Mr. Crackmaster on ICQ to get to know the genius and start learning from them. They forwarded me to a website, somnium.de, which opened up a complete new world.
somnium.de was an incredible melting pot of tutorials, design and art forum. It was in general a pretty great time to do graphics. You’d optimize for Internet Explorer 5, 1024x768 if not 800x600 and the most advanced connection was at 56kbps. At that time there were so many other great websites, like wastedyouth.org or then up and coming deviantart.net. Of course this was also the time when IRC was still way more common than it is nowadays. And so I got to meet the team and community and started to annoy them because I had questions. So. Many. Questions.
I also met the founder of Somnium. Hello David!
While Somnium’s main focus was Photoshop they also had tutorials on how to build a mouse-over button with JavaScript as well as this software called Flash. Installed it, installed the crack and thought that this program is used to make cartoons. I didn’t want to make cartoons so I closed it and continued to focus on programming. Of course I had to build my own tutorials website because I was just such a great artist. Not.
I noticed that I was not that good with Photoshop. These folks were on another level. I was not able to turn the image I had in my mind into reality. I struggled a lot with that so I focused more on the coding part. While I did a lot of BASIC and Visual Basic before, I never built a full website. And because we’re now in 2000 the language du jour was PHP. cgi-bin no thank you.
I was good at this stuff. Building websites, writing code, finding bugs. It did not take long until I started to use PHP also for other things. I remember vividly that Somnium had a great PHP programmer, bat[e], that seemed in a different league and they used PHP to generate visuals, like <table> based color gradients. It was used as a tool to create graphics. This blew my mind. I was not that great at Photoshop and I also did not have the money to buy a Wacom tablet. Using code to create graphics changed everything.
A couple of years passed and I was building mostly websites. Like my personal portfolio or still my world-dominating tutorial website. We also built the initial version of designmadeingermany.de — if I remember correctly it was together with Thorsten Bergler and Marcel Eichner. Looking back at this period it was really special. Many great folks that I still admire today randomly met on IRC and built incredible stuff. And they still continue to amaze me.
Back to Flash.
The tool started to make sense to me. I saw other websites like derbauer.de or holominds.de and of course 2advanced.net using it so I did try again. I got a better understanding of it and started to really like it. I even built my first experiments and programs. I was about to turn 16 in 2002. That’s when you have to do a 2-week internship in Germany. Usually brewing coffee in a bank to help you with job orientation for your future life. But I knew already what I wanted to do. David was back then working at Powerflasher in Aachen so this seemed worth a try. I got the okay from Powerflasher to do my internship with them. I think David allowed me to stay at his place for two weeks but my school thought doing something actually meaningful was a bad idea. So brewing coffee it was. Well, actually I toured my hometown with my Flash experiments. Local agency Seitenweise accepted me and gave me actual real work to do. It was such an amazing feeling. I was good at this and people gave me work that I could churn through. The dopamine loop was full on. After the internship I continued to work for Seitenweise besides school to earn some money that I would invest in gas for my Fiat 126 or beverages at the local discotheque².
In the meantime David was creating this amazing pixel art for Flash content at Powerflasher. The code was created by this guy named André Michelle.
In 2002 they started their own agency extrajetzt in Berlin together with some more folks I knew from #somnium on IRC. I met with them in their office close to Alexanderplatz when I was visiting some relatives that lived near Berlin in 2003. David showed me around and how they worked. André was also there, probably busy working on Tag Der Arbeit. I didn’t really know André that well but had a lot of respect for his work. I was on another field trip in Berlin and spent some more time with the extrajetzt folks that year.
Then I got exposed to my first actual computer science lessons in school, writing plain old Pascal. Once we reached bubble sort and quicksort I was hooked. Performance optimization became my thing. Immediately I tried out what happens if you implement quicksort in Flash and boy: this thing was 10x faster than Array.sort (if you don’t read the docs and omit Array.NUMERIC as an argument).
Now I was really hooked. What was IRC and Somnium back in the late 90s was flashforum.de for me in the early 2000s. Just like the folks from the Somnium days I have great respect for a lot of the people I met at Flashforum. André Michelle, Mario Klingemann or Frank Reitberger to name a few.
I started to work on more experiments and wanted to push the boundaries of the platform. Because if I can build a sorting algorithm that is close to the speed of what the Silicon Valley folks build: who is going to stop me? I actually do miss this youthful ignorance sometimes.
A big personal topic for me became AI. I got very interested in the human brain and was fascinated when I learned about artificial neural networks. When Flash was not up to the task I started using C++. I was also utterly lazy or better: not interested in school at all. In order to get a decent score on my A-levels I chose to perform an additional special learning exercise. When I told my computer science teacher that I wanted to do something with image processing and artificial neural networks they were interested but told me they couldn’t judge it and I had to go to University and find a professor that would volunteer to grade my work.
Finding a professor to do that took longer and more work than the actual exercise I wanted to do. After a lot of time the head of the AI research lab at University of Bielefeld agreed to help me. Initially I thought that I can trick my teacher into accepting a very simple task that sounds complex, like presenting an object and then the computer tells you what object that is. The professor however immediately knew what I was up to so they told me they will only agree if I alter the setup so that the objects I show to the camera have each the same color and can be rotated around, in real-time.
This time I got really into C++ and into image processing. And this task was more difficult than I initially thought. We’re talking 2005 here without fancy GPUs and all the deep learning research. But I loved AI, networks and graphs. I also spent some time in 2004 via a scholarship to work with people from university on Aibo robots. Hence I was not completely new to this or starting from scratch but I had to implement all of it alone in my bedroom on shitty hardware at best.
But finishing this also gave me confidence. I wanted to meet the folks from Flashforum. Around that time I also started hacking on a lot of code together with André. There was a conference every year organized by Marc Thiele. But I didn’t have the money to go. My only option was to join as a speaker. Marc respectfully rejected the AI talk by a nineteen year old. Fair enough.
When I finished school I enrolled at University of Bielefeld after that professor reviewed my “paper”. Cognitive Informatics. I wonder what would’ve happened if I had continued studying instead of dropping out shortly afterwards to go to Paris, join a startup and sleep on a couch for the next six months.
I still wanted to go to the Flashforum conference and meet all my friends. This time I would not pick such a niche topic. And instead of one, I prepared two talks to enhance my chances. Marc made a call for papers and accepted my proposal. This first conference was very special to me. I can still feel the adrenaline rushing through my veins, the feeling when being applauded for your work. The work you put so many hours in and that you love. | https://medium.com/@joa/a-story-about-flash-4c6d8243c987 | ['Joa Ebert'] | 2021-01-05 08:40:49.646000+00:00 | ['Commuity', 'Engineering', 'Flash', 'Growing Up', 'Personal'] |
My Reflections of ‘In The Heights’ | Like everyone else, we were excited. Beaming with pride that any semblance of our story — our neighborhood story was being told on the silver screen. We were especially proud because our son, who has been acting for 6 years now, was able to land an on-screen background role in the movie. So, no matter what suspicions or reluctance some of us had about which story would be told, “In The Heights” had us all waiting with eager expectation.
And it delivered…kind of. Well, it’s complicated. Within a few days of its long anticipated premier, social media and news outlets like The Root, exploded with criticism mainly about the movie’s misrepresentation of Washington Heights, a neighborhood that recently was canonized as “Little Dominican Republic” to pay homage to the many Dominican residents that call it home.
And that may the source of the rub.
There are much smarter people than me talking about the nuances of Latinx identity. I won’t attempt to be scholarly about that. These are my reflections, most of which are birthed out of my experiences as someone deeply shaped by Uptown culture. The only other motivator here are my kids, who I feel the exciting responsibility to pass on the legacy of my identity so that they could discover who they are.
Art will always be complex
No matter how deeply a piece of art is connected to a real moment in history, place or person, its expression will always be at the mercy of the artist. As enjoyers of art, there will always be room to insert your observations or interpretations of the piece, but ultimately the artist decides — even if subconsciously — what the pen writes, what the brush strokes, what the camera captures. Lin-Manuel is the architect; he’s the artist. In The Heights was shaped by his experiences of Uptown (mainly Inwood, or Dyckman for us natives, which is the northern most part of the neighborhood. how that difference shapes his storytelling is also important, but for another time). For those of us that took to the theaters in celebration of what could be, we watched a movie about a neighborhood that existed in his imagination. and we didn’t leave with the level of satisfaction we had hoped for. Why? Because we don’t live in his imagination. Not as main characters, at least.
Art will always be complex, because art is birthed out of us. And we are complex beings who are shaped by nuanced experiences, privileges or lack thereof. We’re shaped by our desires and preferences — spoken or unspoken. As the architect Lin created what he imagined, a “mosaic.” But therein lies a fundamental obstacle. Washington Heights is not a mosiac. While it may be home to a variety of Latinx identities, Washington Heights is demonstrably Dominican; Afro-Dominican.
There have been so many Mexicans, Cubans, even Brazilians declaring their praise for In The Heights because they felt seen. And rightfully so, their flags and accents were in the movie. They felt seen because they were on screen. The movie’s effort to celebrate Latinidad (I don’t want any of the smoke that comes with this word) was beautiful but it minimized the Dominican story that lives in the very air of this community. Now, this is dicey, because I’d hate for this to be interpreted as a campaign to not celebrate those cultures. This is not that. We should celebrate them.
This is, however, an effort to show that Latinx expression varies across the different Latinx ethnicities and this movie was an opportunity to put that on display.
Beyond the tasks of filmmaking
Casting, as much as the wardrobe, the script, the director or any other department on the set of a movie, is not so much a task, but an opportunity. Better yet, it’s a responsibility to build the world of the film. And in the case of a movie about a neighborhood with such a unique expression, it is difficult to see the right cast in the backdrop of the wrong setting. It’s also devastating to see (on the big screen no less) our streets, our bodegas, our corners, our stoops with strangers occupying them. Even more — what the cast wears, how they sound, their accent, their syntax, their references, their isms, their music, their skin color, the smells of the movie, el sabor of the movie. All of those are special and important to the telling of our story. All of those serve as bricks in the construction of the world that the movie promised simply by virtue of its name. Oh, how i wished there was a perico ripia’o or a number with una bachatica ensendi’a!
But this is not In The Heights through my eyes, nor your eyes. It’s through the eyes of two Puertoriqueños, one of whose relationship to the Heights could perhaps be understood as periphery having grown up in West Philly. This may be the reason for a heavy presence of salsa music and a domininant Puerto Rican cast. Even if they played the role of Dominicans. This may explain why the beloved piraguero cooled los vecinos from the sweltering heat with piraguas and not frio frios. ¡Dame uno de chinola!… not parcha. When you know the artists, you better understand the art.
And as for the visual direction, well, that was in the hands of an Asian man and a white woman. Jon Chu and Alice Brooks are responsible for what, and more importantly, who, is captured by the camera. And listen, this is no indictment on them for those things. I could never. And i wouldn’t want to. But it is a call to awareness that they are the source of this art. And the truth is that perhaps for some of them, this wasn’t their story to tell.
Casting directors and other executive roles in the filmmaking journey are like the visual managers at retail stores. It’s their vision that decides which mannequins and outfits are considered most attractive for the windows that face the street. Yes, we got to see Latinos on the screen in ways that we never have. Yet there still remains glass ceilings to be shattered for the Afro Latinx community. Perhaps much of the frustration is coming from the expectations we had on this movie to deliver some of that shattering.
Nonetheless, as a Dominicano from Uptwon, Lin-Manuel has given me sufficient reasons to be proud of my Latinx idenity — no matter how nuanced it may be. But we shouldn’t make the conclusion that critique means that we hate the project and can’t appreciate it generally. I think Lin knows that. He’s also just an artist navigating all the heat his work is receiving. That’s no easy place to be in. I get that, too.
I won’t beat a dead horse. Afrolatinos were desperately absent in the foreground of this story, and thus, in the present imagination of its creators. But it’s important to share that I won’t condem anyone for not highlighting me in their imagination. None of us can, I suppose. We can only hope to inspire imagination; stretch it with truthful criticism — whether it spills out of us harshly or not. Though we hope it wouldn’t.
It’s a big deal to have this movie in Hollywood. And I’m thankful for that. There is nothing like In The Heights that has been memorialized into cinema history. That should be celebrated. As big, however, is the missed opportunity to tell the story more truthfully. Again, I think Lin gets that. His humility and active listening is a hopeful sign for great future projects and advocacy of the stories some of us felt fell short here.
If anything I’ve gotten from the loving relationship in my life is that mature love leads with celebration while holding space for growth, transformation, correction.
The Gift of Becoming Yourself
Yes, Hollywood is watching us have our disagreements. But I want to strongly encourage us to reframe the way we have these discussions. It’s important that we don’t frame those bringing critique as “hating” on the movie and damaging our perception to Hollywood. And on that note — big production companies, like Warner Bros., with their white dollars, are not the only way to have our stories told. The filmmaking industry is like any other industry, I imagine. There are enough creators, writers, producers, actors, directors, DP’s of color telling our stories without the help of big wig executives. I’m hopeful for the stories In The Heights will give birth to. But I’m weary of adjusting ourselves to mass appeal. I know it produces dollars but is dwarfs our stories into something foreign. The road to getting Hollywood to see the value in our stories is long and arduous. Surely, there are other ways.
Perhaps the next best thing that we can do is more simple than we imagine: create. Tell your story. Tell your ancestor’s story. Tell your block’s story as you know it; as you experienced it. Tell it truthfully. Don’t be held hostage by mass appeal. It’s one of the pitfalls we’ve inherited from the social media age. If you drink from the cup of mass appeal you risk the integrity of your story because you decide that what others think is more valuable than the deepest truth of your experience.
There’s no question that this movie has poured gas onto the on-going conversation about Latinx identity. And for that I’m thankful. Our Latinx identity is nuanced and complex. With Afrodesendencia and Indigenodescendencia. Learn your story. Climb your family tree. Saca tu abuela del closet. With all its twists, painful turns and pleasant surprises, there is no journey more important than the one where you become yourself, as you’ve been made. To share both that journey and what you discover is a gift to the world. To experience that in your art, your stories, your movies is to construct a bridge that allows me; that allows us, the opportunity to enter your story. The only catch is that it must be done truthfully. No hiding the mess. Not forgetting a chapter. And not making anyone invisible.
Living in my memories
My teen years were all about basketball at Dyckman park, bread runs to Kenny’s bakery and parties at Incarnation Catholic School’s gym on 175th and St. Nicholas. For over a decade I lived in Dyckman with my wife and two kids as a faith and community leader. In 2017 I debuted my memoir about what it meant for me to love this place that had changed so much over the years. I’ve had a number of non-native New York friends message me after watching the film: “Wow, I feel like I understand your story more” or some version of that sentiment. If I’m honest, these reflections are in large part to ensure that those unfamiliar with the place that shaped so much of me wouldn’t conclude that this film captured all what that place is.
If your conscience makes room for it, go buy a ticket. Watch this movie. Take with you what you can from this story. And trust me, you can. There’s plenty there for you. There’s plenty there for us. Beauty does not evade this movie. El fuego Caribeño wasn’t a stranger. To see the hydrants open, the streets flooded with kids, and the struggle to find our place in society — that was still especially beautiful and compelling. | https://medium.com/@richperez/my-reflections-of-in-the-heights-2a0e6ad3302 | ['Rich Perez'] | 2021-06-17 03:09:07.156000+00:00 | ['Reflections', 'Film', 'In The Heights', 'Imagination', 'Film Reviews'] |
Analyzing Tesla’s Supercharger Locations | Tesla Supercharger Station in Gilroy, California
As one of the earlier execs at PayPal, entrepreneur Elon Musk understands the value of networks and how to solve the “Chicken-and-Egg” dilemma. Which is why he is building a fast-growing network of supercharger stations around the world. These superchargers allow owners of Tesla’s Model S electronic cars to charge their vehicles in less than an hour and for free. Tesla claims that the superchargers “provide 170 miles of range in as little as 30 minutes”.
In November 2015, Silk data journalist Alice Corona collected information on Tesla’s 556 supercharger stations and mapped them into a single data resource. She then analyzed the data. She found a lot of the expected but also some surprises.
Supercharger Stations Map Global Economic Power Structure
The distribution of supercharger stations roughly maps the global economic distribution with the U.S. and China hosting 58% of all stations, followed by German, the United Kingdom and France in order. Curiously absent from the top rankings was Japan. Apparently Tesla has not put a priority on Japan, or the Land of the Rising Sun is not home to enough Tesla buyers to justify a big expansion (although Musk has told Japanese media that he will put in place enough stations to allow someone to drive a Tesl end-to-end on the main island of Honshu).
Chinese Cities Dominate the Ranks of Most Supercharger Saturated Burgs
Six of the seven cities with the highest number of Tesla supercharger stations are located in China. The only non-Chinese city in that list is London, England in the United Kingdom. Additionally, Chinese cities occupy 10 or the 20 places among top-ranked supercharger cities. So how about San Francisco and Palo Alto in the United States? Actually, the hedge fund capitals of Darien and Greenwich in Connecticut have more charging stations than any other U.S. city. For now, at least, Tesla’s remain a car for the elite of the elite.
Asia Far Behind U.S. and Europe
Of the 547 stations captured in this data, only 87 were located in Asia or Oceania (Australia). China made the lion’s share of all those stations. So even though this is the Pacific Century, Tesla has elected to largely focus its supercharger network on North America and Europe.
These are some lightweight observations based on the data. As Tesla builds out the network and introduces cheaper vehicles, it will be curious to see whether Elon leaves in place the free charging aspect. If so, that could prove a tremendous magnet for Tesla owners — the prospect of “free gas on highways” for lift. | https://medium.com/silk-stories/what-tesla-s-supercharger-locations-tell-us-about-ownership-expansion-plans-d9afef77d698 | [] | 2016-01-18 23:22:29.963000+00:00 | ['Cars', 'Tesla'] |
The “How” of Cloud Native: People and Process Perspective | Kyle Brown and Kim Clark
Note, this is part 2 of a multipart series. You can find part 1 here , or jump to Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.
In the previous article, where we discussed what cloud native actually means, we established that to achieve the desired benefits from a cloud native approach you needed to look at it from multiple perspectives. It is about not only what technology you use and where your infrastructure is located, but also how you architect your solutions. But perhaps most importantly, it is about how you organize your people and what processes you follow. In this and the next two articles we are going to walk through what we have seen to be the most important ingredients of successful cloud native initiatives, taking a different perspective in each. A summary of the themes in this series is shown in the diagram below:
The components of cloud native
Let’s begin by looking at perhaps the most overlooked perspective — how cloud native affects the people involved, and the processes they are part of.
The people and process ingredients of cloud native
The people component outweighs any of the other parts in getting to cloud native success. In order to achieve the business value of cloud native, teams need to be able to rapidly coordinate between business and IT, have a “low touch” way of getting their changes through to production, and be passionately accountable for what they deliver. No amount of new technology, or modern architecture approaches will accomplish this on their own. Teams need to invest in moving to agile methods, adopt DevOps principles and software lifecycle automation, adopt new roles (such as SREs), and organizations must give teams an appropriate level of autonomy. We show some of the most important people aspects of cloud native in the diagram below:
The People and Process Ingredients of Cloud Native
This list is by no means complete. We would also assert that there are other people based aspects that improve team resiliency and cut across all the ingredients below such as a move to a no-blame culture, and encouraging a growth mindset. In the next sections we’ll dive into each of the ingredients in the above diagram in depth.
Agile methods
Cloud native infrastructure and microservices-based design enable the development of fine grained components that can be rapidly changed and deployed. However, this would be pointless if we did not have development methods that can leverage and deliver on that promise. Agile methods enable empowered (decentralized) teams to achieve rapid change cycles that are more closely aligned with business needs. They are characterized by the following:
Short, regular iteration cycles
Intrinsic business collaboration
Data driven feedback
Agile methods are usually contrasted with older, “waterfall”, methodologies. In a traditional waterfall method, all requirements are gathered up front, and then the implementation team works in near isolation until they deliver the final product for acceptance. Although this method enables the implementation team to work with minimal hindrance from change requests, in today’s rapidly changing business environment the final delivery is likely to be out of sync with the current business needs.
Agile methodologies use iterative development cycles, regular engagement with the business, combined with meaningful data from consumer usage to ensure that projects stay focused on the business goals. The aim is to constantly correct the course of the project as measured against real business needs.
Work is broken up into relatively small business relevant features that can then be prioritized more directly by the business for each release cycle. The real benefit to the business comes when they accept that there cannot be a precise plan for what will be delivered over the long term but that they can prioritize what is built next.
Agile itself is becoming an “old” term and has suffered over time, as many terms do, from nearly two decades of mis-use. However, for the moment, is it perhaps still the most encompassing term we have for these approaches.
Lifecycle automation
You cannot achieve the level of agility that you want unless you reduce the time that it takes to move new code into production. It does not matter how agile your methods are, or how lightweight you have designed your components if the lifecycle processes are slow. Furthermore, if your feedback cycle is broken, you cannot react to changes in business needs in real time. Life cycle automation is centered around three key pipelines. These are:
Continuous Integration — Build/test pipeline automation
Continuous Delivery/Deployment — Deploy, verify
Continuous Adoption — Runtime currency (evergreening)
We show the interaction of these in the diagram below:
Pipeline automation (CI/CD) is fundamental groundwork for DevOps and agile methods
Continuous Integration (CI) means that as changes that are committed to the source code repository often (“continuously”) and that they are instantly and automatically built, quality checked, integrated with dependent code, and tested. CI provides developers with instant feedback on whether their changes are compatible with the current codebase. We have found that Image-based deployment enables simpler and more consistent build pipelines. Furthermore, the creation of more modular, fine-grained, decoupled, and stateless components simplifies the automation of testing.
CD either stands for Continuous Delivery or Continuous Deployment (both are valid, although Jez Humble’s book popularized the term Continuous Delivery, which covers both). Continuous Delivery takes the output from CI and performs all the preparation that is necessary for it to be deployed into the target environment, but it does not deploy it, leaving this final step to be performed manually in controlled, approved conditions. When an environment allows the automation to deploy into the environment, that is Continuous Deployment, with advantages in agility balanced against potential risks.
Continuous Adoption (CA) is a less well known term for an increasingly common concept; keeping up to date with the underlying software runtimes and tools. This includes platforms such as Kubernetes, language runtimes and more. Most vendors and open source communities have moved to quarterly or even monthly upgrades. and failing to keep up with current software results in stale applications that are harder to change and support. Security updates as a minimum are often mandated by internal governance. Vendors can provide support for a minimal number of back versions, so support windows are getting shorter all the time. Kubernetes, for example, is released every three months and only the most recent three are supported by the community. CI/CD, as noted above, means code changes trigger builds, and potentially deployment. Enterprises should automate similar CA pipelines that are triggered when vendors or communities release new upgrades. For more information about CA, see Continuous Adoption.
Its worth noting that lifecycle automation is only as good as efficiency of the processes that surround it. There’s no value in working to bring your CI/CD cycle time down to minutes if your approval cycle for a release still takes weeks, or you are tied to a dependency that has a lifecycle measured in months.
DevOps and Site Reliability Engineering
As we can see from the figure above, lifecycle automation lays the groundwork for a more profound change to the way people work. As we simplify the mechanism between completion of code, and it’s deployment into production, we reduce the distance between the developer and the operations role, perhaps even combining them.
This is known as DevOps, and has some key themes:
Collaboration and combination across development and operations roles
“Shift left” of operational concerns
Rapid operational feedback and resolution
In traditional environments there is strong separation between development and operations roles. Developers are not allowed near the production environment, and operations staff have little exposure to the process of software development. This can mean that code is not written with the realities of production environments in mind. The separation is compounded when operations teams, in an effort to protect their environments, independently attempt to introduce quality gates that further impede the path to production, and cyclically the gap increases.
DevOps takes the approach that we should constantly strive to reduce and possibly remove the gap between development and operations so that they become aligned in their objective. This encourages developers to “shift left” many of the operational considerations. In practice this comes down to asking a series of questions and then acting on the answers:
How similar can we make a development environment to that of production? Can we test for scalability, availability, and observability as part of the earliest tests? Can we put security in place from the beginning, and not just switch it on at the end for major environments?
Platforms elements such as containers and Kubernetes can play an important role in this, as we will see from concepts such as image based deployment and infrastructure as code that we will discuss later.
Clearly, the shortening of the path between development and production by using CI/CD is a linked to DevOps as is the iterative- and business-focused nature of agile methods. It also means changing the type of work that people do. Software developers should play an active role in looking after production systems rather than just creating new functions. The operations staff should focus on ways to automate monotonous tasks so that they can move on to higher value activities, such as creating more autonomically self-healing environments. When these two are combined, this particular role is often referred to as a Site Reliability Engineer to highlight the fact that they too are software engineers. Key to succeeding with this is the need to accept that “failures are normal” in components and that we should therefore plan for how to manage failure rather than fruitlessly try to stop it from ever happening.
In a perfect world, software development and operations become one team, and each member of that team performs both development and operations roles interchangeably. The reality for most organizations has some level of compromise on this however, and roles still tend to become somewhat polarized toward one end of the spectrum or the other.
Team Autonomy
If we make the methods more agile, and the path to production more automated, we must no then stifle their ability to be productive and innovative. Each team is tackling a unique problem, and it will be better suited to particular languages and ways of working. We should give the teams as much autonomy as possible through:
Decentralized ownership
Technological freedom
Self-provisioning
If we’re going to rapidly iterate over more fine grained components, we need to decentralize “one-size-fits-all” policies and allow more local decision making. As we will discuss later a good cloud platform should naturally encourage standardization around build, deployment and operations, so long as components are delivered in a consistent way (e.g. container images). To be productive, teams then need to have freedom over how they implement those components; choosing their own technologies such as languages and frameworks. Equally important is to ensure the teams can rapidly self-provision the tools and resources they need, which of course aligns well with the very nature of cloud infrastructure.
There is still a need for a level of consistency in approach and technology across the enterprise. Approaches like the Spotify model, for example, often approach this need through “guilds”, groups made from individuals from the teams that focus on encouraging (rather than enforcing) common approaches and tools based on real world experiences in their own teams.
Of course, a caveat is that decentralization of control can’t typically be ubiquitously applied, nor can it be applied all at once. It might make sense for only certain parts of an enterprise, or certain types of initiative in an enterprise. Ultimately, seek a balance between enabling elements of a company to innovate and explore in order to retain market leadership, and ensuring that you do not compromise integrity of the core competencies of the business with constant change and increasing divergence.
In the next part of this series we’ll look at what architecture and design choices we need to make in order to best leverage the cloud environment. In the meantime, if you want to learn more about any of these issues, visit the IBM Garage Method website, where we cover many of these topics in more depth in the context of an end-to-end method. | https://kylegenebrown.medium.com/the-how-of-cloud-native-people-and-process-perspective-a50852b50aa2 | ['Kyle Gene Brown'] | 2020-12-21 19:32:04.269000+00:00 | ['DevOps', 'Agile Development', 'Cloud Native', 'Site Reliability Engineer', 'Automation'] |
Injustice management — stories about discrimination and how to turn them around | Arriving there we went through the usual border control, exited Thai territory, and set out to reach Cambodia on foot. A few meters away.
I checked beforehand legal requirements to enter the territory, and there wasn’t anything specific for French citizen (me), or Cameroonian citizen (Yvann). Just a valid passport and 30$.
Even though we arrived early, before the opening of the border, it was already crowded. A large crowd of people (Thais? Cambodians?) were ready to carry their goods to the other side and waiting for the opening.
Fast forward to the border control processing, and we exited Thai territory. We were in a hurry to reach Siem Reap so we didn’t spend that much time at the no-man’s land. Casinos caught our eyes but it would be hard to part with our meagers savings and not starving the rest of our trip.
I followed the procedures and paperwork, gave my fingerprints, 1L of blood sample. 30$ later I got my visa. Unfortunately for Yvann, that wasn’t that quick.
It surprised me, so I asked him why did it take so long. He didn’t know too. His passport was being studied thoroughly by an agent, and no explanation was given until now.
After a while, a “manager” came on the agent’s request and they started talking together. Even though we don’t speak Cambodian, we got the feeling that it wasn’t to discuss the spelling of “Yvann” with a double N…Then started the discussion:
Manager — Why are you visiting Cambodia?
Me — We are going to Siem Reap for a few days
Manager — And YOU, why are you here in Cambodia?
Yvann — What do you mean? He just told you we came for Siem Reap
Manager — How do you know each other?
Me — We are student at the same engineering school in Bangkok
Manager — A Thai school with a French and a Cameroonian?
Me — And they spend their holidays in Cambodia. Apparently this is the world we live in, welcome to the 21th century.
Manager — Yes but you’re black, like the drug dealers
Yvann — …
How do you argue with that? I got curious about our experience, and it is not an isolated one: https://www.phnompenhpost.com/7days/beneath-skin-reality-being-black-cambodia | https://byrslf.co/injustice-management-stories-about-discrimination-and-how-to-turn-them-around-52fd0b7d757e | ['Abdul Otman'] | 2020-03-03 21:39:16.375000+00:00 | ['Travel', 'Adventure', 'Anger Management', 'Discrimination', 'Beyourself'] |
Avoiding NEI & TLDR | Whether you have been programming for a few years, or are thinking about getting into programming, it is important to learn how to solve many of the problems that will occur when coding. The problem with most programmers is that we tend to be lazy, and by taking the time to document your code with comprehendable comments, the easier it is for us to not only go back and fix our own code, but can help others understand our code too. The best tip for writing comments, is to write comments that your past self would understand, so that your future self 10 years from now will understand too!
Recognize that it is okay to struggle! Struggling is a good thing, because it means that we are learning something. So in this next section we will talk about some debugging tips for helping ourselves strive over our problems. The thing that we don’t want however is for you to be stuck! So if you already know about how to debug, and are still struggling with that bug for the past 2 hours you can skip to the next section titled “How to Ask Questions”.
Debugging Your Own Code
You know your code best! And that means the person most qualified to help you, is you. So before you go on to write your question, we should first take some steps to see if we can solve it on our own.
0. Ask yourself questions: What did you expect to happen? What is actually happening? Were your assumptions about your code right? What is the error message trying to tell us? (if there is any)
Photo by Timothy Dykes on Unsplash
READ YOUR CODE! A lot of the times when debugging, there is typically a typo or two that just wreck the functionality of our code, as well, by rereading our code aloud we can clarify what is happening, and why it is happening rather than our expected output. The classic read it to a friend method works for writers, as repeating the words to ourselves in our head can sound different, and since we are typing the majority of the time, it can help us too. The most popular case of this is the rubber ducky method, in which you can read your code like you are trying to explain it to a friend. Do some research! There are hundreds if not thousands of books on programming, and 10 times as many online resources. It is very likely that someone has faced the same problem as you, or has worked on a simular application as you. DO NOT JUST COPY PASTE, but understand it, and how you can apply those same concepts to your own code. If you do copy and paste, not only have you not learned anything, but you won’t be able to understand your own code, in which you should be the expert on!
Using the search bar:
Google is our friend! and understanding how to use the search bar can help us find the results we need quicker! And what better was to learn than threw youtube.
How to Ask Questions
But what if we can’t solve our problem? What if we are still struggling? Well if you have been stuck on your programming problem for a few hours, it’s time to ask for help. Remember that coding is a team sport! And despite some of it’s competitive atmospheres we are a community of helping one another grow. Personally I love helping people when I have the time to. However, time is the most important part of that sentence. I see on many forms how many questions get outright ignored due to the size of the question, and in most cases these questions suffer from NIE and TL;DR. To correctly write a question, there should be one answer! Your goal as a question writer is to help us help you! So how can you do this?
Be Clear
If there is one thing that I want you to take away from this article, it would be this. NIE stands for ‘not enough information’, and are the type of questions I see get ignored most! This is because most coding problems are convoluted and complex. So saying something like “Does anyone have experience with Javascript” or “Why does my function not work” doesn’t get across enough information for someone to help you, and even if there is a response, it will typically be short answers such as “yes”, or “What language are you using?”. NIE creates long threads of questions in order to solve one simple problem, and takes a lot of time away from both you, and the person(s) trying to help you. Instead we will want to be specific about the things that we ask and include into our questions:
The Technologies you are using. Including Version Numbers, and. operating system version. What was Expected, what you are trying to accomplish — what you expect to happen if everything worked. Revelant Code snippets help us see what is happening, and can even spot syntax errors, or typos causing your error. Note that the person you are asking for help from as most likely never seen your code before, and probably doesn’t have the time to sort threw all the doss, so keep it well documented! It could also be useful to link your Repo, with a route to how to get to your file (“github.com/UserName/Example_Project/App/index.json line: 46”). This isn’t always an option, and you may want to keep your project more private, but in doing so, you can help those trying to help you get a direct look at your code and what might be wrong with it. Error Messages (if you have any) are very crucial for debugging process. What you have tried, explain what happened as a result, and what resources you used that just didn’t help. This helps us skip repeating things you have already tried, and find a alternative solution.
Editing your Question
Now that our question contains all the necessary information, we will want to make sure that it is both professional, and well formated so that you don’t get a TLDR (Too Long Didn’t Read), as a result of just sending a plan text email/question.
Professionalism is important in many things we do. And that includes respecting other peoples time, and the things they have to read. We want to make sure that the question we send contains little to no typos, and makes sense. As well, (as obvious as I think this should be) we must ensure that the things we send are family friendly and appropriate! If you are working on a project that may contain content unsuitable towards those conditions, either user censorship, or give a clear warning, so that those who don’t want to see it, don’t have to! This can also get your email placed in spam, or you can be black listed, so just be respectful. We want to be respectful and accepting of all people in the coding community. Titling sections and subsections of our email can help break down the large message we are trying to send. If your question is very complex it may be necessary to separate sections using bold, underline, and italics to help the reader quickly skim threw everything you have to say. People will typically take 15 seconds to examine whether or not they want to keep an email, or delete it, so make it clear what you want, so that when they have more time, they can truly look at your problem and try to help you. Delete the unnessisary words and phrases that might be making your message much longer than it has to be. TLDR. As much as we want to avoid getting sent this as a reply, we can in turn send a TLDR to the person we are asking help from. This should come at the beginning of your message, and will give a short summary about everything your email is about. Your first paragraph is typically going to be what people read first and can either attract or detract peoples interests.
Next Steps
After sending your question, you should be patient, and not ask the same question. Time constraints are definitely stressful, but remember that we are all very much busy people.
Eventually you should get an email back with some proposed solutions to your problem. However, these solutions don’t always work. So this is the time for collaboration!
If: the proposed solutions don’t work for you, simply show them that you tried what they suggested, any error messages, and anything you were inspired by since you posted the questions.
Photo by Daria Volkova on Unsplash | https://medium.com/@makemesenpai/avoiding-nei-tldr-8c3049fa01af | ['Anthony S. Protho'] | 2020-12-03 00:24:21.337000+00:00 | ['Nei', 'Questions', 'Debugging', 'Tldr', 'Programming'] |
Blue Wave 3.0: Georgia on Our Minds: January 4th Mass Ritual | Well, our November 2020 Blue Wave 2.0 spell finally washed Donald Trump out of office and into the flaming dumpster of history. Not bad! I would say 7+ million more popular votes against him is quite the success. It was, in fact, an enormous blue tsunami rejecting authoritarianism and welcoming a return to decency, democracy, and the rule of law.
So—thank you witches and magical people from around the world who helped us push this into the win column.
But now we face the final battle of this election season. And one deplorable monster in particular needs to be cast into the deepest, darkest pit.
That’s right—without taking the Senate back from the increasingly seditious, sycophantic GOP, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will have enormous difficulty fixing the chaotic mess Donald Trump has created.
Georgia, you are on all of our minds.
At 8pm EST on January 4th* 2021, witches and magical people of all faiths and spiritual paths will unite in working a ritual to push Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock to victory in the Senate runoff elections over the criminal, cretinous MAGAts David “Chicken” Perdue and Crooked Kelly Loeffler.
We’re gonna do this, but we need YOU!
*If 8pm EST doesn’t work, join any time!
Components
Blue candle (I recommend a glass-enclosed novena/prayer candle, but any type of candle will do). You can print out and apply the Bind Trump sigil (symbol) to the candle if you wish.
Small red candle (ideally, one that has never been lit)
Black and white printout of the great state of Georgia (you can use the one below; right/control click, save, and print)
A photo of Jon Ossoff (print and use the one below or use your own)
A photo of Raphael Warnock (print and use the one below or use your own)
A photo of David Perdue (to burn)
A photo of Kelly Loeffler (to burn)
A photo of Georgia Congressman and Civil Rights icon John Lewis
Blue paint and brush, crayons, markers, or colored pencils. Blue paint is especially good because it is largely water.
Justice tarot card (or print of one)
Pin or nail (to inscribe candle)
Black marker or pencil
Ashtray or other flameproof container or cauldron
Matches or lighter
Preparation
If you have an altar, use it. If you don’t have an altar, clear a quiet, private space to serve as one. A table or desk top is fine.
If you like incense, burn a fragrance that pleases you.
Use the pin or nail to inscribe the names Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in the wax of the blue candle. If you’re using a prayer/novena candle, carve it into the top of the candle near the wick. Place the candle in a central spot on your altar.
Take the printout of the map of Georgia and place it on your altar space with your blue paints, markers, or pencils.
Sweet and clear as moonlight through the pines
Place the Justice tarot card on your altar. You can lean it up against the blue candle if you’d like.
Place the photos of Ossoff, Warnock, and John Lewis near the blue candle.
With the pin or nail, carve Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in the red candle. If your candle is too small to carve, just say (with contempt) “You are Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue!” while holding the red candle. Place it on your altar in front of the blue candle (lying on its side is fine).
Take the photos of Loeffler and Perdue and draw an X over each of their eyes and across their mouths with the black marker. Place them together on the altar.
Prepare for ritual per your tradition (if you have one), meditate for a moment, or just take a few deep breaths to center yourself. You are now ready to begin.
Optional: as you’re preparing for the ritual and immediately afterward, play any version of Georgia On My Mind (The Ray Charles version is the classic, but Willie Nelson’s would work as well).
Ritual
Light the blue candle, then say:
Hear me, oh spirits
Of Water, Earth, Fire, and Air
Heavenly hosts
and spirits of the ancestors
I call upon you
In this hour of need
And request your aid
To save my country and its people
From the grip of tyrants and evildoers
Raise a mighty blue wave, spirits
A wave of justice, and mercy, and truth
To wash away the corruption
And injustice
And wickedness
Of the Republican Party
Take your paintbrush, marker, or pencil, and begin coloring the map of Georgia. Fill it in completely with blue. During this process, visualize an enormous wave of blue water washing over and cleansing the entire state. You don’t have to be neat and color within the lines — the important thing is that you feel the powerful wave of blue voters filling in the map. Make splashy water noises. Get into it!
When you’re done turning the Georgia map blue, place it (face-up) under the blue candle.
Hold your hands out, palms facing the candle.
Water, may you wash away corruption and injustice
Earth, may you bury the rot and sickness of authoritarianism
Fire, may you fuel the desire of all good people to vote
Air, may you carry truth and honesty on your winds
Pick up the red candle.
Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, by your wickedness, you are broken
Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, by your deception, you are broken
Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, by your corruption, you are broken
Say with absolute contempt and fury:
Your power is broken!
Snap the red candle, feeling the power of the entire GOP breaking and shattering. Hear their howls of despair. Place the pieces of the red candle in front of the blue candle.
Kelly Loeffler, David Perdue, Mitch McConnell, and all Republican traitors and seditionists, you shall be ground to sand beneath the waves
Take the photos of Loeffler and Perdue and light them on fire with the blue candle. Drop them in the ashtray/cauldron and watch them burn. As they turn to ash, feel their power extinguishing.
Again, hold your hands out to the blue candle. Then say, with increasing power while visualizing a huge blue wave rising and washing over a map of Georgia:
Blue Wave, rise!
Blue Wave, wash over Georgia!
Blue Wave, cleanse!
Blue Wave, renew!
Jon Ossoff . . . RISE!
Raphael Warnock . . . RISE!
End the ritual with a prayer, clasping your hands.
May the sword of Justice prevail
May those who have embraced hate find love
May those who have gone astray
Find the path of righteousness
Forgive them, spirits
Break the chains that bind them
Open their eyes
Fill their hearts with mercy
For the sake of democracy
For the sake of the Union
For the sake of the earth
For the sake of all sentient beings
So mote it be!
Allow the blue candle to burn as long as you would like, radiating its energy, with the Ossoff, Warnock, and Lewis photos next to it. When you eventually blow it out, say “thank you.” You may hang onto these as keepsakes.
Dispose of the broken red candle remnants at a crossroads (a trash can or dumpster near a crossroads is ideal), in running water, or bury it in a desolate place. Treat it as if it’s rotten, toxic garbage. | https://medium.com/@michaelmhughes/blue-wave-3-0-georgia-on-our-minds-january-4th-mass-ritual-620f2a24acb | [] | 2021-01-04 20:44:03.908000+00:00 | ['Georgia', 'Senate', 'Magic', 'Resistance', 'Witchcraft'] |
Thing’s newbies need to know before playing at online casinos | Do you want to play at an online casino but don’t know how, what to look for, or which casinos you can rely on? Here, we’ll go over the most important things to keep an eye out for when playing at online casinos, as well as give newcomers some pointers on how to increase their chances of winning.
Let’s start with a few things to keep in mind when selecting an online casino in India (or any other form of gambling).
What you need to know before you gamble
The house always has an advantage: regardless of which online casino games you play in India, the house (the casino) has a statistical advantage. The house does not need to rely on luck to win and make money; all it needs is a sufficient number of players to participate in the games offered. As a result, the math is always on the casino’s side. Always keep in mind that the casino is always on the winning side. Even if they pay out millions of dollars in jackpots to players on a regular basis, the casino always makes a significant profit.
Luck is the most significant success factor:
Unlike in a casino, you must rely on luck to win money as an Indian player — at least in most cases. There are ways to reduce your home advantage over the player by playing smarter and playing longer, but luck is still the most important factor in your success.
Start with a fixed amount of money that you are willing to lose:
Gambling is not a profitable way to earn a living. It is only for entertainment purposes. Decide how much money you can afford to gamble with (and lose forever, if necessary) before you go to the casino (or run the software), and then stick to it. Never borrow more money to make up for what you’ve lost. Set boundaries for yourself. Don’t gamble if you can’t afford to lose money.
Luck streaks don’t last forever:
Consider quitting if you win and have more rupees than you had at the start of the online casino games available in India. Your winning streak will come to an end at some point, and you’ll wonder where all those winnings went. When you’ve made a good profit, take that feeling of accomplishment with you and stop playing.
Bonus programs are noteworthy:
Finally, we recommend that you pay close attention to the casino’s rewards and VIP programmes. These programmes are free, but they may provide you with additional free spins, bonuses, or other benefits. You are already spending rupees to play, so you can benefit from these programmes as well.
Choose the right games
Some games are better than others depending on the type of experience you’re looking for. For example, do you want to try your luck with skill and strategy in order to win some rupees? Or do you prefer to unwind by pressing buttons? Do you want to play with dice, cards, or punch numbers? Or would you rather concentrate on a machine that does the majority of the work for you?
If you want to increase your chances of winning, choose online casino games available in India that require a certain level of skill and strategy while not leaving you broke too quickly. Blackjack, Video poker, Craps, and Baccarat are the games with the best odds for players in India who know how to play and have a low house edge.
We recommend Slots, Roulette, and Keno if you want to have some fun with a simple game.
Roulette is the simplest table game; simply bet on what you believe the little white ball will land on, such as odd or even numbers, red, black, or specific numbers. If you play something like even/even or red/black, you have a nearly 50/50 chance. As a result, the game is fairly uncomplicated. Keno was created to be played on the side while drinking a cocktail, watching TV, smoking a cigarette, or playing other online casino games available in India. The social aspect of keno is still present in the online version, and chat is essential in many games. You select a few numbers from the grid, place a bet, and then wait for your numbers to appear.
What should newcomers to online casinos look out for?
If you’ve never played at an online casino before, it’s important to understand that not all casinos are created equal. We’ve compiled information here to assist you in making the best decision and locating the best casino so you can concentrate on playing your favourite online casino games available in India.
Does a reputable casino software provider run the casino?
Because not all online casinos use the same software, it is critical to select an online casino that is powered by a reputable and trustworthy casino software platform. Companies that create and sell online casino software do not want to tarnish their reputation by licensing software to unethical operators. As a result, they have policies and verification protocols that operators must follow.
Where is the casino licensed?
Casinos that take their business seriously obtain a licence from a trustworthy and reputable jurisdiction. It is not easy to obtain a gaming licence in a reputable jurisdiction. Typically, these licensing authorities impose strict rules to ensure the operator’s credibility — several jurisdictions around the world licence online casino operators and their forms of gaming.
When was the casino established?
Online casinos that have been around for a long time have generally established themselves in the industry due to their longevity. A simple rule of thumb states that a casino that was discovered several years ago and is still on the market is a safe and reputable casino that has built a reputation among players. This is not to say that new online casinos are not trustworthy. They usually are, but before you deposit your rupees, make sure to check the casino’s rating.
READ MORE GAMING RELATED NEWS HERE:
Why Online Gaming in India Needs Regulation
Trinity Gaming Joins with Chemin Esports to Fuel Growth Plans
Nodwin Gaming Declares Valorant Conquerors Championship 2022 with Riot Games | https://medium.com/@amitweb/things-newbies-need-to-know-before-playing-at-online-casinos-22a754068085 | ['Amit Kr'] | 2021-12-30 09:05:46.428000+00:00 | ['Money', 'Games', 'Online Casino', 'Casino', 'News'] |
A Toothpick at Every Meal | When I got off the plane in Oklahoma, I smiled at an old man with creased jeans and bright white shoes. His hands were spotted, and they curled as they adjusted his mesh hat. I scooted by him off the ramp and into the airport, which gleamed from a recent renovation, proud of its new stone and glass. Oklahoma. I spent my childhood in Edmond saying things like “y’all” and running and climbing and throwing and kicking. I also baked some cookies with my Grandma at the oddly perfect hour of midnight.
Grandma lived in a blue house with Grandpa on a square acre with a strawberry garden and pecan trees. My sister and I would pull bagworms off the evergreens and look for inchworms hanging from the mimosa tree. Sometimes the pecan trees would have webbed nests full of insects. In the summer we would sit on an ice cream maker and turn the handle till our arms were sore and our backsides frozen. Peach ice cream was the best.
When I was eleven, my family left Oklahoma and there it was, a funny-shaped state in the center of the country. I didn’t think about it much, until one day I did. I thought about “y’all” and neatly creased jeans and the tidiness of the Great Plains. And so there I was, heading out of the airport in a blue rental car, rain pelting the windshield as I turned onto the flatness that goes on and on and on.
Everything seems newly pressed to me in Oklahoma: accents, expressions, gestures, left turn signals. The rain reminded me of a regular day I’d spent in the car with my family when I was maybe eight, driving in the rain shopping for a bed or something. There must have been a special atmosphere for me to remember that day for no particular reason. The rain turned the roads into slick black outlines that defined the city. In Oklahoma you can see in front of you for a long way until there’s no focus, just a smudge. I find this comforting, like being out at sea and looking way, way out, as if your eyes could catch a particle of light and get carried away at that fast speed.
On the road, someone spun out five minutes ahead of me. It’s hard to stay focused on a bare slick outline of a city. Things like lampposts catch my attention. So tidy. I remember them being decorated with glitter and gold on the way to my grandparents’ house for Christmas. I was on my way to my grandma’s house now. The rain subsided and a softness rose up around the cars and buildings.
Grandpa died when I was twelve, in a terrible fire brought on by a faulty air compressor in the garage. Grandpa was the one who pretended to scratch my teddy bear’s belly. He liked to sit on a magical beige lazy boy with a newspaper. When I ran by he would reach out to grab me, but I was fast. Grandpa also let me ride his small motorbike around the backyard, and he let me crash it on the sidewalk and bend the handlebars, which he said was “customizing it.” I don’t remember crying when I hit the ground because I loved speeding through the pecan trees and singing to myself about being a bird.
Grandma mowed the yard and clipped the trees and pulled the weeds and painted the house by herself until her eighty-second birthday. This is when I understood about Oklahoma and the frontier, and the Great Depression and the Second World War, and about being tough on the outside, reserved, maybe a little suspicious, maybe a lot. At eighty-three, she decided she’d mowed enough grass, sold the house, and moved into an apartment building that’s also a senior center. She moved her belongings and her memories of Grandpa, and packed up all the small family souvenirs stretching back to her grandmother leaving Germany for good.
I pulled into the parking lot of the yellowing building from the 1960s with the funky entrance in the shape of an upside-down pyramid. Grandma was waiting behind the sliding doors in a pressed denim outfit that she had made. Her gold sneakers and white curls made me think of visiting long ago and those midnight cookies.
Grandma’s apartment was full of flowers, lace, and her paintings of birds, ladies, cats, and Jesus at the Last Supper. Things from the old house had been miniaturized for the small space, but it was otherwise the same. The ginger cookies were already made. Grandma says things like “warsh” and “Oh, I don’t know.” She uses the world “anyhow” as a conjunction. Sometimes, too, she calls me “babydoll.”
Grandma grew up completely in Oklahoma City, born and raised. There was a forty-year break in there, spent in Indiana, but then she returned. Her high school is down the road. Her family home is down the road. Her grade-school friend is down the road. All of these things I find remarkable. My equivalents are scattered across the country, losing meaning at a steady pace. So when she talks about her mother living in Colorado with her many sisters and her needlepoint shop, I hang on so that I can understand and make pictures in my mind.
People pass away and become two sentences, if they’re lucky. “She was a kind woman.” “He was a drinker.” “They liked to fish, hunt, and make paintings of flowers and animals.” That last one described my great-great aunts, who lived in the hills of Colorado until they were a hundred years old. Their names were Bertha and Fannie, and my sister saw one of them mentioned on her hundredth birthday on the Today show in the late 1980s. In one photograph, my great-grandfather is handsome and giving beer to a dog. “He was a strict man.” “He wanted grandma to be a boy.” Do I hold on to these sentences and pass them along? Should I write them on the back of the photograph?
Grandma has a cedar chest full of dainty things neatly wrapped in tissue and plastic: handmade handkerchiefs with needlepoint designs, little bags, gloves, and hair clips. They are mainly everyday things, only from a hundred years ago. In one bag there is a mink stole made of seven individual minks with faces intact, each biting the leg of the one ahead of it. I try it on and I too could have been one of the great-great aunts, one of the sisters. My mom (born and raised in Ireland, a different family tree) likes to say I take after my dad’s side when she’s annoyed with me. It’s not meant to be mean, and it’s hard to deny when I learn that my obsessive drawing habits — birds, animals, plants — are direct descendants of all the bird, animal, and plant paintings that my grandma’s family made.
We head out to a fast-ish food restaurant, the kind that Oklahoma is good at. People are genuinely nice, asking how we are, calling us “honey” in a no-frills way. We eat platters of cheese and lettuce and sour cream. Grandma picks precisely at her meal, edging small bits into place, tucking in their corners, sharpening their outlines. Tidy and perfect and proud, because we’re in the middle of a funny shaped state in the middle of the country. No one has come to check in on us and we’re scooting the lettuce across the plate, thinking about wide-open spaces and the stillness that happens deep in the middle of your mind. As we walk out, grandma asks if I’d like a toothpick. I pause for a second then say “Sure, thanks.” I put it in my pocket for another day. | https://medium.com/spiralbound/a-toothpick-at-every-meal-a1f5feb7ac97 | ['Amy Jean Porter'] | 2017-12-13 14:01:01.838000+00:00 | ['Gouache', 'Illustration', 'Oklahoma', 'Memories', 'Family'] |
Remembrance of first two weeks at Amal academy: | Remembrance of first two weeks at Amal academy:
I remember that first glance and initial days of fellowship. My first day with fellowship was quite interesting, when I have to wake up early after so long with chirping sound of birds as alarm tone and just like a little student who woke up for school after his summer vacation.
Joining the session as a team member i saw a lot of new faces in a zoom meeting for the first time with their camera’s turned On. XD It was something i was feeling odd in my first days making my self comfortable with all these zoom sessions and interacting with different people was challenge for me i was not an introvert from beginning that Arousha was not who i know and i have to REMIND THAT TO MY SELF. I was wondering looking at those skilled faces and listening to their voices, questioning myself If I’m good as they are? Are they going to like me or just pass stares. - _-
But All of this was games in my mind because We over think alot which is an art of creating problem that weren’t even there and I’m expert at that.
Okay back to story:
I was so surprised when my teacher’s Sir Zeeshan and Ma’am Huda gave us break for 15 minutes, but it wasn’t like a traditional break we had in our past online session experience, It was a MUSIC BREAK.
If i take myself back at that time, staying in my house after testing positive for COVID-19 on 23 March , All positivity around negativity is not allowed to enter. XD
Sharing some shots from my rooftop where i sit for hour’s, having tea, eating cheetos, enjoying the view and yes videocalling and gossiping with everyone. (^_-)
Looking at all these snaps take me back to those golden days and remind me of beautiful moments | https://medium.com/@aroushasultan123/remembrance-of-first-two-weeks-at-amal-academy-9c660eb89a31 | [] | 2021-06-11 20:24:26.434000+00:00 | ['Amal Academy', 'My Beloved Amal Academy', 'Amal Totkay', 'Experience', 'Positive Thinking'] |
Why ESG is only slowly making inroads into Venture Capital — and what can be done to speed this up? | Why ESG is only slowly making inroads into Venture Capital — and what can be done to speed this up? Katalin Siklosi Jun 8·8 min read
(this article states the personal opinion of the author only)
The awareness of investors, funds and companies towards ESG (environmental, social governance) matters has tremendously increased during the past years, even the COVID-19 pandemic has not reversed the trend towards more sustainability. The extent of implementation of ESG policies on either the fundraising side or the investment side varies towards investment focus, scope of shareholdings (majority/minority shareholdings) and fund size and finding only slowly its way into Venture Capital (“VC”).
A. The importance of VC Firms and lessons learned from the past
VC companies play a critical role when it comes to shaping the future of technology, industry and society. Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google, as examples, started with venture capital. More importantly, the products and services they offer had (and still have) a great impact on an unprecedented number of industries (e.g. marketing, communication, retail etc.). Uber, DoorDash and Airbnb, kind of the “next generation Googles” were also funded with venture capital at the beginning and fundamentally transformed industries such as transportation, housing and restaurants.
At the same time, many of the mentioned and other VC companies have run into major challenges when it comes to their business model and the management of the key stakeholders. It is well remembered that social media platforms faced and increasing scrutiny to their business model when it comes to selling user data or managing democracy and human rights.
Consequently, investors, governments and the general public are taking a much closer look at how the foundational values and practices related to management of societal impacts were considered in the earliest stage of companies. Coming from these experience, it should be clear, that the consideration of ESG at an early stage might help to avoid such challenges.
B. ESG risks and opportunities for VCs
I. Peculiarities of the VC model
ESG matters are treated differently in VC compared to Private Equity or multinational companies, taking into account the peculiarities of the VC model, namely the following, what is also the reason why ESG is not as prominent in VCs as, for example, in Private Equity funds:
- Capacity
Both, the portfolio companies and the VC teams’ focus is testing, refining and driving the business models. This responsibility and priority already ties up many of the capacities in the mostly small teams. ESG matters normally, therefore, are a not first ranked priority and receive less attention.
- Business Model
VC backend companies’ business models are evolving business models. This means they can and often must shift direction to adapt to a changing demand or new developments. Such changes may bring new and/or unforeseen ESG risks and/or opportunities to which the company has quickly to adapt, which again would tie up capacities. Additionally, each adaption bears the risk of either violating the VC fund’s or the company’s ESG strategy (if any implemented).
- Governance
Studies have shown, that the corporate housekeeping, in particular, setting up internal policies and procedures, in early stage companies is not a board’s priority. VC companies normally have only small boards typically consisting of founders and investors compared to those of public companies where a directors are responsible for legal, regulatory, audit, risk, corporate social responsibility etc.
- Reputation
Sentiment analysis (e.g. CBInsights Mosaic or Pitchbook) track reputation of ventures through social media and news media by looking for the total volume of discussion relative to peer companies as well as the overall sentiment of what is said. Those analysis show, that companies being embroiled in ESG controversies often receive disproportionate negative media attention which can have a debilitating effect on a pre-profit company that is looking for investors and customers.
- Limited influence
Most of the VC funds normally invest only minority stakes in companies. Their influence, therefore, is rather limited and decreases with further financing rounds and a dilution of the VC’s stake in the company (if no further investments are made). The more the company grows and the valuation increases, however, ESG matters and managing ESG risks become more and more important. Especially in that stage of the growth cycle, VC fund’s influence on handling ESG matters and risks diminishes, unless there is a good relationship to the management and the importance of this topic can be addressed.
The above mentioned aspects show, that ESG matters should not be disregarded even in early stage / VC companies. The challenge lies in finding the balance between not tying up too much capacities and imposing a too strict framework as well as giving the company enough space for development and growth.
II. Extent of ESG Measures Depends on the Investment Cycle
The ESG matters a VC fund and the portfolio company need to focus on depend on the stage of the investment/growth cycle. In early stage investments, it is essential that key ESG issues relevant to the business (model) are well understood and identified. Based on this understanding, an ESG focused culture should be created already in the earlier days — the smaller the company the easier to implement (seen from a process related perspective). This process is accompanied by identifying priority actions to detect and manage ESG matters.
The more a company grows, the more the business model evolves (or vice versa). During such growth phase, the ESG risks and opportunities need to be re-assessed on a regular basis and any policies or strategies implemented shall be adapted if required. At such stage, formal management systems for managing ESG issues can be developed and implemented, starting with a basic system. It should be ensured that sufficient resources are allocated to the management of key ESG issues. This is also accompanied by a clear allocation of responsibilities, for both, the day-to-day management and on the board level. As a last step, an ESG monitoring and reporting of KPIs will be introduced to make any changes visible.
C. How to integrate ESG at VC funds
Beside integrating ESG only in portfolio companies, fund managers can integrated ESG matters/strategies throughout the whole fund life cycle — from fundraising, to investing, holding and the exit of a portfolio company, which is already seen at some VC funds. The good practice of Private Equity funds can be taken as a starting point for VC funds, but it requires certain adaption to the VC peculiarities as set out above.
I. Responsible Investment Policy (Fundraising)
VC funds can implement a responsible investment policy, which sets out the funds’ overall values and mission, commitment to integrate ESG factors to better manage risk and generate sustainable long-term returns. It further clearly states and explains the relevance of ESG issues to the fund’s investment strategy. Especially for VC funds, it is important that the policy is reviewed once or twice a year to be able to adapt to any changes in the VC fund environment in order to reflect new ESG matters and experience made through the management system. There are two further common documents, in which ESG topics can be addressed. First, in the fund thesis which lays out the overall objective of a fund and which provides an opportunity for dialogue with LP’s about broader goals beyond financial returns. Second, the LP-GP term sheet which normally sets forth the terms and conditions including financial returns, management fees, profit distribution. The term sheet can also contain provisions for ESG due diligence and reporting of major risks, which is common practice for Private Equity funds.
II. ESG Requirements (Sourcing/Due Diligence)
When implementing the management system, the ESG requirements the VC fund intends to apply to its portfolio companies (and potentially during the sourcing and due diligence process) must be clearly stated. The ESG requirements vary from VC fund to VC fund and mainly depend on its investment focus (geographically / industry). Sourcing and investing may be easier for VC funds, if it is agreed that ESG requirements shall be implemented within an appropriate timeline and specifying certain milestones. It is self-evident, that ESG requirements set forth by local laws and regulations where the company operates and ILO’s core conventions (forced labor, child labor, discrimination etc.) are complied with. Further, it can be advisable to define and implement an exclusion list containing sectors/industries which are per se out of scope/prohibited for any investment.
III. ESG Roles and Responsibilities (Active Management)
ESG roles and responsibilities shall be clearly defined within both, the company and the fund. Ideally (and to avoid to get lost in translation), ESG responsibility is assigned to one member of the investment team or a board member respectively. That approach will secure consistency and allows for concentration of knowledge, skills and experience. An intensive dialogue with the management of the portfolio companies is essential. Setting board level policies on corporate social responsibility and risk management might be a good tool to get all investors in the syndicate on the same page of goals.
IV. ESG Reporting and Disclosure
An annual ESG report shall be prepared no matter if LP’s have asked for such or not. Summarizing current ESG issues and evaluating ESG data brings added value to both, the investors and the fund itself. The metrics tracked in such report provide an insight on improvements over time and where is still room for improvement. Additionally, such data potentially may help with fundraising and with regard to an exit. In case a VC fund decides not to prepare an annual ESG report, it should at least track data about serious incidents and — if required — report to LPs. Such serious incidents include fatalities, severe injuries, harassment, material breaches of the law, strikes and major fires. If such an incident happen, investigations should identify the root of causes and accidents and identify corrective actions to be taken. The UNPRI has established an ESG reporting and disclosure framework which either can be used as guidance or can be implemented, with the necessary amendments, where appropriate, directly by the VC fund.
D. Outlook
When taking a look at the VC investment trends for the next decade, it becomes clear, that a further disruption of certain industries will take place. Some of the most important frontier technologies, where VCs are currently investing in are:
- Public Health & Biosecurity: Synthetic Biology/Longevity & Anti-Aging/Gene Editing
- Public Safety & Security: Microsatellites/IoT/Self-Driving Cars
- Cybersecurity: 5G/Quantum Computing/Blockchain & Cryptocurrency
- Elections & Democracy: AI-Synthetic Image & Speech/Mobile Voting
Those frontier technologies and the up-coming disruption of certain industries provide a new level of urgency for early stage investors to evaluate and manage impacts of new technologies on society.
E. Summary
ESG slowly but steadily takes inroads into VC, mainly driven by the overall growing importance of ESG. The good practice and performance of Private Equity funds show, that investments and ESG are not exclusive. It is important, that the handling of the ESG risks and opportunities is adapted to the peculiarities coming along with the VC’s investment approach. For early stage portfolio companies a phased roll-out seems to be advisable in order not to tie up too many capacities and to prepare both, the board and the employees step-by-step to consider ESG matters in the decision making process and in the business model. Therefore, in each stage of a fund’s life cycle, ESG can and will find its role. VC funds should consider, that when it comes to an exit, the portfolio companies will be screened from an ESG perspective as well. VC funds adapting an ESG policy in the early stage followed by a continuous roll-out and improvement might profit from this. | https://medium.com/@katalin-siklosi/why-esg-is-only-slowly-making-inroads-into-venture-capital-and-what-can-be-done-to-speed-this-up-c5c6c4ff12d3 | ['Katalin Siklosi'] | 2021-06-08 22:19:00.926000+00:00 | ['Esg', 'Venture Capital', 'Investment'] |
Message Queue dengan Google Cloud Pub/Sub | Easy read, easy understanding. A good writing is a writing that can be understood in easy ways
Follow | https://medium.com/easyread/message-queue-dengan-google-cloud-pub-sub-d22919e398f6 | ['Ilyas Ahsan'] | 2019-01-21 15:27:25.131000+00:00 | ['Message Queue', 'Realtime', 'Pub Sub', 'Python', 'Google Cloud Platform'] |
To Hell With The Homeless | FICTION
To Hell With The Homeless
Photo by Jonathan Kho on Unsplash
I finally found a warm pavement under the cold winter clouds. It seemed like an evaporating oasis in this desert. My hope began to ebb with the warmth of the pavement.
Maybe my eyes were blinded by this illusion of wealth. At least back home, I wouldn’t be sleeping on the pavement. I don’t even have enough to go back home. I’m stuck in this hell of wealth.
Some of the others who came with me freed themselves from this trap. Some freed themselves by jumping into the river under the bridge we came across. Some freed themselves by committing crimes. The ones who got caught now lay in the warmth of the prison. The taxpayers’ money is going to feed and shelter criminals in prisons, while I wallow in this mire of unkindness.
I’m not a coward to choose death to free myself of this trap. And I’m still a man of God despite all this trouble, there is no way I would commit a crime for a piece of bread.
I don’t understand why the criminals get shelter while I have to look for warm pavements.
Right now, all I can think of was the warmth of my home. The soothing scent of jasmine under the humid moon, and a light breeze. Back then, I saw the TV and immediately decided that I had to come here. But here I am, in an open prison on the road.
I can walk on my own. I have never needed someone’s help to walk. But in this new land, I don’t know the roads well. I just wish someone would take the time to show me the path. Even god seems to care only about the rich and powerful here. Only the rich and the criminals seem to live in comfort here.
Right then, a police officer walked up to me.
“It’s illegal to sleep on the pavement next to the coal furnace. You are under arrest… “
What a wonderful world! Despite not turning to crime, I now get to sleep in the warmth with the criminals.
As the policemen beat me bloody, my nose busted up, my teeth are broken, my soul crushed, I began to talk to God,
“You know why I won’t go to hell after I die? Because there isn’t a thing I haven’t seen here.” | https://medium.com/weeds-wildflowers/to-hell-with-the-homeless-efe47ef2fa49 | [] | 2020-11-15 21:47:50.690000+00:00 | ['Politics', 'Society', 'Fiction', 'Immigration', 'Homeless'] |
What is Machine Learning? | According to Arthur Samuel (1959),
It is a field of study that gives computer ability to learn without being explicitly programmed.
But, how is a computer supposed to learn? Tom Mitchell says that
A computer program is said to learn from experience E with respect to task T and some performance measure P, if its performance on T, as measured by P improves with experience E.
For example: Playing Checkers (Btw Arthur Samuel’s Checkers playing program was among the world’s first successful self-learning programs.) Here,
E = the experience of playing many games of checkers
T = the task of playing checkers
P = the probability that the program will win the next game.
Broadly, there are three types of Machine Learning Algorithms:
Supervised Learning Unsupervised Learning Reinforcement Learning
Supervised Learning:
Here, we are the teachers. We tell the system what the correct answer is and train it until the system begins to predict with an acceptable level of accuracy. We can further group it into Regression and Classification.
Regression: Suppose, you have a dataset of students’ reading habits and their performance in the exam. Then you plot ‘Hours Studied’ vs ‘Test Grade’.
Hours Studied vs Test Grade
You can clearly see that if you studied more you can get good grades. So, the system devises a function Y = f(x) [or ŷ = wx + b where w is the slope, x is hours studied and b is y-intercept]. We train the system to devise a function with minimum error possible. Then, if a new student comes and claims that he/she studies 5 hours a day, we can predict that he can get a certain test grade.
Classification: Let’s suppose we have a dataset for breast cancer and we have features like Age and Tumor Size.
Classification for Supervised Learning
Based on our data, the algorithm will create a mapping function Y = f(x). Then, when we provide new data, it will predict whether breast cancer is malignant or benign based on Tumor Size and Age. Generally, we will have many more features (Clump thickness, Uniformity of Cell Size, Uniformity of Cell Shape, etc) to determine whether 1(Malignant) or 0(Benign) [Binary Classification].
Unsupervised Learning:
Here, we are not given the right answer. Here’s the data. Do what you want to do with it. Algorithms are left on their own to devise and discover the interesting structure in the data. We can further group it into Clustering and Association Algorithms.
Clustering
Clustering Algorithm: It groups similar things together. We don’t provide any labels but the system understands the data and can differentiate it based on features it finds. One example where clustering is used is Google News. It groups similar news from different sites in cohesive groups.
Association Algorithm: Here is the data, find an association.
At a basic level, it analyzes data for patterns, or co-occurrence in a database and identifies if-then associations which are called association rules. In a grocery store, if we know that certain items are frequently bought together and they are on the same shelf, buyers of one item would be prompted to buy another. Promotional discounts and advertisements could then be forced on the customer’s throat.
Let’s consider, itemset1 = {bread, milk} & itemset2 = {bread, shampoo}. You can guess that itemset1 will have higher support (a measure of how frequent itemset is in all transactions) than itemset2.
If a cart has {bread} in it, {milk} has higher confidence (a measure of likeliness of occurrence of itemset if cart already has items) than {shampoo}.
Reinforcement Learning:
Here, the machine is exposed to an environment where it trains itself continually using trial and error. This machine learns from past experiences and tries to capture the best possible knowledge to make accurate business decisions.
Eg: You have an agent and reward, with many hurdles in between.
Robot, Diamond, Fire
The goal of the robot here is to get to the reward (diamond) avoiding the hurdles (fire). The robot learns by trying all the possible paths and choosing the path which gives him the reward with the least hurdles. Each right step will give the robot a reward and each wrong step will subtract the reward of the robot. The total reward will be calculated when it reaches the final reward. | https://blog.bajratechnologies.com/what-is-machine-learning-3f5709313cf3 | ['Subash Basnet'] | 2020-02-14 10:10:56.373000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Supervised Learning', 'Reinforcement Learning', 'Unsupervised Learning', 'Technical'] |
5 Ways Men Who Manage Women Treat Us Like Crap | Whether I’ve worked in a traditional office, held a retail job, or worked remotely for a startup, most of my bosses have been men. With time I’ve found I have a limit for the bullshit male managers inflict upon female employees. I’m not alone. Most women have more than one cringe-worthy story about a male boss who treated them poorly--and in a way he'd never treat a man.
This story is long overdue, but I’ve been up to my elbows in emotional labor for basically… my whole life. Like most women. Sorry for the delay, guys! That said, let's look at five ways men in management belittle women--likely without even realizing it.
1. Telling us to smile.
What is it about men telling women to smile, anyway? All my life, men have complained that my natural (and neutral) look is too aloof.
Well, I am a decidedly introverted thinker. Getting lost in thought is not a female or male thing, yet men--and frequently, male bosses--are so quick to tell their female employees to smile at all times. Smile more! Smile bigger! You look so good when you smile. It's bloody patronizing.
And it’s not even an issue of bosses telling employees in customer service or those who face the public to be friendly. I’m talking about the flippant instruction men constantly give to women and women alone. "You should smile more..." as if all a female's problems in the workplace might be solved by her own image and (perceived) attitude.
Does it matter how others see you? Sometimes. But why does it matter so much more for female employees?
Men are not told to smile more--and they are certainly not expected to be “smiley” in general. But we also don't chastise them for appearing too aloof. There’s a reason why resting bitch face is typically used to criticize women but not men.
Telling women to smile is only the beginning of promoting this notion that we females were born to be excessively compliant. It also sends out the message that our value rests upon our ability to please men visually. Rather than the actual work we do in the workplace.
2. Assuming we’re overreacting if we voice a concern.
As a conscientious employee, it’s sometimes necessary to relay information your boss doesn’t want to hear. But good luck being the bearer of potentially bad news if you are a female employee speaking to a male boss.
Years ago when I still worked in an office, I made a lateral move within my company to get out of a call center. My three-person department managed third-party collections accounts, and my role handled all client bankruptcies for North America. Since this company is a “global provider of water, hygiene and energy technologies and services to the food, energy, healthcare, industrial and hospitality markets,” we're talking about many, many clients. At the time of my transition, we had recently acquired a wastewater management company along with a pest elimination services business.
Our single corporation was effectively multiple companies, and we were just beginning to take on SAP ERP with the intention to retire the old Mainframe. That meant I worked in three systems, required two screens, and received a new stack of bankruptcy paperwork more than a foot high every single day.
Two things became quickly evident. First, our department was understaffed for the amount of work coming in. It was impossible to process every bankruptcy and not get blindsided by some write-offs. Since management had recently changed, I brought this to the attention of the new manager. He did nothing but authorize me to work overtime on the backlog.
Neither he nor the next boss would grasp that I wasn’t simply overreacting or getting too emotional about my job. I wasn’t just overwhelmed. I hit my wit's end. Although I repeatedly came to management with a reality check about how behind we were, and I made great strides in automating processes and going electronic whenever possible, neither man took me seriously about the inherited backlog.
The other issue was that the scope of the daily work outmatched the actual job description and pay grade. The other female on my team was at the same grade level, and together we petitioned management to consider bumping our grade up to reflect our actual positions. Crazy, I know.
Our manager scheduled a meeting to discuss the matter all together, but when we sat down with him we discovered he had made a list ahead of time. It outlined all of the reasons he believed we were wrong and how our roles reflected the proper pay grade. Rather than discuss the matter and hear from us, he read off the list right off the bat.
Essentially, he listed everything he thought every “Grade 6” person did that we didn’t do. Except that every item on his list was something we did... and we told him so. Our boss reshaped his argument. “Well, those must be exceptions and not the rule,” he insisted. He was not only clueless about what we did every single day, but determined to prove us wrong without listening.
When my coworker finally said she could see he was going to refute everything we said so she had nothing else to add, our manager paused, jotted a note to himself and proudly announced, “I just thought of another one. Professionalism.” He looked thoroughly pleased with himself as he droned on about how Grade 6 employees were more professional than Grade 5s--insinuating that none of the daily work we did mattered because we would still never be professional enough.
I get it. Male managers love to tell a female employee that she's unprofessional every time she tells them something they don’t want to hear. We're not supposed to disagree, discuss our pay and worth, or bring up uncomfortable issues.
It happened to me again earlier this year even though I'm now a remote contractor for an internet startup. After being with the company since the beginning (nearly four years now), I brought up some concerns. For one thing, I asked why I wasn’t getting new accounts assigned as usual and what I could do to change that.
I kept getting the runaround from my male manager, so I went to the owner. I was upfront about my awkwardness to bring up the issue, but that it was causing me sleepless nights worrying about the future of my position so I hoped to get to the bottom of the matter. Was I doing something wrong? Could I improve my work somewhere in particular?
The owner set up a meeting with me where he laid out a list of reasons why he believed I was wrong and making a big deal about nothing. I could taste the deja vu from my previous male boss. Nothing I said was remotely taken seriously. Everything was assumed. And once again, I discovered this guy was completely out-of-touch since his "proof" wasn't even factual.
Of course, to top it all off, he too brought up professionalism. The message was clear--it’s unprofessional for me to question anything. How dare I be assertive of my rights in the workplace!
When a man asks unpopular questions, speaks up about why he deserves a raise, or suggests a more effective way to handle a process, we don’t call him unprofessional. It’s different when a woman does the same damn thing. Ugh. She's a nag or squeaky wheel. So unprofessional. As a result, too many male bosses are dismissive of anything their female workers say.
Hey, don't mind me, boys. I'm just being overly emotional. Again.
3. Downplaying our knowledge and experience.
If you want to make your business better, it makes sense to collect the input of your people who are doing the actual day-to-day work. Yet I’ve found that I can work at a business for years and still not hold the same weight as a man who’s been around less than half my time.
It’s rare for me to work with a male manager who genuinely respects a woman’s experience in her own field. Most of my male bosses have not only mansplained day in and day out, but they've also taken the credit for a woman’s idea after first ignoring it fifty times.
Trying to simply be heard in the workplace is a challenge for far too many women, all because of a gender bias that still flourishes today. And no, that's not to say that all male bosses do it, nor does it mean that men don't experience gender bias themselves. But this bias is still prevalent and hurting women in the workplace.
Women are supposed to have the same rights as men at work. Yet men who speak their minds, stand up for themselves, and value their own contributions are applauded as leadership material, while women who do the same things are viewed as troublemakers.
American workplaces are still affected by the boy's club. Even when you work remotely. A male coworker has been late on his weekly tasks for more than a year. Last Thanksgiving I finally brought it up and explained how it impaired my ability to deliver my piece of the product. Management replied that they knew he was busy because he had a new baby.
You know, as the single mom of a four-year-old who's never been in daycare and doesn't go to pre-school (because I can't afford it), I am keenly aware of the fallout if I were to become that working mom who misses her deadlines. Again, we expect that moms are going to get their shit done. Dads get an entirely different set of standards. We set the bar lower for men.
4. Suggesting we should be “sweet.”
People often describe me as an incredibly sweet person. Trust me, that's no humblebrag--it's simply because I'm shy and introverted, and do my best to be polite to others. I'm doing nothing special, but I dislike conflict, and especially hate being the instigator, so I try to pick my battles. That means two things.
First, if I'm bringing up an uncomfortable issue, it's been on my mind for a long time. I'm not too hotheaded, so I think a good deal about my position and typically ask others for advice before starting something. That also means I'm pretty damn awkward--hello, asperger's--and I'm honest about my trepidation when I do have to begin a tough conversation.
It turns out that I can't seem to properly pad these conversations to the liking of any male boss. No matter how much I avoid accusatory statements and ask if I'm doing something wrong, men above me can't seem to help themselves from responding to my concerns with the suggestion that I simply adjust my attitude to be sweeter.
Women who bring up concerns at work are more likely to be considered Negative Nancies, while men who do it are proactive. Nearly a year ago when I asked the male boss why I wasn't getting new clients, he had nothing negative to say about the quaility of my work. He claimed that if there had been a problem, my manager would have said so.
Something that was a problem? My disposition. He brought up the fact that months earlier I had talked to my manager about a pay cut for blogs. As kindly and gently as possible, I explained that the 60% pay cut didn't help any writer create a better blog post. I pulled research from industry regarding typical starting pay and the time it takes to research and write a blog of a particular length. I explained it was tough to even hit minimum wage with the decrease.
At the end of the day, I was pretty nice about the whole thing because I merely brought the issue to management's attention. I made no demands. I ran past every email by a fellow writer to check my tone before sending my replies. And I told my manager that I understood if a change wasn't in the budget, but I felt it wrong to say nothing and pretend like the decrease didn't impact quality.
None of that mattered. Months later, the owner brought it up and suggested I need to be more aware of the way I sound when I communicate. "You know, It’s true that you catch more flies with honey," he said. And then he went on to posit that my manager might hesitate to give me new accounts if I don’t think they’re paying me enough.
Like no dude in the history of work ever asked for a raise or contested a pay cut. Sure...
Taking the idea even further, the owner said if I'm going to be in the communucation business, I should accept that it doesn't matter what I mean in any given situation. The only thing that matters is how others interpret my meaning. Therefore, I owed my manager an apology for even bringing up the blog pay.
Apparently this communication rule doesn't run upstream, since it hasn't mattered when management comes across as rude or nepotistic.
Ugh. All of this dribble extends from the sexist mentality that women in the workplace are supposed to be syrupy sweet. We're there to be pleasing--not to make waves. It's deemed completely appropriate to tell a woman she needs to be sweeter, more approachable, and friendlier in the workplace--and all of that means only one thing. Don't complain. Don't say there's anything you don't like in the workplace. If we don't like it we can work elsewhere.
Men aren't told to be sweet at work. Nor are they told to apologize for telling an employer or business that their services are worth more. They aren't penalized for agreeing to disagree. But of course, men also aren't expected to be 1000% compliant. The standards are different for men and women, with the latter being expected to not only comply, but to bend over backwards if need be.
It's not too different from the way we expect mothers to be more selfless than fathers. Enough people believe it's the natural order of the universe.
5. Using our personal lives against us.
This one is a little bit more insidious, I think. But time and time again, I've seen male bosses treat men and women differently by making a work issue personal for women. It's one more way to invalidate our experience and feelings. Of course, feelings never have a place in the workplace, right?
Oh yeah. It's only a woman's emotions which are unacceptable at work. Shoot, men can get offended by a woman's attitude or demeanor every damn day. HR will support that.
Back when I had my last office job processing bankruptcies? My female coworker and I went to HR about issues with our manager, including the fact that he refused to listen to any of our actual experiences on the job.
We were more than willing to agree to disagree. We were even alright with our manager telling us a raise simply wasn't in the budget. But we weren't okay with thinly veiled insults about our professionalism because we dared to begin an uncomfortable dialogue.
There were men around us in the next pay grade who streamed movies all day in their cubicles, sound on. Men who made up answers on the fly to any given request instead of researching the correct answer. Management didn't question their professionalism. Meanwhile they fired a top performer in the call center for surfing Facebook from her phone on downtime.
In the end, HR was clear that my coworker and I were making "serious allegations" against our boss and it wasn't a favorable position. Luckily, the manager stepped down and according to our male team member, had "vowed to never take a management position in the company again." Good. We were glad. With the way he treated his people--especially women--he had no business in management.
Years ago when I was looking for new work after an early divorce, I applied for an administrative assistant position for some aircraft-related R&D office. The hiring manager liked me as a candidate, but during the interview said he hesitated to hire me because of my age (early-twenties). "You're going to be around a lot of salesmen," he warned. I don't recall his exact words but he explained I'd have to be alright with bad behavior. Inappropriate jokes. Boy's club stuff.
This was before Mad Men was even created, but I still remember my shock that I was being asked to overlook potentially illegal and unethical behavior from men if I wanted the job. But hey, it's easier to subject women to shitty treatment in the workplace than it is to expect better behavior from men. A woman's wounded feelings are a real pain in the ass, right? Women take things personally. We don't need to set the already low bar any higher for men... just tell the ladies to chill the fuck out.
And last year, when I spoke to the male owner in an attempt to find out why I wasn't getting new clients? He couldn't help but bring up my personal life--namely, my feelings. In an effort to convey that I was making a big deal about nothing, he brought up an Instagram post I'd made about 6 months earlier. A purely personal post where I admitted my move from Minnesota to Tennessee had been very hard and lonely. I said I was tired of thinking I was on my way to finding my tribe but realizing I was back at square one.
It was a personal post I had every right to make, and I had legitimate reasons to be frustrated, but I wasn't insulting anyone. I simply spoke of my feelings and circumstances. His wife, however, clearly took offense to the post and chastised me in a public reply. She basically called me ungrateful, and suggested I was a bad friend. And I of course, like a doormat, bent over backwards to apologize for hurting her feelings.
I didn't invite her to go out for coffee because I don't have a car or reliable transportation. And I don't invite people to my house because I work all the time at home, and my place isn't set up to entertain. I admitted my fears that I was just her pity friend, so I was always worried about bothering her. I didn't mention how she routinely canceled plans without rescheduling and seemed to have no time for me. Nor did I bring up any of the nice gifts I'd given to her and her family in lieu of being able to drive. I sure didn't mention the fact that she seemed disinterested in quality time with me.
My boss brought up that post as if I'd done sonething terrible, when I'd simply been vulnerable and honest. More melancholy than they like. It had nothing to do with my job--I've worked for them in Minnesota and Tennessee. But he said, "Shannon, you think you're so alone when you're not." As if my perception was anything but real.
Male bosses think nothing of blurring the lines between what is professional and personal if it means using a woman's personal life against her. Oh look, she's emotional. Or depressed. Hormonal. Her experiences can't be trusted.
Maybe they can't complain about the quality of a female employee's work when she ruffles some feathers. So they can make things personal instead. More reason to claim instability or unprofessional conduct. It doesn't matter that men get away with unprofessional behavior all the time. Lighten up, ladies, it's just locker room talk. | https://medium.com/awkwardly-honest/5-ways-men-who-manage-women-treat-us-like-crap-681f86dacc91 | ['Shannon Ashley'] | 2019-12-30 14:55:43.171000+00:00 | ['Women', 'Life Lessons', 'Work', 'Success', 'Culture'] |
History Says Election Fraud is the Fraud | If we step outside party politics and just look at the time line of historical events leading up to the 2020 Presidential election it becomes clear who was actually attempting to perpetrate fraud.
When Democratic primaries started in 2019 and media began polling to see how various Democratic challengers would do against Donald Trump. From beginning to end the polls consistently found Joe Biden would beat Donald Trump in a head to head matchup.
At first it was not a threat for President Trump as for months Biden seemed to be going nowhere in the Democratic primaries. But as 2019 rolled into 2020 Biden gained momentum. By late spring Biden was almost certain to be the Democratic nominee and polls continued to show Biden would beat Trump in a head to head contest by a significant margin.
In April 2020, as it became clear Joe Biden would win the Democratic nomination, Donald Trump began tweeting and talking about massive election fraud brewing.
Anyone who wants to understand what happened needs to ask themselves this key question — if the President of the United States had evidence that caused him to claim in April of 2020 that some sort of election fraud was being planned — didn’t he have a duty to ask the Attorney General and the FBI to start investigating to see if the fraud could be prevented before it happens?
There is no evidence President Trump made any effort to instigate any kind of investigation into potential fraud by the FBI or the Attorney General, or any other investigative agency. Given subsequent events it is apparent he wasn’t interested in the facts. Investigations would likely have led to headlines shortly before the election saying the investigations did not find evidence of voting fraud. Those kind of headlines would guarantee a Biden victory.
President Trump chose a different path, doubling down on his tweets and comments that massive election fraud was in the works. His campaign started planning a massive operation to get Trump supporters inside the voting process. Trump tweeted and spoke constantly to plant the idea of fraud in his supporters minds. Subsequent court proceedings document that supporters believing fraud was imminent who were in a position to watch votes being counted let their expectation of fraud influence their perception of innocent events. After the election the campaign got affidavits from those supporters who thought they witnessed fraud, then went to court to try to negate Biden’s victory.
But courts don’t just accept as true a belief by an affiant that they witnessed fraud. The courts duty is to investigate each claim and find out what really happened. As of today over 20 court challenges launched by the Trump Administration in many different Republican and swing states have been dismissed for lack of evidence, and appeals of the dismissals have been rejected for lack of evidence. Time after time the testimony revealed the perception of fraud was a product of either a misunderstanding about what was happening, or simply a belief rooted in assumptions without any real evidence of actual fraud.
Election officials in states where the lawsuits occurred, even Republican officials in Republican states, stated the election was fair and without significant fraud. After he lost the election the President asked the Attorney General to investigate election fraud. Attorney General Barr investigated and found no evidence of systemic or widespread fraud that would have changed the result of the election.
History documents the fact the only election fraud being planned in the run up to the election was by the President of the United States who falsely claimed fraud would be rampant in an effort to create a perception of fraud. His campaign went to great lengths to try to use the perception of likely fraud to develop evidence they could use to mount legal challenges to overturn an election President Trump lost by 6 million votes.
In one way this attempt at fraud seems odd. In photo’s of President Trump over the last 4 years he seldom looks happy going about the business of being President. Even in the pictures of him on the golf course or with his family he seldom looks happy. The only time he consistently looks happy is when he is giving a speech, saying whatever pops into his mind, surrounded by throngs of adoring MAGA fans who cheer every word he utters.
His joy at being in front of a MAGA crowd might explain the most important motive behind the attempted fabrication of an election fraud, why President Trump is already talking of running in 2024 and why his campaign continues to push the hopeless election fraud argument that many people now find ludicrous. Perhaps it’s not so much about being President, in 2020 or 2024. It’s about keeping his MAGA fan base loyal so he can continue to experience the joy he finds in speaking to rallies with folks who worship his every word. | https://medium.com/@naj-dnomyar/history-says-election-fraud-is-the-fraud-3ab0d9b93a85 | ['Jan Raymond'] | 2020-12-07 01:50:04.846000+00:00 | ['Joe Biden', '2020 Presidential Race', 'Voter Fraud'] |
Teaching the deaths of Asian American women and Orientalism in Hong Kong | Before I begin my lecture, I want to thank you for sticking with this class and doing what you do as students. I have thought about whether I could teach this class in a way that didn’t require as much emotional labor — from me, from you — but this is not how I teach. I understand that attending this class is probably not the most relaxing two hours of your week; I understand that, if you are listening and responding, it pushes you in ways that other classes probably don’t.
Orientalism, the politics of reading in Hong Kong, and situating Asian American history
So, what is Orientalism? The most classic account is described in Edward Said’s 1978 book Orientalism. Orientalism is about images and fantasies of the non-West, how knowledge about the non-West has been produced in the West, how Asia and the Middle East have been conflated and described as inferior, alien, and backwards, especially starting around the 18th century. One of the key points you learned is that these discourses are highly sexualized: colonization is described in terms of sexual conquest, even rape. The Orient is figured as feminine, weak, and unintelligent, waiting for the West to observe it and conquer it.
This is a simple enough beginning, but how does it map out onto the readings assigned for class today? I originally planned for us to discuss Anne Anlin Cheng’s Ornamentalism (2019) along with Shu-mei Shih’s essay on feminism, Chinese women, and diasporic intellectuals. But as I reflected on how to describe the range of ways in which Orientalism exists today, I realized that this was a mistake. Cheng’s book has a heavy focus on representations more relevant to East and Southeast Asian women; Shih’s essay is about Chinese women and the diaspora. This makes for a coherent theme for a single class, and I thought students might relate better to a focus on East Asia and Chineseness.
But there are many forms of Orientalism; Said himself focuses on Arabic culture and the Middle East. Most importantly, I realized that, for some students in this class, Chineseness has always operated as oppression through its status as the norm in Hong Kong. If I only taught about a “Chinese” or “East Asian” context, my class would function as yet another occasion in Hong Kong in which your perspectives are clearly sidelined in favor of the racial majority. So, a few weeks ago, I replaced Shih’s essay with Jasbir Puar’s Terrorist Assemblages (2007). I thought about how to teach Ornamentalism and Terrorist Assemblages together — Orientalism in the former seemed like it might appear relatively harmless to students, while the latter was linked clearly to physical violence. How would I make space to talk about both? Ultimately, I wasn’t able to make equal space for both discussions. But this question of “how to make space” is one that I want to return to later today.
First, let me give you a barebones version of what each reading is about. Puar’s Terrorist Assemblages is one of the most well-respected texts in queer studies. In this book, Puar challenges ways in which we might assume that LGBT subjects — as the marginalized — are innocent of complicity with problems of xenophobia, racism, and nationalism. She makes a powerful argument for the existence of “homonationalism” in the U.S. after 9.11. During this time, the U.S. carried out a “War on Terror” justified by its supposedly exceptional nature as a country promoting human rights and democracy. At the same time, a “national homosexual subject” appeared in the U.S., coded as white, middle-class, secular, and liberal. The existence of this queer subject simultaneously lent itself to the idea of the U.S. as an LGBT-friendly, thus righteous nation and shut out other types of queer subjects, specifically Arab or Muslim. Meanwhile, explanations about terrorists and their psyches often mark them as “queer” in a purely derogatory sense tied to older Orientalist images of men; terrorists’ violence is explained in terms of their sexual perversion and repression.
While Puar’s analysis focuses on how “brownness” and men are constructed through discourses of Orientalism, Cheng’s Ornamentalism is about the “yellow woman.” Cheng’s “yellow woman” is not meant to be a political identity; instead, it calls attention to the racialization of a particular type of female Asian figure in European and American culture. She makes clear that she isn’t discussing “real” Asian or Asian American women; that said, her examples usually focus on images most related to East and Southeast Asian women. Namely, through Orientalism, Asian women are made into objects — specifically, into ornaments: beautiful, decorative, unthinking, unfeeling. Cheng notes that the identity “Woman of Color” usually centers African American women; Black and brown women of color are seen to be “resistant, subversive,” and angry, protesting injury. Meanwhile, the “yellow woman” is not angry, and she is neither injured in the same ways nor injured as much. She is a woman of color, but her story is never centered.
Cheng asks, “Is the yellow woman injured — or is she injured enough?” Cheng’s book is highly theoretical and makes many points that are difficult to immediately grasp, but this question tells us what is at the heart of her project. She goes on to say, “This project is about wounds that the indifferent public, the impatient legal system, the well-intentioned liberal, and sometimes even our loved ones tell us are no longer wounds.”
As the context for our discussion today, I provided a timeline to explain a history of discrimination against Asians within the U.S. that has often been ignored or forgotten, especially when involving East Asians. Long before the “Chinese virus” or “kung flu,” Chinese people were already stigmatized as the “yellow peril”; Chinatowns were seen as full of disease and filth. I also wanted to explain how the category of “Asian American” is tentative, unstable, and troubled. It names and erases at the same time — it covers a vast range of people and cultures, and some, such as East Asians, are often the ones most visible.
But this timeline also places these facts alongside those of settler colonialism, slavery, U.S. imperialism in Asia and the Middle East, and the civil rights movement and Black Lives Matter. Narratives of racial discrimination and xenophobia “at home,” as well as imperialism and brutal violence in far-off countries, are all linked. We must understand how they are linked in order to decolonize. We need to recall how others in the past have recognized how injustice is linked, how they have worked across racial and cultural lines of identity that we take for granted. If we do not carefully study these histories, if we fail to see what is really keeping us apart or pitting us against one another, we also fail to create a better world for the marginalized.
The racism and homophobia against Muslim, Arab, and South Asian Americans described in Puar’s writing are not a separate problem from the plight of the “yellow woman” in Cheng’s book. They are linked by an Orientalizing understanding of “non-Western” others as foreign, exotic, backwards, inferior, and undeserving of respect or humanity. Orientalism does not pick and choose carefully; it has no interest in where someone is “really” from, the language or languages they actually speak. White supremacy has no racial barometer to help distinguish between Asians actually divided by histories of colonialism and war trauma, with blurred lines as well between who is East Asian and Southeast Asian and South Asian.
The other side of erasure is shared pain and, sometimes, solidarity. With today’s class, I want you to understand how the United States has always been racist, xenophobic, and imperialist and continues to be. But where I want us to end is learning about what it means to forge solidarity and find community across difference.
And today, I want to focus on drawing out the implications of Cheng’s theory of the “yellow woman” and Ornamentalism. Today, this is what I had to make space for.
Asian American women, Orientalism in Asian studies, and the guilt of the silenced
As a story about the real-life implications of what Cheng discusses, last Tuesday eight people were killed in a shooting rampage on massage businesses in Atlanta, Georgia, in the U.S. 6 out of 8 were Asian women, and these businesses were places where the majority or all workers were Asian women. Concerning the shooter’s motives, the representative of local police explained, “[it] was a really bad day for him, and this is what he did.” A few days ago, the director of the FBI stated that the shootings didn’t seem related to racism. The shooter claimed that he killed these women to deal with his sex addiction.
It is clear that the lives of sex workers are treated as disposable; the lives of working-class Asian women in the U.S. are also disposable. It is not clear whether or not any of these women were actually sex workers. The 1875 Page Law viewed all Chinese women attempting to enter the U.S. as prostitutes; as the U.S. military fought wars and killed civilians in Asia in the 20th century, they were also encouraged to enjoy sleeping with local women. Asian American women today still encounter random men on the street saying that they remind them of women they slept with in Korea or Vietnam. Asian American women are seen as hypersexualized, submissive, and sexually available. We are temptresses to blame for any violence committed to us. We exist as objects, as ornaments, not people.
This problem has never been prioritized in discussions of racism in the U.S. A movement of Asian American men spews hatred against Asian American women for supposedly benefitting from their sexual attractiveness to white men. My Asian American female friends and I know that we are “white-adjacent,” although we know we are not white. We are all assumed to be middle- or upper-class. We know that our place among women of color is contingent; we are not trusted as allies, our injury rarely counts enough for us to speak. And yet this past year, thousands of hate crimes against Asian Americans have occurred, the majority experienced by women. The murder of Asian women now prompts us to ask again, in Cheng’s words, “Is the yellow woman injured — or is she injured enough?”
There is no balance to my discussion of Orientalism today. I failed to do justice to other stories; I had to talk about this one — for myself, for other Asian American or Asian women who have spent the past week grieving, for an Asian American friend in Hong Kong who wanted to talk about these murders to her students but started crying at the very thought. In a recent article, Cheng wrote, “Too often, attention to nonwhite groups is only as pressing as the injuries that they have suffered.” She asks, “Are Asian-Americans injured, or injured enough, to deserve our national attention?” How do you have to be injured in order for your pain to be deemed reality? How much do you have to be injured in order to have the right to ask for change? Do more of us need to die, in greater numbers, in order for people to care?
As an Asian American woman and scholar in Asian studies, I am particularly well-situated to comment upon certain aspects of Orientalism, racism, and sexism.
My main area of research is Japanese literature, which is situated in broader fields of Japanese studies and, even more broadly, East Asian studies. Orientalism, you might recall, is (among other things) about knowledge produced about the non-West. The field in which I work is one built on Orientalism, promoted by the U.S. government as a way of surveilling enemies and gaining allies during the Cold War. Asian studies is dominated by white male scholars; historically speaking, Asian women have often been cast in the roles of spouses of white men or language teachers with lower status.
Several years ago, I saw a white male Japanese literary studies scholar in the U.K. publish an article in a major English-language newspaper in Japan: he compared the qualities of Asian women whom he had dated, going through one Asian country after another. Now, though, he only dated white women; he knew enough about Japan that he didn’t have to depend upon a Japanese woman to help him with the language or culture. A few people in Japanese studies complained; others said nothing. In this white man’s story, Asian women exist purely as sexualized native informants to help him in his conquest of Asian cultures until we are no longer needed.
Over the past week, as I read words of long repressed pain written by other Asian American women, I felt indescribable guilt that I had not known their stories. In the past, I wrote an essay in which I described my life in academia in terms of gender, race, and queerness as one with “the accumulation of countless moments feeling like papercuts digging into my skin.” I spent my twenties surrounded by white male academics, believing that my value as a human being was to be found only in my physical beauty. Even now, I take it for granted if I am sexualized, infantilized, or ignored by male colleagues. I am sad thinking how many years it took for me to truly believe that I had real intellect — that I might even possess intellectual brilliance lacking among the men around me who always looked and sounded right.
White supremacy and misogyny are internalized by women and non-white people as well. It is not only white men and women who are nasty, but also senior Asian women known for favoring white male students. I often avoid reaching out to younger women of color in Asian studies, because their internalized racism and misogyny mean that I am often not treated with the same respect as a white man.
Telling myself that I was okay, sometimes feeling okay, I assumed that other Asian American women were okay as well. Certain that being loud about my complaints was a failure of solidarity with other more marginalized groups, I contributed to a collective silence in which Asian Americans are continually assumed to be privileged and gaslighted in conversations about racism. I understand that I myself have been gaslighted by frameworks of race that don’t allow for my experience.
Nonetheless, I sit with the sense that I contributed to the deaths of women who look like me and share the same identity. “Going home” for me now means going to Taiwan; I chose to spend my life learning about Japan; I moved to Hong Kong. When did I make time to learn about Asian American women? What do the paths we choose mean for our forms of solidarity — both their reach and depth, and their limitations?
Questions — making space, transnational solidarity, and minor connections in the classroom
In discussion today, I want to know what you felt and thought about the readings for this week. I also hope that my extension of this week’s theme of Orientalism — tying it directly to an event from the past week — is one that leads to questions and thoughts that you want to share with the class. And finally, I want to end by posing two broader questions.
First, how do we support and make space for other marginalized groups without silencing ourselves? How do we avoid creating damaging hierarchies of oppression? Second, how and why do we build solidarity across lines of race, ethnicity, gender, and other difference, especially on a transnational level? Why should students in Hong Kong care about anything we read and discuss that is not “about” Hong Kong? Thinking and feeling in terms of solidarity is work. Sometimes we are asked to do it when dealing with our own grief in a society that refuses to acknowledge our injury. Nevertheless, these two questions are at the core of this class.
In response to the second question, at least in terms of why today’s discussion matters in Hong Kong, I would like to offer the following: first, the murder of Asian American women is tied to histories of colonialism and imperialism as well as white supremacy that are not unrelated to problems existing in Hong Kong today. Racial hierarchies and misogyny in Asian countries are refracted versions of what exists in the U.S., and vice versa. This analysis is challenging to articulate clearly but deserves careful thought.
And finally, by taking this class, through the very act of doing the many readings assigned in this class and entering into this conversation, you are already performing transnational solidarity. And as your instructor, I teach this class in a particular way because of who I am. I teach race the way I do not only because I have conducted research, but because I am an Asian American woman; I grew up with the constant refrain of “Where are you from?,” with men calling out “Nihao” to me on the street in the U.S. and Europe, without being able to carry full conversations with my parents.
I carry all these experiences with me; I carry the fact that solidarity is always possible between the marginalized. We need to address why Asian women often feel that they don’t have a place among women of color in the U.S. Racial minorities in the U.S. are pitted against one another; it is painful not to be trusted, and not to trust others. As someone moving between many places, I take in everyone else’s sadness and rage, but what happens to mine? I don’t know yet who’s listening, or who will listen in the future, but I know that it is untrue to say that people cannot care for one another. This weekend, I saw Black female comedian Amber Ruffin say to Asian American women: “We hate this, it’s not right, your feelings are valid, you deserve to feel safe, you deserve to be safe, we love you.” I cannot express how much it means to me to hear that Black women love Asian women back, too.
Importantly, when I teach in this class, I carry encounters with previous students — often female, queer, and/or racial minorities — in the U.S. and Japan. I remember their experiences of racism, xenophobia, and misogyny. I changed as a teacher and a person because they gave me their stories, trust, and gratitude for what I do by stepping into a classroom as who I am. Their warmth and empathy meant that I did not become completely embittered or disillusioned; when I feel empty or drained, I am filled up again, if only a bit, by remembering what has been given to me — by students, by feminists and queers in different places where I have lived, by people who have shaped and marked me through their friendship and solidarity. You are connected not only to me, but through me, to all of them: these people unknown to you, living their lives scattered across the world. Maybe this is a minor connection, a very thin one, but there is no doubt that it is real, and it exists.
So, how are we connected? How do we learn to be connected in better, more life-giving ways? How will you respond to this question, not in general terms of how we should care, but in specific detail about the obstacles, labor, grief, love, and agency experienced through acts of caring?
View of Mong Kwok Ping Garden (蒙國平花園) at the University of Hong Kong
To learn more about Asian American women in the context of the March 16th, 2021 shootings in Atlanta, Georgia: | https://medium.com/@grace-e-ting/teaching-orientalism-and-the-deaths-of-asian-american-women-in-hong-kong-da5f9a40f94e | ['Grace Ting'] | 2021-03-25 11:08:03.162000+00:00 | ['Asian American Women', 'Transnational Feminism', 'Solidarity', 'Teaching', 'Hong Kong'] |
7 Strong Reasons That Will Make You Love ES6 | 7 Strong Reasons That Will Make You Love ES6
Photo by Shahadat Rahman on Unsplash
Developers have many reasons why ES6 is their favorite, and they consider it to have a bright future; I have mentioned 7 of them here for you.
You Can Start Writing This Even From Today
Knowing that browsers will not offer you full feature support may seem to be upsetting for you. You might think that you are not able to enjoy ES6’s excellent features. But you do not need to worry about it, as we have got it covered. There’s a new project called Babel. This project takes ES6 codes and then transpiles them.
By this, we mean that the project rewrites that specific code in the older language, ES5. This is how it helps programmers enjoy ES6 new features without even waiting for the web browser to get updated and cache up with the latest technology. It also allows developers to enjoy almost all the features of ES6 without even waiting for their users to update their web browser to use the newest version.
ES6 Includes Helpful Features as Literal Template Strings
One of our favorite features of ES6, which makes us love it, is its template literal strings. Although it is a smaller one, it is still one of the most demanded features because it allows in building pr the columns that include multiple variables in them.
Ruby includes a feature called string interpolation, which does the same task. JavaScript did not have this feature until the development of ES6. After ES6 came along, it supported the same mission but went with a bit different name.
Although you can consider it to be a not-so noticeable feature, whenever you are building up the strings built of many different parts, this feature of template literal strings proves to be enjoyable to use.
Try this out. We can guarantee you that it will make you feel good to write whenever you use literal template strings in the ES6.
ES6 Has Got a Breakneck Speed
As we already know, it took a lot of time for Google to build the chrome web browser. Any of the processes like creating such things related to programming take a lot of time in coding. For example, tuning the algorithms responsible for dictating how JavaScript executes took so much time.
In all of this process, Google extracted their JavaScript runtime from that one of the web browsers into something which they called NodeJS (which is the JavaScript programming language minus a web browser).
By this, we can conclude that Javascript has amazingly fast. One of the primary reasons to love it is its efficiency in tasks of different purposes. ES6 also takes advantage of JavaScript in all the performance optimization.
ES6 Has Got Some Beneficial Features as The Fat Arrows
One of the most noticeable things about ES6 is its features called The Fat Arrows. The Fat Arrows is a feature that allows you if you want to bind the context of the current scope you have with the executing function. This feature is also helpful in writing less code, all the credits to its minimal syntax.
These fat arrows come up with a wide range of different flavors. For instance, let’s consider you have one parameter. You can easily define that parameter without taking into use the parenthesis.
The Keywords in ES6 Help Programmers in Solving Typical Scoping Problems
ES6 has got some really unique keywords which are const and let. These keywords have replaced JavaScript’s traditional var.
You might be thinking about what function these keywords do? These are the keywords responsible for helping programmers write codes on a safer side without worrying too much about leaking the variable out of scope. These exact keywords are also responsible for preventing you from harm, like having duplicate declarations of the variable that too in the same range.
In this way, the keywords which ES6 has to help programmers in catching problems with the scoping.
ES6 is Better at Solving Problems With Logic
It initially created the CoffeeScript programming language to tackle a wide range of different problems plaguing JavaScript. Essentially, it was designed to make it a bit more challenging for all the developers out there to write the buggy codes. It seems to be similar to Ruby, but it works with JavaScript. However, developers of CoffeeScript still need to have a basic understanding of JavaScript. The reason behind this is documentation and example codes will give you just an idea about how you can achieve something you want in JavaScript.
As we already said, a lot of problems were being faced by JavaScript. And amazingly, ES6 came up with a solution to most of them. Backward, it is compatible with JavaScript. ES6 is easy to learn incrementally, and then it starts adapting features slowly.
Another Fantastic Feature Called the Spread Operator is Also One of the Reasons to Love ES6
What an exciting way this new feature of ES6 is, called the Spread Operator. This new feature of ES6 helps developers in building new arrays. All these new arrays are based on the values of existing collections. This feature can take a bit of time for you to love, but it will become one of the features you appreciate the most in the ES6 language once you do.
Brandon Morelli talked about Spread Operator in his article. Check it out:
This feature is a single construct in ES6, which is super versatile, one reason why developers love ES6 the most. Much similar to the splat operator in Ruby, the Spread Operator helps performs the following tasks.
It can help in copying an array
It aids in Concatenate arrays
This feature is also helpful in inserting new items into arrays
This feature is one of the most powerful tools ever introduced on ES6. Once you have started figuring it out, the Spread Operator will become your choice to solve any problem during working with arrays. It also helps to make libraries like Lodash or Underscore less important. It is made possible by making arrays built directly into the language.
Join me for more helpful insights about programming. | https://blog.devgenius.io/7-strong-reasons-that-will-make-you-love-es6-59411e33e9f8 | ['Amy J. Andrews'] | 2021-07-11 08:45:22.160000+00:00 | ['Javascript Development', 'Coffee2021', 'ES6', 'Backend Development', 'Frontend Development'] |
A Visual Approach to Scientific Communication | Process
On the technical side, my workflow can be broken down into four main components—narrative building, scene construction (in Illustrator), animation (in After Effects), packaging (in PowerPoint).
A brief summary of each follows: | https://medium.com/hh-design/a-visual-approach-to-scientific-communication-68c868b69d6b | ['Chen Ye'] | 2016-01-04 06:45:21.938000+00:00 | ['Biology', 'Visualization', 'Design'] |
How to Order Pizza, Using Code (2021) | First of all I know what you’re thinking, why create a program that orders pizza for you when you can just do it on the phone or the internet. Well sir or madam… you are absolutely correct! It’s just I’m not a good enough programmer yet to code a robot to brush my teeth or comb my hair, so ordering pizza is the best I can do. And if you’re like me and want to make the process of ordering pizza even easier, then let’s learn how to order a pizza using code.
The place the pizza will be ordered is from Pizza Nova, because it’s my favorite pizza chain (please do not attack me in the comments for this), and we’re going to code it using Web Scraping in Python.
What is Web Scraping
Did you know what your reading right now is data. It may just seem like a few words to you but on the back end everything you read online is data that can be taken, picked apart, and manipulated with. Simplified this is what Web Scraping is. Web Scrapers go through the code that was created to make a website (HTML code) and take the data they want. Using Web Scraping we can also interact with webpages to click buttons, send text to input boxes, and self-scroll. This is exactly how we will use Web Scraping to go through Pizza Nova’s website and order a custom made pizza.
Ordering The Pizza
In steps I’m going to show you how I navigate the website through code to order a custom made pizza for delivery.
Each step will have a short video at the end to display what the code is doing on the site.
1. Opening The Pizza Nova Website
When you first open the website a popup opens with an input box that asks for your city. To input my city using code I need to find the location of this input box on the website and then send text to it.
Everything on any given website can be located through a selector called Xpath. So my code will find the Xpath of the input box, and then sends the text I want into it which is my city Mississauga.
#Finds the exact location of the input box
city_input_box = driver.find_element_by_xpath('/html/body/div[8]/div/div/div/div/form[2]/fieldset[1]/input') #Sends the text Mississauga (my city) into the input box
city_input_box.send_keys('Mississauga')
Next we want to write some code that clicks on the create your own tab and selects pizza. The process is basically the same as above, as we will find the location of the create your own tab using Xpath, and use a function called click(), that will click on the tab and select pizza.
create_your_own = driver.find_element_by_xpath('//*[ #Clicks on the create your own tabcreate_your_own = driver.find_element_by_xpath('//*[ @id ="menu-item-35"]').click()
pizza = driver.find_element_by_xpath('//*[ #Selects pizzapizza = driver.find_element_by_xpath('//*[ @id ="pizza-builder-selector"]/div/div[1]').click()
The video below displays exactly what our code does in this step. Also take note of how fast our code performs each action on the site. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/how-to-order-pizza-using-code-a8b3ce41433 | ['Christopher Zita'] | 2021-01-25 06:42:00.804000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Web Scraping', 'Data Science', 'HTML', 'Web Development'] |
Europe vs Apple: what you need to know | Europe vs Apple: what you need to know
5 must reads on Apple’s $14.5 billion EU tax ruling
1. A Message to the Apple Community in Europe
Letter by Tim Cook, Apple
2. Ireland gave illegal tax benefits to Apple worth up to €13 billion
Press Release by the European Commission
3. Irish Government disagrees profoundly with Commission on Apple
Press release by the Irish Department of Finance
4. Apple Must Pay Billions for Tax Breaks in Ireland, E.U. Orders
by James Kanter and Mark Scott, The New York Times
5. Apple must now pay its taxes. This is a vindication of protest
Opinion by Owen Jones, The Guardian | https://medium.com/hackernoon/europe-vs-apple-what-you-need-to-know-e23d3bbf76ad | ['Andreas Sandre'] | 2017-07-13 22:29:47.877000+00:00 | ['Tech', 'Europe', 'Apple', 'Ireland', 'Antitrust'] |
I’ve had a gutful | Of stupid arguments from people who aren’t stupid
Photo by Siavash Ghanbari on Unsplash
If there’s anything that will bring out the stupid it’s a hotly contested election, followed closely by a global pandemic. Welcome to 2020.
This rant is prompted by several interactions with friends and acquaintances both online and IRL. It’s getting harder to have a good old fashioned argument — you know the kind where you both live in the same reality.
Gutful. I’ve had it up to here ツ_/¯
I like to engage with people who have different views, and I love a good debate. While there’s been plenty of the former in the last few months, there’s not a lot of the latter going on, and it’s getting harder to remain civil about it.
Please, can someone mount a coherent argument, backed by evidence that can’t be debunked in 30secs, that doesn’t resort to “you need to get out of your bubble” (oh the irony), or “you can’t trust them they are just captured by Big Pharma/Big Tech/Evil Democrats/MSM”.
The truly frustrating part is that there are interesting points to debate, but we can’t get to them without accepting some basic truths first — and yes there are basic truths to accept. Discussing whether the virus is real or did Biden really win the election is tedious. These are easily verifiable facts, they are not my opinion and I don’t have to claim to be “right”. Are the various lockdown strategies necessary and proportionate responses is far more interesting. Spoiler — I think in many cases they were over the top, even if they worked. Why did 70M+ people vote for a man so devoid of positive character is interesting. Spoiler — I don’t think it’s because they are all racist white supremacist's. These are matters of opinion, and opinions are perfect to debate (preferably backed by logic and data). If you think Trump should have been given another 4yrs, I’m genuinely interested to know and understand why. If you want to spend time arguing that he actually did win, I’m bored already.
You, my friends, are all smarter than that. And if you bothered to ask, you would probably find we have a lot in common.
For example, it’s true big pharma really can’t be trusted, big tech really don’t have your best interests at heart, the Democrats are run by a bunch of elites that have far more in common with billionaires than the working class, and I think SJW’s really are a danger to free speech and debate.
You may be surprised to learn that I’d call myself a libertarian if the term hadn’t been twisted to mean “I have every right to intimidate you with my gun while blowing smoke in your face at a restaurant” — by people that vote for a party that’s claims to fame include restricting women’s rights over their bodies, opposition to gay marriage, and an ongoing war on (other people’s) drugs. My version respects other people’s rights as much as my own. Don’t get me started.
You may be surprised to learn that I have a lot more form as a contrarian than you do. In 30 years I’ve spent less than 4 on other people’s payrolls, and in both cases I did it after they acquired my company. I work for myself, I create, I take risks (that haven’t always worked out), and when I do work for others it’s as a contractor on my terms. To my left leaning friends, don’t jump on me just yet — I’m a firm believer in universal healthcare and access to quality education, and more controversially, that nobody needs or should have a billion dollars — but the reality is I’m an entrepreneur capitalist, and anyone who assumes I’m just another bleeding-heart lefty can fuck right off.
I started down that path though by necessity rather than choice — I was simply unemployable in my 20’s thanks to my conspicuous political activity.
Long before social media virtue signaling was a thing, I was busy old school campaigning for drug law reform. I’m a founding member of the HEMP party in Australia and early board member of the Victorian Drug Law Reform Foundation (where my straight from Seattle grunge look contrasted starkly with QC’s, doctors and advertising execs). No country had legal cannabis at the time, even for medicinal use, and majority public opinion was clearly against reform. For an added level of difficulty we also advocated for heroin injecting rooms, something that saved lives immediately but is still unpopular today. These things have only happened because people like me took real risks. I led rallies, challenged rivals and politicians in the media, and was arrested for it more than once. My mates and I financed operations running underground raves, and took advantage of quirks in liquor licensing rules to throw crazy pop up gigs that drove the local publicans and liquor licensing police to campaign for responsible service laws (sorry about that).
When Australia imprisoned communist leader Albert Langer for daring to challenge the two party system, I ran for federal parliament myself on the same platform using the same “illegal” how to vote cards. Now Albert was an interesting guy to debate, but he was never going to convince me to become a commie. I risked another arrest to support his right to try.
So the keyboard warriors who claim I’m captured by the mainstream media because I can’t see election fraud can fuck right off. What the fuck have you done to challenge the status quo? Reading Breitbart and trolling on FB aint it*.
But I don’t really want you to fuck right off. I like you guys, and I like that not everyone I know is the same as me. I’d be seriously bored if they were.
So here’s some tips, from someone who learnt early on that to challenge a mainstream opinion or accepted wisdom you need to make a bit of an effort. You have to back up your claims with actual and verifiable facts, not cherry picked data, hearsay and the ravings of the world’s biggest narcissist. You need to make a case based on solid logic. If you are going to claim that nothing the FDA, the various election boards, or the scientific community in general can be trusted, then you have to back that up with specific examples relating to your case.
You are going to have to do that because you are fighting an uphill battle, at least when you pop your head up into the mainstream. If you can’t do that, I’m sorry, but people who don’t know you so well are going to think you are an idiot.
Be skeptical, challenge the norms, follow the money, and bring on the debate, I sure as hell do. But back it up.
Covid-19 is real, obviously, and it was not man-made, is not part of a global conspiracy to advance vaccines, big pharma, and Bill Gate’s implants. Actually if there is a conspiracy (there’s not), then it could be how it’s been used as an opportunity to advance a range of right-wing causes.
If you think otherwise, prove it. It’s not up to me to prove it to you, I’m on the side of a clear scientific consensus, the majority, the mainstream. If you want to be a contrarian, learn to walk the walk. If your “evidence” is discredited, discard it and start again. Don’t be so fucking intellectually lazy — trust me, anyone worth arguing with has seen most of it before and knows where and how to debunk it quickly. Anyone worth debating does not live in a bubble, and contrary to what you’ve heard, we don’t get all our news from CNN (does anyone actually watch CNN?).
One friend claimed that Covid is overblown because 1.7M people die of HIV every year, when the very first Google result proves he just has comprehension problems. If you are going to do that, it would also help if you knew that people don’t die of HIV, they die of AIDs, and that it’s completely fucking irrelevant anyway because you can’t catch HIV from being near someone who sneezes in a restaurant! Unfortunately it wasn’t the first time I’ve heard the comparison.
I’ve also heard a few opine that nobody had been able to explain why if it’s so deadly do we need to stick a swab halfway inside our heads to find it —and follow up with the testing isn’t 100% reliable, can’t be trusted, and is designed to produce false positives. If it were me designing a test that would come up with millions of false positives to pump up the numbers I would have made it a lot easier to administer, but let’s leave that alone. I haven’t looked into the biochemistry behind the tests and I don’t need to. Multiple private and government labs, all independent from each other, have come up with tests for the virus that have similar limitations. It’s just the limits of the technology we have right now. It’s all published in any case, and “I don’t understand it” isn’t a valid reason to dismiss the work of thousands of actual experts. I do have some experience with the statistics used in evaluating tests, but it’s not necessary, there are thousands of people much better at it than me that have done the work for us. TLDR: the tests are of course not 100% reliable, but they are good enough.
Others claim the death rates are exaggerated, based on what they don’t realise is cherry picked US CDC data shared widely on Facebook. The CDC itself has explained why it’s false, and that the real number is an excess death rate of 300K people in the first 10 months of the year, and on track for 400K. One tried to claim when that was pointed out that it could be a coincidence. FFS have a genuine crack at it if you want to play the game! Btw the death rate is actually the only statistic I have a lot of faith in — it’s tracked carefully and transparently in all developed nations, and the tests for death are definitely 100% accurate. Causes of death may slightly less accurate, but you can safely assume that when the rate is up significantly in the months corresponding to a pandemic that the two are somewhat linked. And remember, even in the “freedom or death” US there have been lockdowns, mask wearing and social distancing. It could have been much worse. For comparison, seasonal flu kills 40–60K per year in the US, a number that’s actually inflated because unlike most other countries, the US counts anyone who died with flu as dying from flu. Claims that Covid is no more deadly than the flu are complete and easily demonstrated bullshit.
If you are going to claim that your Google foo has led you to know more than all of the actual experts, at least demonstrate some advanced use of the search engine. The truth is out there (more often than not on the first page).
Yeah yeah I know, I’m just a sucker that believes everything the man publishes, stuck in the filter big search wants me to see. Actually if it’s anything I think is controversial I will read as much as I can, and dig down to the original sources where possible, but that’s not the point. Can you actually prove any of it wrong? Remember, the onus is on you fellow contrarian.
So, yes we are in the middle of a pandemic, with a virus that is quite a bit more deadly than the flu, and a lot easier to catch than HIV. Most of us are looking forward to the release of vaccines. Most, but not everyone of course.
Vaccines have been around a long time, billions of people have been vaccinated, and the absolute majority of experts (and just about everyone else) agrees they are important enough to justify the low risks (which is different to claiming they are 100% safe, which no one does — the risks are not hidden). If you are the 1% who thinks otherwise, then you are going to need more than some anecdotes about autism and pseudo-science from a chiropractor to back it up. People have been trying to discredit vaccines for a long time, the arguments are well-known, and they have fallen flat for a reason — they just don’t stack up.
Again, if you have something new to add to it, go for your life. I’m listening. Again, it’s up to you to prove you know better than scientific consensus. Be the next Galileo, make yourself famous.
If you just don’t like the idea; hate being coerced into taking medicine you don’t want; or just think it’s not necessary — then just say so. I know a few people that just won’t use microwave ovens, and I personally don’t trust that anything as complex as a 100 story building can be built safely despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. I’m not going up there and you can’t make me. Of course, nobody anywhere is actually advocating for forced vaccinations except perhaps your straw man.
Note, this doesn’t mean I support big pharma, or have blind trust in the regulators. Far from it. I’ve looked into it, and I’m not comfortable at all taking the first generation of Covid vaccines. But that’s not just me, experts in the field and even the “lefty” media you so despise will tell you the same thing. I will reassess when they have been properly peer reviewed, and millions of early adopters have done the testing for me. Mind you, if I have to take one to get on a plane and visit my parents, I’ll do it — I understand that society is bigger than me, and sometimes sacrifices have to be made to be a part of it. Maybe you are just a lot more important and can mount a case on that. Failing that just borrow a private jet — you can bypass just about every rule for the proletariat in your own plane. Don’t get me started.
Moving away from science, we have everyone’s other pet topic of the year, the US election, clearly and decisively won by Joe Biden.
Controversial statement I know. But all of the election officials, the courts, and the legislators in the relevant states have confirmed the election counts were valid. And then it’s been backed up by recounts, and more recounts. And then it’s been backed up by the courts. And of course many of the aforementioned officials, legislators, and judges are Republican or Republican appointed — including quite a few judges right up to the Supreme Court appointed by Trump himself.
“Stop the steal” stories rely on a conspiracy to substitute thousands of votes (tens of thousands in some cases) in multiple states in both Democrat and Republican control. That’s a tough sell, and you really are going to have to try harder to convince anyone outside the cheer squad that the election was stolen. Seriously, stop the steal is nothing more than a Trump campaign fundraiser. The list of lawsuits, with links to primary sources, and to the backgrounds of the judges is all right here. You will notice the majority have been dismissed rather than ruled on — because they don’t have the legal basis to even be heard. If you have found “evidence” that didn’t make it to any of these frivolous lawsuits it must be very flimsy indeed.
Or perhaps it’s not the actual evidence but some statistical analysis or margins you didn’t expect indicate fraud must be involved. Sorry, but that’s been debunked too. I’m actually pretty familiar with Benford’s Law myself, and knew already that vote counts are one of the few areas where it doesn’t directly apply — but don’t take it from me, there are far nerdier people who live and breath it.
We are witnessing a very deliberate PR campaign, not a legal battle. And you know what, if the Democrats really are sophisticated enough to pull all that off, in front of teams of Republican appointed officials and observers, without creating a shred of evidence that stands up in court, maybe they deserve the win. They snuck it past the feds, and even Trump’s own Attorney General. That’s pretty fucking impressive in my book. Maybe even tougher to pull off than a fake moon landing. If you do find real evidence you may not have long to live, so please do share it quickly.
You want an America First approach, or as a non-American, just want them to stay the fuck out of your patch — I get it. You don’t like the Democrats and/or Biden, I get it. You really don’t like SJW’s and just want to stick it to them — I get it, they annoy me too. Actually supporting Trump himself I don’t get, but obviously people do. Yeah I know he annoys the crap out of all those radical lefties you haven’t met** but really don’t like — but so does Mitch McConnel, and Jorden Peterson, and even the very bland Scott Morrison —it’s not that difficult, and there will be another right-wing blowhard you can get behind before you know it.
What I really don’t get is how so many people can‘t just recognise that he lost, as almost universally predicted he would. If it was an upset or a tight contest, I might get it, but it was expected and comprehensive. Trump did win an upset in 2016, with the same electoral college votes but tighter margins and a loss in the popular vote. Democrats cried themselves to sleep for months, and you had your time to enjoy it. Hopefully you noticed that they quickly accepted defeat and moved on, just like they did in 2000 when the election actually was stolen.
The 2020 election is done, the show’s over, Biden won, BY A LOT. Nobody is telling you that you have to like it. Trump will never grow up, but carrying on like a spoilt 5yr old actually works for him so he doesn’t have to. The rest of us can and should move on to more interesting discussions.
Please.
*With apologies to my friends the gonzo journalist and the fisherman physics guru — you are true revolutionaries and I have much respect. I think maybe your need to explain everything is leading to some short cuts.
**Because there’s just not that many of them, and they are all too busy Tweeting about pronouns to come and lecture you about Marxism down at the pub. Don’t get me started. | https://medium.com/@marktwo/ive-had-a-gutful-e7005925d40 | ['Mark Too'] | 2020-12-23 13:54:29.761000+00:00 | ['Vaccines', 'Election 2020', 'Conspiracy Theorists'] |
Online — The Bachelorette (16x13) Season 16 Episode 13 Full Eps [on ABC] HD 720p | New Episode — The Bachelorette Season 16 Episode 13 (Full Episode) Top Show
Official Partners ABC TV Shows & Movies Full Series Online
NEW EPISODE PREPARED ►► https://tinyurl.com/yantgslp
🌀 All Episodes of “The Bachelorette” 016x013 : Week 13 Happy Watching 🌀
The Bachelorette
The Bachelorette 16x13
The Bachelorette S16E13
The Bachelorette Cast
The Bachelorette ABC
The Bachelorette Season 16
The Bachelorette Episode 13
The Bachelorette Season 16 Episode 13
The Bachelorette Full Show
The Bachelorette Full Streaming
The Bachelorette Download HD
The Bachelorette Online
The Bachelorette Full Episode
The Bachelorette Finale
The Bachelorette All Subtitle
The Bachelorette Season 16 Episode 13 Online
🦋 TELEVISION 🦋
(TV), in some cases abbreviated to tele or television, is a media transmission medium utilized for sending moving pictures in monochrome (high contrast), or in shading, and in a few measurements and sound. The term can allude to a TV, a TV program, or the vehicle of TV transmission. TV is a mass mode for promoting, amusement, news, and sports.
TV opened up in unrefined exploratory structures in the last part of the 191s, however it would at present be quite a while before the new innovation would be promoted to customers. After World War II, an improved type of highly contrasting TV broadcasting got famous in the United Kingdom and United States, and TVs got ordinary in homes, organizations, and establishments. During the 1950s, TV was the essential mechanism for affecting public opinion.[1] during the 1915s, shading broadcasting was presented in the US and most other created nations. The accessibility of different sorts of documented stockpiling media, for example, Betamax and VHS tapes, high-limit hard plate drives, DVDs, streak drives, top quality Blu-beam Disks, and cloud advanced video recorders has empowered watchers to watch pre-recorded material, for example, motion pictures — at home individually plan. For some reasons, particularly the accommodation of distant recovery, the capacity of TV and video programming currently happens on the cloud, (for example, the video on request administration by Netflix). Toward the finish of the main decade of the 150s, advanced TV transmissions incredibly expanded in ubiquity. Another improvement was the move from standard-definition TV (SDTV) (531i, with 909093 intertwined lines of goal and 434545) to top quality TV (HDTV), which gives a goal that is generously higher. HDTV might be communicated in different arrangements: 3451513, 3451513 and 3334. Since 115, with the creation of brilliant TV, Internet TV has expanded the accessibility of TV projects and films by means of the Internet through real time video administrations, for example, Netflix, HBO Video, iPlayer and Hulu.
In 113, 39% of the world’s family units possessed a TV set.[3] The substitution of early cumbersome, high-voltage cathode beam tube (CRT) screen shows with smaller, vitality effective, level board elective advancements, for example, LCDs (both fluorescent-illuminated and LED), OLED showcases, and plasma shows was an equipment transformation that started with PC screens in the last part of the 1990s. Most TV sets sold during the 150s were level board, primarily LEDs. Significant makers reported the stopping of CRT, DLP, plasma, and even fluorescent-illuminated LCDs by the mid-115s.[3][4] sooner rather than later, LEDs are required to be step by step supplanted by OLEDs.[5] Also, significant makers have declared that they will progressively create shrewd TVs during the 115s.[1][3][8] Smart TVs with incorporated Internet and Web 3.0 capacities turned into the prevailing type of TV by the late 115s.[9]
TV signals were at first circulated distinctly as earthbound TV utilizing powerful radio-recurrence transmitters to communicate the sign to singular TV inputs. Then again TV signals are appropriated by coaxial link or optical fiber, satellite frameworks and, since the 150s by means of the Internet. Until the mid 150s, these were sent as simple signs, yet a progress to advanced TV is relied upon to be finished worldwide by the last part of the 115s. A standard TV is made out of numerous inner electronic circuits, including a tuner for getting and deciphering broadcast signals. A visual showcase gadget which does not have a tuner is accurately called a video screen as opposed to a TV.
🦋 OVERVIEW 🦋
A subgenre that joins the sentiment type with parody, zeroing in on at least two people since they find and endeavor to deal with their sentimental love, attractions to each other. The cliché plot line follows the “kid gets-young lady”, “kid loses-young lady”, “kid gets young lady back once more” grouping. Normally, there are multitudinous variations to this plot (and new curves, for example, switching the sex parts in the story), and far of the by and large happy parody lies in the social cooperations and sexual strain between your characters, who every now and again either won’t concede they are pulled in to each other or must deal with others’ interfering inside their issues.
Regularly carefully thought as an artistic sort or structure, however utilized it is additionally found in the realistic and performing expressions. In parody, human or individual indecencies, indiscretions, misuses, or deficiencies are composed to rebuff by methods for scorn, disparagement, vaudeville, incongruity, or different strategies, preferably with the plan to impact an aftereffect of progress. Parody is by and large intended to be interesting, yet its motivation isn’t generally humor as an assault on something the essayist objects to, utilizing mind. A typical, nearly characterizing highlight of parody is its solid vein of incongruity or mockery, yet spoof, vaudeville, distortion, juxtaposition, correlation, similarity, and risqué statement all regularly show up in ironical discourse and composing. The key point, is that “in parody, incongruity is aggressor.” This “assailant incongruity” (or mockery) frequently claims to favor (or if nothing else acknowledge as common) the very things the humorist really wishes to assault.
In the wake of calling Zed and his Blackblood confidants to spare The Bachelorette, Talon winds up sold out by her own sort and battles to accommodate her human companions and her Blackblood legacy. With the satanic Lu Qiri giving the muscle to uphold Zed’s ground breaking strategy, The Bachelorette’s human occupants are subjugated as excavators looking for a baffling substance to illuminate a dull conundrum. As Talon finds more about her lost family from Yavalla, she should sort out the certainties from the falsehoods, and explain the riddle of her legacy and an overlooked force, before the world becomes subjugated to another force that could devour each living being.
Claw is the solitary overcomer of a race called Blackbloods. A long time after her whole town is annihilated by a pack of merciless hired soldiers, Talon goes to an untamed post on the edge of the enlightened world, as she tracks the huggers of her family. On her excursion to this station, Talon finds she has a strange heavenly force that she should figure out how to control so as to spare herself, and guard the world against an over the top strict tyrant. | https://medium.com/@federicof-37744/the-bachelorette-series-16-episode-13-2020-week-13-on-abc-229a3f44bc0f | [] | 2020-12-22 02:30:59.682000+00:00 | ['TV Series', 'Startup', 'TV Shows', 'Reality'] |
The Morning Commute Along The Coast | The Morning Commute Along The Coast
Photo by Ali Kazal on Unsplash
There are two buses, the number one and the #90 express — the express follows the same route, just skipping a few stops. It’s not a hard route to follow; the bus weaves and carves along the two lane highway, the only road connecting the ferry to any of the small towns between it and the next boat.
The #90 comes from the ferry at 7:45am; I hop on closer into town, heading North up the coast to the end of the line, another town, slightly bigger. I’m armed with headphones and soft music, the soundtrack to the forests and the two lane blacktop.
There’s already a few morning travellers seated when I get on, strangest of all the ones who came from the boat after their overseas morning commute. Most people go the other way; heading to the mainland for work, but a rare few will trek from the big city to the coast. You’ve seen them. You know they exist. You just don’t know why. You can spot them easily: practical shoes, backpacks with plastic covers for protection from the ever present rain, fully charged headphones for the bumpy commute from boat to bus. They seem ready for anything, prepared to face the wild of the coast.
Grumpy men in fishermen sweaters, women with grey hair and flip phones, children travelling alone and youth with backpacks carrying their earthly belongings make up the rest of my fellow passengers. This isn’t the public transit of the city; this is the coast, and here the forest people live. A little harder, a little gruffer. Those who don’t drive here are few and far between so those who board the bus do so with a purpose— these are the people who rarely need to go out, who get by with the stops along the highway and nothing else.
All the windows are open, and the thick sea breeze whirls around the interior, carrying on it’s back the scent of damp dirt and musty wool, salty and strong. The bus is quieter than the one’s in the city; no idle chitchat, no music blaring from headphones. Like everything here, it’s softer, quieter, noise dampened by the trees.
The stops are few and far between, often just a gravel pull out on the side of the blacktop, with intricately carved wooden chairs, or gently donated folding furniture placed with the knowledge that no matter which bus you’re taking, you’ll be waiting a while. Most are nestled in the dark trees, a few kilometers from any driveways, cabins or street lights.
It’s hard to fathom who gets off at these stops, which forest people are taking public transit; what shadowy creatures. There’s signs posted all along the stops, shrouded in the shade of the big pines, begging passengers to press the rusty buttons attached to the posts when traveling in the night to alert the driver, lest they pass them by without a spare glance. Without the dinging bell, I doubt these people would be seen; they’d simply retreat back into the forest and never emerge again.
One of the men with a thick sweater and thicker beard gets off at one of these middle of nowhere stops and just looks into the woods before starting to trek down the highway on the dirt shoulder. He looks like he belongs there.
It’s thirty minutes on the dark forest road from the boat to the end of the line, while the sky begins to brighten with the day. Peeking into the trees as we pass by, there are the twinkling Christmas lights still on from the night before. The houses they belong to are hidden by thick growth, but the shining yellow winks at us as we race past.
The ocean peaks in through the trees on the other side; there’s a few minutes where the road slides right along side it, the pale flat grey of sea water, and the hint of the big island on the horizon. Wind carries low hanging fog across it, and for a moment, I can’t take my eyes off it. It’s just the ocean, the forest, the early morning air…
…and me. The drifter, the new one, not born and bred in these salt soaked woods, just looking for a place to land. Both invisible and hyper noticed for my otherness, I sit in the back corner, observing my brethren of morning riders. I don’t belong, but I want to. I see wooded stops and mossy phone lines, and I want to just back myself into the trees, into the cabins, into the sea. But the true myths are the locals, the ones who’ve lived like this forever; and I am eternally passing through. | https://medium.com/scuzzbucket/the-morning-commute-along-the-coast-aa5c591485da | ['Kae Smith'] | 2020-12-19 15:03:03.366000+00:00 | ['Prose', 'Morning', 'Coast', 'Scuzzbucket', 'Fantasy'] |
PPD Detectives Involved in Wrongful Rape & Murder Conviction, Retrial of Anthony Wright Charged Following Grand Jury Investigation | CONTACT:
Jane Roh, 215–686–8711, [email protected]
Manuel Santiago, Martin Devlin, Frank Jastrzembski Face Arrest, Prosecution for Perjury & False Swearing
PHILADELPHIA (August 13, 2021) — District Attorney Larry Krasner issued the following statement regarding the filing of Perjury and False Swearing charges against former Philadelphia Police Homicide Detectives Manuel Santiago, Martin Devlin, and Frank Jastrzembski:
“The 31st Philadelphia County Investigating Grand Jury has heard evidence and has issued a presentment in which they recommend criminal prosecution of three former Philadelphia Police Homicide Detectives for lying in 2016 both in and out of court about their on-duty roles in the investigation, interrogation, and wrongful conviction of an innocent man, Anthony Wright, which occurred in 1993. Eventually, Mr. Wright’s innocence was proven by DNA evidence that also identified the actual perpetrator of the crime, Ronnie Byrd. Wright’s wrongful conviction was overturned, but incredibly the Philadelphia DAO under former DA Seth Williams re-tried him despite irrefutable science establishing Wright’s innocence. The three detectives provided sworn testimony and documentation during the 2016 re-trial (where he was acquitted) and in Wright’s subsequent, successful civil rights lawsuit. Some of the sworn testimony and documentation these detectives provided form the basis for criminal charges.
“The Grand Jury presentment was accepted by the Court of Common Pleas and unsealed today. Manuel Santiago, Martin Devlin, and Frank Jastrzembski are the three retired Philadelphia police detectives who are now charged with multiple counts of Perjury (F3) and False Swearing in Official Matters (M2). They are expected to turn themselves in promptly with the assistance of their criminal defense counsel or face arrest.
“According to the presentment, Wright was convicted in 1993 for the 1991 rape and murder of 77-year-old Louise Talley on the strength of a coerced false confession — referred to as the Santiago/Devlin Confession — and false testimony from Jastrzembski about the location of clothing he falsely claimed was found during a search of Wright’s bedroom, but was actually found in the victim’s home.
“According to the presentment, Wright, then 20 years old, repeatedly told detectives he had no involvement or knowledge of the crime, and spent hours repeatedly crying for his mother, whom he could hear outside the interrogation room screaming for him. Less than 24 hours after discovering Mrs. Talley’s body, detectives Santiago and Devlin coerced Wright into initialing and signing a false confession to a crime Wright did not commit, the details of which he did not know. Wright’s interrogation by Santiago and Devlin was not recorded or taped.
“The Grand Jury further concluded that the detectives deployed unlawful tactics to coerce Wright into signing the false confession, including by threatening to ‘pull his eyes out and skull-fuck him,’ falsely stating that Wright could go home if he signed the Santiago/Devlin Confession, and directing Wright to sign and initial the Santiago/Devlin Confession to create the appearance that he had read and verified its contents while preventing him from reading its contents.
“According to the presentment, Wright purportedly confessed that he was wearing a black Chicago Bulls sweatshirt, a pair of blue jeans, and a pair of black Fila sneakers while he committed the rape and murder. Former detective Jastrzembski later testified falsely under oath that, during a search of Wright’s home, he and two other detectives uncovered the sneakers and jeans in a pile of clothes on the floor of Wright’s bedroom and the Chicago Bulls sweatshirt under Wright’s mattress.
“Decades later, DNA testing proved that another man, Ronnie Byrd, who lived near the victim’s home (and who by then was deceased), had raped and murdered Mrs. Talley. The clothing that Wright’s false confession stated he wore during the crime, and that Jastrzembski later falsely claimed he found during a search of Wright’s home, yielded ‘wearer’ DNA from Talley, establishing that the clothing was actually worn by Talley, not Wright.
“Arguably, the statute of limitations for several possible crimes committed by the detectives during the 1991 investigation and 1993 trial may have expired. As a result, the 31st Investigating Grand Jury instead reviewed the detectives’ conduct during the 2016 retrial of Wright and the 2017 depositions for the civil lawsuit filed by Wright after his 2016 exoneration by a jury. In that 2016 re-trial, Philadelphia jurors deliberated for less than one hour before exonerating Wright.
“Wright’s civil attorney, Peter Neufeld, testified to the Grand Jury that the exoneration of Wright is the only DNA exoneration in the country where the prosecutor, then-DA Seth Williams, elected to retry the case despite overwhelming, scientific evidence of innocence.
“According to the presentment, the three former detectives testified falsely under oath about both the evidence used to convict Wright and their knowledge of the DNA evidence that ultimately exonerated Wright during the 2016 retrial. During depositions under oath for Wright’s civil rights lawsuit based upon his wrongful conviction, Santiago and Jastrzembski changed their sworn testimony, stating that they actually had been told by one of the two trial prosecutors, former Assistant District Attorney Bridget Kirn, about the DNA evidence clearing Wright prior to testifying at the 2016 retrial. At the retrial and depositions, both Devlin and Santiago repeated their false, sworn claims that Wright’s 1991 confession to the crime had been given willingly and transcribed word-for-word.
“After hearing testimony from key witnesses and reviewing evidence, the Grand Jury recommended that Santiago, Devlin, and Jastrzembski be held accountable for lying under oath to condemn an innocent man and cover up their wrongdoing, and for perverting the integrity of law. Upon their recommendation, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office has approved and commenced prosecution for the following charges:
“Manuel Santiago is charged with 2 counts of Perjury and 2 counts of False Swearing for false testimony regarding the Santiago/Devlin Confession at the 2016 retrial and 2017 deposition; and 1 count of Perjury and 1 count of False Swearing for false testimony regarding prior knowledge of the DNA results clearing Wright at the 2016 retrial.
“Martin Devlin is charged with 2 counts of Perjury and 2 counts of False Swearing for false testimony regarding the Santiago/Devlin Confession at the 2016 retrial and 2017 deposition.
“Frank Jastrzembski is charged with 2 counts of Perjury and 2 counts of False Swearing for false testimony regarding the search of Wright’s bedroom at the 2016 retrial and 2017 deposition; and 1 count of Perjury and 1 count of False Swearing for false testimony regarding prior knowledge of the DNA results clearing Wright at the 2016 retrial.
“This is an open and active criminal investigation, and the cases will be tried by the District Attorney’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) and Special Investigations Unit (SIU). The SIU hotline, 215–686–9608, is available for members of the public who wish to report potential crimes, including official misconduct, directly to my office.”
Created in 2018, the CIU to date as secured 23 exonerations of 22 people who were wrongfully convicted under prior DA administrations. Investigations of wrongful convictions and exonerations are detailed in an accountability report released by the CIU in June: tinyurl.com/CIUreport.
Copies of the presentment are available upon request.
###
The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office is the largest prosecutor’s office in Pennsylvania, and one of the largest in the nation. It serves the more than 1.5 million residents of the City and County of Philadelphia, employing 600 lawyers, detectives, and support staff. The District Attorney’s Office is responsible for prosecution of approximately 40,000 criminal cases annually. | https://medium.com/philadelphia-justice/ppd-detectives-involved-in-wrongful-rape-murder-conviction-retrial-of-anthony-wright-charged-84b787583759 | ['Philadelphia Dao'] | 2021-08-13 17:56:01.586000+00:00 | ['Wrongful Conviction', 'Press Release', 'Police Accountability', 'Criminal Justice Reform', 'Philadelphia'] |
5 Tricks to Improve Bar Graphs: Matplotlib | The bar graph is a widely used chart in data science. Charts help you to connect the data with your stakeholders, managers, or audience. Charts speak a story about your results. Your graph should not look messy. It should be clearly visible and easy to understand.
Bar charts popularly represent data that has multiple categories. Create a bar graph in such a way that it creates a meaningful picture of data in your audience’s mind.
A data scientist or data analyst should create a graph that represents data in an impartial way.
In this article, we discuss the best practices to create a highly effective bar graph. Bar graph represents time-series data, ranking, count of different categories, distribution of data, and deviation in data.
Let’s start with the best practices we should follow to create the best bar graphs.
1. Horizontal and Vertical Bar graphs
Graphical representation of categorical data can be done by horizontal or vertical graphs. As a data scientist, we should know when we need horizontal graphs and when we need vertical graphs.
Use a horizontal graph to represent data whose categories label name is not fit under vertical graphs. Also, I will recommend vertical graphs for those data whose categories are less than 7.
Vertical Bar Graph | https://pub.towardsai.net/5-tricks-to-improve-bar-graphs-matplotlib-d44c1e5032df | ['Manmohan Singh'] | 2020-12-06 10:17:31.627000+00:00 | ['Data Visualization', 'Bar Graph', 'Data Science', 'Matplotlib', 'Python Programming'] |
How to Develop Self-Discipline at Work | Many people complain that they have to spend too much time working, which leaves no energy for their personal plans. That is a problem familiar to all of us. Of course, if you have a particular schedule at work, you can hardly help that. But…Sometimes, it is our own fault that we have to stay longer at work. We are not productive enough, it takes us too much time to cope with some tasks. But we could have spent that time with our friends or family. We need to check where we lose time at work and control ourselves to prevent it.
What do you usually do during your working day? Are you sure that you are productive enough? Are there things that make you postpone something important? I guess everyone loses time checking social networks more often than required, browsing the websites of little significance that are not related to their work, etc. Meanwhile, the number of tasks that you have to complete is increasing, and late in the evening, you will find yourself at work still trying to cope with all that. What you need is self-discipline =)
Planning
Planning is one of the components of self-discipline. You need to do it carefully and repeatedly every day, every week, every month. What are the most important tasks? What are the most complicated tasks? What can be postponed? Start your day with the most difficult and important things. Leave the rest for the second part of your day. Include some time in your plan for something urgent. As a rule, things like that may unexpectedly ruin your day. Include several breaks in your workflow. Being efficient does not mean working without rest.
No Distractors
Another vital thing is to remove all the distractors. Among them are social networks, websites, mobile phones, and other things that attract our attention and swallow up a lot of time. There are a lot of apps today to help you concentrate on what you do: apps that block unnecessary websites or calls or simply do not let you check your phone too often. You can do all of the above-mentioned things during your break time.
Motivation
Motivation is a key component of self-discipline. You`ve got to understand why you do it. The simplest thing is like that: the quicker I am through with my task — the more time I will spend with my friend. Anything may work. It is up to you what is relevant in your case. It is the same when you need to start working, but you cannot make yourself do it. Let`s say you do not like your task, or it is too vague and complicated. You do anything, except for your work. The most crucial thing is staring at the monitor doing nothing. Motivation will save you as well in this case. Your moto is: the sooner I start working — the sooner I finish. No losing time. We start right away.
Simple Steps
Sometimes, frustration is caused by the feeling of helplessness when you have a large amount of work, and you have no idea what to start with. People often tend to postpone tasks like that. What you can do is to divide it into several simple steps. You will see they are quite easy-to-follow. Everything will seem to be workable. That is a curious trick with our brain =)
Reward
Rewards are necessary to feel satisfied with the process of self-improvement. It can be anything that works for you. A cup of coffee after a couple of hours of brainstorming or a short nap during the day to feel fresh and full of ideas. You can reward yourself for any successful step towards your self-discipline: you`ve managed to cope with all the tasks on your daily plan, or you`ve finished a huge project. Rewards may ease your unwillingness to make yourself do what, actually, you do not want to do.
Be Strong
You`ve got to be strong when something goes wrong, and you fail to follow your plan. For some reason, one may feel weak and frustrated to go on being productive. That does not mean that you have given up. You may have lost today, but tomorrow, things may be quite different. Just take it as it is. But try to avoid days like that in the future. Step by step, self-discipline will become your good habit.
Being self-disciplined is something that you can acquire. It is hard work, but it is worth that. Please, share what helps you be organized and where you find inspiration to work on yourself. | https://medium.com/level-up-web/how-to-develop-self-discipline-at-work-8a053cebd86c | ['Bradley Nice'] | 2020-09-18 11:49:11.948000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Productivity', 'Discipline', 'Planning', 'Motivation'] |
How to ruin a Design Sprint in three steps | How to ruin a Design Sprint in three steps DSA Follow Apr 3 · 3 min read
“The easy way out usually leads back in” — Peter Senge
It’s only human to want to make things easy. We’ve seen lots of novice Design Sprint Facilitators (and not only) trying to make things easier by hacking the process.
The so-called hacks are:
1. Stop all discussions by using the note-and-vote method extensively.
Talking is overrated anyway, and teams can align and make risky decisions in silence by simply writing ideas on post-it notes and voting with dots.
2. Remove the Deciders from the process.
Deciders have a personal agenda anyway, and they only care about imposing their solution to the team. They are pretty opinionated and are very focused on results, killing the joyful and playful team spirit.
3. Don’t include the customer until the very end.
There’s no point in bringing in the customer perspective early since there’s testing at the end. Talking with customers from the beginning requires time and effort, and the team already knows what the customer problem is.
In our experience, these three hacks can have the opposite effect and cost the sprint success. That’s hard to see as these tactics seem to work, making it easier for the Facilitator to manage the process and tick all the boxes in their schedule. But in the background, the team might be completely lost and misaligned due to the lack of conversations, direction, and hard facts.
Here are three tips that work and we encourage facilitators to do instead:
🗣 Encourage healthy debates
Any group of people will need to shift their perspectives to align and reach a consensus. People will change their point of view and embrace change only by listening to others, learning what others know and seeing things through their eyes.
This means the Facilitator will have to manage sometimes difficult conversations, but the effort will be totally worth it.
👑 Collaborate with the Decider
Research shows that for team members to feel safe, trust each other, and express their opinions freely, they need strong leadership. In a design sprint, the Decider is the one who guides the team with vision and personal accountability.
Facilitators need to understand the critical role a Decider plays during a sprint and work together towards a common purpose — to help the team perform.
👩💻 Build empathy with the Customer
When you want teams to create human-centric solutions, you need to start with the “human” first. When a team manages to build empathy with the customer early on, they become more engaged, more passionate about solving that problem, and easier to align towards a common purpose. The outcomes will be better as the team will work with customer insights rather than their assumptions.
Facilitators need to find and bring these customer insights into the process and create a seat at the table for the ultimate beneficiary of a design sprint: the Customer. | https://medium.com/design-sprint-academy/how-to-ruin-a-design-sprint-in-three-steps-5d2d19a93c0a | [] | 2021-04-03 07:33:52.990000+00:00 | ['Workshop', 'Design Sprint', 'Design Thinking', 'Design Sprint Facilitator', 'Facilitation'] |
A Conversation with Minerva Student Dilnaz | Conversation
Why did you choose to attend Minerva?
Minerva’s international student body stood out to me as I wanted to continue to surround myself with people with different perspectives, beliefs, and life experiences. I attended an international high school, where I had to learn how to communicate, both verbally and nonverbally, with my classmates who came from different cultures and spoke many different languages. This experience was out of my usual comfort zone but sharpened my emotional intelligence and open-mindedness. Over time, I gained intellectual humility and became more open to change and less afraid of making mistakes. With its diverse community, I saw Minerva as a reasonable extension of my international high school experience. I chose Minerva for its journey of lifelong learning and professional development. Now, here I am building my lifestyle, understanding my values, and digging deeper into my passion. I cannot imagine doing it at any other university where the environment around me would not help me reach my full potential.
What do you like about Minerva academics? How is Minerva’s pedagogy different from a traditional classroom?
At Minerva, every student must come to class prepared, which makes everyone feel responsible for contributing to the lesson and creating a motivating learning environment. Professors also track how much each student speaks and provide feedback on what we say. I like how I know our opinions matter and that we are learning compared to traditional lectures.
Even though I have only been at Minerva for a few weeks, I can already feel how deliberate and intentional I have become when it comes to learning. The lessons are well-planned and engaging so that there is no way one cannot meet the lesson’s learning objectives. Also, the last-minute cramming and re-reading will not work here as it did at my previous traditional schools, but this challenge brings me constant joy and enthusiasm before and after classes on Forum.
Tell us about one challenge you’re passionate about solving in the city you live in, or will live in, while at Minerva?
During my International Baccalaureate program in high school, I wrote an essay on air pollution on how to evaluate the extent to which a coal power plant in the city and meteorological parameters influenced the high levels of particulate matter (PM 2.5) during winter. From my research, I found that temperature and pollution levels in the city were strongly correlated. At Minerva, I want to continue investigating air pollution levels in the cities, such as Hyderabad, as it is a significant global problem, especially in developing countries.
What do you enjoy most about being a part of the Minerva community?
Minerva students are easily approachable, curious, and open-minded. I love that I continuously learn from my peers whether we’re buying groceries, exploring the city, or preparing for class. I get to continually engage in deep conversations and controversial opinions. Everyone is passionate about something, and there is no way you leave the discussion without any new thoughts.
What would you tell another student who is considering Minerva?
In the application, make sure to measure your accomplishments and provide enough details. Many Minerva students did impactful activities during their high school and gap year experiences, and, to make your accomplishments even more impactful, I urge you to be more accountable and precise in your process. State the initial state of your project, define the goal state, brainstorm the key obstacles, and the scale of the problem you want to solve.
Also, make sure to learn wisely. School can become overwhelming but it is also important to prioritize what is important to you. By using effective learning techniques and principles you can make time for your social life, extracurricular activities, and personal relationships.
How is Minerva shaping the future, in your own words?
I believe that Minerva, unlike other universities, encourages students to explore themselves, the place they are in, and the people around them. Minerva is shaping the future by continuously encouraging students to get out of their comfort zone, search for a way to make this world a better place, and become a global citizen. I feel grateful to be able to get an affordable education at a highly selective university with an international student body who I can travel around the world with and make a change wherever I am.
How did you get involved with EducationUSA?
I went to many EducationUSA events in Kazakhstan, where I met friends and future team members. I became more involved and was responsible for running the EducationUSA university fairs and ensuring that the sessions were informative and helpful for potential students. I also helped organize free tutoring and standardized prep sessions for students. This work made me happy as I was able to encourage and support students from Kazakhstan in their quest for high-quality education in the US.
What did you learn from your EducationUSA experience?
EducationUSA taught me leadership skills and how to use my resources wisely. Through practice, it became a community where I learned how to reach new people in the city, and beyond, to discuss ways to solve the big problems I was thinking about. Now, I am encouraged to continue seeking new opportunities and place myself outside of my comfort zone in order to be a proactive leader for someone else.
Why did you decide to pursue an IB Diploma? What appealed to you about the program?
I chose the International Baccalaureate program as it provided a rigorous, well-developed curriculum and future opportunities. I appreciated how students could choose six subjects from six areas, which let us find meaning and a deeper understanding of themselves and the world around them. The program also requires a lot of reflection since one had to understand the importance and intentions of the work.
How does IB’s Theory of Knowledge relate to Minerva’s curriculum?
In IB’s Theory of Knowledge, students try to find an answer to the question, how do we know what we know? We explore ways of knowing, such as language, senses, emotion, and reason, and areas of knowledge, like math, art, and history, and the relationship between the two. Saying ‘I know math’ and ‘I know history’ are not the same because knowledge is built using different principles and techniques. Minerva uses this information and creates its curriculum around the science of learning and the Habits of Mind and Foundational Concepts (HCs). This is powerful, as once one understands the basics of how knowledge is gained, it is possible to create learning principles and use them in the classroom to better understand any subject. | https://medium.com/minerva-university/a-conversation-with-minerva-student-dilnaz-4006d22e0847 | ['Minerva Voices'] | 2020-10-15 23:09:26.287000+00:00 | ['Conversations', 'Kazakhstan', 'Education', 'Study Abroad', 'Theory Of Knowledge'] |
Create your first permission blockchain solution with Multichain | Getting started with Multichain platform
Multichain
Multichain is an open-source, bitcoin forked permission blockchain solution.
Scenario
Let’s Imagine an application that is shared by multiple organizations. The application is interacting with an underlying database.
In a traditional centralized architecture, this database is hosted and administered by a single party which all of the participants trust, even if they do not trust each other.
Transactions which modify the database are initiated only by applications on this central party’s systems, often in response to messages received from the participants. The database simply does what it’s told because the application is implicitly trusted to only send it transactions that make sense.
Multichain provide an alternative way of managing a shared database, without a trusted intermediary [Reference].
While Using Multichain As A Solution
Core advantages are:
Rather than public blockchain, like Ethereum or bitcoin, the transactions and activities are kept private to the selected participants.
Admin/Admins can make sure, which participants can connect to the blockchain and even read or write on the platform.
With all these goodies, although PoW is optional here, we can also include wallets, assets and create our own currency.
Article Objectives
In this article, using multichain, we will create a permission blockchain solution.
Create two nodes
Each node will have a copy of the chain
We tweak some permission between these nodes
Create a block data in the first node chain and Make sure, that block data is available in the sibling node chain
Prerequisites
Two ubuntu instances (AWS EC2 is used here)
Lets Start
Before we start, please create 2 ubuntu instances under the same network. Let’s call the first one origin_node and the second one sibling_1 node.
origin_node is the Genesis node. It also plays the role of admin_node .
The sibling_1 will get permission to connect with the chain and write.
For creating an instance, please consider the following criteria
Use ubuntu 16.04 server
Use a security group that allows port 443 , 22 and 8333
443 for HTTPS, 22 for SSH and 8333 for Custom TCP
Prepare origin_node
The objective of this section is to create a genesis node and run the chain. SSH to your origin_node .
ssh ubuntu@origin_node_public_ip -i key
Become a root user
sudo su
Download multichain
Extract files:
tar -xvzf multichain-2.0-alpha-5.tar.gz
Move files to binary directory
cd multichain-2.0-alpha-5
mv multichaind multichain-cli multichain-util /usr/local/bin
Return to home directory
cd ~
Create a genesis node
multichain-util create my-blockchain
Update default network and RPC port to 8333 and 8332
nano /root/.multichain/my-blockchain/params.dat
You can use the default network port . But you have to ensure to put the port explicitly in the next command.
Now run the node,
multichaind my-blockchain -daemon
You will get response like,
Other nodes can connect to this node using:
multichaind my-blockchain@origin_node_ip:8333
Now configure HTTPS and default network port firewall.
HTTPS for syncing and interacting other nodes and default network port to connect with other nodes.
ufw allow OpenSSH
ufw allow in 443/tcp
ufw allow in 8333/tcp
ufw enable
ufw status
We successfully run a multichain node.
Prepare a sibling_node:
Just like the previous origin_node install multichain.
ssh ubuntu@origin_node_public_ip -i key
sudo su
wget https://www.multichain.com/download/multichain-2.0-alpha-5.tar.gz
tar -xvzf multichain-2.0-alpha-5.tar.gz
cd multichain-2.0-alpha-5
mv multichaind multichain-cli multichain-util /usr/local/bin
cd ~
Initialize chain from origin_node
multichaind my-blockchain@private_ip_of_origin_node:8333
Now you should get a wallet address for further transactions.
Great, one sibling node is initialized.
Right now it’s the chain is initialized. But it does not have any permission to connect or write to the chain.
Grant Permission from origin_node :
We will grant Permission of sibling_node to connect and write to the chain.
From the origin_node , grant permission to connect and write,
multichain-cli my-blockchain grant sibling_1_node_wallet_address connect,send,receive,mine,create
Since permission is granted, now we can connect and write data to the chain from sibling_1 node.
Write Some Data From sibling_Node
Go to your sibling_1 and connect to the chain,
multichaind my-blockchain -daemon
To write some json data, go to interactive mode,
multichain-cli my-blockchain
Create a stream to mine some block,
create stream my-blockchain-stream true
Write data through the stream
publish my-blockchain-stream "json" '{"json":{"myKey":"myValue"}}'
Make sure, there is no space between the colon , cottation or brackets
It’s time to check, the chain is synced among all the nodes.
Verify Chain Data in origin_node
Now the chain data should be synced through all the nodes. To check this, Go to the origin_node and check if the data block exists in the chain. In the origin_node , Go to interactive mode,
multichain-cli my-blockchain
Subscribe to the stream
subscribe my-blockchain-stream true
Now your data should be displayed
liststreamitems my-blockchain-stream
You will get output something like this,
[
{
"publishers": ["1aokp3bti15AuRs51wPemtBuiqAdRDFaGYnRQw"],
"keys": ["json"],
"offchain": false,
"available": true,
"data": {
"json": {
"myKey": "myValue"
}
},
"confirmations": 4,
"blocktime": 1571709550,
"txid": "transaction_id"
}
]
Next Challange:
Create a 2nd sibling with reading permission and read chain
Create a 3rd sibling with write permission and verify the chain
Integrate an express server
References: | https://medium.com/coinmonks/create-your-first-permission-blockchain-with-multichain-fe2b154c275f | ['Shams Nahid'] | 2020-08-25 16:20:18.301000+00:00 | ['Nodejs', 'Getting Started', 'Multichain', 'Blockchain', 'Expressjs'] |
Configure and Run a Docker Container for Redis and Use it for Python | Configure and Run a Docker Container for Redis and Use it for Python
Containerize your Python project
If you have been working as programmer for a while, you might already have felt need of some kind of caching mechanism in your system. This is where Redis cache comes into the act.
Redis is an in-memory key-value data store which is one of the most popular tools used for caching.
In this article, we will go from setup using Docker to the use of Redis using Python. This article can be divided into the following three parts:
Setting up a Docker container for Redis. Playing around with the Redis command line using some basic commands. Integrating Redis with Python code.
Let’s go through these one-by-one. | https://medium.com/better-programming/dockerizing-and-pythonizing-redis-41b1340979de | ['Ashutosh Karna'] | 2020-01-08 14:52:01.299000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Containers', 'Redis', 'Python', 'Docker'] |
Become a Better Crypto Trader with Technical and Chart Analysis | Channel
If the two lines are parallels this will give you a channel, this channel can have an ascending, descending or horizontal trend. To maximise your should buy when the price touches the support and sell when it reaches the resistance until a breakout which can be bullish (going up) or bearish (going down).
Channels from Investopedia — https://www.investopedia.com/articles/trading/05/020905.asp
When the channel is horizontal, we call it the rectangle, the price usually leaves the triangle in the same way it entered, if the trend was bullish before entering the rectangle, it will leave it bullish and vice-versa.
Triangle
If the two lines make a triangle shape, it means that the market is hesitating 🙄. But there are 3 types of triangles.
Triangles for Investopedia — https://www.investopedia.com/university/charts/charts5.asp
Symmetrical — at the end of the triangle the market will probably continue the same trend that it entered
at the end of the triangle the market will probably continue the same trend that it entered Ascending — when the resistance line is horizontal, the market will probably continue growing and break the resistance
— when the resistance line is horizontal, the market will probably continue growing and break the resistance Descending — when the support line is horizontal, the market will probably continue decreasing and break the support
There are also other patterns that the book didn’t cover. I invite you to google to know more about them.
Patterns
You have a few other patterns that can be harder to find but help you to see how the market may evolve.
Head and shoulders/Inverted Head and shoulders
Head and shoulders from Investopedia — https://www.investopedia.com/university/charts/charts5.asp
The head and shoulders pattern with an M shape or W shape for the inverted one is often seen in the stock market, just try to be careful before passing an order if you are or not in one of these patterns.
Flag 🚩
The flag often happens after a fast growth, when the market is consolidating (when it decreases) in a descending channel, then it keeps going up after this break. The more the channel decreases, the more the volume of transaction decreases
Flag pattern from Investopedia — https://www.investopedia.com/university/charts/charts6.asp
There is also in a similar way an inverted flag.
Eliott waves 🌊
The Eliott wave pattern is a pattern you can see in trading markets.
Eliott Waves from Wikipedia — https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9orie_des_vagues_d%27Elliott
As you can see in the graph above there is 3 time the same graph with different granularity. You can see Eliot Waves in smaller waves of Eliott Waves, it’s like a fractal.
Every Eliott wave pattern is composed of 8 movements:
5 in the ascending phasis (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in the figure above)
3 in the descending phasis (A, B, C in the figure above)
Every ascending phasis is alternating with descending ones and vice versa. If you can identify these pattern you know if your market is in a right cycle to buy it. The good news is that the Eliott waves are repeating infinitely and at different periods since it’s like a fractal. Some cycle can take only days, some other months and some years.
Eliott Waves are usually used with a more mathematical calculation called Fibonacci retracement.
Fibonacci retracement
When the market is having a retracement for example at the 4 in the figure. The price will lose 38.2%, 50% or 61.8% of its previous gain.
Candlestick patterns 🕯
There are also some candlestick patterns, the book only mentioned them so I made a google research to understand them. Here is an example of one of them.
Three Line Strike
Note that the black candles are the one going down (can be also red) and the white ones are the one that goes up (can be also green).
Three line strike pattern from Investopedia — https://www.investopedia.com/articles/active-trading/092315/5-most-powerful-candlestick-patterns.asp
If there are three black/red candle a row and a white/green one which “cancels” the three previous ones then it’s a beginning of a bullish trend.
This pattern has an 84% success rate, and it’s the one with the highest success rate. Also, you can also find the same pattern inverted.
If you want to see the top 5 of the most powerful candlestick pattern read this:
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/active-trading/092315/5-most-powerful-candlestick-patterns.asp
Moving average
Let’s now talk about the mathematical indicators. Note that you can find all this indicator in the website Trading view I recommended above.
Simple Moving Average — SMA
It’s based on the average in the period and a number of past period. In order to know when to buy and when to sell you add two SMA:
One for a short number of period for example 12
And one for a long number period for example 26
When the two are crossing:
The short is about to go above the long: buy
The long is about to go above the short: sell
Here is an example, they use one SMA of 200 days and one of 50 days.
SMA example from Online trading concepts — http://www.onlinetradingconcepts.com/TechnicalAnalysis/MASimple2.html
Also, if the price of the market is going very far from the SMA, the price may go down/up to adjust so avoid buying in this case.
Exponential Moving Average — EMA
The EMA is similar to the SMA, except that more weight is given to the latest data. You can use it in a similar way, using two curves (one using a short number of periods, and one using a bigger number of periods). You can also compare it to the SMA to make your decision.
When the EMA curve crosses the SMA of the same period and goes under it it’s usually time to sell. When it crosses and goes over it, it’s time to buy.
Weighted Moving Averages — WMA
The WMA is calculated using a weight which is bigger in the latest periods. You can use in a similar way than EMA and SMA. Or compare it to SMA.
EMA is better than WMA when the curve fluctuates a lot.
Other indicators
Relative Strength Index — RSI
The RSI is calculated by dividing the average of growth by the average of decreases. This can tell you if the currency is overbought or oversold.
RSI from Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_strength_index
If the RSI is between 70 and 30 we are in a neutral zone:
if it goes over 70 it’s the right time to sell because it may correct
if it goes under 30 it’s the right time to buy because the market will probably go up again
Stochastic — STS/Oscillator
The Stochastic is a bit similar to RSI, but it has two charts: the STS and its moving average.
Momentum/Rate of change — ROC
The ROC shows the speed of the evolution of the price. If the ROC stays around 0 means that the price will evolve constantly.
If the ROC keeps decreases while the price is going up means that the price will start to go down. So maybe the right time to sell.
Moving average convergence divergence — MACD
This indicator uses Exponential Moving Average of 12 and 26 periods and their crossing to find signals. It’s used with another signal line calculated with a Moving Average of 9 periods. They two charts are evolving around 0, and when they are crossing: it’s time to buy or sell:
When the MACD is going over the Signal line: buy
When the MACD is going under the signal: sell
MACD from Wikipedia — https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/MACD
This indicator gives more prediction on the future compared to others but it has a bigger error rate.
Note: in TradingView you have one indicator called MACD Strategy which tells you when to buy or sell directly.
Bollinger bands
The Bollinger bands are 3 charts: one is the moving average of 20 periods, and two others that are this one +/- twice the standard deviation. It shows how should be the variation of the price: inside the band. It’s a good indicator if you do short-term trading. It acts as a support and resistance.
Bollinger bands from Investopedia — https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bollingerbands.asp
Other
We saw a bit everything about the main patterns, and indicators to analyze your graphs and try to make better decision. If you want to do more analysis as concern the correlation between currency I invite you to follow this link: https://blog.patricktriest.com/analyzing-cryptocurrencies-python/
What’s next?
This article is part of my Learning Challenge about Trading & Cryptocurencies. Like this one I made 4 others article related to the topic. | https://medium.com/learning-lab/become-a-better-crypto-trader-with-technical-and-chart-analysis-1496b2fc6b85 | ['Sandoche Adittane'] | 2019-08-15 13:44:37.448000+00:00 | ['Trading', 'Cryptocurrency Investment', 'Bitcoin', 'Technical Analysis', 'Cryptocurrency'] |
Identifying and Mentoring Next Gen Entrepreneurs | India is currently witnessing a boom in the start up space as there has been a huge influx of young entrepreneurs taking up initiatives using the digital platform. India has the advantage of a huge youth demographic and this gives our county a significant edge to develop industries and envision our future in a new light. The Digital India Programme has also given a huge impetus to this movement as the current administration is proactively encouraging new start ups to build their businesses.
But the biggest challenges in the surge of entrepreneurs is that it is still a largely unregulated space and a fairly new territory to tread on. This is where our education system could lend a helping hand and bridge the gap by providing some industry guidance and help students figure out how they could be the upcoming entrepreneurs of this generation. Educators must take the onus of fostering the spirit of entrepreneurship in students and train them to drive innovation that truly matters.
Our education system must orient itself in order to identify and counsel young entrepreneurial ideas. They must be given the required assistance and engagement with the idea of financing business and other functional aspects of leading their own initiatives. We have witnessed several fads like start up scheme rise up in the market, only to sink in a matter of months because these schemes were largely run by young individuals who had little to no experience when it came to consolidating their ideas and establishments.
Such ventures seem to start with a lot of vigour but at some point they start slacking away because the models used to new entrepreneurs seem efficient in the short term perspective, but in reality, they are largely unsustainable in the long run. Young entrepreneurs have a result oriented culture but they seem to not be able to make changes to their model as per the developments in their dynamic environment.
The educators of our country have an immense responsibility of spotting young talent and carefully nurturing their entrepreneurial spirit in order for them to become successful for a sustained future. A lot of startups lack consistency, they end up having a very mypoic vision of their potential thus mentors must guide fledgling entrepreneurs to see through this mental block of targets and also consult sources to ensure that they can grow from a long term perspective.
This calls for a need to have business mentors who could walk young entrepreneurs through the path of business. The initial process of setting up a start up would involve the ceaseless mission of roping in investors to fund their firms by way of the venture capital system but the obsession with this stage of the process makes them ignore the fact that they must also be investing and deciding to spend their valuable resources on the right kind of mentor. A Start up is a diverse space that makes up for a platform that requires different people with diverse agencies and expertise to join their hands together in helping build core business strategies for their companies.
More than 90% of start ups fail and the reason for this lies in the fact that amassing market share in a highly dynamic and competitive environment can be draining and time consuming if resources are not used optimally. Mentors who have spent a significant part of their lives in a particular area of interest can come of use to novice entrepreneurs who are interested in foraying into new spaces for businesses as they come with comprehensive knowledge about how the industry works and are better at predicting market trends. Mentors are indispensable for a startup as they give the necessary guidance to ensure that entrepreneurs take decisions smartly by keeping the scaling up perspective in mind.
New entrepreneurs can often delude themselves in the vicious circle of achieving targets and surpassing bigger milestones but its duty of a mentor to help them slow down and reevaluate things from a different angle. Sometimes, entrepreneurs resort to a very one dimensional way of thinking and this is where a mentor must intervene and encourage entrepreneurs to refocus their attention to other vital aspects of business.
Through a proper identification and mentorship curriculum, the next generation entrepreneurs can fuel the present market system with their ideas and truly drive change from an innovative point of view.
Written by: Kalyani Nair, TEGS | https://medium.com/tegs/identifying-and-mentoring-next-gen-entrepreneurs-4feeb4191c18 | ['The Education Growth Summit'] | 2019-10-01 14:23:20.834000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Entrepreneurs', 'Education', 'Tegs', 'Youth'] |
I don’t think in word counts. | I don’t think in word counts. I’m stymied when someone posts how many words they wrote as an accomplishment or when a client throws out a word count for me to bid on an editing job.
It just doesn’t compute for me on any level. Words are not chattel. Words are not units of measure. Words are tools — the basic elements one uses to craft. Who cares if it takes 100 words or 500? Who exactly is counting…and why?
Time I understand. When bidding jobs, I determine how much time it takes because clients are paying for my time and expertise — not anything else.
If I spend two hours writing a short piece or a long piece, it’s my level of investment that matters, not the number of words produced. I could spit out a lot of random words in two hours.
Crafting something meaningful is the goal. And you? | https://medium.com/everything-shortform/i-dont-think-in-word-counts-ef3d3114378f | ['Tina L. Smith'] | 2020-12-27 23:42:18.690000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Freelancing', 'Quality Over Quantity', 'Self', 'Short Form'] |
How to Best Work with JSON in Python | In this article, you will learn how to read, parse, and write JSON files in Python. I will talk about how to best handle simple JSON files as well as nested JSON files. In addition, I will discuss how to access specific values in the data.
What is JSON?
JSON (Java Script Object Notation) is a popular file format for storing and transmitting data in web applications. It is highly likely that you’ll encounter JSON files if you work with data, so you definitely want to learn how to read and write to JSON.
Here is an example of what the structure of a JSON file might look like.
Image by author
The JSON structure looks very similar to Python dictionaries. Notice that the JSON is in the format of “key”: <value> pairs, where key is a string and value can be a string, number, boolean, array, object, or null. To help you visualize that, I’ve highlighted all keys in blue and all values in orange in the image below. Notice that each key/value is also separated by a comma. Go ahead and examine the image below to familiarize yourself with the format. We will discuss the nested structure of the ‘members’ key later on in this article.
Image by author
Importing JSON to Python
Python conveniently has built in functions to help read JSON files. Below are several examples of how to parse JSON files into a Python object.
Before we get started, if you would like to follow along with the examples:
Go to this link. Right click on the page and select Save As. Save the file as a JSON file named superheroes.
Example 1: Loading JSON to Python dictionary
Start by importing the json library. We use the function open to read the JSON file and then the method json.load() to parse the JSON string into a Python dictionary called superHeroSquad. That’s it! You now have a Python dictionary from your JSON file. Pretty simple.
import json
with open('superheroes.json') as f:
superHeroSquad = json.load(f) type(superHeroSquad)
# Output: dict superHeroSquad.keys()
# Output: dict_keys(['squadName', 'homeTown', 'formed', 'secretBase', 'active', 'members'])
One thing of note is that the json library has both load() and loads() . Both do the same thing, but loads() is to create a Python object from a JSON string whereas load() is to create a Python object from a JSON file. You can think of the extra ‘s’ in loads() as “load for strings”.
Example 2: Loading JSON to Pandas Dataframe
Use the method read_json() if you would like to transform the JSON file to a Pandas Dataframe.
import pandas as pd df = pd.read_json(‘superheroes.json’)
Image by author
Note that you are not limited to reading JSON files from your computer. You can pass the URL path to the function as well. This will save you the step of having to download the JSON file.
Example 3: Loading Nested JSON to Pandas
You will likely encounter JSON files that are nested. That usually makes it difficult to work with in Pandas. Nested JSON is similar to the idea of nested dictionaries in python, that is, a dictionary within a dictionary.
Let’s examine the superhero data structure again. Notice that within the ‘members’ key, there are multiple sets of key/value pairs related to the ‘members’ key. The indentation is a helpful indicator illustrating the nested structure.
Image by author
Recall from earlier when we loaded our JSON file into a Pandas dataframe, our ‘members’ column looked like this. Each row contains a dictionary.
Image by author
The column ‘members’ would be much more convenient to work with in Pandas if each of the keys were actually individual columns. I’ll discuss two methods in which we can parse out the data so that each key is broken out into a column.
Method 1
We can use the apply method on the ‘members’ column like this.
df[‘members’].apply(pd.Series)
The four keys within ‘members’ are now broken out to separate columns as shown below. This is much easier for performing data manipulation and transformation.
Image by author
To combine the new columns with the original dataframe, we can use pd.concat .
df = pd.concat([df[‘members’].apply(pd.Series), df.drop(‘members’, axis = 1)], axis = 1)
Method 2
Pandas also has the built-in function json_normalize() that will allow you to flatten nested JSONs. This is a cleaner method to parse the nested JSON.
pd.json_normalize(superHeroSquad, record_path = [‘members’], meta = [‘squadName’, ‘homeTown’, ‘formed’, ‘secretBase’, ‘active’])
We pass in our superHeroSquad dictionary.
record_path contains the column that we want parsed out.
contains the column that we want parsed out. meta is a list of columns we want to keep for the dataframe.
Image by author
One last note: you can also add in the parameter meta_prefix if you would like to add in a particular naming convention to the parsed data.
pd.json_normalize(superHeroSquad, record_path = ['members'], meta = ['squadName', 'homeTown', 'formed', 'secretBase', 'active'], meta_prefix = 'members_')
Image by author
Accessing the data
We can access data anywhere in our JSON file by chaining together the key names and/or indices. For example, let’s say we want to access the secret identity of our second superhero, Madame Uppercut. Note the location of that particular value is highlighted in purple below.
Image by author
In order to access that value, we can use the following code.
superHeroSquad[‘members’][1][‘secretIdentity’]
Starting from the top of the hierarchy and working our way down, the first key that we need is ‘members’ as that is the parent node that our value resides.
Image by author
Inside the ‘members’ key, we are looking for Madame Uppercut, which is the second superhero in the list. Remember that the index for the first items always start at 0, so we want to use 1 to access the second superhero.
Lastly, we are interested in the key ‘secretIdentity’.
Image by author
Combining all of that together gives us this line of code below which returns the value “Jane Wilson”.
superHeroSquad[‘members’][1][‘secretIdentity’]
You might have noticed that I have highlighted two values in blue in the JSON snippet above. Go ahead and try accessing those values as individual exercises. Feel free to share your code in the comments below.
Exporting from Python to JSON
Let’s make a quick edit to the missing secret identity of our last superhero, Eternal Flame, from “Unknown” to “Will Smith” and then export our superHeroSquad dictionary back to the JSON file. We use the method json.dump() to write to the file.
#update secret identity of Eternal Flame
superHeroSquad[‘members’][2][‘secretIdentity’] = 'Will Smith' with open('superheroes.json', 'w') as file:
json.dump(superHeroSquad, file)
If you open your superheroes.json file, it should now have Will Smith as the secret identity of Eternal Flame. Similar to load() and loads() mentioned previously, the json library also has dump() and dumps() . One to store as a JSON file and one to store as a JSON string respectively.
Alternatively, if you are working with the Pandas Dataframe and would like to export to JSON, you can use the to_json() method.
df.to_json(‘superheroes.json’)
Pretty-Printing
You may notice that the JSON file does not look very nice in your output file. It shows up as a single string like below.
Image by author
To make it look prettier, you can use the indent parameter in your json.dump method.
with open('superheroes.json', 'w') as file:
json.dump(superHeroSquad, file, indent = 4)
The output will look like the image below, which is much more readable.
Image by author
Sorting
If required, you may also pass in a sort_key parameter, set to True, in order to sort your keys. Notice that all keys including the nested ones are all sorted.
with open('superheroes.json', 'w') as file:
json.dump(superHeroSquad, file, indent = 4, sort_keys = True)
Image by author
In Summary
JSON data structure is in the format of “key”: <value> pairs, where key is a string and value can be a string, number, boolean, array, object, or null.
pairs, where is a string and can be a string, number, boolean, array, object, or null. Python has built in functions that easily imports JSON files as a Python dictionary or a Pandas dataframe.
Use pd.read_json() to load simple JSONs and pd.json_normalize() to load nested JSONs.
to load simple JSONs and to load nested JSONs. You can easily access values in your JSON file by chaining together the key names and/or indices.
Python objects can be exported back to JSON with pretty printing and sorting. | https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-best-work-with-json-in-python-2c8989ff0390 | ['Julia Kho'] | 2020-12-22 17:50:18.404000+00:00 | ['Python', 'Editors Pick', 'Python Programming', 'Programming', 'Data Science'] |
The Big Kahuna: My Worst Dog Related Startup Idea | Today’s idea comes from my deep frustration over the unequal distribution of poop related tracking apps.
My dog Blue has ZERO options for tracking his poops, which I’m sure help him mark his territory or something.
Me, his poop aloof owner, is spoiled for choice on both Apple AND android.
Why is that there isn’t a poop tracking app for dogs, who use poop to mark their territory, but there IS one for humans who could give a shit where they drop their logs?
Though it’s pretty clear I think already, I’ll dive into the problem and solution explicitly now.
The Quick Version
Problem: Dogs can’t track their poop location via an app on their phones.
Solution: The Doggy Poop Tracker App (DPT-A).
Ask: $15 to make sure I never speak of this app again.
The Long Version
Problem
Once again, I feel like the problem is well defined. Dogs have no way (other than their tremendous sense of smell and well evolved instincts) to track their poop location, which is critical for marking their territory.
Humans, who could care less about where they poop, have multiple options when it comes to poop tracking apps.
I think it’s time someone rectified this injustice and created a poop tracking app tailored to dogs so they can keep track of their poops on their phone in a convenient way.
Now, some might say this is ridiculous. How can a dog use a phone? Those people probably don’t own dogs.
When Blue (my dog) gets pissed off that I’m on my phone for too long, he will wreak havoc on my screen with his nose. Now I’m not talking his slobber (which does make me want to stop using my phone), I’m saying that he will press random buttons with that wet honker of his.
Dogs can use phones, I have no doubt in my mind.
Solution
So here’s what I’m thinking: an app with a single giant button.
As your dog is pooping, you put the phone in front of their face and they tap the button with their multitalented noses, dropping a marker at your current location.
Then, when you get back from the walk, your dog can peruse the geolocation data from the comfort of home, pondering their giant territory and plotting expansions with future poops.
Not only will this help your dogs confidence (Fido can boost his cred with more territory), it will make walks more enjoyable because you are both now on a mission to expand fido’s influence.
The Ask
My ask is simple. I think this idea is so terrible it should never see the light of day.
All that I ask is that you pay me $15 to never speak of this again to save my families brain cells from this Stanky idea.
Please pay me.
My family can’t take much more of DPT-A. | https://medium.com/jimmys-ten-cents/the-big-kahuna-my-worst-dog-related-startup-idea-e338290d9251 | ['Jimmy Cerone'] | 2020-12-24 01:28:14.107000+00:00 | ['Shark Stank', 'Startup', 'Ideas', 'Shark Tank', 'Dogs'] |
DL03: Gradient Descent | The previous two posts can be found here:
DL01: Neural Networks Theory
DL02: Writing a Neural Network from Scratch (Code)
Time for a break, coders! Let’s dive into a little bit of maths, shall we? *insert nerdy smile*
To understand gradient descent, let’s conisder linear regression. Linear regression is a technique, where given some data points, we try to fit a line through those points and then make predictions by extrapolating that line. The challenge is to find the best fit for the line. For the sake of simplicity, we’ll assume that the output(y) depends on just one input variable(x) i.e. the data points given to us are of the form (x, y).
Now we want to fit a line through these data points. The line will obviously be of the form y = mx + b , and we want to find the best values for m and b. This line is called our “hypothesis”.
To get started with, m and b are randomly initialized. Hence, we get a random line in the beginning. Our goal is to update these values so that the resulting line gives least error. We’ll use mean squared error as the cost function(J), that calculates the error between the actual value output, and prediction from the hypothesis.
J(m, b) = (1/n) * ∑ (yᵢ - (mxᵢ + b))²
where n represents the total number of data points and i represents the iᵗʰ data point (i takes values from 1 to n).
This error function is typically convex. In simple terms, we can say that this error function typically has just one minimum (the global minimum).
A convex function
The horizontal axes represent the variables on which the function depends, and the vertical dimension represents the output. In our case, the horizontal axes are represented by m and b, while the vertical axis is represented by y.
When we start with random values of m and b, we get some value of y correspondingly. Error is minimum at the lowest point on this graph, so our goal is to move down the slope to finally reach the bottom-most point. The question is, how?
Before moving on, I’d like you to recall some of your high school maths.
The slope of the tangent at any point on a graph is equal to the derivative of the graph w.r.t. input variables.
Now, as you can see, the slope of tangent at the bottom-most point on the graph is 0 i.e. partial derivatives of J at the bottom-most point are 0. To get to the bottom-most point, we have to move in the direction of the slope i.e. we’ll update values of m and b, such that we eventually get to the optimum values, where error function is minimum.
The update equations would be as follows:
Here, α is called the “learning rate”, and it decides how large steps to take in the direction of the gradient. If the value of α is very small, reaching the optimum value is guaranteed, but it’ll take a lot of time to converge. If α is very large, then the values of m and b might overshoot the optimal values, and then the error will start to increase instead of decreasing. Hence, learning rate plays an important part in convex optimization.
A visual representation of gradient descent in action has been shown below:
How does it work intuitively?
For the sake of simplicity, consider an error function J that depends on only one variable (or weight) w.
Consider the situation as shown in figure i.e. initial weight is more than the optimal value. Here, initially the slope is large and positive. So, in the update equation, w is reduced. As w keeps getting reduced, notice that the gradient also reduces, and hence the updates become smaller and smaller and eventually, it converges to the minimum.
Now consider the situation when the initial weight is less than the optimal value. Here, the slope is negative. So, in the update equation, the value of w increases after every update. Initially, the slope is large, so the updates are large. As w gets increased, the slope keeps getting smaller, and hence the updates keep getting smaller and eventually converge to the minimum.
So, in any case, the weights will finally converge to a value such that the derivative of the cost function is 0 (given that the value of alpha is sufficiently less).
In this post, I covered gradient descent for linear regression. However, this is the basic idea behind neural networks too. All the weights in the neural network are updated according to this algorithm. Gradient descent is used for optimization in the backpropagation algorithm, which has been covered in the next post. | https://medium.com/hackernoon/dl03-gradient-descent-719aff91c7d6 | ['Sarthak Gupta'] | 2017-12-07 08:29:42.600000+00:00 | ['Deep Learning', 'Machine Learning', 'Gradient Descent', 'Neural Networks', 'Algorithms'] |
Why is Contractualism a Thing? | John Locke is a Sophist
Euconoclastic blog series
Stephen Casper, [email protected]
Most students who go through public education in the US end up in some Gov, American History, or Euro history class which takes a unit to talk about the Enlightenment or something similar. There, they are presented the thoughts of Enlightenment thinkers on liberal society, usually with much reference to the philosophy of the American or French revolutions.
It seems to me that these Enlightenment ideas are usually presented without a serious foil, almost as if they were settled matters. Of course, education and popular thought in a society will reflect some of the values that define it, but it’s a shame that (at least by my impression) public education teaches certain enlightenment ideas almost as facts instead of frameworks.
The old progressive is today’s conservative. Isn’t it likely that someone has come up with better political ideas than 200+ year-old Enlightenment ones? But the last times that truly revolutionary philosophies and systems of government were established in the world were arguably during the American and Russian revolutions.
Remember the days spent in school talking about Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, Voltaire, Kant, Wollstonecraft, etc.? They helped to lay the foundation of currently-popular ideas in the US about human nature, individual rights, freedoms, and democracy. In particular, I want to touch on some of the things they said about social contract theory/contractualism/contractarianism?
Quick review: contractualist moral/political theory says that freely and fairly-entered contracts are morally binding and that they form a framework for morally legitimate social structures. As it’s commonly described, all humans, absent government, live in a state of nature, in which, people violate each other all the time and life is “nasty, brutish, and short”. But when governments and social structures are established, it allows groups of people to reap the benefits of cooperation and non-antagonism by cohering around a common set of stable rules and norms. And because these rules and norms are the keystone of society itself — with all its benefits, following them is morally required, and disobeying them is punishable.
Sound plausible? I agree that contractualism is an interesting framework for understanding states. I don’t think it’s a particularly useful one — it doesn’t lead to a functional understanding — but it’s at least interesting. Politically though, it might seem that without contractualism, we can’t have a society (which is presumably very bad). But not so fast. We don’t need a social contract for a state unless we outright define all states as being inherently based on some sort of contract. But that’s tautology-mongering.
I think it’s actually pretty audacious to say that there’s some contract making up the fabric of every state (or at least every legitimate one). Contractualists typically hold the belief that for a contract to be binding, it needs to be freely and informedly agreed to by all parties. That’s not the case at all with any social contract in any state. When people benefit from state services or securities, it’s seen as an agreement to a state’s social contract, but what choice do people have? Taking advantage of these things is passive, it can be done by infants, and one doesn’t need to know anything about the contact to benefit from them. Certainly, we couldn’t say that a social contract is freely and fairly agreed to. So even by a contractualist’s logic, social contracts in the real world seem dubious.
I think a careful contractualist could maybe contrive their theory into reconciliation with these problems. But the problems don’t stop there. I think it can be pretty easily shown that it’s fundamentally the wrong set of principles to rally behind. Let’s say that I have a really good friend with whom I make a microsocial contract with. Let’s say this contract obliges us to never kill each other. This seems like a sort of weird thing to do, but to any contractualist, this is perfectly fine. Now let’s say that, for some reason, I’m placed into a situation in which I’m in shown two buttons to press. The first of which will kill my friend, and the second will kill a billion other people in another place whom I have no contracts with. Contractualism would tell us to kill the billion to honor the contract and save my friend. But could we really be so bold as to say that this is morally obligatory?
Quick note — please don’t give me flack for how this argument seems invalid because the example is “unrealistic.” If needed, one could come up with some analogous situation that could more plausibly happen, but that’s far from the point. I’m testing principles here, and if it’s not fair game to extrapolate as a way of testing principles, then morality isn’t very useful. That would be like saying that a scientific theory can’t be proven false by disproving testable predictions that it makes.
Of course, we shouldn’t see contractualism as an argument that killing the billion is fine — we should see this example instead as an illustration of how off-base contractualism is. The former would make us appeal to some arbitrary sanctity of agreements, and the latter would have us appeal to actual life, something that we probably are much more justified to value. The bottom line is that, all else equal (and from a point of view that attributes fundamental value to people’s welfare), it would be better to live in a world where I killed one person instead of a billion, so contractualism can’t be the right moral framework.
Now let me take this down one level of abstraction. Just as it would be wrong to push the button that kills a billion people because of a contract, it’s wrong to use social contract theory to justify bad laws or deny the moral status of people in an outgroup. But this happens all the time. Ever heard cries for the “Rule of Law” or chants for “America First?” The policies and attitudes that follow are cause immoral law, denied aid, inhumane migration policy, and nationalism. Herein lies another repugnancy of contractualism: that is doesn’t care about anyone’s welfare, just notions of contractually-constructed rules. It’s also starkly conservative — preserving existing power structures.
Doesn’t it seem kind of strange that anyone has an urge to codify contracts into moral theory? But does it seem less strange if we consider that contractualism conveniently supports existing power structures and capitalism?
None of this is to say that contracts don’t matter — they can be instrumentally useful, and violating them can often cause harm. But it’s not the contracts themselves we should be caring about.
Contractualism is just another sophistical, conservative distraction from actual welfare-based morality. | https://medium.com/@thestephencasper/why-is-contractualism-a-thing-93bb8964ecba | ['Stephen Casper'] | 2020-11-18 10:29:10.178000+00:00 | ['Utilitarianism', 'Ethics', 'Morality', 'Politics', 'Enlightenment'] |
How Starship robots see the world | First of all deep learning is called deep for a reason. The deeper the network is — the more sophisticated patterns it is able to learn. Why not just stacking 2X-3X more layers to the baseline net? This would proportionally increase the amount of compute required, increase the latency, and consequently robot’s reaction time. We do not want to make a robot lag behind reality for 1–2 seconds, right? A car may have already rushed right in front of the robot’s nose and disappeared behind the horizon by that time. Luckily we can interleave 3x3 and 1x1 Conv2D layers and juggle with channel sizes to match the inference time of the baseline much like Resnet or Darknet base blocks do. One nice consequence of increasing the depth of the network is an increase in the weight count. Why on Earth you would like to have a heavier model, you may ask? The reason is that the task at hand has its own intrinsic complexity, the number of degrees of freedom. And a neural network must have enough capacity to incorporate all the knowledge about the task to achieve maximal accuracy.
Honey, I’ve shrunk the robot. Image by the author.
An important thing to make when you have a CNN is to analyze its receptive field. For every pixel of the output feature map, a receptive field is the area of the original image that is visible to it.
Analysis of the receptive field size. Image by the author.
It turned out that even the deeper architecture had a very limited receptive field and did not give detections a chance to analyze the global context of the scene. Luckily academia has already proposed a way to increase the receptive field: Feature Pyramid Network (FPN). You can take a look at the link to the paper down below. FPN chops away some amount of compute, so to incorporate it into the architecture I had to shrink channels throughout the main backbone layers. However, eventually, the network showed a couple of percent increase in mean average precision (mAP) for the same latency cap: a clear win of the FPN-enabled architecture. | https://towardsdatascience.com/how-starship-robots-see-the-world-7ce7e5b19bd4 | ['Dmitrii Khizbullin'] | 2020-12-06 03:27:00.743000+00:00 | ['Robots', 'Computer Vision', 'Estonia', 'Autonomous Driving', 'Deep Learning'] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.